Runes

"Of course he can."

Iceland's president, Anderson Streicher, answered at once. He had seen with his own eyes how that man had wounded Jormungandr.

Hearing this, Norwegian president Fres could only wait patiently.

At the boarding stairs of the Aegir, an Open Ocean patrol ship, the faintly glowing man held three weapons. A trace of amusement entered his gray-blue eyes.

"The three Divine Artifacts are mine. It's time to bring this grand spectacle to a close."

At a thought, the calm sea split open. Amid a thunderous roar, enormous waves rocked the Aegir, and a serpent's head the size of an island burst from beneath the water, jaws opening to bite down on the ship.

The body behind its head surged out of the sea. Its black coils undulated through the air like an endless mountain range, rising from the depths like a sloping peak, seemingly hard as stone.

Through the shaking camera feed, the six presidents in the Presidential Palace's conference room saw Jormungandr's movements and cried out in alarm.

"Watch out!"

An old man behind Fres, the president of Norway, shouted involuntarily. He was the Norse Mythology expert Fres had brought to analyze the battle.

"Don't worry." Anderson Streicher had been badly startled too, but he had faith in that man.

Still...

The serpent seemed bigger than before.

Anderson Streicher's brow furrowed, then quickly smoothed. So what if it's bigger? That man has three Divine Artifacts.

Just as Anderson Streicher's confidence swelled, the man by the boarding stairs moved.

He raised Gungnir, the Eternal Spear.

Gungnir, the Eternal Spear, was made entirely of wood. Its shaft was crooked, with branches jutting from it, making it look more like a tree branch than a spear.

"Be still!"

The man spoke solemnly to Gungnir.

As soon as he spoke, characters appeared on the Eternal Spear, giving off a faint glow.

The restless seawater churned up by Jormungandr fell under that glow and went still, like jelly that had set.

"That's the oath-granting power of Gungnir, the Eternal Spear," the old man behind Fres, Norway's president, blurted out again. "I never imagined an oath could be used that way."

Gungnir, the Eternal Spear, could make oaths come true. Whatever oath someone swore to the Eternal Spear would inevitably be fulfilled.

But he had never heard of anyone using its power like this man, turning it into a grand prophecy that made whatever he said come true. Even the myths didn't use it that way!

Looking up at Jormungandr's gaping maw, which was almost upon him, the man holding Gungnir spoke to it again. "Withdraw."

At his words, the faint glow on the Eternal Spear flared.

The giant serpent in the air reeled as if struck by a heavy blow and plummeted.

Jormungandr's enormous body slammed into the ocean. Strangely, it raised not a single splash, as though what had fallen was not the great serpent but a weightless illusion of light.

"The Runes... It's the nearly omnipotent Runes at work." Petrov, who had stood quietly behind Alexander until now, murmured in a voice trembling with barely suppressed excitement.

Runes?

The Runes Odin had only understood after hanging himself upside down from the World Tree for nine days and nights?

The Sayings of the Adept recorded Odin's own account: "For nine nights I hung upon the windswept tree, wounded by a spear. Given as a sacrifice to Odin, I sacrificed myself to myself, upon a tree unknown to any man! No bread fed me, no drop of water quenched my thirst. I looked down, took up the Runes, crying out as I took them, and fell from the tree."

Alexander's breathing quickened, and his eyes slowly reddened.

He remembered how, after receiving Gungnir, the Eternal Spear, the researchers had subjected it to targeted examinations with every instrument at their disposal. Their final report had read:

"This is a branch from a tree similar to the Almond Eucalyptus, several thousand years old and remarkably well preserved. No writing was found on it, nor was any mysterious energy attached to it."

They called that no writing?

They called that no mysterious energy?

Are we all hallucinating the glow and characters that appeared?

If those researchers had detected the weapon's mysterious power earlier, I would never have handed it over. Wouldn't it have been better to make up some excuse, hide it, and use it in secret?

Once he kills Jormungandr, I'll ask for Gungnir, the Eternal Spear back in public. With everyone watching, he shouldn't be able to keep it.

After I get it back, I won't return it to the Grand Duke right away. I'll study it thoroughly and find a way to decipher the Runes engraved on it.

And Longinus, the Godslayer Spear, must have mysterious powers too. That needs careful study as well. But I'll need a better excuse for the Papal State, given that they have supernatural beings.

Thoughts raced through Alexander's mind as he stared unblinkingly at the screen.

The man raised Gungnir, the Eternal Spear again. This time, he said nothing to it. He simply hurled it with all his might.

White light blazed along Gungnir's shaft. It streaked like a meteor across the sky and struck Jormungandr, piercing down through its head as if to run the entire length of its body.

ROAR!!!!

Jormungandr shrieked in agony, its body thrashing wildly. Boundless waves rose as it churned the sea, and the ocean raged with its pain.

But the man paid it no mind. He raised Longinus, the Godslayer Spear.

Golden light shone from Longinus's shaft, and blade-shaped wings adorned it. From a distance, it looked as though two tiny winged angels were lifting the Godslayer Spear.

Then he leaped from the ship.

"What's he doing?"

"He isn't planning to fight the serpent hand to hand, is he?"

"The Norsemen really are the sort to charge straight at Frost Giants. No wonder Thor likes them best of all the gods."

Exclamations filled the conference room at the Presidential Palace. The presidents kept their surprise to themselves out of regard for their positions, but the experts and scholars they had brought made no such effort.

Petrov immediately recalled that in Rusala Temple, Thor's statue stood at the very center, higher even than those of Odin and Freyr.

"No wonder the Norsemen hold Thor in such high esteem. They're all alike: don't stop to talk, just charge in headfirst."