The light deep in the dungeon was dim.
Asgard's dungeon was built from white stone, each cell sealed at the front by an energy barrier shimmering with golden light. Imprisoned within were vicious criminals from across the Nine Realms: remnants of the mountain giants, bandit chiefs from Vanaheim, and Loki.
Loki sat in an armchair draped with a white animal pelt, holding a thick ancient Asgardian tome, his expression relaxed. He raised his eyelids and glanced at the new prisoners who had just been shoved into the cell diagonally opposite his.
Kurse leaned in the shadows at the very back of the cell.
He heard the faint sound of horns overhead. It penetrated the white stone vault, dozens of meters thick, carrying a muffled vibration.
The flagship had entered Asgard's skies.
Kurse drew the black-and-red cursed Runestone from his tattered burlap sleeve. The bone spikes on its surface pierced his palm, and murky dark red blood dripped between his fingers onto the floor.
Without making a sound, he abruptly clenched his hand and crushed the Runestone completely.
Acrid black smoke rose from beneath his flesh. His body swelled violently, muscle fibers twisting together like thick hemp ropes and bursting his shabby prison clothes to shreds. His bones cracked incessantly, two thick, curved black horns bored out of his forehead, and the skin of his face hardened into a lava-like layer of horn.
His eyes lost all expression, leaving only two churning masses of orange-red flame.
A monster more than two and a half meters tall, clad in bony armor, stood in the shadows.
"Roar!"
Kurse let out an inhuman roar. He reached out with a hand the size of a millstone and seized the supposedly indestructible golden energy shield before him.
Electric sparks sizzled wildly in his palm. The defensive