Chapter 462: Star, Niflheim (7)
Walking down the hallway, Loki was soon approached by J?rmungandr and Hel, who had been waiting for him outside.
Woof! Woof!
“Awww, my adorable Fenrir.” Loki picked up Fenrir from the floor and stroked his chin. “Have you been waiting for Mommy?”
Feeling extremely happy, Fenrir wagged his tail faster.
“How was it, Father?” J?rmungandr sternly asked.
Loki frowned, not liking his serious tone. “‘Father’ sounds too cold. Call me Mommy. Mommy.”
“That’s never going to happen.”
“Repeat after me. Mommy.”
“Father, what’s the plan?”
“Seriously. You’re boring. Isn’t he, Fenrir?”
Woof! Woof!
When Fenrir chimed in, J?rmungandr strenuously massaged his temples to stop his veins from bulging out. If he didn’t share the same blood as Loki and Fenrir, he would have stormed out of <Niflheim> already.
“Anyway, have you decided yet?” J?rmungandr sighed. “I’ve asked you this same question three times already.”
“Hmph. I’m not sure.”
“Father.”
“Alright, alright...” Loki trailed off, stroking Fenrir’s chin.
“You’ll say no, won’t you? Won’t you? Won’t you?” Hel interrupted, yelling. “It wouldn’t make sense to hand <Niflheim> over to him.”
“Don’t worry. Your mommy isn’t an idiot. <Niflheim> won’t fall under Twilight’s command,” Loki answered.
“Oh, then—!”
“But we can’t leave your mom—ah, I guess that would be confusing. We can’t just leave Angrboda like that.”
The three pursed their lips. Fenrir even stopped wagging his tail, showing just how important Angraboda was to them.
“So we decided to change the deal a bit,” Loki said.
“Huh?” Hel tilted her head, unable to grasp what he meant.
“Change... the deal?” J?rmungandr narrowed his eyes. When Loki stared at him with mischievous eyes, his expression darkened. “No way...”
Loki snickered. “Hehe.”
“You wouldn’t dare, Father.”
“Well...”
J?rmungandr scowled at Loki. “Even though you’re about to go senile, I’m sure you can still distinguish what you should and should not do.”
“I might have failed just this once. What do you expect from me?”
“Father!” J?rmungandr yelled, unable to hold back his anger.
“My! What’s with all the sudden yelling?! I can still hear you loud and clear, honey!”
“Are you out of your mind?!”
“What? That is some nasty tongue you got there. You may be smart, but that is no way to talk to your mommy!”
“You’re forcing me to! You’re not in your right mind! How can you give up our primogenitor’s legacy without being shot in the head first?! I told you several times that Twilight will most likely ask for it and that you should reject his request!”
Their primogenitor’s legacy referred to the verses of [Bestla’s Poem] that <Niflheim> had, which were essential to becoming Bestla’s heir. Aside from Loki and the Three Demonic Creatures, less than five <Niflheim> residents knew about it.
Despite the request that J?rmungandr had made to Loki as <Niflheim>’s strategist, Loki failed to follow the one thing that he had been asked not to do. J?rmungandr felt like he was going to go insane.
Loki pouted. “He specifically asked for them. What else could I have done?”
“You should have feigned innocence and told him that we don’t have them!”
“He would never believe that.”
“It doesn’t matter! I already told you that no matter how insolent ‘Divine Twilight’ is, he can’t flip the entire <Niflheim> upside down!” J?rmungandr shouted.
J?rmungandr was one of the people in <Heaven> who knew Chang-Sun the best. Although he empathized with him in some ways, he still had to find a way to deal with him. After all, Chang-Sun was a walking disaster.
Loki’s eyes turned serious. “What about your mom?”
“That’s...!” J?rmungandr trailed off, rendered speechless.
“Listen to me carefully. Mommy’s priorities are your mom’s safety and the survival of <Niflheim>. If I can protect both, then I don’t see any reason to care about one heirloom. I’m aware of how much you value those verses, but keep in mind that they can never replace our <Society>. More importantly, <Niflheim> is your mom herself. You aren’t suggesting that I just leave her in that condition, are you?”
J?rmungandr had a lot of things that he wanted to say, but he couldn’t say any of them now. As Loki waited for his son’s reply, Fenrir and Hel stood between the two, their gazes wandering away.
“Besides, we’ve never managed to understand the poem, have we? Even you, the smartest among us, failed,” Loki said.
J?rmungandr pursed his lips. Loki was right. He had done everything he could to accumulate gnosis, but he still hadn’t succeeded in deciphering the whole poem.
“That can only mean we don’t need the verses in the first place. Restoration? Revival? The crown was never meant for us.”
J?rmungandr bit his lower lip. He had a lot of grievances against his father. Despite being on the same level as Odin, Loki had given up on the chance to reach the zenith when Odin fell. He also had the power and capacity to make <Niflheim> flourish and proclaim himself as Bestla’s heir, yet he chose to stay by Angrboda’s side instead.
J?rmungandr had always been frustrated with him. If he had his father’s power and skills, he would have never left <Niflheim> in this state. Hence, he found the <Society>’s stagnation very unfair.
However, Loki had just told him that they shouldn’t wish for a path that wasn’t theirs to take. Loki didn’t care about other matters. All he wanted was <Niflheim>’s safety and Angrboda.
‘That’s why Father wants ‘Divine Twilight’ to take the burden and give him a chance,’ J?rmungandr thought.
Neither helping nor hindering Chang-Sun, Loki would see this through. Afterward, he would act according to the outcome. If Chang-Sun were to succeed, Loki wouldn’t think twice about joining him. Otherwise, he would just scoff and turn a blind eye. That was all there was to it.
Finding himself following his father’s plan again, J?rmungandr sighed. “... If you believe so, then fine.”
“Good. Bring it over. You know where it is, right?”
J?rmungandr turned in the opposite direction. Although it frustrated him, he still had to obey Loki. After all, no matter how senseless his choices seemed, they always eventually turned out to be the right ones.
* * *
The origin of the name ‘Bel-Marduk’ differed for every Worldline. However, he tended to be a Water Celestial. While Tiamat referred to the primordial ocean where lives were first conceived, Marduk had a connection with water, which nourished plants and crops.
To restore her fading glory, Tiamat became a demonic creature and swallowed the world. Sensing their imminent death, pantheons of Celestials visited Marduk and begged him to stop her in exchange for the throne.
After inheriting the Authorities and magic of Enlil[1], the previous king, during the abdication, Marduk started going to war against Tiamat as a Celestial of storms. He also started calling himself Bel, which eventually led to the creation of the name ‘Bel-Marduk.’ Just like the legend, he wasn’t born to be a Supreme Celestial, yet he still reached the position with his own power.
Aware of what Bel-Marduk had to go through to reach this point, Chang-Sun couldn’t help but wonder why he still hadn’t awakened to his past reincarnations’ power and used them.
“Since you have gnosis too, I’m sure you also know about your past reincarnations,” Chang-Sun said.
The ‘Bel’ in ‘Bel-Marduk’ was a shortened version of Enlil[2], a Celestial of magic and incantations. Considering Bel-Marduk was his heir, it didn’t take much to figure out how deep his mastery of gnosis was. It had to have deepened even further as he traveled from Worldline to Worldline.
Since gnosis held a Worldline’s secret, he had likely discovered the information about his soul. Why didn’t he choose that path? He even shared a lot of similarities with Odin. They both sought magical knowledge, were born warriors, controlled storms, and led numerous Celestials and an army of their own.
They also had many differences, though. Odin’s storms were composed of lightning and fire while Bel-Marduk’s were of powerful winds and rainstorms. Odin was called the father of the deceased, and Bel-Marduk was a Celestial of good harvest.
Having watched Bel-Marduk’s <Myths>, Chang-Sun had gotten the impression that Bel-Marduk had intentionally made different choices from Odin.
Bel-Marduk chuckled. “An identity search? I certainly didn’t expect this to be our topic of conversation. Just the thought of it alone is already nerve-wracking. I doubt I’ll like this talk.”
He didn’t look like he genuinely hated it, though. Rather, he simply seemed to be showing his emotional side, something Chang-Sun had never seen before. Perhaps it was the part that he had to keep to himself while living for eternity.
“You said you’re going to embrace all your fate and past reincarnations, yes?”
Chang-Sun nodded. “That’s how I’ll find my complete self.”
“My identity search went a little different from yours.”
Bel-Marduk looked at the demonic water fog outside the window. Nothing could be seen in it, yet he still seemed to be staring at something.
“Unlike you, I tried to take away everything.”
Bel-Marduk thought about his original Worldline. No one but him would know about it or even just its number now, but it looked very similar to Worldline #801. At the time, he still went by Lee Chang-Sun.
“My path is different from yours. You met your Ithaca in a world you ended up in through a Dungeon Break. My Ithaca has been my Guardian from the start.” Bel-Marduk’s eyes slowly filled up with bitterness. “She taught me magic and spear skills. However, if there’s one thing we have in common, it would be that I, too, fought relentlessly until I faced <Extinction>.”
Chang-Sun couldn’t help but wonder how exactly did the encounter with Ubbo-Sathla affect Bel-Marduk.
“I also got stuck in a Rollback loop for an unknown reason. After going through hell for so long, I naturally learned and acquired gnosis. It was around that time that I realized all my past reincarnations were twisted in some ways.”
Unlike Bel-Marduk, Chang-Sun already knew about his past reincarnations before he started fighting Ubbo-Sathla.
“Although I acquired a deeper understanding of gnosis because of that, it did piss me off a little. They could have helped me a long time ago, but they chose to meddle in my every decision instead. It was fucking annoying.”
“Is that why you got rid of them all?”
“Pretty much. From that moment on, I kept choosing the path that would completely distinguish myself from them.”
Chang-Sun nodded. He was right. Wanting to distance himself from his fate to become complete, Bel-Marduk ended up taking an entirely different path.
“After fighting over and over, I found myself traveling from Worldline to Worldline, obsessed with revenge. Ha! Isn’t it funny? I tried so hard to complete myself only to turn into someone who resembles the very being I loathe.”
Although Bel-Marduk had succeeded in distinguishing himself from his past reincarnations and established his own identity, he had failed to free himself from his fury. Eventually, he started becoming more and more similar to Ubbo-Sathla, who devoured and brought <Extinction> to Worldlines.
Determined to kill the Outer Celestial, Bel-Marduk ate Worldlines before Ubbo-Sathla could bring <Extinction> to them. Considering he also founded a group of Star Signs named <Horoscope>, he could be even worse than Ubbo-Sathla.
Bel-Marduk hadn’t admitted that he was aware of the monster that he had become because he refused to acknowledge that he was terrified of Ubbo-Sathla and that he had been going down the wrong path. However, he was now facing and accepting the changes he had gone through.
Chang-Sun just remained silent. He didn’t even console him. After all, he couldn’t really say that everything Bel-Marduk did was okay.
“Was your...” he trailed off.
Bel-Marduk turned to Chang-Sun, his bitter smile quickly disappearing.
“Was Odin one of your past reincarnations too?”
Bel-Marduk chuckled. “Well, I don’t know. Let’s just say that they’re similar. Celestial names tend to differ a little depending on the Worldline, don’t they?”
Bel-Marduk slowly stood up, looking like his usual self—greedier and more ferocious than anyone—again.
“Why don’t we cut our idle talk here?” he said.
The door soon opened, and J?rmungandr entered, politely holding a tray with a jewel box on it. It was obvious what the box contained.
Bel-Marduk smiled crookedly. “It’s about time we begin.”
1. A god of the atmosphere and part of the Mesopotamian god triad. ☜
2. It’s not a shortened version in the actual mythology. The name for Enlil differs for every region, and one version is Bel. ☜
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