Stupid Odin

“Ah… Ah… Ah…” Accompanied by Odin's repeated awakening, a howling wind swept through the entirety of Jotunheim, even more frigid than before.

The giants living in Jotunheim were astonished to see frost suddenly appearing during the one precious month of summer that the land was granted each year. The entire world of Jotunheim was prematurely returning to winter.

The insects that had happily crawled out of the earth to enjoy the warm sunshine felt the icy aura emanating from the replica of Valhalla and scurried back underground in fright.

Any slower, and they would have been swallowed by the successive waves of divine power and turned into lifeless ice sculptures.

Inside the Jotunheim version of Valhalla, the windows were first forced open by the icy wind, and then the glass in each window shattered, the sound of broken glass falling to the ground echoing throughout the area.

Odin's unusual behavior naturally alarmed the gods around him, as well as the giants under his command.

Odin possessed immense power and often did as he pleased.

With his extremely displeased expression, who would dare to provoke him?

Furthermore, Odin, the King of Jotunheim, like his elder brother, had not established a queen. The two goddesses closest to him, one the daughter of Njord, the other the daughter of Aegir, were both demigods. Who would dare question him?

For the entire month, a terrifying atmosphere of low pressure permeated the entire Jotunheim Valhalla.

Odin was also in no mood to perform his duties, so much so that after a group of frost giants emerged from the glaciers, they neither attacked Asgard nor bothered Odin, but instead went deep into Jotunheim.

Coincidentally, Heimdall's divine eyes did not catch this scene…

On the other side, Thanes visited the God of Light, Baldr, once a month.

In Baldr's Palace of Light, Thanes occasionally saw the mournful Frigg.

Frigg bore him Baldr, but Thanes stubbornly refused to establish a queen, and openly favored his eldest son, Thor, the Thunder God. This was what Frigg had always found most unacceptable.

Most of the time, Frigg was indifferent to him.

When Thanes was occasionally in the mood, she would neither refuse nor object, cooperating as she should.

Yet, the damned Thanes was impervious to both soft and hard tactics, which meant that Frigg's desire for him to make Baldr the next God-King remained unfulfilled, almost becoming an obsession.

Thanes always pretended not to see Frigg's mournful glances.

What a joke!

In terms of the lifespan of a god, Baldr was a short-lived species in the epic. His death was the symbolic event that triggered Ragnarok.

No matter how handsome, approachable, and capable of uniting most of the Aesir gods and giants Thanes thought this son was, he would not bet on Baldr.

Even if he didn't bet on his most beloved God of the Hammer, Thor, he would bet on the God of the Forest, Vidar, who survived Ragnarok in the epic!

Frigg used to think that Thanes was deliberately cold towards them, the pure-blooded Aesir gods, and favored the giants.

As time went on, it wasn't that Thanes particularly liked female giants. The core fourth-generation gods of the Aesir tribe were all born to female giants, that was true, but most of those female giants returned to Jotunheim to live after giving birth, and did not stay in Asgard. There was no issue of them being spoiled and arrogant.

Thanes usually brought Freyja and Gullveig, these two demigods, with him. The brilliance lay in the fact that lacking the support of a powerful maternal clan, they did not bear Thanes any divine children, so there was no possibility of them vying for the position of Queen.

Frigg felt that she understood Thanes's strategy—Thanes was in his prime and had no intention of relinquishing the power of the God-King, so he simply did not establish a queen, casually announced Thor as the crown prince, and that was it.

There was nothing Frigg could do.

But at least, it seemed that Thanes liked Baldr quite a bit.

“Baldr, have you been having dreams lately?”

“Uh, Father, I have hardly ever had a dream since I was born.”

“That's good, that's good.” Thanes casually made small talk, stayed for half an hour, bestowed some small gifts, and then left.

Monitoring Baldr, this 'timekeeper,' once a month had become Thanes's biggest task in recent years.

Until…

“What? Did you say Odin sought out Verdandi?”

As the second oldest of the Norns, Verdandi is in charge of the [Present]. Her divine power is slightly stronger than in the epic. If she prophesied that a certain mortal or demigod would die, that person would indeed die in a very short time.

So what did Odin want with Verdandi?

Beside the sacred spring of the World Tree, Verdandi, radiating an ethereal aura, also looked at Odin with puzzlement.

“Goddess Verdandi, before consulting you, can you promise not to reveal my fate to any other being in the world?”

“The fate of every god and every living being is unique,” Verdandi said noncommittally.

Odin, whose heart was about to explode with anguish, felt a little stifled but helpless.

In this world, he considered that there were not many beings with higher intelligence than him.

His elder brother counted as one, and the remaining were at most the wise giant Mimir, who had swindled him out of one eye, and the two Norns. Uh, Loki theoretically counted as half.

Looking at these guys, Odin didn't want to trust any of them, but had to seek answers.

He still spoke of the nightmare in which he was devoured.

He merely opened a window of his soul to Verdandi, and the Verdandi opposite him heard the scream from the chaotic light and shadow.

Odin's fate was like an endless dark world. Verdandi only caught a glimpse of it and found that she almost couldn't break free from this chaotic fate.

She took a great deal of effort to forcibly pull her soul fragments from the fate in that chaotic vortex.

“Ah?!” Verdandi rarely lost her composure. Her entire divine body shook violently, and she staggered and collapsed onto the huge stone stool she had been sitting on, almost falling off.

Odin's face changed drastically: “What, what will happen to me?!”

Verdandi's face was pale, and she instinctively took out a handkerchief to wipe the cold sweat seeping from her forehead: “I am not in charge of the fate of the [Future]. I am only responsible for the [Present]. I only dare to say that 'now' you are safe.”

What's the use of just the present!

What I want to know is the future!

Odin became anxious and grasped Goddess Verdandi's hand desperately, but as soon as he touched the goddess's fingertips, he felt a powerful force of fate rebounding back, shaking him to his core.

“Damn it! Fate cannot be blasphemed! Don't look recklessly! What you see does not represent the true 'Present'.”

Odin didn't hear a word of Verdandi's words, because he actually glimpsed a part of the 'Present's' trajectory of fate.

He, Odin, in golden helmet and armor, holding the divine spear, sat on the supreme throne of the Silver Palace, receiving the worship of the gods.

Whether gods or giants, they all knelt on one knee, right hand on their chest, and reverently called him—

“Your Majesty, God-King Odin!”