Above them, the sky darkened unnaturally—black clouds swirling into a vortex, threaded through with crackling veins of divine lightning.
Zeus, his massive form wreathed in storm energy, gripped his throne with such force that lightning spiderwebbed through the stands, illuminating the gods' faces in flashes of blue-white fury. His rage manifested physically—bolts of pure Olympian wrath lanced downward, striking the floating debris around the battlefield, turning rock to molten slag.
The arena trembled as Ragnar Lothbrok rose from the ground, blood dripping from the gash across his chest. He stood his ground radiating a pulsing crimson aura—the power of Megingjörð making his muscles swell unnaturally. With each breath, steam rose from his body in the freezing air, his bloodied bear-skull mask giving him the appearance of a primordial beast given human form.
"You think speed is enough to kill me, Greek?" Ragnar growled, his voice echoing unnaturally.
Then—he slammed his fists onto the ground.
The earth exploded. Cracks spiderwebbed outward, and massive chunks of rock erupted into the air, hovering as if time itself had slowed.
Odysseus moved like thunder, his form blurring into streaks of silver light, his sandaled feet barely touching the shattered ground.
"You run like a frightened hare!" Ragnar taunted; his voice distorted through broken teeth. "The great Odysseus—reduced to this?"
Loki's voice boomed across the cosmos. "OH HO! IT SEEMS ODIN HAS GIFTED HIS CHAMPION THE MEGINGJÖRЗTHE BELT OF UNYIELDING MIGHT! TENFOLD STRENGTH, AND THE POWER TO SHATTER THE EARTH ITSELF!"
The gods erupted. Thor roared with laughter, slamming his tankard down. "THAT'S MORE LIKE IT!" Kali licked her lips, her fingers twitching around her blade. Sun Wukong spun his staff lazily. "About time someone hit back!"Amaterasu watched silently.
Odysseus, still a blur of motion, darted between the floating debris—until his foot slipped on a slick of Ragnar's blood.
He fell. Straight toward Ragnar
Ragnar's massive hand shot out like a striking serpent. Before Odysseus could react, the Viking's fingers clamped around his wrist—and ripped.A sickening tear of flesh and tendon.
Odysseus' hand came clean off, blood jetting in a crimson arc. When Ragnar tore Odysseus' hand from his wrist, arterial spray painted the floating debris in wide, fanning arcs. The Greek hero barely had time to scream before Ragnar hurled the severed limb aside like garbage.
The crowd roared. Ares was on his feet, howling. "FIGHT BACK, COWARD!". Freya smirked. "A shame. He was pretty.". Shiva finally opened his third eye, watching with detached interest.
Odysseus staggered back, his face pale—but his remaining hand tightened around his xiphos.
"You'll need more than that," he hissed.
Then—he vanished again.
This time, even the gods struggled to track him.
Odysseus' counterattack came with blinding speed—his sword moves so fast they left trailing afterimages like comet tails.
A flash of bronze—Odysseus' blade lanced forward, not once, but twice, in the span of a single breath.
CRUNCH.
Ragnar's left eye burst like a overripe grape, vitreous fluid splattering his cheek.
CRUNCH.
His right eye followed, the sword's tip scraping against bone as it punched through the socket.
The strikes that took Ragnar's eyes happened in less time than a hummingbird's wingbeat, the wet squelch of bursting eyeballs echoing unnaturally across the battlefield.
The Viking howled, a sound so bestial it shook the arena. Blood poured down his face like tears, his remaining teeth bared in a rictus of agony.
**Ragnar's Flashback: The First Death
Frozen Baltic shores, childhood.
Six-year-old Ragnar—smaller than the hunting dogs, all knobby knees and tangled blonde hair—clutched his father's lifeless hand. The old jarl's body lay half-submerged in red-stained snow, his famous axe still embedded in the skull of the last wolf he'd killed.
"Stand up." His mother yanked him backward, her voice like iron. "Tears won't warm his corpse."
She pressed a seax into his palm—the blade too heavy, the grip slick with his father's blood.
"You want to mourn? Kill the next beast before it kills you."
That night, as the longhouse fires burned low, Ragnar crept to where the wolf's pelt hung. He buried his face in the frozen fur—and for the first and last time, wept.
The memory burned away as Odysseus' sword took his eyes.
"YOU LITTLE—!"
He swung blindly, his axes carving the air—but Odysseus was already gone.
Ragnar spat a glob of blood and phlegm onto the ground. "Run all you want, rat. You're still just meat."
Odysseus' voice came from everywhere and nowhere. "Then come and eat."
The Greek reappeared, his blade aimed straight for Ragnar's throat—
—Only for the Viking to lurch forward, his jaws snapping shut like a bear trap.
TEETH MET FLESH.
Odysseus' sword slashed upward, carving Ragnar's mouth open from lip to cheek. Blood fountained, splattering both fighters.
The Viking warlord collapsed to his knees, his ribcage splayed open like gruesome wings, lungs exposed to the air. Yet still he lived, still he roared through a ruined face.
The Viking's ruined face split into a grotesque smile as he reached up, tore the bear's skull from his helmet, and clamped it over his broken jaw like a macabre mask. The bear skull now fused to his flesh by drying blood.
"Better," he gurgled through the blood.
Ragnar slammed his fists into the ground again and again, each impact sending tremors through the dimension. The earth buckled, then ruptured, a massive slab of rock tearing free. With a roar, he heaved it skyward—straight at Odysseus.
The Greek dashed forward, his speed defying logic—
—And ran straight into Ragnar's waiting fist.
The Viking's punch connected, the force so immense it ripped open his own chest muscles, his ribs splaying outward like broken fingers.
But Odysseus wasn't there.
He was behind Ragnar, his blade poised—
—Only to freeze.
A wet squelch filled the air.
Ragnar's hand, buried deep in his own ruined chest, clenched—and pulled.
Odysseus looked down.
His heart was gone.
**Odysseus' Flashback: The Last Night of Peace
The shores of Ithaca, twenty years before.
The sunset painted the waves in hues of honey and wine. A younger Odysseus—no scars yet carving his face, no ghosts haunting his smile—sat on the beach, his calloused fingers laced with Penelope's. Their son Telemachus, barely waist-high, splashed in the shallows, shrieking as the foam kissed his toes.
"Tell me the story again!" the boy demanded, shaking seawater from his curls.
"Which one?" Odysseus laughed, tugging him into his lap.
"The one where you outsmart everybody!"
Penelope's laughter was a melody woven into the crash of waves. "Careful. His head swells enough already."
For this single, suspended moment—before the Trojan War, before the Cyclops, before ten years of wandering—the man who would become legend was simply a father telling stories to his son.
The vision shattered as Ragnar's hand bit into his ribs.
A gaping hole yawned in his chest, blood cascading onto the broken earth. He swayed, his remaining hand twitching—then collapsed.
Odysseus stood for three impossible seconds after death, his remaining hand outstretched as if still mid-swing, before his knees buckled. He fell not with a cry, but with a poet's sigh.
Ragnar held the still-beating organ aloft, blood dripping between his fingers.
"Told you," He rasped. "Just meat."
The arena erupted. Zeus shattered his throne with a thunderclap, his face dark. Odin nodded once, his ravens fought over Odysseus' eyeball, torn from its socket in the final clash. Kali danced, her necklace of skulls rattling. "MORE! MORE!"Ares laughed so hard blood vessels burst in his eyes, painting his face in red tears.
Amaterasu turned away, her light dimming in disgust. Anubis weighed Odysseus' soul silently. Athena's owl let out a mournful screech as the goddess shattered her spear in her grip. Thor hurled his hammer through three dimensions in celebration, its path warping reality Freya collected fallen teeth like precious jewels, stringing them on a golden thread
Shiva opened his third eye just enough to incinerate a floating island in silent commentary. Vishnu sighed and began writing the battle into cosmic history with a sigh. Sun Wukong yawned and picked parasites from his fur.
The screen faded to black—
—Then flickered back to life, showing Loki's grinning face.
The trickster god materialized standing upside-down on a drop of hanging blood, his grin wider than his face.
"WELL. THAT'S HOW YOU OPEN A TOURNAMENT!"