It's the one hundred day reminder by the author. The greatest way to help visibility and help an author out if you aren't going to join my Patreon, is to leave a 5-str Rating or Review. 5-stars means you think this is a story worth the reading, with no grammar errors. It does NOT mean it deserves a Pulitzer! :)

I've had a bunch of people toss in .5's, 1's, and 2's here, and I know the story doesn't deserve them. So, if you can manage a 5-star Rating or Review now that you've been reading for another 100 days, I hope you can do so for Book Four here, and even Book Three, which is still on the front page!

I say a 5-star because anything else actually hurts the novel and its current ranking!

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Avopeia, Valor: the courage to defy that which seeks to crush your determination.

The name of the Shield of Hercules.

He’d never taken it out before, but when he crushed the skull of Ghriggnk the God-eater, greatest of the Zoner god-killers, under his Golden Mace Nemean, it was the reason he survived its claws and teeth.

The Vanir Volunteers had been recalled to Asgard in the midst of the Onslaught, much to their dismay, but there was no countermanding the order. Things were happening in Asgard, and they had to go.

Ursula stayed behind. If the gods deigned to fight on behest of mortals, she would heal them, but her job was to minister to mortals, not fight alongside the gods. The Brutes of Terra and the Colosseum didn’t mind the additional healing at all.

Skurge stayed with his Priestess, and upon his tireless back, tens of thousands of wounded soldiers were brought to her hands and lived to see another day.

An artificial, false Ragnarok was rumbling through Asgard, and they had their own time of tribulations upon them.

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Asgard...

“Hold, Thor! We see your deeds, you have won our respect, and our honor! We witness not only your strength, but your wisdom!”

“You have seen our game, and you call us on it. You have bested us, and for that, we are in awe.”

“We will grant you that which no other has been granted.”

“Come to us,” the leader of Those Who Sit in Shadow Above pronounced. “JOIN us above. Sit with us, and be a god to the gods!”

Thor sneered, Mjolnir still upraised over the thread of Fate. “You are too late, and YOUR respect means little to me, or my fallen brethren. You, ‘gods of gods’. Like children after being caught facing punishment, you offer your apologies too late.

“I COME AS YOUR DOOM!”

The air parted to either side of him before his Hammer fell, and the shadowy presences and Thor alike paused in astonishment.

Sama Rantha, the Golden Hag, stepped through the cut in space. Standing next to her was Hercules, the Prince of Power, his Shield and Mace in hand.

On Thor’s other side, Briggs stepped through, taller even than the Rune King Thor, and somehow carrying an even colder, grimmer Aura about him. With him was Perrun, Sun-King of the Dovnar, here also to show his support.

Even Thor was caught completely off-guard by their arrival, and paused in his feat. “What means this?” he asked of them all, unsure of whom to address at this moment, only that none of them were moving to interfere with him, all four of them staring at the council of shadowy beings above.

“When Odin gave you a human life and human form, he bound you to the Destiny of the Human Race, the Destiny that I oversee,” Briggs rumbled, his pale violet eyes gleaming icily. “I will not see your people punished because of the efforts of these leeches.”

“Know that Thor has allies, worms!” Sama’s smile was crazy teeth, and ding! ting! Tremble cleared her scabbard and rose slowly to point at them. “This is your end, but if you think that the death and rebirth of Asgard is yet going to take place and give you one last chance to return, you are fooling yourselves! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

Thor, ready to do a grim duty and avenge his people, cutting their fates free, found himself smiling despite himself, while the head of his brother, swinging from Thor’s waist, seemed to shrivel up and sink into itself before the sound of unrestrained Hag’s laughter.

Raven cawed, and the most ancient of the Tribal Totems settled into place on Thor’s shoulder. He would have the advice of another Trickster in the future if he needed it...

Perrun and Hercules merely placed a hand each on Thor’s shoulders. “All Strength and all Light is with you, Thor. You have all the power you need. Cut the cord of the Fate which was bound to you, and take it back for yourself!” Briggs stated grimly.

Thor felt it, then. The sense of Destiny, an ocean that could bury the stars, locked and immovable behind them, and even the power he had now could not so much as sway a drop of what had come before.

But the future was ephemeral as mist, shining with potential, and the power it held could shake the foundations of the entire universe... and return his people and realm to life.

He nodded once. “So be it! You shadows must now face the consequences of your deeds. The virtue of heroes you planted within us is now fully realized! With this ultimate act of sacrifice, this final act of battle, this final act of COSMIC RITUAL!”

The Norns wailed in protest. Loki screamed, and began to burn.

Mjolnir came down, a thousand storms crackling around it, and lightning thundered as the Strand of Fate binding the Asgardians was severed.

Destiny rose up. The Tapestry of the Norns shredded instantly before the weight of it, the threads flying free in their countless numbers, no longer Bound. Bereft of its power, the Norns wailed and washed away, less than nothing, and Those Who Sit In Shadow Above could only stare on aghast as they, too, were caught in that wave.

The power they had stolen and harvested was stolen back from them, Life consuming THEIR lives, this time, and for a timeless moment, it all hung in the air.

Thor felt it then, the power residing in the six Stones held by Briggs and Sama, the two Cubes worn casually at their sides. All that power was his to draw upon in this moment, offered freely to a noble soul and a noble people, and it was more than enough to reward even gods.

He reached out with his hand and took that power into his own for one key moment, and, changing not the past, nor submitting to Fate, he wove a new chance and possible future, undoing the effects of Doom, and bringing forth an Asgard both new and old, cutting it forever free of the prophecy of Ragnarok as he did so.

He had Strength and Light with him, the Power from Beyond, and the Power of Eternity.

It was enough.

Asgard would be returned!

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“I thank you for your intervention,” Thor told the quartet respectfully, deep in private chambers in his great hall Bilskirnir. His glowing, empty eyes regarded the Source, before whom all futures were possible and yet to be made, grounded in the present; and the Null, behind whom the past was immutable.

Even with his new power, he did not have the strength to change that fact. It was at once disquieting and heartening.

Briggs waved dismissively. “Good things happen to good people. The Shadow-Worms were playing games with Fate and Destiny, and since you are tied to us, with OUR Fate and Destiny. There are things they would have tried to make happen, trying to sever our connection, but instead they wrought only their own Doom.

“We have only a few things to ask of you and your people,” Sama grinned, her toothy smile still managing to unsettle Thor, although he knew she bore no malice.

“Speak,” was all he said.

“You must keep Asgard separate from Terra. While our destinies are tied, they are not merged, and Asgard is full of immortals. If you come to Terra, you will simply overwhelm Human Destiny with your own, and any chance at greatness we may have will be crushed under a Divine hand, however gentle or well-meaning,” Briggs stated firmly. “We must be allowed to grow without gods ruling over us, or we will forever be sheep to a shepherd, instead of wolves fighting alongside tigers.”

Thor considered that, all the things he could do with his power, and his ability to protect the mortals under his care. “Is this, then, what you do?” he returned to them, aware of the potentially infinite power of the items under their care.

“Yes!” Sama smiled. “Even if it means some must die and some must suffer, if humanity wishes to grow and reach the stars, they must grow, not merely be brought along as faithful dogs and willful cats. We must not fight all their battles for them. We are here to fight the battles they cannot fight, not to fight the ones that they can!”

Thor sent his Sight back down her life, and watched things perish in the dark and the void, things no mortal should see. She did exactly what she had said!

“It is passing strange, cousin,” Perrun spoke up. “They rely upon us less and less, yet their faith grows stronger as they do, as we fight alongside them and give them examples to follow, instead of coddling them and thinking of them as children. Some... are as children, but some are more than worthy of fighting alongside.”

Thor nodded slowly. “Strength is not nobility, but there are some with strength and nobility worthy of gods.” His opinion of Steve Rogers was of the highest order, after all.

“They and we are still all children of Gaia,” Hercules added softly. “This, then, is what binds us all most tightly, in addition to your mortal lives.

“They are not immortal, and all life evolves, all mortal life dies. In the vastness of eons, humanity itself will be no more, and we might still live on... but this is their time of greatness, my brother. It is the old way to attempt to shackle and keep it from them.” Hercules paused significantly. “We all seek a new path.”

Thor leaned forward despite himself. “Yes, something very new.” He eyed the mortals who had won Eternal status for themselves, by power and valor of their own, neither stealing it nor tricking it from a greater power. “This concerns the Nova Force and the Phoenix Force...”

“More,” Briggs corrected him firmly. “I ask the Enigma Force to gather and speak to us!”

Thor’s glowing eyes widened slightly as a power more subtle and profound than he was aware had existed began to gather into the room with them. The discussions that followed were truly worthy of gods, true Eternals, and cosmic forces...

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-That was very well done, Fuzzy.-

-Messing with the Shadowed by creating a meaningless alternate future that will never be was remarkably easy. Taught Thor some hard lessons, and finally that idiot brother of his got what was coming to him.-

-It would have been nice if he could have grown past it, but I just didn’t see it happening, either. Of course, Thor is too honorable to actually kill his own brother...-

-He’s not coming back,- Briggs /assured her grimly. -Made sure of that. Nothing for Hel or Death to play with.-

-Oh, you wicked Courtier of Death, you!- Sama /laughed at him. -What about his old man?-

-Without the Odinpower, he’s a bitter old relic with a lot of secrets, stories, and prejudices he never bothered to rise above. Thor will treat him honorably, but if he starts scheming to take back the Odinpower, I’ll make sure he’s gone,- Briggs /stated grimly.

-Yeah, the Phoenix Force knows things about him. He’s a primitive Asgardian warrior and second-generation god, just like Zeus the Olympian fuck-up. Unsurprising, they’re basically second cousins.-

-Primal Chaos beings and their descendants,- Briggs just /sighed knowingly.

-What are you planning for him?- Sama /asked lightly.

-He basically enslaved the biggest storm elemental in the universe and Bound it into that Hammer of his. I figure it might be time they swapped positions, and Odin can see what it’s like to be a magic power battery for a million years or something.-

Sama’s laughter wasn’t heard by many, but the rich justice in it made them wonder just what someone had done to get on her bad side...