Chapter 134: The God of Light

Innumerable runes representing light, order, purification, and justice flared upon Gungnir, causing the spear's original golden radiance to transform into a blinding white brilliance that stood in absolute opposition to the darkness.

Accompanied by the whispered incantation on Odin's lips, a sphere condensed of pure white light materialized at the tip of Gungnir, illuminating the entire mirror dimension with a profoundly glorious and sacred luster.

Naturally, Shub-Niggurath had no intention of allowing Odin to complete his maneuver. With a piercing, mournful roar, black vines materialized out of thin air, weaving themselves into twisted, sprawling webs that lunged toward the white sphere.

Blocked by this dense web, the saintly light that purposed to cleanse all things began to fracture and scatter. Meanwhile, the Mother of Darkness writhed and twisted continuously, as though pregnant with some foul and evil creation.

Odin did not dare to lower his guard against the oncoming onslaught of vines. Accelerating the pace of his chanting, he hurled the white sphere directly at the approaching thickets. The collision between the sphere of light and the vines triggered a violent explosion, and countless brilliance incinerated the multi-layered thickets to ashes, only for countless more vines to creep forth from the surrounding shadows.

Yet Odin knew that his previous attack lacked sustained momentum and that the Mother of Darkness would quickly intercept it. The very next instant after casting the sphere, he began chanting another sacred incantation.

It was common knowledge that when it came to suppressing the dark, light-attribute spells were the premier choice. Among the Aesir, there was a God of Light who had long since ascended, and the spell Odin was now chanting was an invocation of His power.

This ascended deity was none other than Odin's brother, Baldr, the God of Light. In truth, Odin himself should have ascended long ago, but burdened by heavy responsibilities and the incompetence of his potential heirs, he remained bound to the throne.

According to the chronicles of Midgard, the God of Light Baldr was Odin's son, while the God of Mischief Loki was Odin's brother. In reality, oral transmission had inverted their identities over the ages; Loki was Odin's son (by adoption, legally speaking), while Baldr was indeed his brother.

When the former Allfather Bor had unexpectedly fallen, Asgard had been left without a leader, and Odin had hastily ascended the throne. Meanwhile, his brother Baldr had devoted himself entirely to cultivation, eventually achieving ascension and becoming Asgard's very first third-generation deity.

As for Odin's other brother, Jörmungandr the World Serpent, he had been sealed away by Odin after failing to seize the throne, condemned for countless ages to solitary imprisonment within a desolate and lonely alternate dimension.

At this moment, Odin's summoning of Baldr's power was intended to secure an overwhelming advantage in his duel against the Dark God. Although Baldr's strength might not necessarily surpass that of Shub-Niggurath, the Mother of Darkness before them was merely an avatar; with her summoning ritual interrupted, she could not receive additional support from her true本体.

Countless rays of light gathered once more before Odin. At the same time, Odin cast a deliberate glance toward the Ancient One, who had been caught in the shockwave of the previous explosion. Unsurprisingly, he found that the Ancient One had already stripped away her temporal space, leaving behind nothing more than a visible projection. The preceding blast had inflicted zero damage upon the motionless Sorcerer Supreme.

Sensing Odin's movements, the Mother of Darkness could only emit a series of piercing shrieks. Engaged as she was in mitigating the aftermath of the previous light sphere's explosion, she lacked the leisure to disrupt Odin's next move. There was simply no helping it; after all, she was not a deity specialized in combat, and she had already suffered severe injuries. Under normal circumstances, she would have long since birthed an entire host of Evil God avatars to overwhelm the two demigods before her.

By now, Odin had reached the final verse of his incantation. The Mother of Darkness finally recovered her equilibrium from the luminous explosion, but recognizing that Odin's ritual was already complete, she refrained from commanding the vines to lunge at him again. Instead, she chose to continuously condense thicker and more numerous boughs, wrapping herself layer upon layer within a defensive cocoon.

At that exact moment, Odin completed his spell. The white orb of light was encircled by concentric rings of glowing runes, radiating an aura of supreme holiness and purity. Simultaneously, a pillar of pristine white light pierced through the Mother of Darkness's vine barrier at an unimaginable speed. Moreover, those vines touched by the pillar instantly shed their pitch-black exterior, transforming into vibrant emerald branches that spread outward in all directions.

At this rate, it would not be long before the vine shield of the Mother of Darkness was thoroughly transmuted, turning instead into a cage that bound her.

The Mother of Darkness naturally refused to submit meekly. While Odin chanted his second incantation, she had been desperately seeking a countermeasure. Thus, while she resisted the explosive light, she simultaneously concentrated her own counter-offensive.

Consequently, just as Odin finished casting his spell and before he could even catch his breath, a silver moon abruptly rose from amidst the tangled thorns. Rising alongside the silver moon came the strains of an eerie, haunting flute melody.

The vines that had previously been converted by the light underwent a sudden, secondary mutation upon hearing this bizarre melody. Moreover, this mutation remained impervious to the purification brought by the light, and the boughs stubbornly maintained their emerald green form.

The unsettling nature of this flute music stemmed from the fact that while it sounded superficially like a pleasant tune, upon closer listening, one would perceive the profound distortion and wickedness woven into its depths. Even Odin, the King of Asgard, found his movements involuntarily slowing down upon hearing the notes.

Yet Odin snapped out of his trance almost immediately. Shielded by Yggdrasil, he quickly shook off the mental domination embedded within the melody. Even so, that brief moment of distraction had provided the Mother of Darkness with ample time to complete her deliberate preparations.

Although the crusade of the Dark Young in the outside world had faced severe obstruction, they had successfully reaped initial harvests early on—particularly among the refugees who had failed to escape the forested capital and the emergency rescue workers who had come to their aid. These unfortunate souls had become the Dark Young's very first trophies.

However, due to Thor's rapid intervention, the majority of refugees back then had managed to evacuate successfully, while the Dark Young dispatched to other directions had secured their own respective prizes one after another.

Now, though, the Mother of Darkness perceived that all her progeny had been thwarted, and she waited no longer, commanding them to return their gathered life-force and blood back to her.

Deprived of their stolen vitality as they channeled the energy back, those Dark Young abruptly halted in their tracks, stiffening where they stood as they communed with the Mother of Darkness, using their own bodies as conduits to funnel all their accumulated energy directly into the avatar of the Mother of Darkness.

To external observers, the four Dark Young suddenly ceased all movement, standing frozen in place before crumbling into fine ashes within moments.

Having absorbed this influx of energy, the Mother of Darkness finally caught her breath and began to gestate her second helper: the eternally ravenous God of Devouring, Tsathoggua.