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The Stormborn - Chapter - 74
🕑 Added 2025-11-19 16:25:13 +0000 UTCThe snow of Jotunheim fell like shards of broken glass—sharp, bitter, and heavy with death.
Odin All-Father stood knee-deep in it, surrounded by corpses of Frost Giants and Asgardians alike. His armor—Harry’s armor—glowed faintly in the storm, runes flickering like dying stars.
For two hours, Odin had fought without pause.
Two hours against an army that never ended.
Every Frost Giant he felled was replaced by four more. Every burst of Gungnir’s power only carved a moment of breathing space before another wave surged forward.
Behind Odin, a thousand Asgardian warriors struggled to maintain a line, slipping on icy ground soaked with blood.
The eight golden energy-tentacles that hovered behind Odin had once lashed out like serpents, slicing giants in half, deflecting ice bolts, forming shields of pure force.
But Odin was tiring.
And with every breath he lost, another tentacle flickered and vanished.
From eight…
to five…
to three…
to two.
Even a god could not maintain conjured constructs indefinitely.
Odin’s breathing grew harsh, fogging around his beard. His bones ached—older than mountains, younger than regret.
He was losing.
And the giants knew it.
“ODIN FALLS TODAY!” roared a Frost Giant war-chief, slamming his mammoth axe into the ice.
The ground trembled as hundreds of giants surged forward—a living avalanche of blue skin and jagged blades.
Odin slammed Gungnir into the ground, summoning a blast of golden force. Giants flew back, but more replaced them.
Too many.
Far too many.
And still—no sign of Thor.
No sign of Loki.
They were trapped on the moon front, cut off by Jotunheim’s blizzard storms.
Odin grit his teeth.
“I will NOT die today!” he roared.
But his voice, for the first time in centuries, held fatigue.
Then—
the sky split open.
A pillar of rainbow fire struck the battlefield, shaking mountains, melting ice, throwing giants off their feet.
The Bifrost.
Odin’s heart dropped.
“No… no, this is wrong—those are the troops I sent to Harry! They were meant to protect Asgard, not join this slaughter—this is a death sentence!”
Asgardian soldiers—two thousand of them—poured out of the beam of rainbow light.
Their armor gleamed.
Their swords shone.
Their faces were resolute.
But Odin wasn’t relieved.
He was horrified.
“They will die,” he whispered. “All of them. I sent them to defend Asgard, not die in this forsaken realm.”
A Frost Giant general laughed.
“More toys for us to break!”
Odin raised Gungnir again, ready to order a retreat—until he realized something was wrong.
The two thousand warriors did not look frightened.
Their eyes were not desperate.
Their posture was not defensive.
They stood with the calm of soldiers who expected to win.
And then Odin felt it—
A ripple through the air.
A surge of red.
A whisper of impossible power.
From the fading rainbow light of the Bifrost…
walked a woman.
Shorter than the Asgardians.
Younger than Odin.
A mortal compared to gods.
Yet the ground beneath her cracked as she stepped forward, her boots leaving embers in the snow.
Her cloak fluttered like bloodstained silk in the frozen wind.
Energy coiled around her like serpents made of pure, violent magic.
Her eyes glowed crimson.
The Scarlet Witch.
Odin’s jaw parted in shock.
“By the Norns… Harry sent her?”
The Frost Giants stopped mid-charge.
Even they sensed it.
A power older than prophecy, deeper than runes, darker than chaos itself.
One giant whispered, trembling,
“What… what is that?”
Wanda lifted her hand.
A flicker of red power formed at her fingertips—quiet, delicate.
Then it grew.
Like a star going supernova.
Like a sun being born in a cradle of ice.
FWOOOOOOM—
A sphere of violent magic burst outward.
Every Frost Giant in a hundred-foot radius was lifted into the air, frozen in red energy—leg kicking, eyes bulging—unable to blink or breathe.
Wanda tilted her head.
“I don’t have time for this.”
She clenched her fist.
CRACK.
The suspended giants collapsed into dust—ice-blue particles drifting down like snow.
The battlefield became silent.
Even Odin, All-Father of Gods, could only stare.
Wanda turned toward him, eyes still glowing.
“My son says you needed reinforcements.”
Odin swallowed.
He had seen sorcerers.
He had seen witches.
He had seen the end of worlds.
But this—
This was something else.
“…Lady Wanda,” he managed. “I… I did not expect you.”
Wanda smiled, a dangerous curl of her lips.
“Well,” she said, raising both hands as scarlet storms coiled around her arms,
“you’re at war. And I wanted to help.”
The Frost Giants began to retreat—an entire army stepping back in instinctive terror.
Odin steadied his grip on Gungnir.
Odin nodded. “I appreciate that you came to help Asgard—”
Wanda finished calmly:
“I did not come to help Asgard.”
Odin blinked. “…Then why?”
Wanda’s smile widened.
Energy swirled, tearing cracks in the ice.
“I came,” she said softly,
“because someone tried to murder my son while he wasn’t doing them any harm.”
Her eyes blazed bright red.
“And now I want to teach them about the consequences of their unprovoked attack.”
Odin felt a chill deeper than Jotunheim’s winter.
This war…
had just changed.
For the first time, Odin whispered under his breath:
“Harry… your mother is terrifying.”
Wanda swept her arms forward, unleashing a storm of chaos magic.
And the Frost Giant army broke like shattered glass.
The Scarlet Witch had arrived.
The cold winds of Jotunheim howled like a wounded beast, but Wanda did not hear them.
She rose above the battlefield as if the air itself moved aside for her.
Her boots left the ground.
Her crimson aura flared.
Her eyes glowed like twin dying suns.
And then—her clothes shifted.
Cloth unraveled into glowing embers and reformed into a scarlet battle-robes, swirling like living flame. A crown—thin, elegant, unmistakably hers—formed above her brow.
The Asgardians who watched felt their breath freeze—not from the cold but from awe.
Wanda raised a single hand.
The battlefield obeyed.
THOUSANDS of scarlet arrows materialized behind her, floating in a sea of crimson magic. Each one hummed with raw, unstable chaos.
A Frost Giant general stared, confused.
“What magic… is this?”
Wanda flicked her hand forward.
FWOOOOOOOOOM—
The arrows screamed through the air like falling stars.
Each arrow that touched ice, armor, or skin detonated, unleashing crimson shockwaves that hurled giants into the frozen cliffs.
The explosions lit up the battlefield in flashes of red—
a thunderstorm made of magic and fury.
Asgardians shielded their eyes in disbelief.
“She—she’s wiping out an entire army…” one whispered.
Another muttered, terrified,
“She’s… even stronger than the King…”
Odin did not respond.
He was watching every movement with an expression Asgardians had never seen on the All-Father’s face.
Fear.
Real fear.
If she ever turned her power on me… there is a chance I may fall, Odin realized.
A chilling thought.
A humbling one.
But Wanda wasn’t finished.
She stretched both arms outward.
The ground trembled—
then split in two, a massive crack tearing through the battlefield like an earthquake. Frost Giants lost their footing, screaming as the ice beneath them collapsed.
Dozens—no, hundreds—fell into the newly formed abyss.
With another wave, Wanda closed her fist—
the pit sealed shut, trapping the giants beneath tons of ice.
“Impossible…” Odin murmured. “Not even I could—”
Wanda rose higher, her voice calm and cold.
“You wanted war.”
She thrust her palm forward.
A colossal wave of chaos magic roared out, knocking entire battalions off balance.
Some giants froze.
Not from fear.
Not from shock.
From Wanda’s mind.
Her magic wrapped around their skulls like threads, pulling tight—controlling them.
“Fight,” she whispered.
And they obeyed.
Mind-controlled Frost Giants turned their weapons on their own brothers, unleashing a massacre within their own ranks.
King Laufey watched in horror from the rear.
“RETREAT!” he bellowed, voice cracking. “RETREAT! She is a monster! RUN!”
It was no longer a battle.
It was a slaughter.
And the slaughter was one-sided.
The Frost Giant army broke and ran, fleeing across the icy plains, leaving weapons and wounded behind. Laufey himself fled with them, face pale.
Only when their silhouettes vanished into the white fog did Wanda lower her hands.
The crimson glow faded.
Her robes flickered—
and dissolved back into her normal attire, her crown dissipating like a dying flame.
She landed on the ice gently, knees trembling just a little.
Her breath came fast.
Her hands shook.
The chaos magic curled back into her body slowly, like a beast reluctantly returning to its cage.
Odin approached her cautiously, for the first time in his long life unsure how close he should stand.
He placed a hand on her shoulder—hesitant, respectful.
“Are you alright, Wanda?” he asked quietly.
Wanda closed her eyes, inhaling deeply.
“It’s been… a long time,” she whispered. “A long time since I’ve used my power like this.”
She looked at her palms, faintly glowing red.
“If I pushed it any further, Odin… there wouldn’t be a chance for me to come back to myself.”
Her voice softened.
“And I can’t afford that. Harry needs me.”
Odin swallowed.
For centuries, he had believed himself the strongest being in the Nine Realms.
Today proved him wrong.
He squeezed her shoulder gently.
“Thank you,” he said. “Not as a king… but as a grandfather.”
Wanda gave a tired smile.
“I didn’t do it for Asgard. I did it because those men were Harry’s responsibility… and someone dared to threaten them.”
Odin nodded slowly.
“Then the Frost Giants have awakened the wrong force.”
And as the snow fell once more, quiet and trembling, Odin realized:
This war…
was about to change.
Because now, on the side of Asgard, they had an army…
…a king…
…and a Scarlet Witch.
The rainbow torrent of the Bifrost tore open the sky, slamming into the icy wasteland with blinding brilliance.
Four hundred Asgardian warriors stepped out, armor clattering, weapons ready, breath misting in the frozen air.
Thor leapt forward first, Mjolnir spinning in his hand.
Behind him, Loki’s knives gleamed blue against the frost.
They expected chaos.
They expected a battlefield still in the throes of slaughter.
What they found instead…
…was silence.
A graveyard of giants stretched across the horizon.
Corpses lay frozen and shattered.
Weapons embedded in ice.
Craters of crimson energy burned deep into the ground.
Frost Giant blood stained the snow black.
And at the center stood their father, Odin—armor glowing, breath steady.
And beside him…
Wanda, wiping sweat from her cheek with surprising calm.
Thor’s jaw dropped.
Loki blinked rapidly, as though unsure if he was hallucinating.
All four hundred warriors froze at the sight of her.
“Wanda?” Thor breathed.
Wanda turned, giving them a gentle smile—so utterly out of place on a battlefield of corpses.
“It's been a while, Thor,” she said lightly, as if greeting them in a sitting room instead of a warfront.
Loki whispered under his breath, “By the Norns… she did this?”
Odin nodded once. “Yes.”
The two princes exchanged a look—equal parts awe and fear.
Then Thor approached Wanda, nearly slipping on a patch of ice.
“You—you destroyed an entire army?” he sputtered.
Wanda shrugged modestly.
“They tried to kill Harry. I didn’t have much choice.”
Loki mouthed silently, Tried to kill Harry?
The Asgardian soldiers behind him shivered.
Thor clasped Wanda’s wrist gently, scanning her face carefully.
“Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “A little drained. But fine.”
Odin cleared his throat.
“We must prepare for what comes next. This was a victory, but not the end.”
Wanda nodded and stepped forward.
Her fingers traced a glowing pattern in the air—five-pointed, swirling with star energy.
A star-shaped portal erupted open, humming with soft cosmic light.
Gasps echoed across the warriors.
“This connects Jotunheim and Asgard directly,” Wanda explained.
“It will stay open until I close it. Reinforcements can arrive instantly. The injured can return just as fast.”
Thor’s eyes widened.
“This—this is sorcery even Asgard does not possess.”
Wanda smiled faintly.
“This is not sorcery. This is me.”
Loki whispered to Thor, “She is terrifying.”
Thor smacked him lightly, but didn’t disagree.
“Come,” Wanda said. “Let us bring the wounded home.”
Under Odin’s barked orders, the living Asgardians marched across the battlefield with grim focus.
One group gathered the bodies of their fallen brothers.
Another secured the Frost Giant prisoners, those who remained unconscious or too stunned to fight.
Healers tended to the injured, wrapping them gently in golden magic.
Thor and Loki moved among their warriors, giving encouragement, lifting crushed beams, helping carry the worst wounds.
And Wanda supervised the entire effort, her eyes glowing faintly whenever a wounded soldier was near.
Even Odin watched in silent astonishment.
“Your magic,” Odin said quietly, “bends the realms themselves.”
Wanda didn’t look up from sealing another deep wound with red light.
“My magic protects what I love,” she said softly.
Odin nodded.
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Kathy Loo
A Mother's love knows no bounds!
