Currently, the wives were all crowded around Sif; each of them trying to figure out why she could possibly not be healing.
Her body was perfectly fine without even a single scratch on it, but for sreason she was getting colder and colder at every second.
Eventually, after running out of theories to confirm, Lailah could no longer deny her hypothesis anymore.
"She... is trying to let go." She said quietly.
"What? What do you mean by that??" Lisa asked.
Lillian took the liberty of explaining to the group.
She held Sif's hand as she smiled at her sadly. "Souls are... very fragile things.
The trials and experiences that they endure during their lives stimes catch up to them during near-death experiences when their souls are temporarily in limbo.
Viewing these experiences is what helps a soul figure out what they would like to do next.
They can keep fighting if their body allows it, or they can travel to their final resting place.
Our husband can heal Sif as many times as he wants, but he cannot MAKE her want to live... It seems she has made her choice."
Needless to say, no one was expecting Lillian's answer to be so heavy.
The girls all stared at Sif with complicated looks on their faces.
It was clear that they were all having the sthought at once.
"Is this... because of how she feels about Abaddon?" Tatiana asked.
"Hm? Ah, I can see why you would think that, but no. Romantic interests don't usually elicit this dramatic of a choice out of souls.
Besides, Sif here is a strong Nord woman. A little crush is not nearly enough to break her heart to this degree... but something has undoubtedly hurt her.
I only wish we could learn what transpired before she rushed home.."
As she pondered over Lillian's last words, Audrina let her gaze drop towards the floor in melancholy.
Suddenly, she noticed something that she hadn't quite been paying attention to before, and she immediately was on her guard.
"Oh? Seems we had a rat." Audrina grasped at the air and pulled.
Sif's shadow rose up and spat out a young, muscular woman into the room- and Audrina encased her in a magical bubble that would both prevent her from escaping, or dying due to Tehom's atmosphere.
Thrudd stared at Audrina fearfully and slowly dropped her mace before raising her arms in surrender.
"Y-You... are the brides of Abaddon, correct? I-I mean you no harm, my mother broughthere..."
Audrina becnoticeably less hostile as she squatted down in front of the bubble.
"I see... Do you by chance know what happened to your mother? How was she discovered??"
Thrudd opened her mouth to answer, but a slightly foggy look formed over her eyes and she grew a puzzled expression.
"Grandfather found us, but... I do not remember how? Only that we were nearly here and then... I-I don't..."
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇt"That's alright, dear. Don't strain yourself."Audrina dismissed.
But inwardly, she had even more questions now than she would have if she'd heard no news at all.
"Girls...?" Lillian said in a hushed whisper.
Audrina and the other's looked back towards the bed where they could see her with renewed hope in her eyes.
They glanced down at Sif and saw that a bit of pink was already beginning to return to her cheeks.
"I don't know what happened, but... She's coming back..!"
-
Thor grumbled in annoyance as he tried to shake off the snow that had seeped into places where it absolutely did not belong.His irritation with the weather was only mildly being suppressed by the fact that he felt a great deal of pride from his earlier feat.
"Collapsing a mountain with one blow... I have outdone myself, truly."
Even though Thor felt immense pride, he wasn't quite naive enough to think that he had bested Abaddon with his attack, even if he was a fair bit weaker now.
Flying up into the air, the thunder god began circling the ruined mountain for his no doubt limping prey.
It did not take long for Thor to find him, as Abaddon wasn't exactly trying to hide.
Coincidentally, Odin found him at the exact stime, and the two of them landed a few feet away from the red haired dragon.
Abaddon was seated crosslegged on top of a large fallen boulder; his eyes closed and seemingly locked in meditation.
Odin noticed that there was a puddle of frozen blood and a spear impaled in the ground not far from where he sat, and he raised a brow.
Abaddon wasn't bleeding, the angels didn't have red blood, and Thor had just gotten here at the stas him, so whose blood was that?
There was nobody else on the mountain with them.
"You spared no effort in hiding! For a man who steals the women of others, you may yet have ssemblance of a spine!"
Thor hurled his hammer at Abaddon like a rocket with the intention of finishing what he started.
Inactivity hadn't appeared to have slowed Abaddon down at all, as he immediately created another large black sword in his grasp and knocked aside the hammer like a runaway baseball.
In quick succession, he fabricated a spear with his other hand and hurled it at Thor with so much power and speed that it actually caught fire as it flew through the air.
"Big deal!" Thor started to catch the weapon with his bare hands in an attempt to prove they were on equal footing.
However, as soon as it cwithin range of the thunder god's fingers, Odin quickly knocked the weapon aside with his own as if he was worried it would give him rope burn.
"Are you stupid? Don't touch that!" Odin hissed.
"The hel's the matter with you!? It's just a spear!"
"Fool!"
Odin didn't know the specifics of what these weapons were that Abaddon kept calling out, but he knew that it would be a horrendous idea to touch one directly.
Thor grunted in annoyance before he recalled his hammer.
Inspecting it, his eyes practically left the confines of his skull when he realized that his weapon that had survived a great many battles now had a large crack in it resembling a gash.
Thor ground his teeth together so hard that a few on the bottom row cracked.
"A cowardly dragon with cheap toys does not impress!"
"..." Abaddon looked down at the sword in his hand with a blank look on his face.
He seemed to be thinking about something quite seriously despite the current situation.
Before anyone knew what was happening, Abaddon had hurled the weapon at Thor like an oversized boomerang.
But following his father's example, Thor knocked the weapon aside with his broken hammer.
However, it was already too late.
In the brief seconds that Thor's vision was obscured by the hammer, Abaddon closed the distance between himself and Thor.
Grabbing the thunder god by the back of the head, Abaddon drilled his knee into the thunder god's nose and nearly ruined his good mountain-man looks.
Thor's head was flung back by the force and a shower of blood escaped his nostrils.
While still airborne, Abaddon struck him hard in the nose with his fist and the thunder god's face nearly caved his entire face in on itself.
The norse god was planted into the ground while his nose bled profusely; unable to properly ascertain the events that'd just transpired.
Flipping through the air, Abaddon rotated his body so that he could drive his heel on to the top of Odin's head.
At the last moment, the all-father blocked by raidsing up his spear- and in the process he learned something alarming.
'His body is stronger than before... does his strength cback with time?'
When Abaddon was pushed back, he flipped through the air once again to soften his landing and dropped onto all fours.
Looking up, his eyes flickered mildly in annoyance when he noticed Thor getting back up, and Odin dropping his weapon.
Abaddon knew that the old god was trying to show ssort of warrior's chivalry, but it really irked him to the bone.
Odin had misunderstood his actions.
Abaddon did not abandoned his weapons because he felt he had to prove something to Thor.
He abandoned them because he was so much more dangerous without them than with them.
The implication that Odin was lowering himself to equal footing with him was a mockery.
"A lucky hit." Thor spit out several teeth and at least a pint of red blood. "It will be your last."
Odin removed his cloak and robe too stand in the ice and snow with only the rippled physique of an old man.
"Come." He beckoned.
Abaddon had never met a more foolish individual in his life.
At the stime, the three gods rushed forward and met each other in a grand collision twice as large as a nuclear explosion.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏmAmidst the flying smoke and rubble, one could see Abaddon holding the fists of the two men in each hand.
While it might have looked impressive on the outside, Abaddon was not as strong as he usually was, and a hairline fracture had formed in each of his arms from the exaggerated stress.
But the dragon's sin of pride would quickly turn that liability into benefit.
Abaddon's mind worked in overdrive as he analyzed the two men in an instant and formulated a plan.
First, he kicked Thor hard in the side of his poorly protected knee.
At the angle at which his foot was thrown, Abaddon broke the norse god's knee and sent it facing outwards, throwing the god off balance and making him tumble as he screamed.
Thor dropped to one knee, and in quick succession Abaddon gave himself a necessary boost by leaping atop the norse god's thigh, so that he could drive his knee square into his chin with added power.
With Thor's head thrown back for the second ttoday, Abaddon once again used his large body like a step stool by placing his foot on top of his bloody face and jumping off of the 7'0 giant.
Maintaining his grip on Odin's arm, Abaddon brought him along for the ride in the air; whirling him around before slamming him face first into the ground with tremendous force.
Odin landed rough, but it would take much more than that to do him in, so he quickly started to get back up.
However, at the moment that he started to pull himself out of the snow, Abaddon dropped out of the sky with both of his fists raised overhead.
He brought them down on top of Odin's back in a smashing motion, and the power within the blow not only broke the bones in Odin's back, but it caused his body to pop back up off the ground by a few feet- just like a tennis ball.
Drawing his leg back, Abaddon kicked Odin squarely in the chest and sent him flying at least a mile away instantaneously.
While Odin flew with his face towards the sky, disbelief filled his mind.
'This is... his weaker state..?'
As his body soared like a kite with it's strings cut, Abaddon reappeared over his body like ssort of phantom.
Glaring, Odin raised his arms to defend, but there was a problem.
He could only lift one arm.
At that moment, he remembered the instant where Abaddon held on to his right arm and whirled him around before he threw him.
That motion had not only torn the norse god's rotator cuff, but it also practically twisted up every single muscle in his bicep to the point of uselessness.
'Damn it all..!!'
With no way to properly defend, Odin took a full force punch from Abaddon directly to the chest and was knocked out of the air with the force of a rocket.
But even when Odin hit the ground and lay on his back within a large crater; Abaddon repeatedly struck the norse god with blow after blow; a new part of his body breaking with every punch.
Finally, Odin recognized his folly as he went in and out of consciousness.
He thought that he and his son would be more than enough to handle this weakened version of Abaddon until the other factions got here, but the truth was glaringly obvious.
With his mind dipping in and out of consciousness, he silently called for reinforcements.
'Crows... Summon the valkyries and release the einherjar.'
Huginn: 'S-Sure thing, boss, but... how many of them do we-'
'ALL OF THEMMM!!!'