The ancestor’s wings flaps and he dashed back as soon as Edward’s words ended.

“Where are you going?”

A voice whispered in his ear, making him turn around as the skin all over his body started cracking and he began his transformation into a dragon.

He found nothing behind him, and his heart dropped. Before he could turn to that monster again, a gray shadow passed through his chest, carrying a still-beating human heart in its maw.

“Giv…”

Before he could even form a single word, the maw snapped closed and life faded from the ancestor’s eyes, leaving him to fall ground.

The other dragons had long reached the walls of the building and all started undoing their transformations, each hoping they were not the next victim of this calamity.

A snicker sounded in the room as over a dozen wolf mouths formed out of chaos energy appeared out of Edward’s body and flew towards each of the dragons.

The wolf mouths increased in size and each of them consumed one dragon mid-transformation, leaving the entire building to fall into a deafening silence.

“Indeed, nothing beats lizard meat after such a long slumber.“

Edward’s eyes turned toward the prisoner cells inside the room.

“Time to try the local delicacies of this world.” He muttered as he started walking towards the closest cage. As he passed by the ancestor’s lifeless body, one of his hands turned into another mouth and wolfed down the dragon in one go.

“One must never leave unfinished food on their plate.”

The prisoners still awake were all pushing with their backs against the cages, but there was nowhere for them to go.

Edward walked slowly from cage to cage, consuming the different races of prisoners in one go before moving to the next.

When he reached Circe’s cage, the smile on his face grew larger as he broke the bars at the entrance with one hand. Stepping inside, he lifted her lifeless head and stared at her ice-covered face.

“So you are the one who woke me. I guess I can take my time savoring you.”

His hand that was holding onto her chin turned into a wolf's mouth, but it stopped before clasping on her head.

Edward chuckled and looked at the hand which was not listening to his commands anymore.

“Hehe, kid. The more you want this one alive, the more I want to consume her.”, muttered Edward as a dozen mouths formed from his chaos energy and charged at Circe, but every single one was stopped the same way.

As the energy around Edward’s body started turning red and he was about to try again, a burning sensation came from his hand, making a frown finally appear on his face.

[Stay your hand or all of us are dying here.]

Edward looked at the bright red mark that appeared on his arm.

“You’re that little puppy. You two might die, but I will not.”

[Don’t underestimate me, little curse. I even…]

“Empty words, little puppy.”

The mark started burning brighter, but just as chaos energy started seeping out of it, it quickly stopped and become completely dull.

“Too bad. It seems that even gods are no longer what they used to be.”, said Edward before shaking his head and fixing his eyes on Circe again.

[No need for me to get involved anymore. You got a lot on your plate right now.]

*Boom*

An explosion hid Edward’s body, propelling both him and Circe out of the city and leveling the entire building.

From a mass of chaos, Edward appeared again and looked at the giant dragon that covered the entire city.

“Now that is what I called a true dessert.” Chuckled Edward as the chaos energy all over his body turned into a dark red one. His body also increased in size until he was half the size of the floating dragon and took the form of a wolf.

“Foul creature, begone from my domain.” Said the giant dragon as a tornado of multicolored energy flew out of its mouth toward the wolf.

The wolf opened its giant maw and easily increased the dragon’s attack. His body slowly increased its size, becoming just as big as the entire city when the attack was over.

“More, give me more.”

The wolf’s ravenous voice sounded throughout the area as its body charged at the towering dragon. Before he could even go half the way, the floor underneath broke apart and a pure black head hit its underbelly, throwing it up in the air.

The wolf tumbled to the ground and looked at the new arrival. It was a pure black serpent with only its head being just as large as the dragon above the city.

“Ssisster I missed you. Quite a nassty cursse you have there.” As the snake spoke, the entire dungeon started trembling just from the power of its voice.

“Quite a heavy meal you turned out to be.” muttered the wolf as its eyes darted between the two, mostly focusing on the serpent, and it took a step back.

“It’ss not your turn to sspeak, hunger incarnation. Let my ssisster out.”

“World serpent, destroy that thing.” shouted the dragon in the sky, apprehension visible in its giant eyes.

“That appliess to you too, dragon.” said the serpent in a displeased tone.

The wolf laughed out loud before turning into a giant maw and flying toward the world serpent. Its red eyes seemed to lose their rational, only containing madness in hunger inside them.

“Pathetic weakling.” said the serpent as it let the giant maw clamp on its head before slamming its head together with the maw against the dungeon floor. With one extra swing, it threw the giant energy maw away.

When it landed, it took its wolf form again, but its size had decreased. It looked away from the serpent that dispelled half its energy away with one attack and fixed its red eyes on the dragon city.

Without wasting a single moment, it turned into a red streak that flew in the city’s direction.

“Insolence.” The dragon’s voice resounded throughout the dungeon floor as its massive body flew towards Edward.

Edward looked up and jumped to the side, dodging the claw that was aiming for it with ease, and feeding on all the hopeless dragon citizens.

A red streaked started dashing from dragon to dragon, leaving not even a whole body in its path. The giant dragon had no way of dealing with it now and turned toward the world serpent.

“We had a deal.”

A sigh resounded from the serpent’s direction as its tongue swiftly left its mouth, circling Edward’s body in an instant. Before he could understand what was happening, the world serpent retracted its tongue and threw him against the dungeon floor again.

The red energy forming it dissipated completely, and a passed-out Edward hit the ground of the dungeon and drifted for over three hundred feet before stopping.

The dragon charged right at it, but the same tongue hit him as well, propelling it back into the air.

“Let me sspeak with her.”

Edward’s body changed again as the skin all over his body cracked and a pure black wolf appeared in its stead. Fixing them on the serpent in the distance, the wolf’s eyes trembled slightly as chaos energy surrounded its entire body and its shape started changing.

A silver-haired woman appeared out of the chaos and started slowly walking in the serpent’s direction. Threads of chaos energy wove together and formed a gray and black dress that hugged her slender body and slowly consumed all the grass on the ground with every step.

“Brother…” muttered Fenrir as her footsteps were bringing her ever closer to the serpent’s head.

“Ssisster, you are so weak.”

Fenrir nodded and smiled. “You can thank your friend Yggdrasil for that.”

“You are misstaken ssisster. It wass all Vidar’ss fault. Put away your grudge with the world tree and I will have her sspare you.” said the serpent with a trace of sadness in its voice.

Fenrir shook her head and walked next to a cluster of broken ice crystals on the ground. “You are also weak, brother. I can tell you are not whole anymore.”

“That’ss only for now. I left half of my body in Midgard to come and look for you.”

Circe smiled as she bent down and moved her hand tenderly above one of the ice crystal shards.

“I knew you too, didn’t I? So many things that I have lost…” muttered Fenrir, not responding to the serpent’s words.

“Are you going to sstand againsst uss again, ssisster?”

“Brother, you have always been an idiot.” Replied Fenrir as she lifted her head to fix her saddened eyes on the giant serpent. “Do you know what that tree did to your sister, our sister? She used her world and who knows how many others as a sacrifice for a stupid prophecy. You want me to forgive her after all that? Get your head out of your tail and open your eyes to see her for what she truly is. A monster.”

“Hel? Sshe desserved it after…”

“You knew?” asked Fenrir as chaos energy started seeping out of her body and her eyes turned sharp. “You knew and still let it happen?”

Chaos extended from her body, covering the entire floor, before she continued in a pained tone: “You have known Hel since she was a little girl. You knew her suffering, her struggles, her pain, and you let that tree destroy the one thing she ever loved and shatter her soul into who knows how many pieces?”

“You know I lost most of my memories to a curse she placed on my very soul?”

“You know she cut my divine body into a thousand pieces and scattered it across this world?”

“How many members of your family does she have to kill for you to stop taking her side?”

“What is wrong with you?”

As her words ended, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath to absorb back the chaos energy seeping from her body.

“You are no brother to me. Not anymore. Watch your tail, Jörmungandr, or I might start with you before even leaving for Yggdrasil. For my little sister, I’m going to consume every single one of you heartless beasts.”

“Ssisster, I…” there was a trace of panic on the serpent’s face, but Fenrir gave him no chance to speak as two talismans appeared in her hand. One she kept to herself and the other one flew to the cluster of ice she had gathered together under the cover of her chaos energy.

“No, stop her.” Said the dragon as it flew towards Fenrir, but it was already too late. With a bright grey flash, both she and the ice disappeared without a trace.

The serpent sighed and ignored the raging dragon as it stuck its head back down through the floor of the dungeon, disappearing from the first floor completely.

Fenrir appeared in a ruin similar to the last time Edward used a talisman, as did the pile of crystals that have by now stuck together. Worried that the dragon might follow her, Fenrir broke the rune in the center of the platform and grabbed the ice crystal before running towards one of the crumbling walls.

She broke through it with ease and started swimming upwards. None of the beasts under the sea came to bother her, and in less than an hour, she reached the surface.

Without wasting a single moment, she swam towards the mark she left in the dungeon, which, to her surprise, was in the north right now.

After ten minutes of swimming, she reached a wide beach where she stepped on land again.

Looking at the desert in the distance, she muttered: “This must be the far south of the continent.”

She then looked at Circe’s body which had reformed inside the ice and smiled. “An immortal body. At least Edward should be happy.”

The tone of her voice became slightly hesitant at the mention of Edward’s name as she continued: “That is, if he wakes up…”

The ice crystal shattered completely after a while and Circe’s eyelids trembled gently. Fixing her confused eyes on the woman standing before her, Circe closed them again and muttered: “I must still be asleep if I’m seeing Fenrir.”

Fenrir raised an eyebrow at her muttering and said: “Well, is it a good or a bad dream?”

“A goo…” Circe’s eyes snapped back open mid-sentence. Looking at the confused Fenrir, she jumped from the ground and surprised her with a tight hug.

“It’s really you. You’re back.”, said Circe, her lips trembling gently and small ice crystals forming at the corner of her tightly shut eyes.

Fenrir returned the hug with a confused expression and let Circe cry for a while. Breaking the hug, she looked at Circe’s face for a while.

“Can you tell me who you are? I’ve lost most of my memories.”

Circe blushed and fell onto one knee.

“I’m sorry about that. You probably wouldn’t remember me even without losing your memories.”

“I was once known as Fimbulwinter, the great winter that opened your assault on Asgard, my goddess.”