However, the four Haida gods—Dzelarhons, Kaiti, T’axet, and Tia—leapt up from the water onto the ship, ready to fight.

  “That was forbidden! The ship was supposed to be built only from the materials we provided!” the Haida goddess shouted furiously, threatening the gods with a staff topped by a frog.

  “Really now?” Thor drawled, dripping sarcasm. “Those instructions weren’t exactly crystal clear, ma’am.”

  “‘If the demons’ ship is sunk, they will lose and be delivered as sacrifice,’ those were your words, Miss Dzelarhons, ?” Freyr said, calmly quoting her.

  “The ship that sank was meowr backup ship,” Freyja added. “This here is meowr real ship.”

  “Fine! Then we will destroy this ship, and you will lose!” Dzelarhons screamed.

  “Again, that’d be against your lil’ rules,” Freyr added. “‘If our ships were to sink, we would lose—but that will never happen,’ those were your own words, ?”

  Dzelarhons was livid, but the god in the bear tunic calmed her.

  “There is no point getting angry,” he said. “Let’s finish this trash right here.”

  In that instant, the god transformed into a gigantic brown bear—far larger than the Sgana qedas’ animal forms. He stood on two legs, eyes radiating violence, saliva pouring from his jaw. Enormous claws extended from his paws, and classic Haida patterns in red, orange, and black were painted across his body.

  “The bear’s mine,” Thor said, pointing at the beast with his hammer. The others nodded.

  “I’ll handle that witch who’s had me sick since the moment we met,” Tyr growled, raising his blood-soaked sword to the sky and fixing the Haida goddess with his devilish stare.

  Meanwhile, the two death gods appeared behind Freyr and Freyja, as if they had teleported.

  “My name is T’axet, god of violent deaths,” said the first—distinguished from his brother only by the color of the eyes on his opossum mask: his were red.

  “And I am Tia, god of peaceful deaths,” said the other brother, whose mask-eyes were blue.

  “Freyr, lemme take the violent meow,” Freyja said, licking her left hand like a cat. Freyr nodded.

  Y’aahl watched from his throne, so focused on the fight that he did not notice Epona open one eye—then close it again.

  Thor hurled his hammer at the giant bear and shouted:

  “Mjolnir leggja (Mjolnir Attack)!”

  But the hammer was stopped by the beast’s claw and snapped back toward the thunder god.

  Kaiti then lunged at Thor with both claws spread wide. Thor dodged fast, and the bear crashed into the deck. The ship took no damage.

  Kaiti rose again, and his claws lit up as if on fire. The huge bear roared:

  “Káajaaw gyáagan st’áang (Hunter's Claw)!”

  He slashed at Thor. Thor blocked with Mjolnir—yet the bear immediately caught him.

  “This is exactly what I was waiting for,” the bear-god panted. “A fight with someone powerful like you.”

  After a grinding struggle, Thor finally broke free of the claws.

  Using the bear’s momentary imbalance, the thunder god sprang up toward the beast’s face and shouted:

  “Tanngrisnir ?n Tanngnjóstr (Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr)!”

  Thor unleashed a massive electric attack shaped like two goats. They slammed straight into the giant bear, blasting him off the ship and into the water.

  Freyja leapt backward, evading a rain of dark arrows that reeked of poison. T’axet conjured weapons behind him—arrows, spears, clubs—each one poisoned, as he bellowed:

  “Tláawaa áaniigaay (Weapons of war)!”

  But Freyja avoided them with flawless elegance, leaving a ribbon of motion in her wake.

  “It’s impawsible to hit me, meow—meow senses are at their meowximum right meow,” Freyja purred as she continued moving with perfect grace, performing her technique: Kattagangur (Cat walk).

  “I see you’re agile,” T’axet said, “so I’ll catch you with my final technique.”

  He invoked:

  “Ga áahljaaw (Time of death)!”

  The space behind him darkened, and grotesque images of human heads and skulls formed in the gloom.

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  “When this cursed cloud touches you,” he said, “it will be the end.”

  “Your death skills are subtle, but I can break the darkness with meow meadow of flowers!” Freyja shouted as she invoked:

  “Freyjulundr (Freyja's Field)!”

  A vast, illusory field of roses and flowers bloomed around her. The floral air pushed back the dark cloud T’axet had summoned.

  “Without this energy suppurressor, the whole area would’ve become my purradise, but I won’t complain, meow,” she said, conjuring a massive spear in her right hand as valkyries began appearing behind her.

  “Valfreyju stafr (Staff of Freya, the assassin)!” Freyja cried, hurling the spear like an arrow of light.

  It pierced the death god’s chest, while valkyries seized his wounded body and dragged him into the water.

  The meadow and the valkyries vanished. Freyja licked her face like a cat.

  “Furrrgive meow for only playing with you, meow,” she said with a smile.

  Freyr—wearing the imposing boar armor of Gullinbursti and wielding Hornsvere—had been put to sleep by Tia’s attack:

  “Kánga tlagáay (Dreamland)!”

  “You looked the most imposing in that grotesque armor,” Tia laughed, “and you ended up the easiest to defeat. Now you’ll sleep forever—until your heart stops.”

  But then Freyr’s body began to shine fiercely, and his size changed dramatically—now about half the height he’d been with his totema.

  When the light faded, a small magical elf stood there: green clothing, blue trousers, and a long blond beard.

  “Sorry, sorry,” Freyr said in an absurdly childish, shrill voice. “I had to take this form to counter your sleep magic, ?”

  “Even if you laugh at how I look,” he added, “I am now the being with the greatest magical power in the world.”

  Tia started laughing harder.

  “Midget, I could crush you with one stomp,” he said.

  “I suggest you prepare better,” Freyr replied, “because in this state I’m not as merciful as when I wear the boar’s form.”

  “álfaskot (Elf arrow)!” Freyr invoked.

  A bow of light appeared beside him, already nocked with an arrow aimed at Tia—who still could not stop laughing.

  “Is that it?” Tia mocked. “Your great magic is a bow and arrows?”

  Freyr pointed his index finger at the Haida god.

  The arrow shot like a blizzard and punched through Tia instantly, carving a huge hole in his right shoulder.

  “That power was terrible!” Tia shouted, watching the bow reset to fire again.

  “Now you vanish!” Freyr yelled.

  Hundreds of blizzard-arrows slammed toward Tia—only for rotting corpses to appear in front of the death god, forming a wall.

  “For the Haida, dying without war is cowardice,” Tia said, as those putrid bodies shuffled toward Freyr. “So those who die peacefully must wander the S?áan Tlagáa forever.”

  “Now you’ll suffer for provoking me!” Tia screamed, invoking:

  “S?áan Tlagáa Yaat’áay (Ghosts from the Netherworld)!”

  The ghosts turned into dark energy and struck Freyr, detonating into a thick explosion of fog. Somehow, the ship still bore no serious damage.

  Yet the attack had no effect on Freyr, who remained standing with his bow raised.

  “I understand my arrows won’t work because you’ll block them with your corpses,” Freyr said. “But you can’t defeat me now in this form either—because I control darkness and light at the same time, ?”

  “Darkness and light at the same time?” Tia laughed. “Nonsense. No one can control both elements—so complex—at once.”

  Freyr formed a sphere of light in his right hand and a sphere of darkness in his left, praying:

  “Andst?eingur galdra (Antipodean magic)!”

  Seeing that, Tia went pale—and his only reaction was to flee as fast as he could.

  “That’s right!” Freyr shouted. “They’re so advanced that controlling them together can cause a destabilization as massive as this antipode!”

  The collision between the spheres began to destabilize.

  Then a colossal explosion of light and shadow erupted from Freyr’s hands, pulverizing Tia as the shockwave passed through him.

  The blast left a tiny tear on the ship’s surface.

  Freyr stood alone with his hands raised, panting slowly. He had used so much power that he lost the elf form and returned to being a massive golden boar.

  “Thorsy was right… if we hadn’t trained here, I couldn’t have used my elf transformation, ?” Freyr told himself with a wide smile.

  Meanwhile, Tyr leapt across the deck while Dzelarhons conjured flaming frogs, chanting:

  “K’wáanda hlk’yáan k’ust’áan (Explosive frogs)!”

  The frogs raced toward Tyr at high speed, and when they got close they detonated violently—yet none of the explosions harmed the ship.

  “Since the moment I met you,” Tyr said, dodging blasts, “I knew I’d be the one to slit your throat.”

  “You talk a lot for someone who can’t even get close to me,” Dzelarhons replied, summoning more frogs that exploded—wounding Tyr when he could no longer evade them all.

  At last the war god collapsed in a pool of blood. Dzelarhons laughed.

  “Now,” she said, “I will bury you with my explosive frogs.”

  She created hundreds of frogs. They piled onto Tyr and exploded in unison.

  When the dust cleared, Tyr was standing—mauled, drenched in blood.

  “What I truly wanted,” he confessed, staring at her with a fatal gaze, “was simply for there to be more blood in our fight… even if it was mine.”

  Dzelarhons summoned a gigantic frog that looked like it was made of magma. It leapt straight at the Norse god.

  Tyr took Tyrfing—dripping with blood as if it had bled itself dry—and prayed:

  “Sjóeandi Blóerista (Slash of boiling blood)!”

  A massive slash of blood ripped across Dzelarhons’ chest.

  At the same time, the giant frog was cut in half and exploded with a thunderous blast.

  Dzelarhons fell unconscious into the lake, while Tyr—thanks to the blood accumulated by his sword—recovered the ichor he had lost.

  “My only regret,” Tyr said as he sheathed Tyrfing again, “is waiting more than ten days to do something I could’ve done the moment we met.”

  The four gods regrouped after defeating the four Haida gods.

  Y’aahl and the crowd stared in disbelief, still in denial as they watched their gods fall before the foreign “demons.”

  When the reality finally sank in, the people began fleeing as if a catastrophe were about to strike. It was obvious: the demons were stronger than their gods. Not even the raven god could defeat them.

  “So, raven,” Thor called out with a mocking edge, “who won this little shindig, huh?”

  Y’aahl raised a sphere of energy and placed it in front of Epona’s head.

  “One step closer and I will kill her,” he said, furious.

  But then—shocking everyone—Epona opened her mouth and ate the energy sphere.

  She burped, and smoke drifted out of her mouth.

  “What a sore loser you are, raven-man,” Epona said—but her voice sounded exactly like Loki’s. “Truth is, I let myself get captured just to see what those Asgard idiots would do.”

  Thor and the others froze, stunned.

  “Loki?” Thor asked, bewildered.

  Loki—still in Epona’s form—vanished in front of everyone and reappeared beside Thor and the others in his true dark-god form, his totema already on.

  “That’s right,” Loki said with a huge grin. “You abandoned me, but Orniskem decided to rescue me. Life’s ironic, ain’t it?”

  At that moment, from among the stands, Menrva, Ana, and Epona appeared and stood atop the walls separating the arena from the seating—now empty, as the crowd had fled.

  “We are Orniskem,” Menrva declared. “And we’ve come to take these idiots with us.”

  Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr were the names of the two goats that pulled Thor's chariot in Norse mythology.

  S?áan Tlagáa is the name of Hell in the Haida mythology.

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  The next part will be released Monday.