Devouring World Dragon

Chapter 94 The Truth
The wise giant silently looked at Loki in front of him, but did not answer directly.

Loki's meaning was clear: if Mimir answered "alive," he would crush the bird in his hand; if Mimir answered "dead," he would open his hand and release the bird.

But this has a deeper meaning: Loki is testing fate, testing just how powerful fate truly is.

Is it true that all futures are predetermined? Or are some futures predetermined and others not? If so, where exactly is the line between destiny and non-destiny...?

This wise and cunning deity cautiously attempts to explore the limits of fate.

Mimir simply looked at the god-king before him and spoke softly.

“Loki, your actions are meaningless. Fate cannot be fathomed by your trials and speculations. Everything, including your trials and speculations, has already been written in my parchment scroll.”

"However, I will also answer you according to my foresight. Just like in a play, actors on stage can only act according to the script. Even if they know it is false, they are powerless to do anything about it. We are puppets pulled by strings, and playthings in the hands of fate."

However, Loki ignored Mimir's words, focusing intently on the intelligent giant before him, and continued speaking.

"Then...please reveal to me how fate truly determines the future of what I hold in my hands..."

"To live or to die?"

He looked at the intelligent giant, pushed his hand forward again, and his upright serpentine eyes slowly contracted, revealing a ferocious look.

Gods also age, but their aging is not due to physical aging, but rather to the aging of their minds. When the mind grows old, the god naturally ages as well. But Loki... has always maintained the appearance of a young man.

Within him, an inextinguishable passion and yearning always burned—a longing for that free and infinitely wonderful world.

Odin may have forgotten, and all the gods may have forgotten, but he never forgot that he longed for an infinitely wonderful and never boring world, not a cage called "the world" designed by fate.

He would never willingly become a prisoner.

Now is the time for him to rebel against fate.

"To live or to die?"

Neither answer matters; what matters is what happens after Mimir answers.

The intelligent giant shook his head as he gazed into Loki's burning, ferocious eyes.

"Not born."

"Not born?"

Loki stared at the intelligent giant before him, a smirk playing on his lips, his expression growing increasingly ferocious.

"But it's not death either."

"It's not death?"

Loki narrowed his eyes slightly, as if he didn't quite understand what the intelligent giant meant, but the dangerous aura emanating from him grew even stronger.

Ignoring the god-king before him, who was eager to attack and exuded a violent aura, the wise giant shook his head once again.

“Loki, you know very well that your little test is meaningless. You’re hoping to use the power of the runes to deceive my senses and make me believe that you really have a baby bird in your hands, and then test whether I can really know everything. But this trick is pointless.”

He looked up at Loki in front of him and continued.

“If I cannot see all the possible futures, then it proves that what I am talking about is not fate, and naturally there is a chance to break it; but… Loki, even the almost omnipotent runes cannot resist the power of fate, so…”

"In your hands, you actually have nothing."

As he spoke, Loki's eyes filled with complexity, his violent aura gradually dissipated, and he lowered his hands, becoming a silent god-king in his place.

Before Mimir, Loki lowered his head, as if the wise giant had predicted it, and helplessly chose to surrender to fate, while Mimir could only sigh.

And just then...

"Ha ha……"

Loki lowered his head, first covering his forehead with his left hand, then suddenly chuckled. His laughter was filled with joy and relief, growing louder and louder. "Hehehehe... Hahahahahahahaha!!!!!"

The laughter gradually rose, and finally Loki laughed so hard that he tilted his head back, his body even trembling wildly. In the end, the laughter transformed into an almost inhuman owl-like laugh, a morbid, maniacal laugh that was both crying and laughing, with a deep ferocity in it.

Looking at Loki in front of him, Mimir suddenly felt that something was amiss.

"Old man, there are still some things you don't know..."

Just then, Loki's menacing voice reached his ears.

Loki lowered his right hand, a near-icy smile on his face. There was no trace of defeat on his countenance; instead, it radiated an air of arrogant arrogance. As he spoke, he extended his right hand, opening it towards the old giant…

As Mimir looked at what was in Loki's palm, an expression of astonishment and disbelief gradually appeared on his eternally silent face.

"how come……"

This all-knowing old giant was almost speechless.

In Loki's palm was a bright red human heart, beating silently.

The bright red flesh and blood shone as if it had just been detached, and it even continued to beat with some kind of force, showing no signs of losing its vitality, just as if the heart were still alive.

"Old man, you can see through all the future and variables, and understand all the runes. No magic or thing can deceive your eyes. All the futures are open to you. You think you control everything in this world, hiding in the shadows and calmly dominating everything. However, there are still some things in this universe that you cannot see clearly."

At the same time, Loki's cold and ferocious voice reached the old giant's ears.

The old giant recovered from his brief moment of astonishment. Listening to Loki's words, the first thing that came to his mind was profound absurdity. Having drunk a cup of water from the Fountain of Wisdom every day, he was already able to see through everything, whether it was things and knowledge in this universe or things and knowledge in other universes. Nothing could escape his eyes. How could there be anything that even he did not know...

Wait, could it be...

"That's right! It's the Fountain of Wisdom right beside you!"

As if sensing the old giant's thoughts, Loki's lips curled into a ferocious and insane smile, his fingers twisting and trembling.

"Fate? An unchangeable destiny? Ragnarok???"

"In reality, it was nothing more than a grand sacrificial ceremony, a massive sacrifice offered in the name of destiny to some magnificent being you dare not even think of, much less mention, in the name of fate, through this epic and tragic final battle!!!"

Mimir stood up, pale-faced, and couldn't help but take a few steps back, his old body almost falling. But more than his near fall, he was concerned about what Loki had said.

How could you know... just how much do you know?

“How would I know? You only know that I drank from the Well of Wisdom, but you don’t know that I even went directly into the deepest part of the Well of Wisdom…and saw those eyes…”

Loki's pupils slowly dilated, giving off an inexplicable sense of terror and ferocity.

“Those countless, thousands upon thousands of my brother, the one-eyed phantoms of Odin!”

“Even if you and Ymir join forces to erase all traces in the entire universe, rebury all the corpses and spirits back into the earth, and then reverse time together, jumping back to that most ancient past to repeat this cycle again and again, this Well of Wisdom, independent of space and time, still records everything that exists within it, including the one-eyed creature that my brother has sacrificed time and time again…”

“Mimir, my brother Odin drank from the Well of Wisdom and sacrificed his eyes to it, gaining knowledge of all destinies, past, future, and present; and you, you saw all possibilities; but I, Loki, saw in the deepest part of the Well of Wisdom forbidden knowledge that no god or human could comprehend, that only I, the wisest god, could understand even a fraction of.”

His fingers trembled and twisted, then he raised his hand and, to Mimir's astonishment, plunged his fingers directly into his head, deep into the organ that humans call the brain, the source of all wisdom. Amidst the excruciating pain of his fingers churning his brain and his blurred consciousness, Loki laughed maniacally.

"Humans divided the numbers from 1 to 9, thinking they included all numbers. However, there is an incredibly strange thing: all the numbers in the world, which should exist equally, have never existed equally!"

“在世间所有的数字当中，1出现的概率为30.1%、2出现的概率是17.6%、3出现的概率是12.5%……直到最后的9，出现的概率只有4.6%，何其愕然！门牌号、名字、物理常数、化学常数、人口数、统计、股票、河流长度、报纸销售数量……将整个世界上所有的数字全部总结一下、在这些被认为随机分布的数字里，1出现的概率居然要占据几分三分之一！”

"Why??? Because there are far more than just a few numbers! There are 45 numbers in total! Thirteen of them are hidden within the number 1, concealed by some force!!!"

"The whole world! It's all fake!!!"

Amidst Loki's ferocious and insane roar of rage, and with his vision already blurred by excruciating brain pain, everything before him seemed to transform into another insane and bizarre world...

Beneath their feet lay countless dark red flesh and writhing purple blood vessels. All sounds around them became distorted, bizarre, and nauseating noises. The place that seemed to be a fountain of wisdom was replaced by a cavity-like structure that emitted a foul stench. Inside that bottomless fleshy cavity was a nauseating, viscous liquid resembling the secretions of molluscs. The fleshy structure even seemed to be alive, wriggling from time to time.

(End of this chapter)