An Entrance opened, and from it came the God of Thunder himself, Thor.
"What does that woman want from me?"
Thor clicked his tongue, but he still continued doing what he was asked to. The woman he was referring to was his mother, Odin.
She had recently asked him for a favor, a simple one. She gave him coordinates to a certain world and asked him to investigate it and report whatever he found.
"Let's just get this over with."
The world Thor was looked completely destroyed. From what he could tell, it looked like the technology here had been really advanced before whatever happened to leave it destroyed like that.
Thor didn't know, but the world he was at was the one where Thanatos and Hypnos were originally born. Maybe if he knew that, he would be interested in how that world ended up that way. Or maybe he'd still ignore it.
Odin had done some investigations and somehow was able to find which world Thanatos and Hypnos were born in. While she tried to do her own investigation, she indirectly asked Thor to look at what he could find in this world.
Normally, such an investigation would take a long time, but it didn't seem to be the case this time. After all…
The world was so destroyed there was barely anything left, and Thor didn't see any kind of survivors, and it was unlikely they were hiding. There was just nothing to be found there, but since he was already there, Thor figured he could at least try to look around.
Thor messed around, and he found something that was at least a little interesting.
From what he could tell, it looked like that world's main energy source, at least while there was someone living there, came from another world. He couldn't tell how it worked, but it seemed to suck the life energy from another world and use it to power everything.
"… Maybe whatever caused this is on that other world?"
There was still somewhat of a connection remaining, so Thor opened an Entrance and checked out the world that served as power supply.
But there wasn't anything there either. The world was like a huge desert, but there didn't seem to be any living thing left.
"No, there's something…"
Thor checked around the desert world for a bit and found something that he didn't think could really count as living. From afar, they looked like humans, but once he got close Thor discovered they were actually mummies.
"A failed resurrection attempt? Not that I've ever seen a working one. … Jeez, I'm so bored I'm talking with myself."
If anything, Thor couldn't say he didn't discover anything. In that sense, the trip had already been productive.
The world where Thanatos and Hypnos were born used the desert world's life energy as power source. Because of that, the desert world started dying and, from the looks of it, someone tried to resurrect those that died, but it seems that he or she had failed.
The logical conclusion would be that whoever had tried to resurrect the dead decided to destroy the other world once they figured they couldn't. But Thor found a problem with that. The other world was still sucking on the empty pool of life energy from the desert world, so whoever had destroyed it didn't care enough to bring an end to that, that meant it couldn't be whoever tried to revive the people. But that was all Thor's speculation.
With all that said, Thor found all that to be in bad taste. Whether they knew or not, the people from Thanatos and Hypnos' world were powering their lives using the lives of others, so he figured that maybe they deserved whatever had happened.
"Anyway, I'm supposed to investigate the other world, so I'll go back now."
Thor opened an Entrance and went back to the world he was originally investigating.
While he moved rubble around, Thor didn't find anything else that seemed interesting. He doubted that Odin had send him here to find out about that desert world, but that was all he did find.
He figured it was about time he gave up. If Odin wanted anything else, she should come here herself.
Right before Thor was about to leave, he heard the sound of something falling, but he didn't pay much attention at first.
[Kyyaaaaa!"]
[S-someone help!]
But then he heard people's voices. He turned to the direction of the voices, but there wasn't anyone there.
Thor followed the sound to the source. There were a lot of people's screams and crashing noises. He took some rubble out of the way and found that the source of the sound came from something that was playing a video, though Thor didn't know exactly what it was.
If he had to say, this was certainly an interesting find. At least Thor should figure out how this world ended up like this.
[God, please, have mercy.]
[Nooo, I don't want to di-]
Before that person could finish their sentence, something crashed into them. Whoever it was, he or she had just died.
There was the sound of something like guns shooting. They seemed to hit their target, but that target wasn't harmed.
Then, the man who was the culprit behind everything was shown in the video. Thor didn't know about this, but it was the man who called himself Chronos.
He was wearing something that looked like armor, which was three times a normal man's size. There were four huge tubes on the back that seemed to store some kind of energy. The only part of Chronos that was shown was his head, but it seemed like he was protected by some kind of barrier.
On the chest plate of the armor, a glowing round object. That must have been what worked as the core for his powers.
[This doesn't feel half bad for a prototype. If I can get this much power from Hypnos and the other world's energy, maybe I should go around collecting energy from other gods, hahaha!]
[Shoot him!]
[What do you think we've been doing?!]
People that looked like they were from this world's army kept trying to shoot Chronos, but the barrier protected him. Then, Chronos extended his arm towards a building, and it came apart and its pieces shot towards the army men, killing them, along with anyone unlucky enough to be nearby.
[Hahahahahahaha! This feels great, great!]
Chronos didn't seem to have noticed yet, but Thor did. The armor didn't seem to have a good fuel consumption, so it should run out sooner rather than later. Well, from what Thor could tell, it would still be more than enough to wreak havoc in this world.
Chronos continued his wave of destruction. The video ended sometime after whoever was filming was caught by one of Chronos' attacks.
But now, Thor knew what Odin wanted him to find in that world.
"That man, whoever that was, he said something about Hypnos and collecting other gods' power. If this means what I think it means, then we haven't gotten rid of the root of the problem yet."
Thor picked up the thing that played the video and decided he should show this to Odin.
But, once he arrived in her world, he discovered that Odin had left to investigate something and had yet to come back. He asked, but no one knew where she had gone to.
"Shit."
This could be a problem if Thor didn't tell anyone. He could have told Nayuta and the others, but since he left early, he never learned where her world was.
Then, there was only one thing Thor could do. He had to get directions from someone, and there was one person he knew should know something.
"Mimir."
Of course, finding him wouldn't be easy, but it was better than moving between world in the dark looking for Nayuta and company.
He knew where Mimir liked to hide, or rather Odin had once told Thor that. For some reason, Mimir had a fear of being beheaded, so he usually hides himself in the most remote place possible.
Even knowing where to go, it still took Thor nearly a week to find Mimir. Thor was a bit irritated, but hopefully this wasn't a waste of time.
"Why do you have to live in the middle of nowhere?"
"Do you know how hard it is to love with constant fear of being beheaded?"
"I'll rip your head off myself if I ever have to make this trip again."
The old man with a long beard that was Mimir shook in fear from Thor's words. For as irritated as Thor was, he wouldn't kill Mimir… at least not until he got what he wanted.
"I want you to tell me… where's my mother? Also, I have a world I need you to tell me where it is."
There still hadn't been any news from Odin, but Thor didn't think she was dead. But, calmly thinking about the situation, he should inform Nayuta and the others first and then find his mother.
"A-all right, I'll tell you…"
Mimir told Thor what he knew. It sure was a convenient power.
Thor decided to go to Nayuta's world first. He moved as fast as he could, but…
"What… happened?"
What Thor saw, it reminded him of the world he was investigating. Could it be… he was too late?
Thor noticed signs of battle, so he headed in that direction.
