12 The change
(Odin POV)
Darkness is all I see. I am inside some sort of void. I turn around and walk forward. For some reason that is possible. I still retain my proprioception and know that I am moving forward. I watch the darkness change ever so slightly. As time passes, a star is born and the small dot of light now decorates the darkness. I continue to walk forward and see the birth of another star. This process repeats itself and more start to be born.
As I walk, I see that the first star explodes in a supernova and dies. This sets off a chain reaction with more stars getting born and others dying. Some of these stars are red dwarfs and others are blue giants. More and more light dots decorate the once-black canvas. I don't know how much time has passed but after **** time I am no longer inside the void where blackness rules supreme but in a new Galaxy with clusters of stars and planets.
I smile as I watch everything happen. And as I watch I feel something change. I feel myself get a rush of energy and feel it fill me up and invigorate me like nothing has ever been done. I get a rush of endorphins and smile content.
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"It's beautiful.", I hear a voice behind me. I turn around and see the white silhouette of a young boy with two ravens on his shoulder.
[Picture]
"Aye. It is indeed beautiful.", I say.
"Odin, Skyfather, All-Father open your eyes ... who do you see before you?", the boy asks.
"I see myself, my power. I see the Odin Force.", I smile as I tell him that. It is pretty obvious when I get this feeling of familiarity. I don't deny myself or my power. We are one and the same.
"You are correct. We are one and the same. I am your power, the Odin Force. What do you see there?", he asks me with a smile as he waves at the Galaxy that has formed.
"That is just as much my power as it is the amount of influence and my level. It is the potential that I have turned into power and skill already.", I say and he smiles.
"So then what is the void?"
"The void is my potential that I have not yet used. Boundless and infinite ... never-ending.", this brought an excited smile to the boy's face.
"You're right. Can you feel it as well? The possibilities, the things we could do? The things we will do?"
"Aye ... it will be glorious."
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I open my eyes again this time in the real world. I see beautiful vines all around me. I seem to be inside a bed of some sort. Looking around I find, I am lying on the softest cotton, surrounded by flowers and next to me ... sits Gaea who is smiling at me.
"You woke up ... I'm glad. And with company."
"Aye, I'm back. And with these two ... How long has it been?", I ask and look at the two ravens. Munin and Hugin.
"It has been almost 5 months now. You were asleep for a long time. Does the Odinsleep usually take that long?", Gaea asks me.
"5 months?! That is a long time. No, the Odinsleep shouldn't take that long. Normally going to sleep for one day, maybe two after one year of using it is normal. But I haven't had an Odinsleep for decades now. I assume that I ..."
"You are adapting to it."
"Aye, that is the most logical conclusion. My first Odinsleep was 20 years after coming to Aesheim. The second one was 50 years later and now ... it's been almost 90 years since my last one. I can feel the change inside me. I appear to be adapting to the use of the Odin Force. I wouldn't be surprised if I don't have to go into the Odinsleep again."
"That would be very powerful and useful. You are as weak as a mortal in that state. So not having to go into the Odinsleep again, removes a big weakness."
"Agreed. I can tell that the Odin Force has grown. Like an infant to a child."
"In power or amount?"
"Both."
"Oh!"
"Aye, Oh indeed. I will have to test out the changes later."
"Not now. You owe me some time after sleeping all this time.", Gaea says in a demanding tone. I can't help but raise my eyebrow at that. I came to understand that it is useless to lie to myself. I seem to have already fallen for the elder god and I might as well see it through.
"Gaea listen I-"
"You don't have to say anything. I understood what you were talking about and I agree. I will not mate or have children the way you believe. I will simply use my essence to create life and not birth them unless ..."
"*Sigh* aye aye, I understand. Now let's have a look at what is left of Aesheim. We did destroy a lot there."
"You don't have to worry. While you did cause a lot of damage and destruction, I took care of most of it. After death comes life and things will look even better than they did before."
"Hard to believe, it was already very beautiful before. But I'll take your word for it. Munin, Hugin, let's go. It's time you see the world.", I say and the two ravens land on my shoulders.
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We spent some time together. And then some more and then some more and so on. I watched as Gaea began to shape the very planet itself. She was truly powerful ... fitting for the future Queen of Asgard and the ten realms. It was true, now that I didn't actively try to stop it, things seemed to go smoothly and naturally.
The more time we spent together, the closer we got. Time passed and the years flowed by. I had been in Aesheim for close to 150 years now and I had a lot to show for it. Not only had I grown immensely powerful over this time, but I had also found my future wife. First I had to deal with things back home before I would marry Gaea but it would happen.
I travelled the world together with Gaea. We shaped what was destroyed together into what it would become in the millions of years to come. Gaea was enthusiastic about mammals and their potential. I agreed. I know what potential humans hold. We began to watch over evolution during those centuries and I was especially interested in the North and its living creatures.
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I didn't stop training. I took time to get used to the changes with myself. Everything was better than it was before the fight with Set and Ouranos. My strength had increased massively. I could now bench-press multiple times the Antarctic lithospheric plate, with no problems. I was far beyond the 100-ton level.
My control over my divinities as well as their concept increased greatly. I now held much greater influence over the sky than Ouranos himself, who was the personification of the sky. With my divinity of the sky reaching such a level, I also gained powers over lighting and storms. I already had a divinity of wind but now I also had one of lighting. I duked it out with Ouranos who used lighting of cosmic proportions.
Then there were all of the techniques I perfected and even the ones I picked up during the fight. I managed to achieve something akin to a space-time skip. I unlocked that perchance. As my control over the sky grew beyond that of Ouranos, I managed to bend the sky and then use the skill 'time skip' to essentially skip through space-time.
I took inspiration from the character 'Hit' from the story Dragon Ball to achieve this. I wanted to skip some time and reach a level of speed never seen before and gain an advantage from it. Not only did I achieve this, but I also went beyond that and combined it with Sky manipulation to achieve a space-time skip. I still need a lot of practice to perfect it and travel to where-when I want.
'Chrono stasis', 'Lion's Heart' and other time-related techniques are now a simple matter for me to perform. I also don't need to think about it that much to get the desired effect.
I don't have to talk about the wind. I can now call down cosmic storms, even though it still takes some focus from me. I will continue to practice and improve myself there. The sky ... well the sky is something else. With my control over the sky, I can bring down its entire weight on anyone and anything I wish at a moment's notice. I can feel that the sky itself is nigh-infinite in weight but not really. It is hard to explain. The place where the sky ends and the void of space starts is not clear, making the weight of the sky also not definable.
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(A/N I made this up. I don't know the weight of the sky, so I will just take it as nigh limitless, but not truly limitless. Don't think too much about it.)
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Now let us talk about the Odin Force. I can tell that the Odin Force or the Odin Power has grown ... considerably. It has grown in intensity, amount and power. It is just as I described to Gaea. It is like comparing an infant to a young child. And it will continue to grow, together with me. The Essence of the Blank is truly a wonderful thing.
I noticed that the Odinsword took damage. Surprisingly I might add. This shouldn't have happened. I can only blame my bad craftsmanship for this. The materials were the best I could get my hands on. But I can tell that my lack of experience in using my craft divinity has caused it to get damaged. Either that or it happened due to the fight.
After thinking about it, I have decided to wait to repair it for now. I will first visit Yggdrasill and ask it for wisdom and the power over Runes and then reforge it using the Eternal Flames and cool it using the Casket of Ancient Winters. And then I will also add runes to it while I'm at it. But that is for later, now I have something else to do.
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I have thought about my 'King's Vault' and the Gates of Babylon. I want to have that as well. But any dimension or space that I create can theoretically be spied on or broken forcefully by being stronger than me. That's when I thought about these 'Noble Phantasms'.
Noble Phantasms or simply Precious/Treasured Tools, are "crystallized Mysteries", powerful armaments made using human imagination as their core, and are the weapons and/or abilities owned by Heroic Spirits. As humanity's illusions, they embody the ultimate Mysteries of a hero as symbols of their existence through historical facts and anecdotes.
They can be physical weaponry, like swords, spears, bows or support items like shields, rings, and crowns. They can also be abstractions such as unique, often magical abilities, unique even conceptual means of attack, curses, and changes to the very environment and its physical properties.
So I decided to create a Noble Phantasm for myself. And what better than my Odin Power or Odin Force to become a Noble Phantasm? So that is what I did. I gathered my imagination and got to work. I began to meditate and imagine what I wanted exactly. I imagined the Odin Power that was me, and what we would achieve in the future. The tales that would be told about me and the legends that would emerge.
And that is what I did. Many months passed as I carefully imagined my inner universe to be my treasury, the King's treasury and my Odin Force would be the key and the manifestation of this. It would become my Noble Phantasm.
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(A/N I hope you can accept and enjoy this idea of mine. And just to say, this only works because of the Essence of the Blank and the Odin Force. Massive powerup next chapter. If you don't like OP characters, you should stop here.)
