Old days in the box

Chapter 546 Ragnarok is too slow, let me catch up!
“You shouldn’t have been here in the past.”

The black dragon, immersed in the spring water, raised its massive head and looked at the sky covered by wind and snow. At the other end of the nebula, a star cluster billions of light-years long was slowly moving, piecing together the shape of a giant eyeball.

"You know who I am." The voice descended from the sky.

“I know everything I should know. The war of the gods has begun, and you are one of the giants representing the world,” the black dragon replied.

"Representing giants? Not entirely."

Nidhogg, the black dragon, is the strangest creature in the entire Nine Realms. It belongs neither to the gods nor to the giants. It is a creation promised in the prophecy of Ragnarok, and therefore it was born knowing everything about that apocalypse, and only knowing that.

Even now, though history has been altered by the Box Player, it still only understands the concept of "the war between gods and giants."

“I have come here for you. You are a sign of the coming end, the leader of the serpents. I need you to be my vanguard.”

The gaze of the past gently swept over the cliff. The enormous black dragon and the Spring of Origin appeared to Him as tiny miniature models, visible from top to bottom.

"I will not participate in this war; it is not my duty." The black dragon exhaled a venomous miasma. "The gods and giants will inevitably fight to the death; this is their respective destiny."

“That’s right, because you are neither a god nor a giant. You are the hourglass of fate placed here, the vanguard when the end times begin. When the roots of the World Tree are bitten off, you will flap your wings and fly out from the north of the underworld, your wings laden with the corpses of murderers, adulterers, and those who broke their oaths. All the gods in the world will fight on the battlefield, and you will witness it until the very last moment.”

The black dragon roared, a hint of doubt showing in its golden vertical pupils. Apart from itself, it had never seen anyone who could tell it exactly what its destiny was.

"Are you the incarnation of the three Fates?" It hesitated for a moment before speaking again, but still applied the original Norse mythology system as a product of prophecy. This was a limitation it could not escape—it was born unable to understand anything outside of Norse mythology.

“In fact, I am Ragnarok itself,” the Old Days chuckled softly.

"As part of the prophecy, you should be very clear that your innate mission is to hollow out the roots of the World Tree, and nothing else, right?"

"Yes."

"How long have you been corroding the tree roots here?"

"I have existed for hundreds of thousands of years since my birth."

"Do you know why you haven't succeeded yet?"

"Because the time is not yet right, hatred has not spread enough, frost has not covered the earth, people still love one another instead of killing one another, the corpses of sinners have not yet filled my wings, I still need to wait."

"Absolutely right. The tree roots being bitten off is not the cause of Ragnarok, but a sign, just like Fimbulwinter and Loki's three children. These signs will only appear one after another when the end is near. If you blindly regard these signs as the cause of the end, it is just foolishness to put the cause in the opposite direction."

The wind and snow in the atmosphere suddenly became fierce, gathering wildly within a few seconds and emitting a high-energy blazing light that illuminated every corner of the spring.

"—And now I declare to you: your time has come."

In just a moment, everyone could clearly sense that the great Old One had made his move.

Countless cracks emerged from the blazing light, as if some sharp weapon had torn apart dimensions and cleaved through space and time; an axe blade larger than an entire mountain range was forcibly swung out from within, directly striking the tree roots being devoured by countless snakes, followed by countless nameless swords and blades, all surging towards the roots of the entire world. Boom!
With a single strike of the Pangu Axe that created the world, the tree root that had remained unscathed for hundreds of thousands of years, devoured by black dragons and countless snakes, was cleaved open, revealing countless living structures enveloped in the void, emitting countless inhuman howls!
Before they could even register their surprise, the thousands of swords and blades that followed immediately pounced on the wound, slashing and thrusting to prevent it from healing. They saw that the surface of the tree root had cracked open with shocking fractures, and through these fractures, they could even see directly into the depths of the void.

The roots of the World Tree are the source of the void; severing the roots is tantamount to directly shattering the barrier between reality and the void!

A raging void storm instantly swept into this realm of reality, scattering blizzards stretching for tens of thousands of kilometers. The black dragon Nidhogg roared and instinctively flapped its wings from beneath the spring, circling around the massive wound and spewing vicious flames.

It is the harbinger of doom left to this world by Ragnarok, and gnawing on tree roots is its entire purpose in life. It is its instinct and its destiny.

"The prophecy has come true! The roots of the World Tree have indeed broken!" Yuan Wuyou murmured, enveloping them in the power of the "sun."

“But it wasn’t the black dragon that bit off the tree roots, it was your master,” Jormungandr said expressionlessly.

The axe, which blotted out the sky, continued to strike a second and a third time, along with countless swords, relentlessly slashing at the fragile tree roots. The spring of Hvagmir trembled, and its base, which had been rooted for hundreds of thousands of years, began to shake, groan, and teeter on the brink of death.

Just as Odin altered the storyline of Norse mythology at the Well of Wisdom, the Old Ones replicated His actions, modifying His own storyline at another well and under another World Root!
Nidhogg, the black dragon, flew to the top of the roots and let out a maniacal roar of joy. In its view, fate was being fulfilled in an unprecedented way, and it, as the product of prophecy, was completing its own part of destiny. It was a satisfaction that no one else could understand, as if everything was on the right track and nothing could stop it at this moment, as if it were a divine mandate.

“Three roots, three springs, three wishes—what a coincidence! Perhaps this is just fate playing tricks on us.” The old self laughed self-deprecatingly, his laughter carried on the storm of the void, sending chills down one’s spine.

The Nine Realms obtained their initial destiny through the Well of Urd, weaving the threads of fate for the entire world. Odin, by hanging himself upside down, obtained the power of the Well of Wisdom, causing all realms to submit and prosper. Finally, he released the world-destroying black dragon into the Well of Hvaghmir, counting down to the end times.

Nidhogg, the black dragon, is the great vow made by the Nine Realms to the Fountain of Origin. It is the "end" placed within the "beginning". With the world's roots being severed by Nidhogg, the world will enter the end of its destruction, just like a cycle of reincarnation, which will begin and end with this.

"Your time has come; Ragnarok needs you."

The voice of the past descended from the heavens, and the black dragon bowed its head to the sky atop its roots, no longer questioning anything.

Its innate destiny is to hollow out the roots of the world, fulfilling the prophecy of Ragnarok. Now the Old Days have paved the way for its destiny, and this alone is enough for it to worship the Old Days.

“Whatever fate has in store for me, I will obey,” Nidhogg replied.

“You’re right, war has broken out in the outside world, but it’s not the divine war foretold in the prophecy, not the destiny that gods and giants should have… Someone is trying to steal the world and change fate, which is why I’m here.”

Nidhogg looked up, his gaze piercing through the wounds in the tree roots to see the void, and the many battles taking place within.

A war of the gods is taking place, but the two sides are not the gods and the giants, but a civil war between the old and new god races. Although the cold wave has indeed spread throughout the worlds, the giants have become prisoners. Everything is not what Ragnarok should have been like.

"Someone has stolen the power of the Well of Wisdom in an attempt to reverse fate? Is this why you have appeared? Are you the will of Ragnarok?" Based on its limited understanding, it naturally assumed this.

"Now I need you and me to set things right and send all those who try to steal destiny back to their rightful fate."

"I am at your service."

“But before that, you need a little upgrade,” Old Day said again.

(End of this chapter)