FBI: Chapter 122: Confrontation

After Dante decided to go to Asgard, he had already pictured several possible scenarios for Hela meeting Odin.

For example, she might step off the Bifrost and fight her way into Odin's temple.

Or Odin might lead an army to surround the Bifrost entrance.

Severity varied, but there was one constant…

Father and daughter would inevitably fight.

The reality, however, was not what Dante expected.

Despite Odin and Hela’s slightly confrontational words, the atmosphere was oddly calm and indifferent.

Dante poked Loki, who had just recovered from Hulk’s hug, and whispered,

“Is your father, the King of Gods, usually this amiable?”

“What? Amiable? Are you crazy?”

“Then look for yourself. When your father faces your sister, he’s calm on the surface, but his eyes show struggle and guilt. Obviously, the old man knows he was wrong to force his daughter to rebel back then, but now he can’t bring himself to back down, so he’s stuck.”

Dante spoke with a straight face, and in the context of this strangely peaceful scene, Loki almost believed him.

But Dante wasn’t pulling this entirely out of nowhere. Odin raising someone like Hela in his early years meant he wasn’t soft.

And yet, when she tried to usurp the throne, he didn’t kill her. He sealed her in Midgard, with a seal linked to his own life.

That clearly meant: I can’t bear to kill my daughter, but I have to act, so I’ll just send her far away and never see her again.

Once he died, the seal would break, and he wouldn’t have to face the awkwardness.

Looking at the slight unnaturalness on Odin’s face, Dante became even more certain.

Not only was the rough-and-tumble attitude inherited, but even the tsundere tendencies were passed down.

Hela’s current demeanor, though, was both unexpected and reasonable.

She wasn’t the same Princess obsessed solely with the throne, because Dante had brought her out of the seal early.

Thrown into an unfamiliar environment, she’d experienced unfamiliar emotions.

Her time with the Star Team, her siblings Thor and Loki, and countless ordinary humans had given this Goddess of conquest and death a touch of mortal color.

How much did she still want the throne now?

Not necessarily much.

This was more a pride battle between her and Odin.

Dante stepped forward, stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Hela, and took her hand.

As he’d said before, he would stand beside her, always the first person to her right.

Time to break this awkward standoff.

“Hey! Old man, my Airbus is parked outside your Bifrost. You Asgardians don’t check for illegal parking, do you?”

“Pfft!”

The Star Team burst out laughing.

Thor and Loki, now well-assimilated to Earth humor, were even more shocked.

Bro, are you seriously doing this?

“Mortal, I don’t know what you just said…” Odin finally turned his attention to Dante, and of course saw their clasped hands. His eye twitched. “But as King of Gods, I can forgive your verbal offense… Let go of her hand first!”

“Oh, sorry, sorry. I’m just used to holding it.”

Dante chuckled, released her hand, and winked at Hela.

See? Deadlock broken in one line.

Odin, watching them exchange looks, grew angrier.

“Hela, my eldest daughter, I don’t know how you broke the seal, but if you had stayed obediently in Midgard, I could have pretended not to know. Instead, you brought mortals and openly returned to Asgard through the Bifrost!”

Sharp-eyed old warmonger.

While he said “mortal,” his gaze had already measured every companion. None were easy to deal with.

Especially the green monster, and the man who had held his daughter’s hand.

Their power even surpassed the Midgard warriors who fought alongside Asgard in ancient times.

And his two sons seemed to have a good relationship with this sister they’d never met before…

“But Asgard is also my land. My power rises here. It’s the homeland’s recognition of me, and the authority I inherited from my mother.”

Hela’s tone was calm. As she spoke, she glanced at Frigga on the God Queen’s throne.

Though Frigga was Odin’s official wife and Thor’s mother, she was not his first wife.

Odin’s first wife was Jord, symbolizing primordial Earth. That was why Hela’s power surged upon touching Asgard’s soil.

“By the way, you don’t know yet, do you? Has the Aether appeared in Midgard?” Hela sneered. “Back then, the Aether caused us plenty of trouble.”

“Wait, what did you say? The Aether has appeared?”

Odin’s face darkened, worry in his single eye.

Seeing it, Hela shook her head.

“My father, are you… afraid? It seems that over time, your power has weakened to an unprecedented degree.”

“…Even so, what do you intend to do? Start a divine war of patricide to seize power?”

“Odin, what nonsense are you talking?”

Frigga cut him off, then sighed and looked at Hela.

“Daughter…”

“My dear God Queen Frigga, believe me, I have almost no interest in Asgard’s divine authority right now. If I truly wanted to usurp the throne, I’d already be sitting on it.”

Hela shook her head. She had always respected Frigga.

Frigga wasn’t her biological mother, but she had been kind.

Hela’s calm expression made Dante uneasy.

For the first time, he couldn’t read her thoughts.

He’d honestly expected her to seize the throne.

He was ready to move at any moment.

Then her next words left him frozen.

“I, Hela, Eldest Princess of Asgard, former Crown Prince, Commander of Asgard, Goddess of Death, hereby renounce my claim to the Asgardian throne. I will open Midgard as my New Gods’ Domain, and rule it jointly with my God Queen.”

“God Queen!?”

The words landed like a thunderclap.

Even Odin exclaimed.

Family ties might not outweigh divine politics, but they could not be abandoned.

Conflicts between father and daughter could fade with time.

Even weakened, Odin was still an All Father-tier powerhouse. But after hearing the last half of her sentence, seals and thrones no longer mattered to him.

Only one thought remained: find the pig rooting around in his two-thousand-year-old cabbage and turn it into stew.

Hela had been his first child, and the one most like him.

Even her sealing had been a bid for her to repent.

If she had, he would have released her instantly. She would still have been Crown Prince.

But they were too alike. Their flaws were the same, so neither would yield.

Now it wasn’t about yielding…

His daughter was about to be abducted by some unknown man. What about his dignity then?

“The God Queen you chose… who is she? A native god of Midgard? A prince from some realm?”

“It’s him.”

Hela pointed straight at Dante.

He sidestepped left, then right. Her finger followed him.

Odin’s divine might erupted.

“You mortal! How dare you abduct my eldest daughter!”

Dante: Wow, you guys switch conflicts fast.

He accepted the title readily enough, but Hela’s timing was reckless.

Wouldn’t it have been better to tell her parents privately?

Because regardless of demeanor, when fathers meet their son-in-law, they’re always thinking about killing the bastard.

And here, the father-in-law was an All Father-tier being, Lord of Asgard.

In his youth, he could have squeezed Thanos until he burst.

Refuse a two-meter-tall beautiful royal sister?

What, did Dante’s brain fall into the Pacific?

“Uh, Hela, I know about our feelings, but I didn’t expect you to be this eager…”

“Are you going to go back on your word? Break your vow?” Her eyes went cold, the Greed Orange Light flaring. “No, I must have you.”

“Hela, calm down, I’m not going back on my word!” Dante saw the Orange Light spiraling out of control and instantly shifted into his Green Lantern form, binding her arm with threads of Willpower Light. “But you also have to consider the timing!If your father wasn't King of Gods, maintaining his dignity, he'd have jumped down here to have a duel with me already.”

“It’s fine, I can protect you.”

“I’m not saying I’d chicken out. But don’t forget why we came to Asgard.”

Dante smiled, shook his head, and looked at Odin.

“You should have noticed Hela is possessed by a power called the Greed Orange Light, caused by contact with Mammon’s blood.”

“Mammon’s blood?”

Odin’s face instantly grew serious. His brow furrowed.

He stood and walked toward the temple interior.

“Thor, Loki, entertain your friends. Daughter, and you, mortal, come with me.”

(To be continued.)