Rowe was clad in dragon leather armor—more precisely, armor made from fire dragon hide. Naturally, this rendered him largely immune to flames.
Previously, due to a size mismatch, he had resorted to tying parts of the armor together with ordinary rope. During the recent blaze, those ropes had predictably burned away.
Adjusting the now perfectly fitting armor, Rowe found that it hugged his body just right. It seemed his current height was comparable to that of Haldo, somewhere between 1.9 and 2 meters tall—decent for an Asgardian male.
His musculature was now well-defined. He sported eight-pack abs and a broad, sculpted chest—worthy of comparison to Captain America. Rowe had always possessed decent musculature, but his former small frame had obscured his physique beneath clothing. Now, his build was tall, powerful, and unmistakable.
Though he was still no match for colossal beings like Skorch, Rowe was more than satisfied with his current form.
What he'd had before felt too... underdeveloped.
But something suddenly struck him.
Wait… why did the terrain around him look so different?
Before he had fallen asleep, he clearly remembered this place as a stone platform halfway up a mountain. Now it was a small peak unto itself, riddled with craters and upheavals.
Had he been asleep for thousands of years, and the landscape changed with the passing of time?
No way... that couldn't be.
The thought sent a shiver down his spine.
Just then, a buzzing sound reached him as Shilute darted out from the nearby room.
Only now did Rowe realize that Shilute had been scavenging for food nearby. That alone suggested it hadn't been millennia—but it had certainly been much longer than the ten days or so he'd expected.
This gave him a bit of a headache.
Was he going to be considered missing?
Whatever. If things got complicated, he could always reveal the existence of this spatial rift. His talent fusion was complete, and there was no urgent need to return to the outside world.
"How are you feeling?" Rowe crouched to examine Shilute's arms.
"Buzz-buzz." Despite the cracks and abrasions all over his limbs, Shilute didn't seem to feel pain. It appeared his physiology had taken on more rock puppet-like characteristics.
It was nighttime, and Rowe activated a light spell to inspect more closely. Under the glow, he noticed that Shilute had grown—just a little, but noticeably.
Considering the ravaged terrain nearby, Rowe surmised that Shilute might have been feeding on stones to grow. The process was clearly slower than consuming gemstones, but it seemed effective nonetheless.
"It's been rough for you while I was out. Once we're back, I'll treat you to a proper feast," Rowe said, gently patting Shilute's head.
"Buzz!" Shilute jumped up in delight.
Rowe turned his attention to the remains of the Kronan chieftain—more rubble than body, at this point.
He rifled through the debris. Amidst the ruined armor and discarded weapons were a few small objects. Using the Sanctuary's identification system, he determined they were all third-tier or lower artifacts. Without hesitation, he donated them, earning a few hundred piety points.
Then something caught his eye.
A blood-red crystal gleamed amid the rocks.
Rowe picked it up and scanned it with the Sanctuary.
[Blood of the Mountains Substitute: 81%]
[Item Level: Tier 4]
[Donation Yield: 809 Piety]
So it was that kind of item. Higher quality than what he had used during his talent fusion. This confirmed that the chieftain had been an unusually powerful Kronan.
An idea struck him, and he brought the crystal to Shilute.
"Buzz…" Shilute shook his head vigorously, face contorted in revulsion—as if Rowe were offering him something foul.
"You don't like it?"
"Buzz." Shilute nodded to confirm.
Rowe also noted that Shilute had avoided consuming any of the rubble from fallen Kronans. It seemed, to him, the remains of the Kronans were considered corpses—not edible stones.
Rowe tucked away the blood crystal and continued scavenging the other bodies.
Unlike the chieftain, none of the others carried any high-level materials. Their weapons and armor were poor, many rated as zero-tier—worthless.
In truth, the Kronan race wasn't weak by nature. It was just that the Kronans here in Vanaheim were a lesser branch.
Their true stronghold was Ria—a name that resonated in Rowe's memory. Not just in this life, but his past one. He remembered it from the Thor movies, where Ria had been mentioned in passing. Some discussion among fans at the time had burned the name into his mind.
In the end, the only other item of value was a letter.
While Rowe's grasp of the Kronan language wasn't complete, he could parse most of it.
The letter was filled with chronological references. Piecing them together, he concluded that he had been asleep for roughly a year.
But what a year it had been.
Just before the Festival of the Hunt, Asgard had dealt a crushing defeat to Jotunheim. Shortly after, the Frost Giants had formed an alliance with the trolls.
Instead of striking back at Asgard, the alliance directed its fury toward the Vanir—the sister race of the Aesir.
They discovered a hidden spatial rift and launched a full-scale assault deep into Vanir territory. The attack had been devastating: the Vanir king was slain, and the Nine Realms were thrown into disarray.
Asgard immediately deployed reinforcements. War engulfed Vanaheim.
This letter, in fact, was a call to arms from the Kronan tribes—an attempt to unify their scattered people and seize power amidst the chaos.
Even the king was dead. The Vanir were on the brink of collapse…
Rowe frowned at the implications.
But there was a silver lining: with such widespread turmoil, his absence may have gone unnoticed.
"Shilute, let's go."
He called for his companion and departed the cavern.
Thunder Mountain was nearly lifeless now, and it would take several days on foot to reach the nearby forests.
When he finally arrived at the forest's edge, Rowe wasted no time catching a wild boar. He hadn't eaten in a year, and even though it had merely been sleep, his hunger was ferocious.
He kicked the boar to death and hoisted it toward a riverbank, drawing the Blade of Rowe from his waist to begin butchering.
The dagger, forged of Uru steel, sliced through the animal with the ease of a hot knife through butter. In no time, the meat was ready to cook.
Gazing at a particularly fatty piece, Rowe had an idea. He placed it on his palm.
"Fwoosh!"
A jet of flame surged from his hand.
Too late. The pork was scorched black.
With a sigh, he grabbed another slice and tried again, this time releasing the divine flame more carefully.
Still too hot. Another scorched mess.
Despite it being merely first-order divine flame, its temperature exceeded thousands of degrees at peak—likely nearing the temperature of the sun's surface, which was only around 5,700°C.
After dozens of tries and wasting half the boar, Rowe finally got the hang of it. He managed to roast a piece of pork that was edible, if not exactly delicious.
But to him, it tasted like the best thing in the Nine Realms.
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