Y’aahl smiled, then turned into a serpent that coiled around Loki’s body, threatening to strike him with a venomous bite—but Loki vanished instantly.

  “Ssssssss… you can’t escape my eyes, bargain-bin god… ssss,” Y’aahl hissed as he searched for Loki, when suddenly dozens of mongooses appeared in front of the Raven God—still in serpent form.

  The mongooses rose up and threw themselves at the Raven God, biting him.

  “In the animal kingdom, there ain’t a better snake-killer than mongooses!” Loki shouted. He had turned into one of the mongooses, and with illusion tricks the Raven God couldn’t detect him—or so Y’aahl believed.

  In that moment, Y’aahl became a gigantic bear, grabbed the real mongoose with one claw, and smashed it with the other.

  Loki went flying to the far end of the improvised coliseum and slammed into the wall, shattering it and bringing that section of the arena down in a collapse.

  “What… are they even supposed to be doing?” Menrva asked, baffled.

  Y’aahl, still a bear, charged toward Loki-the-mongoose as he tried to stand. But just as the god tried to crush him with a paw, Loki turned into a fly and slipped away, landing on the bear’s neck and stinging it. Y’aahl roared in pain.

  “It looks like I'm watching animals fighting in a traveling show,” Ana remarked, confused.

  Just as Loki tried to escape the bear’s hide, he realized his movement was disabled. When he looked closer, he saw he was stuck in a web—and Y’aahl had turned into a massive venomous spider.

  Thor and the others, now out of the water, stared in disbelief at a fight between two beings who could become anything their imagination produced.

  “So that’s what you meant by a trickster-versus-trickster fight?” the thunder god asked, stunned.

  Loki couldn’t move while Y’aahl, in spider form, began wrapping him in webbing and prepared to bite.

  But Loki, using tiny jaws, bit first—right between the eyes—forcing the spider to recoil. The dark god started chewing through the webbing until he broke free, just as Y’aahl tried to strike again.

  Yet the instant Y’aahl bit Loki, Loki had turned into a pig in midair.

  “Shame pigs are immune to your venom,” the dark god said, dropping toward the ground with Y’aahl still in spider form and slamming down on him.

  But just as Loki tried to press harder with his weight, Y’aahl—turning into a moose—lifted him with an antler and tried to smash him into one of the arena walls.

  Then Loki turned into a hippopotamus, and the impact snapped one of Y’aahl’s antlers. Loki then clamped down and bit Y’aahl’s head with brutal force, inflicting heavy damage.

  As Loki started to think he had won, Y’aahl appeared as an enormous, gigantic black raven, with a beak painted red and absurdly long. His wings were dark as night, and a mass of fire-and-ice energy radiated from his body.

  “Alright, outsider. Enough games,” the gigantic raven said—still roughly Loki’s size, even though Loki was a massive hippo.

  Loki then took the form of a gray eight-legged horse with eyes red as sunset. The horse-god stamped, snorted, and bristled with rage and focus.

  “Look, Epona— you’ve got a little brother now,” Ana said mockingly at Loki’s transformation. Menrva couldn’t help it—she started laughing. The horse goddess only pouted in irritation.

  “Before we continue, I’d like to know your name, sorcerer,” Y’aahl asked the Norse god.

  “My name is Loki, the most powerful god of Asgard,” Loki replied, which earned immediate protests from Thor and the others.

  “And they call me Y’aahl,” the Haida high god answered. “It simply means: ‘raven.’ I’m sorry to tell you that in this form, I can see all your illusions and tricks. You won’t fool me again by turning into a woman.”

  “Seriously? You need a transformation for that? Y’all turned out weaker than I thought,” Loki laughed—though his laughter came out as neighing.

  “Fine. Let’s see how you escape my strongest technique now,” Y’aahl said, spreading his wings and making a sun and a moon appear behind him again. The two celestial bodies shot toward the dark Norse god at terrifying speed.

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  “Damn it… that idiot won’t be able to withstand that,” Menrva said nervously, feeling the sheer magnitude of the energy.

  “Still,” Ana added, “Loki looks pretty relaxed.”

  Epona glanced at the Norse gods—they also looked strangely calm.

  “Maybe that horse has some secret,” the goddess thought.

  “Aren’t you going to move?” Y’aahl continued. “If you teleport, I’ll know exactly where you’ll appear and I’ll destroy you,” the Raven God explained.

  But Loki didn’t answer—he only kept neighing.

  “Goodbye, Loki!” Y’aahl shouted as he invoked his technique:

  “Kúng isgyáan Juuyáay sqet gaulda? (Explosive collision of the sun and the moon)!”

  The sun and moon positioned themselves beside Loki and collided, triggering a colossal explosion that blasted every member of Orniskem backward from the shockwave, while the lake water churned violently.

  “You didn’t teleport or use an illusion to escape— I must congratulate your audacity. Though I can feel your energy vanish… what a shame!” Y’aahl shouted, celebrating his victory as the fire-and-ice smoke cleared, leaving only a grotesque crater in the ground.

  Then the Raven God heard a neigh right beside him. When he turned, Loki—still in horse form—was right behind him, his head leaning over Y’aahl’s shoulder.

  “That technique of yours is really powerful,” Loki said.

  Y’aahl reflexively launched himself into the air and glared down at Loki.

  “How did you escape?” he demanded, furious.

  “This horse is called Sleipnir. He’s the fastest being in all of Asgard—and he’s Father Odin’s mount,” Loki replied.

  Loki vanished from Y’aahl’s sight and reappeared behind him; with his four front hooves, he struck the raven and knocked him out of the sky.

  “Incredible… he isn’t teleporting,” Ana said, shocked—remembering her own fight with Loki.

  “Just like he said—he’s the fastest being in Asgard right now,” Thor said, as he and the other Norse gods regrouped with Orniskem. Freyr, for his part, made his golden ship disappear.

  “In fact, right now, his speed in this area beats teleportation by a mile,” Tyr added, making a disgusted face.

  “That bastard’s always got some trick up his sleeve,” he muttered.

  Loki fell like a meteor from the sky, still in horse form, and slammed his front hooves onto Y’aahl’s body, pounding him as he shouted:

  “Hestaspor Sleipnis (Sleipnir's stomp)!”

  Y’aahl managed to teleport away from the barrage, but Loki—far faster—read exactly where he would reappear and moved there first.

  When the Raven God appeared, Loki kicked him with all four back legs, launching him into the now-ruined coliseum debris.

  The entire arena fell silent again. Y’aahl emerged from the rubble—but in human form now—drawing a deep breath. Seeing that, Loki canceled his horse form and returned to normal.

  “I surrender. My legs are broken and I can’t get up,” the Raven God said as he tried to rise, pushing rubble off himself.

  “Oh no! That’s terrible!” Loki shouted, rushing over to inspect the Raven God’s injuries.

  But the instant Loki got close, Y’aahl stabbed him with a hand wrapped in energy.

  “Unbelievable that you fell for a trick that pathetic,” Y’aahl said.

  “What the hell was Loki thinking, doing that?” Epona asked, frustrated.

  But then Loki’s image faded. It was only an illusion—so the Raven God suddenly felt the mistletoe staff pierce his heart again, as Loki appeared standing over him.

  “Did you really expect to fool the god of lies with something that obvious?” Loki asked the dying god.

  Loki began squeezing the staff tighter and tighter to inflict intense pain on Y’aahl, but Ana appeared behind Loki and stopped the staff.

  “Enough, Loki. He’s defeated,” she said, staring him down with challenging eyes.

  “Oh, but when you riddled me with your swords—that was fine?” the god of lies shot back. Ana gave a small gesture of denial.

  “No. It wasn’t. And I apologize for it,” the goddess replied.

  “Raven man,” Ana said to Y’aahl, “we don’t intend to take your life. But we came to rescue our friends, and we will not accept a refusal from you or yours.”

  Y’aahl began to laugh softly, and with his voice fading he said, “Sorry… but you won’t be leaving here.”

  “Seems you don’t understand your position, crow,” Loki said mockingly. “Right now, the only thing stopping me from killing you is this girl’s beauty.”

  At that moment, Thor, Tyr, Freyr, and Freyja arrived beside Ana and Loki and saw the defeated Raven God. After posturing as the strongest god, he was there—completely beaten.

  “Tell us, Y’aahl,” Thor said, “we won the festival, right?”

  Y’aahl finally managed to sit down. His wounds weren’t healing and he was in terrible shape. His breathing was slow and deep.

  “You are the winners of the Potlatch. And that’s why you can’t leave until we celebrate your victory,” the Haida god said—and he removed the raven mask and held it out to Thor.

  “Like you, we are warriors, and we accept our defeat with honor. Now you are the new masters and lords of Haida Gwaii, and we will be your slaves.” With that, the Raven God bowed low before them.

  “Is this another deception?” Ana asked, still uncertain.

  Thor took the raven mask and put it on his own head after removing his helmet.

  “Look! I’m one of my father’s crows!” he shouted, thrilled, while everyone else—especially Freyja—watched him with secondhand embarrassment.

  Without the mask, Y’aahl looked like an old man with long gray hair and a wrinkled face. He could easily be over ten thousand years old. Orniskem realized how long-lived the kings of Vinland could be—and that perhaps this was why they might not be as powerful as in their youth.

  “No doubt… if that crow were younger, he would’ve beaten me without question,” Loki thought nervously.

  “I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself, great king of the Haida,” Y’aahl said, still bowed. But then Thor removed the mask and handed it back.

  “Sorry, old man, but I ain’t interested in your kingdom. Like I told your companion, we just wanted to get stronger—and thanks to you, we did,” the thunder god said.

  “But for a warrior people, to be forgiven is a great affront!” Y’aahl shouted, furious.

  “What do ya purrpose?” Freyja said. “We want a real festival in our honor—lots of food and drink, meow—and a luxury stay in meow town, and we’ll take it as tribute to us.”

  “It’s been months since I ate a proper bite of meat,” Tyr said, licking his lips.

  “I think that’s a wonderful idea, little sister ?,” Freyr added.

  “Very… well. I’ll see what we can do for our victors,” Y’aahl replied.

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  The next part will be released tomorrow.