Cassiel…
Standing on the surface of that desolate planet, with Raum’s soul grasped firmly in his hand, he summoned a diamond and placed the soul within it. This way, he could keep it safe from the Reapers before they could have a chance to feast on it.
“Forgive me brother. I do intend to return your soul to you, but I cannot have you diverting this world from the set path. For now, rest in our sister’s arms until events reach their conclusion…,” he muttered to the crystallized soul as it vanished and found its way into the silver city, where it would be safe.
He looked around, and already a swarm of Reapers had gathered around him, with their arms wrapping around Cassiel and their mouths frothing as they started biting the air where Raum’s soul was as the remains of his spiritual energy was consumed by them.
For all his power, for all his strength, not even he could do anything about the Reapers. He could not even try to push them off of him as they scrambled to cannibalize the energy left behind from a soul ripped from its vessel.
Their disgusting tongues traced across the surface of his hand and wrist, lapping up anything that they could before they returned to The Empty.
Even after they had left, could still feel their uncomfortable presence.
The fate of all humans at the end of their lives is to become Reapers, dead souls that cannibalize their own and feast on the souls of all manner of creatures, even the gods.
No such thing can harm them, not even the primordials, yet they have no interest in the living, only the dead.
In a reality with no true afterlife where souls could pass on and live in peace, such creatures stand at the top of all beings in creation.
Perhaps once Ruvick had achieved his goal, the existence of Reapers would be purged from creation entirely.
Musing to himself, he turned around as he was about to return to his throne in the silver city.
Yet before he could take even a single step forward, a mass of energy began to hurtle towards him and crashed on the ground in front of him.
A bone spear blocked his path only to be picked back up by its owner and pointed at his chest.
“Hello there Reyna. How have you been?” Cassiel asked with a kindly tone as he smiled at the woman who stood before him.
“Be silent you bastard,” she said with iron in her voice as she stared him down.
“Oh, but it really is good to see you again Reyna. It has been far too long since I’ve seen the little girl that Gabriel had blessed so long ago.”
With an expression of disgust on her face, she spit upon the ground where he stood and said, “Enough with that wretched fake kindness, O so called ‘Lord of Virtue’.”
“Hmm...very well. I assume you only came here for one thing, yes? The very same reason as our many other interactions? To avenge your parents, your friends, and anyone else I had killed?”
Reyna said nothing but narrowed her eyes as she continued glaring at him.
“You must be aware that it is not yet time for either of us to die just yet. We have yet to reach the true conclusion of this Final Age, of which both of us will be present.”
Reyna then tilted her head back as if to look down on him as she said, “I don’t care.”
Cassiel sighed and smiled as he said, “Very well. I can spare some time to entertain you today.”
Queen Hylla…
The conclusion of the battle between Camilla and Artemis had since shaped the atmosphere of the contest as well as the future of her kingdom.
Everyone present had witnessed the infinite destruction of all time and reality within the battlefield between the two combatants, with Camilla walking through it as if it were nothing to her.
It should have been more than be clear that Hylla’s rule would not last long in the face of her strength and she knew it. Word had since reached her from her advisers and generals that they are already anticipating the eventuality of Camilla gathering supporters to her cause and laying siege to New Athens. Yet even if she didn’t gain any allies, there was no doubt that Camilla would march her way into the throne room with no one to stop her.
She bears the wings of platinum, has since obtained Ichor Doru, and displayed power that may yet eclipse the strongest warriors known to the world.
She is undoubtedly the single greatest threat to her hold on the throne and there was next to nothing she could do about it.
She can’t even send anyone to assassinate her in her comatose state with her godmother Moyako and Raum the Raven watching over her at all hours of the day.
At her side, Arobynn Aphstadd also appeared more and more nervous the longer the contest continued, especially in regards to the man Marcus Wright. His power was very rapidly ascending to something far beyond what he could reasonably control and he was unaware of how to deal with such a problem.
Of the few rulers that remained in the ruler’s box, watching over the battles from on high, only Rohen and the Ambassador of the SUK were still around. King Razel Aldia and the Orc King had still not rejoined them as they preferred their own company.
Their absence did not bother her as she did not expect them to plot against her in anyway as the former was too involved with the needs of his people while the latter was too focused on witnessing the man Julian receive his just punishment for assaulting his daughter.
What did bother her, however, was the rapid change in Rohen’s behavior after Frosk had lost his battle against Camilla.
He had seemed resentful and angry before, but now his expression was more focused and calm. It almost looked as if he was waiting for something specific to happen so as to draw a conclusion and plan on top of it. As if he were expecting events to fall into place in his favor.
She knew not what had brought about such a change in his behavior, or for what reason, but she wanted to know why.
In the meantime, there was a person of interest that she was focused on.
The man Julian Romano.
At the very beginning of this contest, he had provoked Marcus Wright as it was obvious he had a personal history with the man. He may even have information that pertained to the man that could be useful in determining Marcus’s motivations and goals for this world. In the short time he has been in this world, he was very quickly collecting powerful individuals to his side, both in terms of combat prowess and political importance.
In that sense, Julian was uniquely valuable and she wanted to have such an ally on her side.
If he survived whatever punishment Marcus had in store for him that is…
Julian…
The very moment his name was called and he stepped onto the floor of the arena, he was met with insults and various objects thrown at him as the audience booed him and cheered for Heimdall to butcher him.
He tried to ignore them but was suddenly hit in the side of the head with a brick.
Grunting in pain, he pulled out his gun and pointed in the direction of where the brick was thrown and shouted, “You son of a bitch! I’ll kill you!”
Yet as he tried to pull the trigger, he felt his arm lose feeling and flop down to his side.
He stared at it in shock and confusion as it happened so suddenly.
“What the-” he tried to say just as a rotten apple exploded against his shoulder.
Did Marcus really look that far ahead to keep me from trying to hurt anyone else when he placed that curse on me?
He grit his teeth in irritation as he tried to ignore the audience and walked closer to his opponent.
When he reached him, he looked up at the towering man that was the god Heimdall, and snickered.
Seeing this, Heimdall looked down on him as he asked, “Do you find me amusing?”
“In my world, I grew up watching films with an actor that depicts you as a black man. I just find it funny to see you like this in contrast to that.”
Heimdall was very unlike the movie’s depiction of him as he had pale skin, gold eyes, a helmet with the horns of a ram, a wolf cloak, leather armor and grieves, and a massive golden sword held in his right hand.
On the flat of the blade near the guard, the word ‘Asgard’ was engraved with rays of light stretching from it to the very tip of the blade. The more Julian looked at it, he noticed the engraved rays shift on its surface.
From what little Julian knew of Norse mythology, he knew that the sword’s name was Hofud.
The sword itself was far longer than a normal sword, but otherwise was designed to look like a normal Viking blade. The Gjallarhorn as well, rested on his hip, tied to it by a string.
“Can’t say I’ve ever fought a god before. This should be interesting,” he said.
“This will be a bothersome battle, but I intend to crush you completely into a bloody stain,” Heimdall said as he looked up at the announcers as they nodded and called for the start of the match.
Soon after, the spacial battlefield unfolded around them and before a word could be said, Heimdall raised his sword arm and brought it down swiftly upon Julian’s skull.
Before it could reach him however, it seemed to stop in place an inch away from him, slowing down as the distance between himself and the blade was expanding on such an infinitesimally small scale but getting no closer to reaching him.
Heimdall raised an eyebrow but did not appear alarmed in the slightest as he said, “Interesting.”
Before he could launch another attack, Julian activated his soul link ring and connected his soul with Heimdall’s as the output between the two were added together and then split evenly.
He then pulled out two Black Iron knuckleduster blades with shards of the Bloodletter sword fitted in both and threw a punch at the god only for him to effortlessly evade and swing his sword once more.
But once again, as Julian expected, it stopped short of decapitating him as it hovered a mere inch away from his neck.
“I understand it now…,” Heimdall muttered as his arm moved and Julian’s vision vanished in an instant.
W-What…? What just happened?
Calling on the Bloodletter’s power to heal him, his vision returned as he realized that he had been decapitated.
“How did you-?” he tried to ask but Heimdall did not answer as he raised his sword high, with the tip faced down on him as he lay sprawled on the ground, and drove it deep into his chest. The blade easily passed through his body and anchored him to the ground.
“I am not obligated to answer you, nor explain how my power is able to bypass that meek and pathetic defense you have. Now writhe in pain and die,” he said as he twisted the blade still buried in his chest and a crushing weight slammed into him, flattening his body into paste.
As he struggled to reform his body from being crushed, he used the talisman on his ear to figure out how Hofud was able to bypass the rune formula that controls his spacial expansion defense.
Perhaps it was due to the nature of the Bifrost that was a part of Asgard that connected the nine realms together. It was a bridge that stretched through space to connect worlds. If travel between the two points in the Bifrost was instantaneous, then perhaps that rendered Julian’s rune formula powerless against it.
But it did not explain how Heimdall was able to use it at will as he was known only as the guardian of the Bifrost, not the source of it.
Maybe the association of Heimdall and the Bifrost meant that the idea of the two being separate entities was not commonly shared in people’s unconscious mind.
If that were the case, then that association could be seen as the people’s manifested interpretation of Heimdall and become a part of his power.
If that is indeed the case, then there was no way for him to fight against this god under normal circumstances.
He needed to do something new.
While Hofud was still buried in his chest to keep him from regenerating fully and pinned to the ground, he teleported away to try and recover only to be met by Heimdall’s blade once more as it swept through his chest and cleaved him in two.
S-So fast! Fuck! I teleported over fifty million miles away from him! How did he reach me so fast? No, how did he immediately know where to hit me?
As he was struggling to understand why, another memory of Heimdall’s power came to mind, the one that talked about how his eyes could see everything, everywhere, all at once.
No matter where Julian tried to teleport to, Heimdall would always be able to see it.
Goddammit!
If Heimdall was able to weaponize a manifested Bifrost as part of his power, then that meant that his potential for destruction was limitless if the distance between himself and any point could be crossed instantaneously.
Even if Julian somehow managed to match Heimdall’s basic combat speed and match him blow for blow, he had no way to counter the Bifrost.
One thing, however, was very clear about how his power worked.
It did not augment Heimdall’s movement speed, but rather acted as a slingshot of sorts, using his own body and his sword as the projectile as it passes long the path he creates with the Bifrost.
Heimdall’s basic movement speed was only as fast as his actual body could allow him to be, which meant that Julian would need to anticipate the path that Heimdall would take before he acted upon it to avoid each attack.
I guess its time to pull out that other weapon Kayron gave me…, he thought as he regenerated fully and held out his right hand as he grabbed the air.
Before Heimdall’s sword could split him down once more, it was stopped short as it collided with the new weapon Julian had summoned.
The god’s eyes widened in shock as Hofud was halted by what appeared to be a blade made of reflective, mirror-like glass.
“With this weapon, the flow of this battle will change in MY favor,” he said confidently as he effortlessly pushed back against him.
Queen Hylla…
As she, Arobynn, Rohen, and the SUK Ambassador were watching Julian’s battle play out, she was originally unimpressed by his abilities as Heimdall made a mockery of his defensive capabilities.
However, the moment that he pulled out that unusual sword, the SUK Ambassador stood up very suddenly and shouted, “IMPOSSIBLE!”
His sudden outburst surprised everyone present, causing Arobynn to jump in his seat and Rohen to look towards the man as he asked, “I ask that you elaborate as to why you are reacting in such an uncouth manner.”
Not even bothering to look any of them in the eyes as he spoke, his arms appeared to tremble with rage as he gripped the railing of the ruler’s box and stared at the battle fiercely.
He said, “That, is Sceawere, the Mirror Blade of my land’s founder! It is the sacred weapon of our esteemed founder Ryan Newsom, who had brought our lords together and established the state of the Southern Union of Kingdoms!”
“If that is true, then what is this man Julian doing with such a weapon?” Rohen asked, to which Hylla was also curious.
“The blade had been stolen when the SUK was occupied by Mordran’s forces during the war. We assumed it had been lost forever when Mordran fell and there was no mention of its whereabouts but…its in this man’s possession!” the Ambassador explained in his fit of rage.
His grip on the railing tightened even further until it was crushed between his fingers and he ripped it off as he raised his fist into the air and shouted, “HEIMDALL! KILL THAT UNWORTHY BASTARD AND RIP THAT BLADE FROM HIS HANDS!”