Baldr's decapitated body, soaked in golden divine blood, was carefully escorted back to Ásgarðr. When it was placed in the hall of the Golden Palace, the entire divine realm was shrouded in unprecedented sorrow and deathly silence.
Frigg, once a graceful and magnificent queen, threw herself onto the body of her beloved son. Her wails were soundless, only the violent trembling of her shoulders and the despair that seemed to drain the source of life from her, her world extinguished with Baldr's light.
Freyr saw the cold corpse, and especially thinking of the unspeakable secret connection behind the tragedy, he nearly staggered, letting out a groan like a wounded beast, his tears mingling with endless remorse.
Týr stood aside in despair, having just returned from Vanaheimr. In his mind remained only the horrifying scene—Baldr's head flying off, his eyes stunned and unbelieving, and the grim image of Hödr licking the blood.
His soul seemed hollowed out, leaving only infinite cold and self-flagellation.
Loki approached Týr and said in a tone that feigned sympathy but was actually warm:
"How terrible. How sad. You killed your own brother."
Each word was like a poisoned ice pick, stabbing into Týr's heart.
And the undisguised, twisted pleasure on his face filled these words with the greatest irony.
Odin, the Father of the Gods, stared at Baldr's body with his one eye and walked past the grief-stricken Frigg and the catatonic Týr.
The wrinkles on his face seemed to have deepened further.
He did not roar, did not question, but left a decree of the God-King:
"Do not take revenge on Týr."
However, this commandment of forgiveness, heard by the deeply guilty Týr, was more painful than any punishment.
He would rather be tortured than exiled, bearing the sin of fratricide without any judgment or relief.
Odin's silence and 'protection' became the harshest punishment for him.
Frigg seized the last straw in her overwhelming grief.
She sent Hermóðr, the swiftest messenger of the gods, to ride Odin's eight-legged steed Sleipnir to the underworld, hoping to retrieve Baldr's soul and return light to the world.
With faint hope, the gods began preparations for Baldr's funeral.
As Baldr's body was solemnly carried to the magnificent bier prepared for him, his wife Nanna, a gentle and devoted goddess, witnessed the tragic severing of her husband's head on public display.
Intense pain instantly broke her, and her heart leaped from her chest from unbearable sorrow!
She died on the spot, collapsing on the pyre, following her husband.
Before the funeral even began, another spark of a soul appeared.
These successive blows made the fierce Thor unbearable. He gripped Mjölnir, his knuckles white with force, and anger flashed in his eyes like thunder:
"This chain of events is truly unbearable!"
He roared, his voice like muffled thunder.
"I'm going to kill a couple of people right now to get out of this suffocation. Just wait and see."
He needed to vent, he needed to let any unfortunate being bear the anger and sorrow he had nowhere to put.
However, the gods did not know that the moment Baldr's breath ceased, Hades, far away in the underworld of Chaos, had already quietly taken Baldr's pure soul through 'Narcissus'.
Baldr's soul never set foot in the Norse underworld.
Therefore, when the faithful Hermóðr finally arrived in the underworld after nine days and nights of sleepless riding, there was no trace of Baldr here.
Hermóðr searched every place where the dead gathered, asked every shade he met, and the answer was unanimous:
"Baldr is not here."
In the end, Hermóðr could only return fruitlessly with this desperate news.
When Hermóðr brought back the final message that 'Baldr is not in the underworld and cannot be resurrected', the last hope was completely shattered.
Hödr, who had been secretly watching everything, heard the news and a strange smile appeared on her face.
Her plan had been executed in the most thorough way.
Just as the gods were sinking into even greater despair, Hödr moved.
She rushed towards Týr, who was still immersed in a powerful shock and in a daze, and drew Tyrfing from his belt!
Before the gods could react, Hödr had already rushed to Baldr's body.
She lovingly 'looked' at her brother's pale face, and then, without hesitation, plunged the sharp Tyrfing into her own heart.
"Brother... We... finally... together..." she murmured, black blood flowing from the corners of her mouth, falling into the golden pool of blood, darkness and Baldr's light, in death, twistedly completing the 'union' she had so craved.
Seeing Hödr's self-destruction and hearing the final news that Baldr would never be resurrected, the threads of reason and responsibility that had been tightly coiled in Týr's heart completely snapped.
Overwhelming shame, endless remorse, and heavy guilt overwhelmed him like a huge wave.
He lost all meaning in life.
He staggered over and took the magical sword, Tyrfing, stained with the blood of brother and sister, from Hödr's still-warm hand.
Without the slightest hesitation, he imitated Hödr and drew the blade across his own neck.
"I... my sin is unforgivable..." he said softly, and then drew deeply.
Týr, the god of justice and oaths, fell and collapsed at the scene of the tragedy caused by his own hands.
The magical sword Tyrfing, forged by Narcissus (Hades), gifted by Freyr, and ultimately worn by Týr, first indirectly led to Baldr's death in a short time, and then directly drank the lives of Hödr and Týr, fulfilling its curse of 'drinking blood when drawn and eventually biting its master', achieving a cruel 'triple kill'.
Ásgarðr lost four gods in a single day (Baldr, Nanna, Hödr, Týr), and three of them died so tragically and interconnectedly.
The glorious Golden Palace was shrouded in endless sorrow and the shadow of death, and the steps of Ragnarök were already clearly audible, like a death knell sounding in the hearts of every surviving god.
The disappearance of the light was merely the prelude to this catastrophe.
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