To enter the Fourth Hanging, Elias didn't use a portal. He used [Fracture-Sight].
He looked at the bruised membrane of the Zero Layer and saw a "seam"—a metaphysical weak point where the Norse Pantheon had anchored their realm to the World Tree. He didn't knock; he reached out with his garnet-colored hand and peeled the reality open like old parchment.
The transition was violent. One moment, they were in the cold silence of the Void; the next, they were standing on a bridge of shimmering, solid light that vibrated with the sound of a thousand war drums.
[Location: The Bifrost (Fourth Hanging)]
[Environmental Status: Divine Static]
[Status: Your presence is a 'System Virus'. The realm is actively trying to eject you.**]
"The air... it smells like ozone and mead," Sarah gasped, squinting against the blinding prismatic glow of the bridge.
"Don't look at the light," Elias warned. His crimson eyes were fixed on the far end of the bridge, where a colossal gate of gold and ash-wood stood. "It's not light. It's a high-frequency filter. It burns anyone without a 'Warrior's Spark.'"
[Synchronization Rate: 10.2%]
[Identity Integrity: 69%]
[Identity Loss: Memory of your first teacher's name – DELETED.]
Elias didn't flinch at the loss. The "Void-Sovereign" within him was already calculating the structural integrity of the gate.
"HALT."
The sound was like two tectonic plates grinding together. Standing at the gate was a figure clad in white-gold armor that seemed to be made of frozen lightning. He held a horn in one hand and a sword that bled blue fire in the other.
[Entity Identified: Heimdall (The Watcher of the Fourth Hanging)]
"No Echo, no Ghost, and no Living Soul passes this gate without the All-Father's summons," Heimdall spoke, his eyes—two spinning galaxies—focusing on Elias. He paused, his expression shifting from stoicism to utter confusion. "You... I cannot see you. My sight, which spans the Seven Hangings, slides off you like rain off a raven's wing."
"That's because I'm the 'Nothing' your gods forgot to account for," Elias said. He stepped forward, each footfall on the Bifrost bridge causing the prismatic light to turn a bruised violet.
"You smell of the Mother's Blood," Heimdall's voice grew cold. He raised the Gjallarhorn to his lips. "You are the Deicide that Apollo's Avatar spoke of before it vanished. You are the 'Void-Stain'."
"Don't blow the horn, Watcher," Elias said softly. "If you do, I'll have to take your breath along with the sound."
Heimdall didn't listen. He blew the horn.
The sound was a physical wave of golden energy that should have disintegrated any mortal. It was the "Notification" sent to the halls of Valhalla, a call to arms for the Einherjar—the army of dead heroes who feast in Odin's hall.
But Elias didn't disintegrate.
[Skill Activated: Abyssal Dampener]
The crimson runes on Elias's skin flared. He raised his hand, and the sound-wave hit an invisible wall of "Compressed Void." The golden energy didn't bounce back; it was swallowed. The sound of the horn died in Elias's palm, muffled into a pathetic whimper.
Heimdall's galaxy-eyes widened. "You... you silenced the Gjallarhorn?"
"My turn," Elias said.
In a flash of crimson and black, Elias was across the bridge. He didn't use a weapon. He used the [Axe-Fragment of the Divider] he had taken from Gilgamesh. The fragment manifested as a blade of pure "Non-Existence" over his knuckles.
He struck Heimdall's chest-plate.
The white-gold armor, forged by the Dwarves of Nidavellir to be indestructible, didn't dent. It vanished. A perfect, circular hole was erased from the center of the Watcher's chest.
"My armor... my divinity..." Heimdall coughed, golden blood leaking from his lips. "It's being... unwritten..."
"Go back to the Void, Watcher," Elias whispered. "Tell Tiamat the King of the Wild is clearing the path."
Elias shoved Heimdall off the Bifrost. The god didn't fall into the sea; he fell into the "Space-Between-Worlds," his divinity stripped away until he was nothing but a memory.
The massive gold-and-ash gates of Valhalla groaned and began to swing open. From within, the roar of ten thousand warriors echoed, followed by the rhythmic clashing of shields.
[New Event: The Feast of Steel]
[Objective: Break the Einherjar Army.]
"Sarah," Elias said, his crimson sun-eyes glowing with a terrifying hunger. "Stay behind me. I'm going to show these 'Heroes' what a real war looks like."
From the shadows of the gateway, a flock of two ravens—Huginn and Muninn—flew out, circling Elias. They weren't attacking; they were recording. Odin was watching.
Elias looked directly at the ravens and bared his jagged, black-glass teeth.
"I hope you're hungry, All-Father," Elias roared. "Because I'm about to feed your hall to the Abyss!"