The gates of Valhalla didn't just open; they exploded with the sound of a thousand roaring lions.
Inside, the hall was an architectural nightmare of impossible geometry—a ceiling made of golden shields and rafters made of spear-shafts that stretched into infinity. At the center, a table miles long was laden with the meat of the boar Sæhrímnir, but the warriors sitting there weren't eating. They were standing.
[Entity Identified: The Einherjar (The Legion of Dead Heroes)]
[Quantity: Infinite (Regenerating Concept)]
[Threat Level: Calamitous]
"Elias... there are too many," Sarah whispered, her voice trembling as she looked at the sea of bearded men in chainmail, their eyes glowing with a ghostly, blue light. "They can't die. They're already dead!"
"In this realm, 'Death' is just a temporary state of 'Rest'," Elias said, his crimson sun-eyes scanning the front line. "They die in the morning and feast in the evening. It's a loop. A perfect, divine machine of violence."
[Synchronization Rate: 10.5%]
[Identity Integrity: 68%]
[Identity Loss: Memory of the color of a rose – DELETED.]
Elias felt the grey mist swallow another piece of his humanity. He didn't care. He stepped into the hall, his bare feet leaving charred, black footprints on the golden floor.
"VALHALLA!" the army roared in unison.
The front rank—three hundred warriors armed with axes forged in starlight—charged. They didn't move like men; they moved like a single, guided missile of muscle and steel.
[Skill Activated: Abyssal Horizon]
Elias didn't draw a weapon. He spread his arms wide, and a wave of "Compressed Void" erupted from his chest. It wasn't an explosion of force; it was a deletion of space.
The first fifty warriors didn't hit him. They simply ceased to be. Their armor, their ghosts, and their legendary weapons vanished into a violet-black rift that opened for a microsecond and snapped shut.
"You're not dying," Elias growled, his voice vibrating with the power of Tiamat and Enkidu combined. "You're being Forgotten."
The Einherjar paused. For the first time in an eternity, the "Dead Heroes" felt something they had forgotten: True Fear. If they died by a sword, they would wake up at the feast. If they were erased by the Void-Sovereign, there was no waking up. There was only the "Zero Layer."
"Cowards!" a booming voice echoed from the rafters.
A massive warrior, his beard braided with gold wire and his armor inscribed with runes of "Victory," leaped from a high balcony. He carried a hammer that crackled with blue electricity—not the Mjölnir of Thor, but a lesser "God-Spark" weapon.
[Entity Identified: Captain of the Vanguard – Erik the Red-Handed]
"I have slain giants in the frost and dragons in the deep!" Erik roared, swinging his hammer at Elias's skull. "You are but a shadow! I shall hammer you back into the mud!"
Elias caught the lightning-hammer with one hand.
The blue electricity surged through his obsidian veins, but instead of burning him, it was filtered. The "Primal Resonance" of the Void turned the "Holy Lightning" into "Black Static."
"Your 'Victory' is a lie told by a one-eyed king," Elias said, his crimson eyes inches from Erik's blue ones.
Elias squeezed.
The hammer—a relic of the Fourth Hanging—shattered like glass. Elias then drove his obsidian-veined palm into Erik's chest.
[Mythic Skill: The Un-Naming]
A ripple of violet energy spread from Elias's hand. Erik's armor turned to dust. His skin turned to grey ash. His very name, carved into the "Book of Heroes" in the Seventh Hanging, began to fade.
"I... I don't... remember... my... saga..." Erik whispered, his form flickering like a dying candle before he vanished into nothingness.
The rest of the Einherjar backed away. The "Infinite Army" was breaking.
"Elias, look up!" Sarah shouted.
Two ravens—Huginn and Muninn—dove from the ceiling, their feathers turning into sharp, obsidian daggers. They weren't just watching anymore; they were the "Hands of Odin." Behind them, the air at the end of the hall began to warp.
A high throne of ash-wood appeared, and sitting upon it was a figure wrapped in a dark blue cloak, holding a spear that pulsed with the rhythm of the universe.
[Entity Identified: ODIN (The All-Father - Aspect of the Fourth Hanging)]
Odin lifted his head. His single eye was a burning star of "Supreme Wisdom." He looked at Elias, then at the empty space where his warriors used to be.
"You have brought 'Nothing' into my 'Everything'," Odin spoke, his voice sounding like the rustling of a billion leaves on the World Tree. "You are the 'Wolf' that the Norns warned us of. You are the Fenris of the Void."
"I'm not a wolf, Odin," Elias said, his crimson sun-eyes flaring with a light that challenged the All-Father's. "I'm the Hunter who found the trap."
[New Quest: The Spear-Seizing]
[Objective: Capture 'Gungnir' – The Spear that Never Misses.]
Odin stood up, and the entire Fourth Hanging groaned under the weight of his movement. He raised Gungnir.
"The Spear is thrown," Odin whispered. "It cannot miss."
The spear left his hand, a streak of white light that bypassed "Distance" and "Time." It was already at Elias's throat before the sound of its launch reached his ears.