Chapter 939: The children of Loki, and an ancient dragon.
In the icy reaches of the Kingdom of Helheim, where the biting winds whisper dark tales and the endless nights plunge the land into eternal darkness, a desolate landscape unfolds. The ground, covered in snow and ice, seemed to have succumbed to the very melancholy that permeated the place, transforming it into a kingdom of despair and desolation.
The unfortunate Souls who met their fate here were those deemed not worthy to ascend to Valhalla, the Paradise reserved for the most fearless of warriors, or to Fólkvangr, the Celestial Domain of the Goddess Freyja. Instead, they are condemned to eternally wander the frozen lands of Helheim, where the eternal night is punctuated only by a faint, eerie lunar light.
Evil creatures, grotesque and twisted, lurked in the shadows, eager to torment the helpless Souls who dared to cross their path. The air is permeated with a feeling of oppression, and the piercing cold cuts deep to the bone, making existence in this land a constant torment.
The lament echoed across the icy valleys as anguished Souls faced the horrors of Helheim, often in unimaginable suffering. It was a Kingdom where hope was a rare treasure, and misery was the currency. No place was darker and more desolate than Helheim, where lost Souls faced their eternity in an icy nightmare.
"Well, now, isn't this quaint~?" Nyx commented as she looked at the Realm before her. Compared to Victor's Hell, this place was 100x worse. This Realm even reminded her of the locale that was her and her children's home for the longest time.
'Although, even my home wasn't this desolate... What's wrong with this Kingdom? It appears to barely be holding on to its structure.' As a Primordial Goddess, she could see the world as it truly is, and this fact was further amplified because of her status as a Dragon Goddess. While ordinary Gods could only see its surface appearance of a freezing Realm of cold and death, Nyx could see more. She could see the entire structure of this Dimension with her own eyes. It was effortless for her to say that there was something very wrong in this Kingdom. Although The System of Souls and Rulers made by the Primordials was working, everything else in the Kingdom was a complete mess.
After observing this place for a while, Nyx promptly ignored her curiosities. She came here on a mission, and she would fulfill that mission in its entirety. She didn't want her first act as a Dragon Goddess to be marked by failure. That would just be embarrassing if she failed this mission with her man's Wives watching her.
"Well, well... If I were an Underworld Goddess who started a civil war, where would I hide~?"
The mischievous eyes of the Primordial Goddess of Night glowed slightly as a pulse of dark-colored Power emanated from her body and spread throughout the entire Hell. Even though this place was huge due to the upgrades of the Primordial Beings, with her senses, it was very easy to peer at the furthest reaches of the entire Dimension.
"Hmm~, I found it... And she's not alone." Nyx shivered slightly as she felt three powerful presences, one of which she knew very well.
'Fenrir... As expected, he is here.' Although they had assumed that Fenrir had come here to help Hela, it had only been an assumption, not a confirmation.
'If Fenrir is here... Then the other presences must be Jormungandr and Nidhogg… or was it Níðhöggr as the Old Norse called it?... Meh, I'll just call it Nidhogg. It's easier.' She nodded, satisfied.
It was evident that despite this mission being a serious endeavor, Nyx was treating everything very casually. The reason for this was her confidence and arrogance, which was only further boosted by her Racial status. Naturally, the Gods already had a high level of arrogance, especially the Primordial Gods, but due to the changes becoming a Dragon brought, this side of Nyx was elevated even further.
What she was experiencing now was something Victor struggled with daily: the arrogance of her Dragon side.
Victor, as a Chaos Dragon God with his level of status, could be considered the most arrogant Being in existence, but as a Being who had hundreds of millions of memories of other Beings within him, he knew very well the danger of this arrogance if it went to his head. Therefore, he fought against this instinct at every moment and tried to be a more 'wise' Being instead of more arrogant.
After all, there was a huge difference between arrogance and pride. You could be proud and wise, just as you could be proud and arrogant, and Victor definitely didn't want to be the latter.
Unlike Victor, Nyx completely embraced this side of her. After all, she was already like this before encountering the abnormal Beings from Victor's Faction.
"What to do... I can't approach them carelessly." Despite being proud, she was not foolish enough to approach three Beings of The End, especially with one of them being a Dragon.
She didn't know if this Dragon was a True Dragon like her, but all indications pointed to it being so. After all, this Dragon had been alive since the advent of the Norse Pantheon.
'A Dragon, huh...' She thought. Thinking of a genuinely hostile Dragon that wasn't from her Faction, her stomach itched with anticipation of subduing or killing it.
But she quickly shook her head from side to side to get that thought out of her head. No matter how confident she was of herself, she wouldn't stand a chance when fighting a Dragon of The End.
The problem with facing these Beings was not something as simple as one being stronger than the other in terms of Power but rather that their Divinities were incompatible.
The Divinity of The End could erase everything from existence, and this Divinity could only be counteracted by the Divinity of Beginnings, a Divinity that only her Husband possessed.
'No, he's not my Husband yet! Even though he turned me into a Dragon and made his intentions clear, he's still not my Husband! He's my man! Not my Husband! He will be my Husband in the future!'
"Nyx, what are you doing? Proceed to the objective." Scathach's cold voice woke the Goddess of The Night from her reverie.
"Y-Yes!" The Goddess shuddered and quickly covered herself with her Power that allowed her to hide from practically everything in existence and cautiously approached Hela's location.
Less than 400 meters away from reaching Hela, Nyx stopped approaching.
"What happened?" Scathach's voice was heard again.
"...I can't get any closer. If I do, that Dragon will sense me." Nyx narrowed her eyes with visible annoyance. She never thought that anyone other than the Primordials and her Husband could sense her when she used all her Power.
"How can you be sure of that?" Violet asked confused.
"Instinct," Nyx responded. By transforming into a Dragon, she gained an instinctive perception of certain things, and most of these things were related to her Divinity and her ability to hide.
At that moment, a spatial distortion made of pure darkness appeared near Nyx, and five Beings with wings made of pure darkness emerged.
The appearance of these Beings was a surprise for both Nyx and the others who were observing the situation. What was the reason for their surprise? The increased number of the same type of Beings as War.
"...Victor added more of these Beings as subordinates?" Violet asked.
"Apparently, he did," Eleanor said.
"Honestly, these Beings make me feel nauseous," Aphrodite grunted.
And the others, as well as Nyx, couldn't help but agree with Aphrodite.
The sensations they had when observing these Beings were very incongruous. It was as if they were observing something that was not authorized to exist, something that went against Nature but, at the same time, was a part of Nature. Because of that, they deduced that these feelings stemmed from their senses as Dragons. After all, Dragons were Beings of Nature.
Ironically, the same type of feeling could be felt by Victor, and at a much stronger level than normal. But this only happened when he used his Dragon Form. In his 'other' form, such a feeling disappeared entirely.
The only difference between the two was that War and the Heralds were made with chaotic Energy, and until now, their Race was unknown. They weren't Angels like the wings made them seem, they weren't Vampires, or even Dragons. They were something completely new, made exclusively by Victor.
If Victor's Dragon side had True Dragons as his servants and fellow members, his Cosmic Horror side had these Beings as his servants.
The best way to explain the existence of these Beings was... They were Heralds... Heralds of The Will of The Dragon God of Chaos.
"Lady Nyx, we come following The Will of our God," War spoke while the other four remained silent.
Coming out of her shock, she spoke: "...What is your mission?"
"Information, Protection, and Collection."
Nyx's eyebrows twitched when she heard the words' protection'. In fact, she felt deeply offended. She was a Dragon and a Primordial Goddess! She wasn't so weak as to need protection. But she didn't comment on it. She knew the reason for it. Victor's Will.
Even if she were the strongest woman in the world, Victor would still worry about her, and upon thinking this, the feelings of offense she had turned into genuine happiness. 'He's worried about me.'
Despite wanting to mask her emotions, she was unable to do so completely, not from War's eyes. He could tell how she felt upon receiving this information entirely. 'Women.' He snorted internally. 'Such complicated Beings. I wonder why my God wastes his time with them.'
Being a Progenitor, Victor did not need to perform libidinous acts to create members of his own Race. He could easily do so just by giving his Energy to another Being. In this way, that Being would become the same Race as him but would not be as powerful as those Beings that were made directly by his God.
Proof of the greatness of his God was that he had taken trash that War had deemed useless and, with his Energy, transformed them into Beings capable of facing Primordial Gods.
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