Beyond the Apocalypse-Chapter 976: Replacing the light of Odinvaldr with darkness

Freya allowed herself a small, warm smile as she watched Vlad protect the innocents they had rescued. But it vanished just as quickly. Her expression hardened into the cold sharpness of a soldier.

There was a time for feeling—and there was a time for war.

Turning toward Jormungandr, she gave a silent nod. The small yellow cat understood. His eyes gleamed like twin suns as he organized his thoughts, preparing to relay what he had learned from the memories he had consumed.

"Their souls have been tainted," he began, his voice low and precise. "The corruption spreads through proximity—radiation from the corrupted Vikings infects those around them. It starts subtly, almost imperceptibly. Their Totems begin to shift, their divine resonance darkens, and before they realize what’s happening, they’re no longer themselves. They become puppets, extensions of a greater will."

He paused, the runes along his fur flickering like dying embers as he processed the fragments of memory.

"It began with Antorus," Jormungandr continued. "He infected the upper echelons of the Viking hierarchy, twisting their Totems and bending their minds. From there, the corruption spread downward, one soul at a time—commanders infecting their soldiers, priests defiling their congregations, fathers tainting their children. It is not simple possession. It is more... insidious. Like a virus. It rewrites the Totems themselves, replacing the light of Odinvaldr with the darkness of something else—something vast and alien. The result is horrifying. Once honorable warriors are turned into sadistic beasts wearing human skin."

Vlad’s frown deepened. Every word confirmed what he already feared. There was no doubt in his mind: this corruption bore the signature of an Alien Power. Only one of those beings—entities from outside creation itself—could warp divine Totems and infect entire bloodlines.

If the corruption had reached this scale, rooting it out would be far more difficult than killing a single traitor. It would require destroying the source, and that meant confronting an entity far beyond divine measure.

"What are they doing with the people they capture?" Vlad asked, his tone like a blade.

"Their orders are to gather all who still worship Odinvaldr—the so-called heretics—and deliver them to the Capital of Valhalla," Jormungandr answered. "As for what happens afterward... even they don’t know."

Vlad nodded. He had expected as much. The soldiers they had slain were mere tools, too low in rank to hold valuable intelligence. Still, their memories offered insight—and that was enough.

"Do you have the movements of the other battalions in this region?" Vlad asked.

"Yes," the small yellow cat replied, his tail flicking. "Their deployment protocols were stored in the minds of their commanders. I now know every patrol, every outpost, every rally point up to the capital’s border."

"Good." Vlad’s crimson eyes gleamed with purpose. "Then we adapt. Our destination remains the capital, but our approach changes. We’ll move through the cities one by one, intercepting and capturing corrupted Viking battalions along the way."

He straightened, his aura flickering like a storm contained in flesh.

"Two objectives," he declared. "The first—and most critical—is to capture the corrupted Vikings alive. We need to study their Totems, understand how the Alien Power altered them. Only by uncovering its method can we destroy it. The second is to rescue as many innocents as possible."

Then his gaze turned toward Freya, and his voice grew colder.

"But we save only when it does not endanger the mission. Sentiment cannot outweigh survival."

Freya closed her eyes for a moment, exhaling softly. She knew he was right. If they failed here, billions beyond Valhalla would suffer.

"Understood," she whispered.

And with that, the course was set.

The True Depravitas advanced steadily toward the capital. They moved through the shadowed lands of Valhalla like ghosts, their presence undetectable.

City after city fell silent in their wake. In each one, they captured the corrupted Viking battalions with surgical precision.

The process was brutal. The souls of the battalion leaders were consumed by Jormungandr, their memories absorbed and analyzed. The remaining soldiers were placed into a coma, scanned by the Depravitas’ A.I. Chips for every trace of data, and then dismantled—alive but restrained. Their Totems and souls were extracted, catalogued, and stored for further study back at the Xaos Tower. Their bodies were then burned to ash, leaving no evidence of their actions.

As for the innocents, they were placed in the stasis cube—frozen in suspended time, safe until the battle ended.

The work was endless. For fifteen days and nights, the Depravitas did not rest. They tore through the corrupted forces with mechanical efficiency, saving hundreds of thousands of untainted Vikings and dissecting tens of thousands of corrupted ones.

And still, the corruption deepened the closer they drew to the capital.

On the dawn of the sixteenth day, they reached Valhalla’s heart.

What had once been a realm of glory and eternal light was now a kingdom drowned in darkness. The sky was a churning mass of black clouds streaked with violet lightning. The air tasted of ash and death. The song of warriors—the eternal hum of Valhalla’s proud halls—had been replaced by an eerie silence.

The very soul of the world seemed strangled.

The change was visible in every stone. The grand longhouses that once celebrated victory and honor were gone. In their place stood towers of black stone, cold and alien, their surfaces engraved with sigils that pulsed faintly like living wounds. Even the layout of the city had changed—the sacred symmetry of the Viking architecture replaced by unnatural geometry that hurt the eyes to look at.

This was no mere stylistic change. It was intentional desecration—a cultural genocide, a metaphysical rewriting of Valhalla itself to sever its bond with Odinvaldr.

And at the center of it all loomed a fortress of black obsidian, vast and terrible, built directly atop the site of Odinvaldr’s Sacred Longhouse—the hall where the Primordial God had once feasted with his champions.

Now it was a monument to mockery.

Vlad exhaled slowly, forcing calm. "Prepare," he said.

The others nodded silently. They dissolved into streams of psychic light, merging with Vlad’s essence, becoming one with his soul. The fusion activated his Ultimate Form. His aura expanded, distorting the world around him. His perception sharpened until every molecule of air, every fluctuation of energy, was clear to his mind.

Then, he saw it.

What had been invisible before now revealed itself to his awakened sight.

Above the obsidian fortress loomed a shadow—vast, ancient, and electric. It was shaped like a winged serpent, its body coiling through the clouds, its wings spreading wide enough to cover the entire capital. Its eyes glowed with alien intelligence, watching everything below.