Solo Leveling- Ragnarok-Chapter 345

“This is taking longer than I thought...” Sirka said.

“You must be patient. Yours took far longer,” Ammut replied as they stood watching Nidhogg.

A cold wind swept through the air. They were in the Sea of the Afterlife, where a brutal winter had settled in. A heavy blizzard had buried the World Tree in snow. It was a literal nightmare come to life, descending upon the World Tree itself, and not even Nidhogg, who had fled to the tree’s upper reaches, was safe from such bitter cold.

[Nidhogg, the Serpent that Feeds on the Roots of the World Tree]

At the moment, Nidhogg was completely sealed away by Sirka’s power, its massive body frozen in place by the Blistering Blizzard she had unleashed. It was not unlike the time Sirka herself had been locked in a towering pillar of ice during her own succession ceremony. A low growl escaped from Nidhogg’s throat.

And what is all that glaring going to accomplish? What can you do about it? Sirka wondered, finding herself unexpectedly intrigued. She no longer felt the same fear she had when she first saw Nidhogg among the branches. The creature was now unable to move, stuck in the snow-covered tree. Not that this was particularly surprising.

The first time she’d encountered Nidhogg, the sheer volume of energy it held had left her staggered. It wasn’t just the size—the primordial darkness it contained exuded a pressure like a cosmic catastrophe. In such a case, courage or determination meant nothing. All one could do was accept the trial it presented and hope that one was worthy. It had been an all-powerful judge, offering no mercy. Failure meant being devoured alive.

However, that was no longer the situation. Nidhogg was not what it once was. Only three of its heads remained, with the other four having been taken down.

“Numbers wise, we have the advantage,” Sirka noted.

She was referring to Esil, the King of Demons and the Monarch of Gluttony, Sirka, the Queen of the Snow Folk and the Monarch of Nightmare, Ammut, the King of Monstrous Humanoids and the Monarch of Tribulation, and Thomas Andre, the King of Giants and the Monarch of Domination.

Of course, each instance of primordial darkness had its own unique characteristics. Numbers did not accurately convey the full picture. The capacity of each Monarch and the properties of their powers varied wildly. Not that it mattered much how many were left.

The Monarchs who had succeeded the primordial darkness successfully did not view Nidhogg as the towering source of fear it had once been. They had already proven their worth. Nidhogg could no longer judge them, nor determine who was worthy. Amazingly, Nidhogg had become little more than a vessel—a container for three complete fragments of primordial darkness.

Immediately after Ammut became the Monarch of Tribulation and used his power to spread the Tower of Tribulation worldwide, Suho had gathered his allies and hunted down Nidhogg, who had fled. His goal was his own succession. Even though he had faced the trial of the King of Dragons more than once, he still hadn’t become the Monarch of Destruction. Whatever the cause, the first step was clear. He needed to hunt Nidhogg and claim the remaining darkness. After all, he was a hunter, and that’s what hunters did.

Nidhogg had hidden itself deep among the colossal branches of the World Tree, but finding it wasn’t much of a challenge. As large as the tree was, Nidhogg was just as massive. On top of that, Arsha had deployed her Void Insects throughout the area, sweeping every inch of the World Tree for signs of the beast. Soon enough, they found it.

“Got you.”

Crouched among the branches, seeking refuge from the cold, Nidhogg immediately lunged at Suho the moment their eyes met. Suho didn’t so much as flinch.

“I have Ammut,” he said.

Ammut’s fist exploded forward and slammed into Nidhogg without mercy. Ammut had already once torn Nidhogg’s jaws apart with nothing but his bare hands. Of course, the injuries had long since healed without a trace. Nidhogg, nourished by the plentiful Leaves of the World Tree, could recover from any wound. Not that it mattered.

“I’ll rip you to pieces as many times as it takes!” Ammut roared.

His raging might clashed with Nidhogg’s furious resistance within the World Tree’s branches. The resulting shockwaves were devastating, yet they didn’t change the outcome. Ammut, already powerful, had only grown stronger after inheriting the primordial darkness. If Nidhogg hadn’t been capable of continuous regeneration, Ammut might have taken it down alone.

Of course, not every Monarch matched his raw strength. Some, like Ammut, specialized in physical combat, while others, like Sirka, wielded powerful debuffs such as Nightmare. Suho used their unique strengths with precision, placing each person exactly where they were needed in the hunt.

“Sirka! Now! Freeze it!”

At Suho’s command, a wave of bitter cold swallowed Nidhogg, and the great head that had been battling Ammut froze solid. A layer of white frost crept over its thick neck. In Suho’s hands, his two daggers gleamed with deadly light.

[Item: Kamish’s Wrath]

Acquisition Difficulty: ??

Type: Dagger

Attack Power +1,500

The greatest dagger in existence, crafted by a master from the sharpest fang of the dragon Kamish.

It is sharper than any weapon, and highly sensitive to mana. It has the potential to become far more powerful depending on the competence of its user.

Though the blades were greatly dulled by multiple battles, the efforts of talented craftsmen have recovered their sharpness completely.]

The shadow dwarves had been working night and day to recover the damage done to Kamish’s Wraths, a task made possible by Cha Haein, who brought the necessary materials to sharpen the blade from the Grave of the Dragons. Thanks to their efforts, the daggers had been fully restored, and now flew toward Nidhogg infused with the full force of the Breath of Destruction.

The searing force of destruction sliced clean through the frozen neck of the beast. The severed head exploded, releasing a surge of pitch-black darkness into the air. This primordial darkness had no owner just yet.

In that instant, the corner of Ammut’s eye twitched. He had been the closest to the darkness.

“The darkness is returning. Was cutting off one of the heads pointless?”

Surprisingly, this primordial darkness, which lacked a master, was drifting back to Nidhogg. Nidhogg hadn’t done anything to cause this—it was as if the darkness was being drawn to him by nature itself. Astonishingly, a new head sprouted from the stump where the previous one had been severed. It released a thunderous roar.

Suho made a split-second decision.

This means one of two things.

Either the darkness just now wasn’t Antares’ darkness, or he wasn’t worthy yet. Suho decided not to think about the latter possibility just yet. Instead, he focused on the former and sliced off another head in the same manner. The second attempt went much more smoothly than the first—he froze, then he cut. Simple.

When other heads moved to intervene, Ammut and the other Monarchs stepped in to block them from interfering. They were evenly matched in numbers, after all. More darkness burst outward, but disappointingly, it flowed not to Suho but right back into Nidhogg. No matter how many times he severed a head, the outcome was the same.

Suho felt a bitter taste in his mouth. In the end, he had no choice but to admit it. He wasn’t worthy of the darkness yet. Even if he had gained the power to hunt Nidhogg at any time, actually absorbing the primordial darkness was a different matter entirely.

Ammut approached Suho with a question.

“So, what now? There are no more heads left to try. Just the one over there. But Gray is already inside it, attempting succession.”

Even as a full-blown battle raged outside, Gray showed no sign of emerging. It seemed to be taking as long as Sirka’s ceremony had. Suho’s eyes traveled to the head where Gray was and lingered for a moment. That one hadn’t opened its mouth once throughout the entire fight. The darkness of the King of Beasts, the Monarch of Fangs, would be nestled inside. Suho didn’t need to draw it out. What he wanted was Antares’ darkness. That meant he had ultimately failed.

His strategy to ignore the succession process and attack Nidhogg himself to gain the primordial darkness hadn’t worked. Still, he hadn’t come away empty-handed. The repeated exposure to the primordial darkness taught him how to handle it when it lacked a master.

“Sirka,” he called out. He pointed to the primordial darkness as it made its way back toward Nidhogg again. “Do you think you could freeze that darkness?”

At his words, Sirka looked startled. Even Esil was caught off guard. The Monarch of Gluttony, who wanted to devour just about anything, had instinctively realized the truth the moment she encountered the primordial darkness that wasn’t hers.

If I eat that stuff, I’m as good as dead.

It was a survival instinct that belonged only to Monarchs who had already succeeded the darkness.

It’s impossible to have more than one of those. And it’s not possible for someone unworthy to consume it, either.

Forcing it down one’s throat would not work. The primordial darkness would break any vessel that it didn’t acknowledge and simply return to Nidhogg afterward. Trying to keep it in would only cause the vessel to shatter.

“I think I could, but...”

The power of the Monarch of Nightmare wasn’t limited to simple freezing. Sirka had been reborn as the nightmare of the World Tree. She harnessed the power of winter, which could freeze the Sea of the Afterlife itself. She could easily do the same with the primordial darkness as well. Still, that wouldn’t change the underlying reality.

“You’re not planning to eat it afterward, are you? It sounds a little dangerous...”

“Me? No, I’ve already given up on that.”

Suho dismissed Sirka’s concern without hesitation. He had something else in mind. His eyes shifted from Nidhogg to Ammut.

“What do you think, Ammut? There are some similarities between Nidhogg and the Tower of Tribulation, don’t you think?”

“Hmm?” Ammut paused. Then he nodded, a sharp glint appearing in his eyes. “I see.”

He turned to Sirka, who still looked confused.

“Sirka, try to freeze that primordial darkness first of all. Prevent it from returning to Nidhogg.”

Sirka wasn’t entirely sure what this was about, but with both Suho and Ammut watching her, she quickly drew on her power. If the darkness returned to Nidhogg, they would simply have to repeat the fierce battle all over again. The cold gathered around the orphaned darkness and locked it in place.

Ammut broke into a grin.

“Now it’s my turn.”

“Yes. I need some way of storing it,” Suho said.

Ammut nodded and extended his hand. A crushing pressure condensed the frozen darkness, shrinking it to the size of a person’s palm. It was extremely fragile and volatile, and it struggled to shatter the ice and return to Nidhogg. Ammut sealed it away with his power inside the Tower of Tribulation.

Then, something remarkable occurred. Suho was right—Nidhogg and the Tower of Trials shared the same essential purpose, to test and select those who were worthy. The frozen primordial darkness no longer resisted, instead it obediently took its place inside the tower. Just as it had within Nidhogg, it now waited for a worthy soul. It found one. Thomas was inside, the human who had overcome his trials and seized the power of the Monarch of Domination.

The process hadn’t been easy, and Thomas could never have done it alone. It was the Tower of Tribulation and Ammut who had guided him along the path of succession, just like Suho had done as a shaman for the other Monarchs. Even Ammut hadn’t done it by himself. They had all worked together to slay Nidhogg, freeze the darkness, and transfer it into the tower. The role of shaman, which Suho had always fulfilled alone until now, had been shared by everyone this time. The result was Thomas. Back in the present, Ammut had a few words to say about that role.

“If it hadn’t been for Suho... I would never have received this power.”

Now, each of them understood. They remembered who they had once been, back when they knew nothing at all.

“I had no idea how weak I was back then.”

That was why they had dared to presume they could become a Monarch, that they were worthy to succeed a Monarch’s power. But to Nidhogg, they had been wholly unworthy. That was why Nidhogg had been so eager to kill them on sight.

“But now I know.”

They had come to understand true power.

“Power means understanding the extent of your own weakness.”

Suho had given them the chance to obtain power and to become truly strong. Sirka, though she couldn’t slay Nidhogg, could now restrain it singlehandedly with confidence. Nidhogg lay atop the frozen Sea of the Afterlife, unable to resist, just as Sirka herself had once been during her own succession.

“Hmm...?”

Sirka, still channeling her power into Nidhogg, watched closely and suddenly called out to Ammut.

“Ammut! Something’s not right!”

“What is it?” Ammut asked.

“There’s something inside Nidhogg...! It’s moving!”

“What? Is it the primordial darkness?

“No. This is different.”

Ammut’s eyes began to glow as he peered at Nidhogg through the ice.

“It’s not the darkness. Someone is moving. Someone is receiving the darkness.”

“What? If it’s one of the successors inside...”

“Then it must be one of the two.”

Ammut kept a fascinated gaze on the change happening inside Nidhogg. At this moment, only two people were undergoing succession within him—Gray and Suho. If something unusual was happening, it wasn’t hard to guess which one was causing it.

“It’s not hard to figure out who’s behind this.” Ammut grinned, muttering to himself under his breath. “How intriguing. Is the succession ceremony already over? Why doesn’t he come back out, if that’s the case?”

“Why... is he headed for the other fragments of darkness?” Sirka asked.

Nidhogg had only three heads left, but those three were all connected to the same body. Suho, forced inside by the job change quest, was for some reason moving toward another head—one that housed a different instance of the primordial darkness.