70 Enough death and suffering

'No'

"What do you mean? Eldar, every second we waste here will give them more time to get further away! If you let them go now, they will be back for revenge once they have recovered!"

'Shut it Loki. They are defeated. Going after them now will only result in senseless slaughter, benefiting only the humans. In retrospect, you have been goading me from one fight to the next, using me to thoroughly clean the board. Your incitement has led to so much bloodshed, though I am also to blame. However, this all ends here.'

Loki seemed greatly vexed at the fact that he could no longer use me to overpower his enemies. He turned and went after the fleeing aesir troops by himself.

'Völsung, I'll need some time to digest all that just happened. Could I trouble you to clean up and take care of the rest?'

"Sure thing!"

With that, I sank my consciousness deep down my trunk and stopped using my magic perception. Truth be told, I was running away. I couldn't bring myself to look at the battlefield. I had never realized this before but, after every battle, so many had died. I could feel the connections to my beasts that had turned dark, indicating they had died and even without magic perception, I could feel the overwhelming air of death all around.

How many had died?

...

Too many! That was the simple answer. I shouldn't have let this happen. What would lord Abel have done in my place?

...

I shouldn't dwell too much on these issues. The past was the past and now was the present. Regret wouldn't change what had happened, I could only learn from this and try to do better from now on.

I couldn't stop advancing, the only way for me to proceed was to get stronger.

The ground around me was littered with the corpses of fallen powerhouses of four different races. Wasting this opportunity would mean all the people here had died for nothing.

First, I absorbed the fire giants. Bits and pieces of their comprehensions were combined with the vague innate understanding of fire I had absorbed from the fire dragon. If I continued to invest a few years, I could surely have my own innate understanding of fire.

Next were the Jotuns, giants of the icy north. From them, I could gain some understanding into the domain of frost and ice. Not nearly enough to form an innate understanding but it was a good start.

Finally, it was time for the main dish. Tyr had been a combat-oriented magus and fighter, his insights into these matters would be priceless. Odin was a king magus and had kindly given me the opportunity to have another artificial innate understanding.

Sadly, I could find little use for clairvoyance powers. In my previous world, it was widely known that clairvoyance should only be used to see the opponents moves during battle. The more time lay between the event happening and a clairvoyant seeing it, the worse the consequences. Some saw their own death and went mad trying to prevent it yet died all the same. Others tried to take advantage of the historical events they saw in the future but ended up making these events never happen...

Overall it was a scary power that shouldn't be used further than five minutes ahead.

Once again leaving the confines of my body, my magic perception stretched out far and wide. All traces of the battlefield were gone and nothing reminded of the things that happened here.

Not too far away, I found Sven sitting and meditating. As I focused on him he woke up and greeted me.

"Lord Eldar, it's nice to see you have recovered from the battle."

'How did you notice I was back?'

"Your presence has grown rather heavy in recent times. I could clearly feel you looking at me."

'Well, I have grown stronger at an insane pace so it's no wonder that my presence has become somewhat oppressive. But you have grown stronger too, haven't you? By now you are already a count magus.'

"It's all thanks to you, lord Eldar! The bloodline you have bestowed upon me did wonders for my progress. I can feel it assisting me whenever I meditate."

'That's good then. How long was I gone for?'

"Close to one year now actually."