Chapter 360 Bow Your Head



Within the permanently dark and dreary lands of Helheim, there is a single great structure that looms above all.

Inside of a grand mansion with walls high enough to touch the sky and black gates that seemed nigh impenetrable, a woman could be seen lying down in a bedroom.

Half of her body was sinful; with beautifully emphasized curves and tender pale skin.

Her long silver hair was tied in a single braid that draped down her back, and her black eyes were incredibly cold and lifeless.

The other half of her body was not as picturesque.

Instead of beautiful rosy pale flesh, her body was like that of a rotting corpse.

Were it not for this particular proclivity, Hel would no doubt be known as one of the most beautiful goddesses.

However, she did not particularly care about something useless like that.

She just wanted to be the most feared.

Being feared meant being left alone, and Hel was a goddess that valued her solitude.

Though she initially hated her father for casting her down into this realm against her wishes, it could now be said that she was no longer as upset about it as she was before.

In fact, the few times that she had been permitted outside of Helheim during the last few millennia were always the most draining experiences of her life, and she always found herself desperate to come back home.

Although, she had to admit that home wasn't always as entertaining as she would have liked.

She wished that she had something to do to alleviate the sense of boredom that comes with being a god.

All of a sudden, she felt a distant but new prescence that caused her to raise a brow in suprise; followed by a familiar dreary howl.

Once she heard that Garmr was going to investigate, she rested her head back onto her pillow and closed her eyes to her own shadowy domain.

She did not feel any particular cause for concern that would make her leave her bed.

Sometimes, a spirit can maintain their ego after death and they become upset when they see where their soul has ended up.

Helheim isn't like Valhalla, in that this is a place where dishonest beings and oath breakers end up, as well as more 'normal' people who failed to accomplish much.

It was a far cry from the grand white and golden halls of the dead realm above and sometimes souls react unkindly to being here.

It wasn't something that happened a lot, but it occurred enough that Garmr knew to handle these things on his own by now.

Usually, that meant either barking like mad or even sometimes just destroying the soul entirely. n)(OvelbIn

As such, Hel closed her eyes to rest knowing that this was not a matter that required her attention.

Or atleast she believed it did not.

Despite the fact that she had closed her eyes to enjoy total darkness, everything still felt too bright.

She opened her eyes and realized that the permanently dark and dreary landscape of Helheim was as bright as day.

She moved out of bed so quickly that she had left behind an afterimage within the sheets.

Hel threw open her curtains and her jaw nearly fell open from absurdity.

The entirety of the dark valleys within her domain had been set ablaze; lighting up this once pitch black realm.

This was an incredibly mesmerizing feat.

These valleys are so deep and long that it requires a total of nine nights on horseback to get through.

And yet someone clearly seemed to have done the impossible and covered every inch of them in flame at once.

Black and red flames hotter than hellfire and taller than the gates outside her home rose up into the sky, and flickered from side to side angrily.

And a moment later, she could see the one responsible for all of this pandemonium.

It was a man of unparalleled attractiveness, with long curled horns and billowing white hair.

His violet eyes burned with a glow more intense than that of 1,000 suns, and in his hands he held two weapons; a massive greatsword and a horrifying spear with a serrated tip.

He emerged from the inflamed trenches and floated above the river Gjoll.

There, a golden bridge of the same namesake could be seen to have suffered no damage yet.

The bridge was teaming with souls; each of them trying to cross over and embark on the road to hell and their afterlife.

Thud!

Thud!

Thud!

A figure began to march along the golden bridge to meet Abaddon.

She was enormous; with a muscled body and deep blue skin.

Her blue eyes stared up at the intruder coldly, and she cracked her knuckles in an unfriendly manner.

Like Hel, her long blonde hair was tied in a French braid that hung behind her muscular back.

This was Módgudr; the jotunn responsible for the defense of the Gjallarbrú.

She was almost as surprised by this intruder's sudden visit as Hel was.

Her eyes were able to discern the state of one's being by their color, and she could tell that Abaddon was in fact dead.

So why did his soul still hold so much power??

"Thou is not permitted to pass! Cease this unscrupulous-"

"Noisy."

With the greatest of efficiency and savagery, Abaddon hurled the spear in his left hand directly at the thirteen foot jotunn.

The spear flew directly through her mouth; coming out the back of her neck and stapling her body to the bridge she fervently protected.

Abaddon landed atop her corpse and plucked his spear from her open mouth like he was removing a flower from a garden.

He casually flicked the blood off the blade before he waited for the inevitable of what was to come.

'Are you sufficiently provoked...?'

He didn't need to wait long for an answer, as his newly acquired precognitive abilities activated and allowed him to tilt his head at exactly the right angle at just the right time.

BOOOOOOMMMMM!!!

An enormous pillar of what seemed to be black ice flew at Abaddon from a far off distance.

Looking up, he found a woman wrapped in black and silver body armor and wielding a sword as black as night.

The horrifying scowl on her face would serve as a reminder to all that she was a goddess of cruelty, not just death.

"You miserable wretch!! How dare you intrude upon my domain and behave unscrupulously here!?"

Abaddon pointed his spear at the goddess and spoke through clenched teeth.

"I warned you all, yet you took no heed to my words...! Today will be the day that I spark the flame that will burn every single one of you gods to the ground, and you get to be the first piece of filth I cleanse away..! Will you bow your head to save yourself some suffering?"

Hel cracked her perfect white teeth from grinding them against each other so fiercely, but her anger would not allow her to care about such a thing at the moment.

She raised her black sword high in the air and it started to glow with a sickly green light.

"To arms!!"

At her command, millions of undead warriors with black skeletons and glowing green eyes started to appear out of the air.

They wore tattered armor and held rusty black weapons of all different varieties.

And yet, as Abaddon saw the massive difference in numbers between himself and his enemies, he began to feel drastically less anxious.

With the dragon's sin of pride working exactly as he designed it to, he began to leak a horribly bloody and oppressive aura that could be felt throughout the entirety of Helheim.

Even Hel had to pause and raised a brow as she realized why everyone was so afraid of his coming threat.

'I will neutralize you here before you can gain any more power...!'

"Shred him to pieces! Your goddess demands an enemy's head!!"

The roars of the skeletal army filled every imaginable corner of this undead realm.

As they fell over Abaddon like a bony tidal wave, the dragon remained unafraid as he immediately developed a plan within his mind.

Since Hel had done him the grand favor of giving him such a large boost in power, he felt as though the only polite thing to do would be to take it, right?

So instead of chopping up her gift, he decided to use it.

"It seems as though you need proper instruction..."

In a display of frightening movement speed, Abaddon left his position on the bridge and reappeared in the air directly behind Hel with his sword raised above his head.

"I will teach you how to bow your head. Pay attention now, goddess."

"You son of a bit-"

BOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM!!!!

A single slash from Abaddon's sword cut apart the sky, the golden bridge, and carved another large trench within the domain of Helheim; this one significantly wider and deeper than all the rest.

As the two halves of the great golden bridge went falling into the water beneath them, Abaddon watched Hel plummet to the bottom of his recently created gorge.

He waited and waited, and then an enormous column of silver energy shot out from the crevice like a firecracker.

Hel had recovered quickly from his little love tap and now she was more pissed than ever before.

All restrictions she had been holding onto were dashed away in an instant as her silver hair floated above her body and seemed to be alight with white flames.

A sane man would have immediately turned tail and ran.

However, Abaddon wasn't afraid of this coming clash for one simple reason.

He had seen it.

It was only for a millisecond, but he had seen the moment where the Norse goddess of death was knocked onto one knee.

That singular moment gave him the confidence to believe that everything he wanted was possible.

His dream, his family's dream, his people's dream, they could all be accomplished!

These gods were powerful and the power they commanded was even more so, but if they could be knocked on their knees by one who had not yet ascended, then they could certainly be killed by one as well!

That singular thought fueled his determination to new heights.

Though he was in for the most challenging fight of his life, he literally could not have cared less.

His sole focus was on making this goddess bow her head to him again as atonement for the disrespect she had shown his family.

Any other worries or concerns were moot.

High in the sky, Abaddon began to change.

He became an enormous fiery demon with a body made from coal and the lower half of a bull-like monster.

Large molten horns pointed from the top of his head to the sky above like some sort of crown, and the weapons he held within his grasp began to catch fire of their own volition.

His transformation complete, Abaddon let out a horrible roar that would shake the nine realms of the world tree Yggdrasil all the way down to it's roots.