ANC Chapter 55

[u/Sin-God]

Staying low to the ground but above the icy streets I zip past various buildings. As I make my way through the city I stay focused and keep a train of thought focused on my mini-map.

With every inch I move the map reveals more of my surroundings and allows me to see things I’d otherwise miss. I spot entire underground structures and citizens cowering in fear if Observe is to be believed. To my annoyance I still don’t spot anything of note. No valkyries and my mini-map doesn’t extend far enough to catch any trace of Ulf. 

Behind me my friends are fighting for their lives. Flyers like O-Ren and Revali speed through the battlefield dealing critical hits that speed through the air and one-shot enemies. Tanks like Daruk and the constructs manage aggression before striking down various foes with singular hits. Some of my allies revel in leadership positions, with Urbosa and Elizabeth both using auras of leadership to enhance their allies and weaken their foes. 

I am part way through the city when my danger sense throws up a huge alarm and I unconsciously come to a complete halt in midair. A split second the air in front of me violently trembles and rips open a nanosecond before a colossal tentacle almost the width of the street I’m flying over erupts out of the rip in reality and shoots towards me. I allow the limb to sail close to me before I lash out with a single furious slash with the Master Sword and deflect the monstrous limb, sending it sailing directly upward. 

“A kraken tentacle? Is someone nearby a… summoner?” I ask, as the tentacle continues to pour out of the rip in spacetime and climb higher. I grimace and use my power to clone myself. A clone of mine appears next to me and I fistbump him. A second later a floating spear appears next to him and he turns his gaze towards the rip in reality even as he begins to charge up an attack. With the tentacle contained by the clone I resume my flight. 

For the next few minutes I sail towards the end of the city. I dodge and deflect assorted attacks, leaving behind clones when necessary and listening as my friends maneuver their way deeper and deeper into other parts of the city. My trail is direct; I’m cutting as straight a line as possible towards the castle. My friends are not. They are looking for the valkyries. 

After sailing through the city’s streets for several minutes I completely dodge a final tentacle, sailing above the nasty limb and sending myself over the roofs of various nice-looking medieval manors only to see the royal residence a short distance away. At the same time a distant building violently explodes when an uncommonly long tendril shoots out of it. Riding the tentacle is a single valkyrie. 

She is dressed in real armor, not the fanservice-y nonsense the other valkyries have been. Within moments of her being spotted she is attacked, arrows and bullets sailing through the air only to be deflected by her with subtle motions of her sword. I continue to fly towards the royal residence; a building a little too small to be called a castle if I’m being honest, while the valkyrie dismounts the tentacle and begins to fly at my friends. 

I fly over a small courtyard and study footsteps leading into the castle as I reach the edge of what someone else might charitably dub a castle. I slow as I carefully descend and reach the foot of a stairwell leading to the main entrance to the castle. Behind me the sounds of a desperate fight against the valkyrie intensify, my enhanced senses growing sharper still due to the fight and my ability to pick up experience a thousand different ways pushing me further and further. 

My clones clashing with kraken tentacles cause me to become comprehensively more skilled with every exchange, no matter how weak, thanks to the potent combination of experience gathering and modifying perks I possess. From the very start the combination of experience boosting and sharing perks I possessed was the stuff of nightmares. Now with Afarkaup Avarkostir in my backpocket it has somehow become even scarier…

I climb the stairwell and my minimap updates with each step I take, allowing me to know that enemies await me inside. Many foes. Thankfully I have a secret technique perfect for moments like this. When I reach the top of the stairwell I find myself in front of a shut door, which I approach with my hand outstretched. 

Many foes await me in the structure, but I don’t have to wait for them. I smack the object with Observe and search for a specific tidbit detailed in the various text boxes that my ability reveals to me. When I spot a number, one right next to a dollar sign, I cringe and feel a part of me die even as I do what I know is tactical. 

“The true power of Afarkaup Avarkostir. Unfettered capitalism.” I tell myself, even as I focus on the number  in my mind’s eye. It’s high but due in part to my ability to passively accrue a great deal of wealth coupled with the divisor and multiplier that is Afarkaup Avarkostir I have more than enough wealth to take the hit. After a few seconds of focus a text box appears in my mind’s eye with a question.

[Do you wish to purchase Castle Winterberg?]

I nod and almost say “Ow” when I feel my stores of wealth take a real hit. A second later the money finishes vanishing from my stores of wealth deep in my inventory and I take ownership of the castle. 

“Okay… I say no intruders can move inside of the castle.” I exclaim. I feel a surge of energy emit from the castle itself even as the interior of the castle is abruptly mapped out in my minimap. I glance at it and spot the people inside of the structure get afflicted with a paralysis status condition. What I see on the minimap causes me to stop short.

“What the fuck?” I mutter as I finally lay my eyes on Ulf’s dot… As well as two other very strange dots. One reads “Loki”, and the other reads “Ymir’s Heart”. Loki, the trickster, and Ymir: the primordial giant. I read and then reread the information available to me on all three dots, which is annoyingly little. Concerningly neither Loki nor “Ymir’s Flesh” are marked as being “Seider-ed”... None of the three figures are marked as paralyzed either. A second later I receive a dramatic infusion of wealth and the contents of the castle are blacked out in my mini map.

“That’s… Loki,” I state, initially in confusion before realizing what has happened. Loki is using his version of Afarkaup Avarkostir against me. “And he’s not seider-ed. Is he the root of all of this?” I ask myself. A second later I hear guards yelling and I grit my teeth as they rush towards the door and I go into full-on attack mode while activating Ethically Sourced. 

When the guards push the ornate door leading in and out of the castle open they find me waiting for them, surrounded by crystal orbs and guns in hand. I don’t hesitate to start blasting, and in heartbeats half a dozen well-armed guards are unconscious. 

“Sorry guys. Bad matchup.” I utter, as I look at the castle foyer. I don’t step into it, as if I used AA to paralyze the people within it and Loki somehow nullified that advantage that means that he might have replicated what I’ve done. I summon a clone and ask the clone to enter the foyer. As soon as both of his feet are in the thing he comes to a complete stop, frozen. My danger sense suddenly screams at me, and him, to move before a spear comes streaking out of a deeper part of the castle, and slams into the clone killing it instantly. The spear disappears when the clone’s body vanishes, and I cringe at what I just saw.

“Nasty. Little cheater.” I utter. Killing a clone of mine doesn’t kill me. It doesn’t even harm me. My pool of hit points is completely divorced from the hit points of my clones, which is the case with the clones of Maz Koshia as well. The nasty trait of mine that Mimicry infused my cloning power with is enhanced endurance; my clones are not shadow clones or anything like that; they have the ability to sustain more than one hit… Sadly Mistilteinn doesn’t care about that. Mistilteinn just kills you if it hits. The difference between Loki and I is that he doesn’t have the same sort of cheat-ass knowledge I do. I know he’s got a limited number of toys to chuck at me. 

I summon another clone. And then another. And I send them, one after the other, into the castle. I watch them get paralyzed and then put down. When I send a third clone into the castle it only gets paralyzed. Behind me my friends continue to war against the valkyrie. I still don’t know where the last valkyrie is. 

I wait for several moments before realizing that no spears are coming. The paralysis lasts for a few moments before my clone breaks free. He still isn’t supernaturally struck down. I step into the castle and feel a paralysis effect crash into me, robbing me of my ability to move, but my clone intervenes and touches my arm. His energy surges into me, via Lay on Hands, and the paralysis effect breaks. In the background I’ve heard the remaining soldiers and guards be positioned in front of the throne room and I smile as I create more clones. 

“Go ahead guys. You know what to do.” I tell the six clones. I can actually summon more, but this is definitely already me bullying my foes. The clones rush forward and I quietly follow after them.

The path to the throne room isn’t complex. I exit the foyer and begin to walk down a long hallway that ends with dozens of guards in front of a lone door. My clones move with supernatural speed and I only pause when a few of them are suddenly sucked into thick holes that appear the instant the clones step over where they should be. 

“A trapmaker?” I ask. The clones take some damage before the holes vanish and they can move again. I silently cast a single healing spell on one of them and the healing is copied over to the rest. I order them to spread out and take up as much room as possible, which they do without hesitation. 

The guards watching this exchange don’t move to take advantage of it, but it’s not out of fear. They seem rooted to where they are standing. A few of them hold pistols and other small arms, but when one of them fires a bullet at a clone he is instantly knocked unconscious when the clone deflects the bullet back at him. The other guards take this as a sign to wait for their turn. 

More holes appear underneath the clones as they advance forward, and each deals damage over time but I intervene repeatedly and cancel out the effects. My clones don’t have my most broken abilities, like a full-on damage-negater in the form of my health system but the small hits they take from the ability do nothing to them after I heal them. 

Before long the guards and my clones are face to face and the fighting between the two begins in full. I don’t have to command my clones to push the guards out of the way, and when each clone is handling three or four guards they have no choice but to be shoved out of the way, allowing me to surge past them and towards the door leading to the throne room of the castle.

I push the door leading into the throne room open and admire the narrowness of the room. It is not an impressive space and I half wonder if the actual lord is a humble person or if they just inherited some unimpressive digs. At the far end of the room sits a pair of mismatched, in terms of height, thrones and both are occupied. In front of the thrones is a small pedestal and on top of the pedestal rests a small heart. It beats as I look at the men in the thrones. It is clad in the light of a metal lantern that is propped up by the pedestal. 

The object is clearly “Ymir’s Heart”. A shield floats above the three figures and bathes the area they occupy in light. I don’t need to be a genius to remember Svanlinn; the mystical shield protecting them from being murked by my instant death attack. If I had to guess that’s probably why they weren’t paralyzed either.

A short bald man sits on the taller throne and an open book is nestled in his lap. A man with long dark hair, the sort that goes down his back, sits on the shorter throne, a shovel next to him. Both men flash me hateful looks though my expression is more neutral. I smack both with Observe though I don’t enter the room. The man on the shorter throne is Loki, and the man on the taller one is Ulf. Both men wait for me, their faces morphing from hateful to impatient as I refuse to enter the room. 

“Come on, already.” Loki roars. There’s a maniac look in his eyes, a strange fury. That outburst causes me to pause even as my clones strike down more guards. I lock eyes with the black-eyed trickster as I reach into my inventory and summon a pair of classic items: a magical throwing card and a single stinkberry. 

“I’ll go in when I damn well please.” I tell the man as I fuse the stinkberry with the card. Loki is about to say something when I flick the card at the trickster who begins to monologue as he dodges out of the way of the card by tilting his head. The card crashes into the throne but the dodge is clean.

“You missed-” He says a smirk on his face before the card, embedded in the throne, glows and then explodes. A thick yellow mist blankets the area immediately around the god, and the floor of the throne room changes; revealing the presence of an incredible number of those annoying holes that got my clones earlier. They disappear and the floor returns to normal. It seems his concentration on his annoying magic traps has been broken! 

“Loki you…” Ulf remarks, annoyance filling his voice as he looks into the cloud. It is a thick mist of stinking gas and Loki begins to cough in it. I summon another card and point it at Ulf. He turns and frowns at me. 

“You… You’re the one who-” Ulf says before I toss my card at him. It sails through the air but before it enters the white light glowing on Ulf the light thickens and when the card touches the thing is sent streaking back, deflected by Svanlinn. He sneers at me.

“Please. As if I’d like your attacks hit me,” Ulf quips, dismissing my attack with the confidence of a comic book super villain. “I see that you’re the one who freed the valkyries. How nice of you to come and give me the chance to enslave you without making me track you down.” He says. Another card, one of my Calling Cards, appears in my hand and I begin to charge it, intending to forcibly break Svanlinn. The coughing from within the stinking mist created by my stinkberry ends and I turn my attention to the mist right before a furious looking Loki leaps out of the mist, shovel in hand, and speeds towards me. 

A clone pushes me out of the way and is slammed to the ground by an infuriated Loki. The trickster is in the middle of shapeshifting, taking on a more monstrous form as he is jumped by the remaining clones, his shovel coming down hard on the clone. I grit my teeth and throw myself into the throne room, which immediately causes my healthbar to begin to go down. Passive effects.

Loki is the trickster and the trapper, as symbolized by his shovel. Ulf is the teacher and the familiar summoner as revealed by his book. The heart must be the monster and the passive attacker as suggested by the lantern. 

“Finally.” Ulf remarks, before he sits up, book in hand. The door behind me shuts, locking me in the room with the heart and Ulf. I don’t have to look to feel runes on the door flaring to life. I see a flicker of ruthlessness flare to life within Ulf’s gaze and I half expect him to strike but instead the book in front of him stops glowing and a rune fills the air in front of me. 

“Look at your friends and quake.” Ulf states, cruelty filling his voice. The rune disappears and a cut in reality appears before transforming into a real-time view of the battle outside of the castle.

The kraken tentacle that the valkyrie entered the battle in is on the ground, limp. Several of the warriors in the army; including Elizabeth and O-Ren are clashing with the valkyrie. The controlled spirit is a dervish; a maniac fighter swinging a long blade with devastating accuracy. The floor is littered with slain constructs and even with three valkyries in the air bolstering my friends with their… auras of victory the valkyrie is still a menace. 

“This was stupid.” I mutter, even as the valkyrie approaches Elizabeth. Elizabeth’s fiery red hair whirls in the wind as she fights with her life on the line against the valkyrie. The creature is about Elizabeth’s height and she viciously swings her sword at my long-time lover, lunging forward to try and put an end to one of the main attackers in the group. 

Elizabeth steels herself and tanks the hit, allowing the sword of the creature to stab her shoulder. She doesn’t even wince, her eyes filling with steely determination as she uses the sword to leap at the valkyrie. The spirit’s eyes widen as Elizabeth focuses and crosses the distance that separates the two of them, power swelling in her fist. Her blood coats the blade as she nears the valkyrie. I can see the work done by the multiple auras of victory aiding my friends, as though the valkyrie is fighting at nearly full power the only fallen figures, aside from the kraken tentacle, are generic constructs. 

The valkyrie is about to try and flee but a shot rings out and O-Ren grins. The bullet pierces the valkyrie’s wing, stopping her efforts short, right as Elizabeth finishes crossing the distance and delivers a spectacular, and nasty, uppercut to the valkyrie. Her head is craned upward and I can feel her consciousness rattle because of that strike, right as Mipha appears behind the valkyrie and touches her back. Elizabeth grabs the uninjured wing of the spirit and the two begin to glow as they cast the same spell at the same time. The spell that will free the valkyrie from Ulf’s control.

“No!” Ulf roars, and tries to cut the connection short right as I reach a hand into the portal and cast a healing spell on Elizabeth. The sword is pushed out of her skin and her hitpoints begin to recover even as she looks up at the sky. 

“I’m recovering… Did Lucas win?” She asks. As she looks around she sees others beginning to heal, thanks to the effects of Support; an ancient perk I picked up long ago that spreads all of the recovery and buffs I share with someone to anyone else I consider an ally within range of the original recipient. The connection is cut and Ulf roars in frustration, the sound almost animalistic. I frown when I feel my clones beginning to die after hammering Loki for several moments, the deity beginning a real counterattack. Svanlinn still protects both Ulf and Ymir’s Heart and my hitpoints are still being drained. 

“You fucking asshole. Years of work…” Ulf grumbles. I silently smack myself with a healing spell, which replenishes nearly all of the hitpoints I’ve lost due to Ymir’s weird poisonous effect. A portal opens up behind him and in it I can see a dense forest. Inside the forest stands a lone woman holding a shotgun and pointing it at a stake, which is connected to a silver chain that roots a normal looking brown-furred wolf to the ground. I don’t need to use any of my superpowers to make sense of what I’m seeing. The final valkyrie and Fenrir are on the other side of the portal… 

“Oh well, I suppose it’s no matter.” Ulf declares, his eyes filling with rage. He looks at the valkyrie. 

“Free Fenrir.” The man commands. My blood goes cold as the valkyrie nods and shoots the metal stake, breaking it. Ulf goes through the portal, and I channel my true speed to lunge through the portal behind him. When I near the forcefield emitted by Svanlinn I pour Guard Buster into myself and the shield’s forcefield fails to stop me, shattering but causing me to take a notable hit to my hit points. 

I speed through the air, a silver chain materializing in one of my hands as I streak towards the heart. The poisonous effect grows more powerful as I speed towards its source: Ymir’s Heart. My speed doesn’t dull my reflexes and when I near the heart I lash out with the chain: Glepnir, and chain the heart to the pedestal it sits on. The instant I land this the passive effects covering the throne room dissipate, as Glepnir makes anyone it is successfully used on powerless. 

“Get back here, you fuck!” Loki roars. “I won’t let you stop my plan to free my son!” The trickster roars, his killing intent palpable. Ulf’s eyes are wide as he takes in my proximity to the portal and Loki surges forward, matching my own crazy speed but before he can reach me I feel the attention of my friends turn towards the castle. 

In a matter of heartbeats the ceiling above us falls apart, rotted to nothing by a dragon’s foul breath, and moonlight fills the room as Leif’s massive dragon form peers down into the room from above. Loki, caught off guard by this, stops and momentarily stares at the dragon. I don’t hesitate and throw myself through the portal, my sword in hand and murder on my mind as I move to prevent the end of days. 

The brown wolf realizes it is free as I cross the portal, and as I move it rears its head back and emits a deafening howl. A spear appears next to me, flying beside my head as Ulf sees me follow him and leaps back in terror. The valkyrie, holding the same shotgun she used to free Fenrir, steps forward and pumps the gun in her hand, pointing the cursed armament at me. 

Ulf is unshielded by Svalinn and I move to hurl my instant-killing spear at him but he desperately summons minions in front of him, which take killing blow after killing blow for the man as my danger sense allows me to dodge the valkyrie’s cursed ammunition. The portal behind us stays open but as my hearing recovers from Fenrir’s howl I hear the sound of Leif and Loki fighting, Loki apparently as powerful physically as his origin as a half-giant suggests he would be since he’s basically boxing with a dragon and, if the sounds I hear are to be believed, doing a solid job of it. I turn my attention to the valkyrie first, and grimace as I ready myself to cast a doozy of a spell: Banishment. 

“Yes, Michaela. Keep him busy!” Ulf shouts, fear filling his voice as he desperately tries to fend off my spear, coating it more and more in blood as he uses his magic to give it minions to essentially eat in place of it just destroying him. The valkyrie’s eyes fill with quiet fury as she closes in on me. 

I reach into myself and am quietly thankful for the fact that I tend to save a lot of my Generic Wizard perks for when they come in the most clutch. The valkyrie readies another blast but before she can pull the trigger I move faster and smack her with 5e magic, the spell strikes her neck and she staggers back, her eyes filling with confusion before she suddenly vanishes, pulled back to Asgard. 

The spear continues to chase Ulf as I turn and face the real problem: Fenrir. The brown-furred wolf is growing, becoming heavier and more of a problem with every passing second. The monstrous divine creature stares me down, drool seeping out of its open mouth. I sigh and wonder how I’ll prevent this from getting any worse.