“Well, then.”
“Huh? Wasn’t the story just finished?”
“The story I just told was about the Valkyries stealing souls. The story I’m about to tell now is different.”
“Different… Ah!”
At that moment, Freyja seemed to finally realize what I was talking about.
“Uh, are you referring to the illegal intrusion…?”
“You know well.”
“Not just any illegal intrusion, but trespassing into the paradise meant for those who passed the judgment of the afterlife. There’s no way I’d let that slide, right?”
“I got carried away with my irritation over Odin’s soul theft and started with that story, but this is actually the main issue.”
“Now, tell me everything you know. How did you get here? What are you doing here? And what is Odin planning? Everything. Absolutely everything.”
“Yes, yes!”
Already having mortgaged her future to me, Freyja revealed everything she knew without resistance.
“Evacuating the Aesir gods to avoid destruction? Not that this place was ever meant for your kind anyway.”
“I just followed orders. That old geezer Odin made it seem like he created this place all by himself in front of the other Aesir gods… But he only gave me a tiny bit of information about it, telling me to keep it to myself.”
“Just to yourself, huh… So you do know what kind of place this is.”
“Yeah, but he explained it super ambiguously! ‘A land cherished by the Goddess of Life,’ ‘a blessed space beyond d*ath’… Always vague like that! That old man!!! He twists things with cryptic and convoluted words, making them hard to understand! Then he accuses you of not getting it even though he’s the one hoarding all the knowledge! When I ask for clarification, he says I don’t need to know yet and dodges the subject! I’m only helping him because he’s a major deity, but honestly, all goodwill has drained out of me!”
“Seems like you’ve built up quite a lot of resentment.”
“Of course! Who would want to deal with that arrogant old one-eyed fool if they didn’t have to?! And lately, he seems to be losing his mind too! Something’s off; he might have gone crazy from hearing some strange prophecy or something.”
“Madness, huh… Hmm. Could my own prophecies have driven Odin into madness?”
“Anyway, Odin created a passage for the Aesir domain to enter here. He ordered me and the Valkyries to move supplies here and fortify the place into a stronghold.”
“A stronghold…”
When I first saw the Aesir gods doing something here, I thought maybe Odin was mistaken.
Perhaps during the creation of a new world, he accidentally connected it to another realm – paradise – by mistake.
I had lightly assumed he mistook paradise for the new world and was preparing relocation there.
However, if Odin intended to create a new world to relocate the Aesir and avoid destruction, there would be no need for fortifications.
It would be wasteful to invest resources and manpower on fortifications when they could focus on stabilizing and strengthening their new world instead.
But Odin prioritized the fortifications before anything else. They were constructing defenses while building walls and castles.
Moreover, he clearly knew exactly where this place was – that it was a world beyond d*ath.
That’s why I couldn’t forgive Odin.
If it was an accidental path creation, I could have overlooked the trespass into paradise. But with intent, it was unforgivable.
Therefore…
“The Aesir must perish.”
“Huh?”
“Not that they could avoid destruction anyway… But their downfall must be as thorough as possible.”
With these thoughts, I decided to begin the Twilight of the Gods – Ragnarok.
“Downfall? The Aesir? Are you serious?”
“It’s merely altering the already predetermined process of destruction. No need to worry about it.”
And Freyja… Since I’ll need her for something else later, I’ll spare her from the downfall.
“But… What about me and the Valkyries?”
“Don’t worry. Considering the punishment through assigned tasks, you won’t be swept away in the destruction.”
As for the other Aesir gods? Well…
After giving Freyja a few instructions, I began preparations for the Twilight of the Gods.
—
Freyja fortified the corner of paradise by building a stronghold. Soon after, Odin arrived with the Aesir gods and relocated to paradise.
Pretending as if he had created the paradise himself, he named it Valhalla and rejoiced. There wasn’t a trace of the wise deity he once was; only a maddened one-eyed old man remained.
Still, despite his clouded judgment, his abilities allowed him to successfully carve a path to paradise.
The Aesir gods, believing they had escaped their destined destruction, settled into Valhalla and began hosting feasts daily within its fortress.
They cooked pork from pigs that resurrected every day and indulged in mead produced by goats instead of milk, celebrating endlessly.
But they wouldn’t know…
That there can be no paradise in a place one flees to.
That the sturdy fortress wasn’t built to protect them from enemies but to imprison them so they couldn’t escape.
And lastly, that an army was mobilizing to sweep them all away.
—
The unauthorized occupation of paradise by the Aesir… Or shall we call it squatting? Either way, the meaning aligns closely enough.
News spread through various deities about the Aesir’s unlawful occupation of paradise, eliciting different reactions.
Firstly, the Underworld.
Led by the three judges of the Underworld, those managing and guarding it, along with prisoners promised reduced sentences for active participation, were furious upon learning that part of paradise had been occupied by others.
Naturally, since paradise lies beyond the Underworld and is a destination reachable only after passing its judgment, it’s closely tied to the Underworld. Their anger was understandable.
Thus, the Underworld prepared for an all-out war.
Next, the dragons.
Initially, the dragons were indifferent when informed about paradise through Keres. Whether it was occupied or not didn’t concern them much.
However, as the story evolved during transmission, by the time it reached me via the Dragon Lord, it had transformed into:
“The afterlife being constructed for dragons in paradise has been occupied by the Aesir gods.”
Hmm… Well, technically not entirely wrong. It started as a paradise I created, which Keres attempted to adapt as a dragon afterlife, but it expanded, and then the Aesir broke through and entered.
Despite significant omissions, the essence remains somewhat accurate.
Regardless, the news reached the dragons, and they were… extremely angry.
Those who grasped the situation accurately were enraged at the occupation of the Creator Dragon God’s paradise. Those who received the distorted version were infuriated at the unauthorized takeover of an afterlife specifically crafted for dragons by the Creator Dragon God.
Ultimately, the result was the same: dragons were pissed.
Additionally, the golems mimicking Talos that human children had attempted to recreate, the giants suffering under the Aesir’s tyranny, the wolf god imprisoned by the Aesir, the gods instructed by Zeus to seize Baal’s piece from Odin, and other gods viewing the Aesir as thorns in their sides…
Seriously, why does the Aesir have so many enemies? There were even gods gnashing their teeth fiercely!
Anyway, thus gathered various entities with a single purpose in mind.
The downfall of the Aesir.
—
“Honestly, couldn’t you handle the destruction of the Aesir alone, Mother? It’d be simpler than stepping on a bug.”
“That may be true, but wouldn’t that be boring?”
I gazed at the fortress the Aesir had built.
A fortress erected as if this paradise belonged to them.
“I wish for them to despair. To regret ever setting foot here with their dirty boots and sink into destruction.”
“Despair, huh.”
“Yes. Despair. But I am far too powerful. They’d be annihilated before they could even comprehend despair, making it dull.”
I looked at the forces surrounding the Aesir’s fortress.
Various dragons, countless deceased souls, the god of giants, the god of wolves, and massive golems.
“However, these ones should sufficiently plunge the Aesir into despair.”
And… There’s one more thing I’ve prepared.
