[Location: Realm Between Realms]
Following behind Ratatoskr, my thoughts finally caught up with my situation.
So let me get this straight:
First, I died in a car accident. Then, instead of the usual cliché light at the end of the tunnel, I got struck in some kind of darkness-like-nothingness. And then—just to make it spicier—a voice granted me the powers of Asura from Asura's Wrath.
And before you ask how I know it's Asura and not some knockoff bargain-bin god of anger… well, the answer is simple.
That vision.
The vision of a man—no, a titan of a man—standing against a sky that was tearing itself apart. His flesh glowing with molten lines, his fists dripping with divine fury. Six arms sprouted from his back, each swing packing the kind of force you'd expect to see on a planet-buster YouTube compilation.
And his roar…
His roar wasn't just sound. It was rebellion incarnate. A defiance that could shake gods off their thrones.
That was the Six-Armed Vajra Asura transformation.
Though, confession time—I haven't actually played the game. But I've seen enough reels and clips to know the basics: guy punches gods, guy yells, guy gets angrier, guy punches bigger gods. Rinse and repeat.
So yeah. Lucky me.
Oh, did I tell you about his Self-Resurrection?
Anyway, It's like this
Yeah, that's right. The man's respawn mechanic was basically "I'm too pissed off to stay dead."
Not exactly the kind of thing you'd expect in a Buddhist sutra, but hey, video games are cultural scripture now.
And now—lucky me—I've somehow been handed that power. Or maybe cursed with it. I mean, what kind of cosmic HR department thought it was a good idea to hand nuclear-level anger issues to me? I'm the guy who rage-quit Dark Souls at the tutorial boss.
Anyway, it's like this: this dude Asura had the ability to revive himself after death, as for how it even works well the answer is...sheer rage.
Ratatoskr, my supposed guide, scampered ahead along the thin branches of what I can only describe as the Tree of Infinite Confusion™. The damn thing stretched in every direction—up, down, sideways, like gravity itself was drunk.
"We're here." Finally, after what felt like hours of spiraling through Escher's sketchbook, the squirrel stopped.
Before us shimmered… a tear.
Not like a fabric tear. More like reality itself was suffering from a stress fracture. Light bled through the wound—cold, blue, and yet… inviting, like the glow of moonlight over snow.
"That's Midgard," Ratatoskr said. His tone was casual, but his single blue eye was watching me with a weight that made my skin crawl. "The realm of mortals. You will begin there."
I swallowed. My throat was dry. Midgard. The human realm. Kratos's playground. My own personal death sentence.
"Begin what, exactly?" I asked, because I'd had enough vague mystical squirrel speeches for one lifetime.
Ratatoskr flicked his tail. "Begin surviving. Begin understanding. Begin walking the path you were… delivered to."
Delivered. Like I was a package Amazon Prime had yeeted into the Nine Realms.
My chest throbbed, that molten fury simmering beneath the surface. Every breath was like inhaling hot iron, every heartbeat like the pounding of a war drum.
I looked at my hands—calloused, massive, faint golden cracks pulsing with every thud of my heart. Power coiled inside them, raw and unrefined. Terrifying. Addictive.
And utterly uncontrollable.
"You look unsettled," Ratatoskr said, hopping onto a root that twisted beside the rift.
I snorted. "Oh, really? Me? The guy who just got told to hop into a frozen apocalypse land where gods stab each other for fun? Totally calm."
The squirrel didn't rise to the bait. His patience was starting to annoy me.
"You will need allies," he said softly. "Friends. Mentors. Perhaps even companions."
"That 'companions' sounded oddly suspicious," I muttered, narrowing my eyes at the little squirrel as if he'd just suggested I should join some divine pyramid scheme.
Ratatoskr, unfazed, tilted his head like I was the weird one. "Suspicion is natural. But solitude in Midgard will break you faster than claws and blades ever could. Even wolves hunt in packs. You, Young Fury, will not last long without others at your side."
"It's Asura."
Ratatoskr blinked, his lone visible eye narrowing. "Wha—oh! My apologies. You… prefer to be called that now?"
I shrugged, trying to ignore the weight of molten veins burning under my skin. "Not prefer. It is... my name."
I thought as my powers comes from him, and though I haven't seen my appearance, I'm positive this body looks like him too.
Asura.
Not me, but also not not me. A contradiction wrapped in molten veins and rage that refused to die.
If I was going to walk through this frozen hell called Midgard, then I needed to stop thinking of myself as "the guy who got isekai'd with anger issues." No. I had to become the man who made gods weep with his fists.
And, to be honest, a part of me… wanted to.
"Staring too long into your own power can blind you," Ratatoskr said suddenly, as though he'd just plucked the thought straight from my skull. His tail flicked with the same rhythm as a metronome keeping time with my heart.
"Thanks, Dr. Phil," I muttered. "But I don't think there's a twelve-step program for divine anger management."
The squirrel didn't smile, didn't even twitch. "You joke, but understand this, Young Fury: power without restraint is not strength. It is a calamity waiting to be chained."
He hopped toward the rift, the tear in reality humming like a stretched bowstring. I felt it tug at me, calling, like a hook buried deep in my chest.
"The Northlands await," Ratatoskr said, gesturing with his little paw. "Step through."
I took a breath. The molten glow beneath my skin pulsed harder, almost in excitement, like the power itself wanted me to dive headfirst into whatever battlefield lay on the other side.
One step. Then another.
<><><><><><><><><><><><>
[Location: Unknown, Midgard]
The rift closed behind me as I stepped through, and what awaited me on the other side.
Only three words described my feelings—
"Fuck you, Squirrel!"
ARRGGGGHHHH!
The stench of death clung to the air before the creature even stepped into view.
From the shadows emerged a towering husk of a man—or what had once been a man. Its flesh was no longer flesh but hardened stone, cracked and jagged like volcanic rock. Splinters of bone and rough, rocky protrusions jutted from its body, giving it the look of a corpse sculpted from the ruins of a battlefield.
Its face was the most haunting—half-skeletal, half-cracked stone, with a long, unkempt beard hanging in wiry strands. Hollow sockets burned with baleful embers, a fiery glow that seemed to peer past flesh and into the soul itself. Every step it took was deliberate, heavy, like the earth itself groaned beneath its cursed weight.
Tattered wrappings clung to its waist and torso, remnants of armour long since corroded, mingled with rusted chains and frayed rope that once bound it in burial. Yet despite the decay, it wielded its weapon—a massive, blackened blade—as though it had never known weakness. The sword, chipped and scarred, seemed more like an extension of its will than a mere tool.
When it moved, it was not with the sluggishness of the dead, but with a dreadful vitality—an unholy force that denied the passage of time. Its burning gaze locked onto intruders with feral hatred, as though its very existence was defined by violence.
It was no simple corpse.It was a Draugr—an undying warrior cursed to rise again and again, a relic of ancient wrath, bound by rage that even death could not silence.
It was not the only one.
My vision adjusted, and then—
Oh, shit.
Dozens of them.
All shapes, all sizes, all fucking ugly.
The clearing before me was a Draugr nest. Cracked pillars of stone jutted from the icy ground, forming half-buried ruins of what might've been a fortress once. Snow clung to the broken walls, carried on winds that howled with the sound of distant wolves. And scattered among the ruins… were the Draugr.
Some knelt in silence, their heads bowed like monks praying at a shrine of rot. Others stood frozen in place, weapons planted in the dirt as if waiting for a war horn. Their eyes glowed faintly, embers of rage and hunger, the same as the first.
But the moment I stumbled forward, dragging air into my burning lungs—
Every.Single.Head.Snapped toward me.
Their sockets flared brighter, like someone had poured oil on dying coals.
"Ah, fuck."
The first Draugr let out a guttural roar, dry and brittle like rocks grinding together, and then—
The entire nest awoke.
Chains rattled, bones cracked, stone scraped, and an army of the dead rose in unison.
Now, if this were a video game? Cool. Wave one, beat some zombies, level up, grind EXP.
But this wasn't a game. This was Midgard. And if Norse mythology had taught me anything, it was that the dead don't rise unless they're pissed.
And these guys? They looked very pissed.
My chest throbbed again, molten lines beneath my skin glowing faintly in the cold air. Fury clawed at my ribs, begging to be unleashed, whispering: Hit them. Break them. Tear them apart.
But I didn't know how.
I clenched my fists, the golden seams along my arms pulsing, and forced a grin through my panic.
"Alright, boys. Who's first?"
The answer came in the form of a Draugr swinging its chipped greatsword straight at my head.
I ducked—barely. The blade whistled past, cleaving the air where my skull had been a second earlier. My body reacted before my brain caught up, my fist shooting upward, glowing veins trailing sparks as it connected with the Draugr's chest.
The sound was obscene.
Like a boulder shattering under a hammer.
The Draugr didn't fly—it exploded. Its torso ruptured, stone-like flesh cracking apart into burning fragments that scattered across the snow.
I stared at my fist. Trembling. Shaking. Not from fear—well, not just from fear. From power.
Holy shit.
I'd just punched a zombie into gravel.
"Okay…" I breathed, chest heaving. "Maybe this Asura thing isn't total bullshit."
The Draugr didn't care. The rest of the horde surged forward like a tide of corpses.
***
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