[Location: Wildwoods, Midgard]
"You remember? But you are alive," she repeated, slow and deliberate.
I nodded, fingers tightening against the pelt. "My wrath. It brought me back."
The words scraped from my throat like rusted steel. Too raw. Too real.
Her eyes didn't soften. They sharpened. And in that firelight, I realized—she wasn't afraid of my wrath. She recognized it.
"I... you should rest some more, I will be back with food." After saying that, she outstretched her hand with intent and as if answering her.
Her hand stretched outward, steady, commanding.
And then it came—an answer carried on the air.
Whoosh—
Through the stillness of the forest, the weapon flew, its passage tearing the silence asunder. The Leviathan Axe. Its form was stark yet mesmerizing: a head of dark, rune-carved steel, etched with ancient frost-bound sigils that glimmered faintly in the light. The edge, sharp enough to split stone, carried with it the whisper of winter's bite.
The haft was no less striking—solid, seasoned wood, worn smooth where countless battles had tested its grip, its end bound in leather and carved with intricate patterns, the likeness of beasts entwined in eternal struggle. It was not merely a tool of war; it was heritage, memory, and promise all bound together.
As it landed in her palm with a final thrum, I felt my breath catch.
"And no need to keep guard, this area is protected by protective staff— a barrier of sorts, no creature could cross without me knowing."
Her words trailed like smoke in the night air, dissolving into the shadows between frost-coated trees. Only the faint blue runes glowing on the staff she'd left lodged outside the hut pulsed softly, like a heartbeat hidden beneath bark and snow.
I sat there, watching the place where she had stood. Listening to the hush of her steps fade into the Wildwoods until nothing remained but the whisper of wind over pine.
Protected, she said.
My lips curled into something between a sneer and a grimace. Protection… the word meant little. I knew well enough that no barrier, no wall, no divine trick of magic lasted forever. In every world, every cycle, fate always found a way to pierce through.
And I? I was fate's middle finger.
Still, there was a strange sense of stillness in her absence. The fire popped and cracked, the pelt was warm against my fingers, and for a moment—just a moment—I let myself breathe.
But sleep? No. That was a luxury my mind refused.
I pushed myself up, muscles still stiff, half-snarling as my body groaned against me. Wrath had dragged me back from death, but it hadn't healed everything. My veins still hummed like molten steel cooling in water, angry, unstable.
I stepped outside.
The cold hit me like a hammer. The world of Midgard was cruel in its beauty: snow settling like ash across the branches, moonlight fractured by icicles that clung to roots and roofs alike. My breath misted in the air, steaming as though the fury inside me sought escape even in this frozen realm.
'Might as well get familiar with these powers.'
Turning around, I went back inside, but this time, instead of going to bed, I sat on the stool by the fire where Faye had been only moments ago.
Closing my eyes, I meditated.
Yeah, cliché, right? But there was nothing else. No sword. No enemy. No battlefield to roar at. Just silence and snow—and the fire's crackle chewing away at it.
So I sat there, like some monk out of place, trying to wrestle with the thing that dragged me back from death.
The wrath.
It wasn't just rage, not really. Anger was human. It came and went like storms, burning out after it wrecked everything. But this… this was deeper. A current that didn't end. A pulse that wasn't mine but also was.
It was like I had swallowed a star made of fire and poison, and now it throbbed in my chest, too alive to ignore.
At first, there was only heat. A simmering beneath the ribs, a furnace working without coal. My breaths came heavier, the fire in front of me paling to the red glow I felt radiating inward.
I focused. Pushed. Not outward—no, I wasn't stupid enough to blow Faye's hut apart on my first night alive—but inward, into myself.
The result? Pain.
White-hot, bone-deep pain. My muscles clenched until they quivered, teeth grinding so hard I tasted blood. Every nerve screamed like I was being flayed alive.
But I didn't stop. Couldn't.
The fire within me wasn't just some trick—it was mine to master or mine to be consumed by.
And I've already been consumed once.
"Ghrrraahhh—!"
The growl ripped out of me before I could stop it, shaking the wood around me. For a second, the flame in the hearth wavered, guttering low as though afraid.
And then—there it was.
A flicker. A spark under my skin, glowing faintly along my arms, veins lighting red like molten cracks in black stone. They pulsed in rhythm with my heart, each beat a drum of fury echoing into my skull.
So this is it…
Mantra of Wrath.
Not complete, not whole—not the terrifying storm Asura wielded in my memories—but the beginning. A drip from an ocean I hadn't yet touched.
The pain subsided, leaving my body shaking, sweat chilling against the cold air. My breath came ragged, steaming.
But I smiled. Gods, I smiled.
Because for the first time since waking up, I wasn't empty.
I was alive.
Again.
This time, I focused on projecting my consciousness inward—I could feel my heart beating, not thrashing inside like before, but pulsing steady, like a furnace roaring with controlled heat.
Every thud wasn't just blood pumping—it was wrath itself, cycling through me, burning away the weakness, forging me anew with each echo.
Ba-dump.A flare of heat rolled across my chest.
Ba-dump.My breath hissed white into the air, steam curling like smoke off iron fresh from the forge.
Ba-dump.The faint red cracks along my skin brightened, veins glowing with molten fire before dimming again, like coals stirred by a hidden wind.
I was… becoming.
Not Asura. Not yet. Not even close. But the seed was there. The wrath was alive, restless, demanding I either master it or be devoured.
I clenched my fists, staring into the flickering fire. The wood crackled, and for a moment, I swore it bent away from me—like the flames themselves recognized something deeper inside me, something older, something that shouldn't be here in Midgard.
"Control…" I muttered under my breath, voice hoarse but firm.
If I lost myself now, I wouldn't just torch this hut—I'd probably torch half the Wildwoods. And while part of me wanted that, hungered for it, another part whispered caution. Not yet. Not here.
A sound outside broke my focus.
Snap.
Snow crunching.
Not the rhythmic weight of Laufey's steps. No, this was heavier. Uneven. Something dragging.
My head lifted instantly, eyes narrowing. The Mantra stirred inside me, responding instinctively, a predator tasting blood in the air.
I rose, the pelt sliding off my shoulders. The air bit at my skin, but I barely felt it. My body was awake now, alive in ways I hadn't been in… who knows how long.
Another snap. Closer.
And then, a low growl.
Not wolf. Not bear.
Not even Draugr.
Distance… too far. Ten kilometers? Maybe more.
And yet I heard it. Felt it. Like thunder rolling beneath skin instead of sky.
Which didn't make sense. Not unless…
The wrath had sharpened me. Pulled every sense taut like a bowstring. Each breath of the forest around me carried too much detail. The crispness of frost clinging to bark. The musk of pine sap oozing from a wounded tree. The faint coppery tang of something bleeding… far away.
That growl. It didn't belong here.
I stepped outside, bare feet crunching into snow, heat from within steaming the powder in soft hisses. The night was sharp, the moon half-hidden behind torn clouds, painting the Wildwoods in silver and shadow.
The barrier staff glowed faintly, runes pulsing like a heart. I glanced at it once, then past it.
That sound… it wasn't coming closer. It was waiting.
Calling.
And the wrath in me? It answered.
I didn't think. I moved.
Snow scattered underfoot as I strode into the forest, each breath misting like smoke from a furnace. No weapon, no plan. Just instinct, hunger, and a pull I couldn't ignore.
Branches clawed at me as I passed, snapping against my shoulders. My body ached, still half-broken, but every step fed that molten rhythm inside my chest.
Ba-dump.
Heat.
Ba-dump.
Steam.
Ba-dump.
The world sharpening into red edges and silver gleam.
Something was hunting.
And I… I wanted to hunt it back.
...
The trees thinned, and then I saw it.
A mountain of flesh and stone, hunched and lumbering, its every step sinking deep into the snow. The creature's skin was a patchwork of ashen gray and burning fissures, molten light leaking through like veins of fire beneath cracked earth. Its breath was a guttural rasp, each exhale misting the air as though the world itself recoiled from its heat.
Slung across one shoulder, a weapon that was no weapon at all—a colossal slab of rock, bound in iron and etched with runes that pulsed faintly, as if alive. It wasn't carried; it was wielded, swung as though the weight of a mountain meant nothing.
Its eyes… gods, its eyes. Not dull like Draugr, not animal like bear or wolf, but something worse. A hunger that recognised me. A challenge.
The ground quaked as it stopped, massive frame blotting out the moonlight, shadow swallowing the clearing whole.
Dauði Kaupmaðr. A troll, but more than that. A juggernaut born of fire and stone, reeking of ancient wrath.
And it was waiting for me.
As it recognised me or my wrath. I too recognised this troll to be specific—this is the same troll Kratos and Atreus encountered at the start of the plot during their hunt.
RAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHHH—!
The forest quaked beneath the roar. Birds scattered in black flocks across the moonlight, branches shuddered, and snow avalanched off pines in soft cascades. The air itself shook, vibrating in my bones like a war drum.
I gritted my teeth.My body still screamed with half-healed wounds, but that sound? That challenge? It burned the pain away like paper in a forge.
The troll lumbered forward, each step a quake, each exhale a blast of hot wind that melted snow in steaming rivulets. Its colossal hand dragged the rune-carved pillar through the ground, tearing up roots and dirt with every scrape.
My hands curled into fists. The Mantra stirred.
Ba-dump.Heat flushed my chest.
Ba-dump.My vision sharpened, every vein in that monster's body glowing like rivers of magma beneath stone-skin.
"Perfect…" My lips pulled into a grin, cracked and bloody. "…let's see how much of you I can break before you break me."
The troll lunged.
***
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