The council gathered at dawn.
The small throne room was about ten times smaller than the main one, but it still accommodated two dozen people without feeling cramped. Currently, there were seven: Odin on the dais, Frigga beside him, Tyr by the map of the Nine Realms, Thor—pale but on his feet—Sif, Heimdall, and myself.
The map hung in the air, woven from light. Nine spheres connected by the lines of Yggdrasil. Asgard shone gold in the center. Helheim was a dim smudge at the bottom, almost beyond the edges of the schematic.
"The Bifrost does not reach there," Heimdall said what everyone already knew. "Helheim is isolated. I cannot see it; I cannot open a path."
"Because I closed it myself," Odin did not look at the map. His gaze was directed somewhere through the wall. "When I imprisoned Hela, I cut Helheim off from the rest of the realms. Completely. A closed pocket of reality, existing in a fold between worlds—outside of everything Heimdall can see or sense. Neither entry nor exit."
"But Gorr will find a way," I said. "He is already on his way. Or already there."
"The Necrosword cuts through reality," Odin finally turned. "He does not need bridges—he creates his own."
"Then we need our own way."
Silence. Heavy as lead. Seven people in the room—and no one wanted to say what needed to be said.
Frigga was the first to speak.
"There is one path," she said slowly, weighing every word. "Ancient. Dangerous. Through the Roots of Yggdrasil."
Tyr raised his head from the map:
"The Dead Men's Paths?"
"Yes."
"They haven't been used since the war with Surtur. Hundreds of years."
"Because there was no need. Now—there is."
Frigga approached the map, running her hand over it. The lines between the worlds flared brighter, and among them emerged others—dim, barely noticeable, like cracks in glass. A network beneath the network. Paths for those who had no other way to go.
"Yggdrasil is not just a symbol," she said. "It is a living being, older than the gods. Its roots permeate all worlds, including those we have closed. Helheim is isolated from everything—except the World Tree itself. If we find the right root and open the gates..."
"That is impossible," Tyr interrupted her. "The gates of Helheim are sealed. By the All-Father's magic, by the All-Father's blood. To open them, one needs..."
"The blood of the one who sealed them," Frigga finished quietly. "Yes."
Everyone looked at Odin.
He stood motionless. Only the muscles in his jaw moved—slowly, rhythmically.
"How much?" he asked finally. Without emotion, as if inquiring about a price at a market.
"Enough to weaken you for several days. Not fatal. But you will be vulnerable, and you know it."
"I know."
Frigga looked at him—and in her gaze was something I couldn't decipher. Not fear. Not a plea. Something more complex.
"Then we do it," Odin said. Simply. Finally.
"Wait," Tyr raised his hand. "Opening the gates is one part. Who goes? And why go at all? If Gorr hasn't reached Hela yet—we have time to strengthen Asgard's defenses, block the approaches..."
"The Necrosword knows no obstacles," I said. "Gorr will come when he wants. A door will not stop him."
"Then we will destroy him when he appears."
"We already tried." I nodded toward Thor. "He stands here with necro-matter in his blood and can barely stay on his feet. And that was a good outcome."
Tyr clenched his teeth but could not object.
"If Hela dies," Odin spoke slowly, "the Necrosword will absorb her power. The Goddess of Death, the firstborn of Odin, ruler of an entire world. Gorr will become..." he paused, "something we can no longer handle."
"A living enemy is better than a dead trump card in an opponent's hands," I repeated what I had said the night before.
"So, Helheim it is," Heimdall said without intonation. A simple statement of fact.
"Who goes?" Tyr asked the main question.
"I will," Thor stepped forward.
"You are wounded," Odin objected.
"I am on my feet."
"Barely."
Thor straightened up—slowly, with an effort he tried to hide. The healers had forbidden him from standing until the end of the week. He stood after twelve hours.
"Hela is my sister," he said. Quietly, but firmly. "I learned of her two days ago. I must see her myself. Understand."
"Understand what?" Odin asked harshly.
"Who she is. Who she could have been. Why everything happened the way it did."
"That will not help in battle."
"It will help in conversation. And conversation is why we are going there."
They looked at each other—father and son, both stubborn to the point of absurdity. One stone wall against another. I could have bet they would stand like that until the next morning.
"Fine," Odin said finally. Short, sharp, like a closing door.
"And I," Sif said. "Thor needs cover. He cannot fight at full strength—the necro-matter hasn't been purged yet. Someone must watch his back."
"Reasonable. Who is the third?"
"I am," I said before anyone else could suggest another. "Heimdall cannot see Helheim. But I sense the Necrosword. If Gorr is there—I will know before he even appears in sight."
Tyr exchanged a look with Odin. In that look was much—distrust, doubt, calculation.
"Three is too few," Tyr said. "I will go as the fourth."
"No," Odin shook his head. "You are needed here. If Gorr strikes Asgard while we are occupied with Helheim..."
"Then who?"
"Three are enough," Thor said. "More makes it harder to hide. We are not going to wage war on Hela. We are going to speak."
"And if she doesn't want to listen?"
"Then we will improvise."
Tyr grunted—whether in approval or skepticism, it was hard to tell with him.
Frigga raised her hand, and another image appeared in the air—the schematic of a ritual. Runes arranged in a circle, symbols in a language I had seen only in Asgard's oldest books.
"The ritual will take about an hour to prepare. The gates will not be open long—maybe a minute, maybe less. You must pass through quickly and together. If someone falls behind..."
"We won't fall behind," Sif said.
"What about the return?" Thor asked.
Frigga was silent. It was the kind of pause that was worse than any answer.
"Helheim is a closed world, but not a prison for the living. You can exit the same way—through the Roots. The key is to find the place where the veil is thinnest. The highest points of the terrain. Hills, towers."
"Hela's Citadel," I said.
"Most likely, yes. If she agrees to let you out."
"And if she doesn't?"
Frigga pulled something small and metallic from the folds of her dress. An amulet on a chain—a simple disk with an engraved rune. She held it the way one holds something they don't want to part with.
"A beacon. If everything goes wrong—activate it. I will feel it and try to open the gates from this side. But that is a last resort. Opening from the outside requires much power and time."
She handed the amulet to me. Not to Thor. To me.
"Why him?" Sif asked without hostility. Just with curiosity.
"Because he survives," Frigga replied. "It is what he does best."
I took the amulet. The metal was warm—not from Frigga's hand, but of its own accord. As if something lived within it.
"An hour for preparation," Odin announced. "Then—the ritual."
He hesitated. Just a little. Almost imperceptibly.
"Be careful. All three of you."
It was the closest to "I am worried" I had ever heard from the All-Father.
the hour turned out to be short.
I spent it in the infirmary—not because I was needed there, but because I didn't know where else to go. My broken ribs still hurt with every breath, but the healers had already done their work: the bones were mending; I could breathe.
Thor was dozing—or pretending to doze. When I entered, his eyes opened immediately.
"Not sleeping," I noted.
"I can't." He tried to sit up and winced. "The necro-matter under my skin itches. As if something is moving inside."
"Unpleasant."
"You have a way with comfort."
I sat on the edge of the adjacent cot. Outside, Asgard was waking up—voices, footsteps, the clinking of metal could be heard. Ordinary life that continued in spite of everything.
"You shouldn't have gotten up," I said. "The healers..."
"The healers said many things." Thor looked at me. "Hela. Tell me about her. You read about her in the library, I know."
"A little."
"Then tell me that little."
What could I say? That she would become the main villain of "Ragnarok"? That Asgard would fall under her hand? That this future was already changing right now, and where it would roll next—I didn't know.
"She is exactly as she is described," I said finally. "A thirst for conquest, a goddess of death who isn't satisfied with boundaries. It's not a mask and not an exaggeration. Odin locked her away not because he feared the unfamiliar, but because she became uncontrollable."
Thor was silent.
"But she is smart," I continued. "And thousands of years of solitude is enough time to learn how to calculate. Gorr is not a liberator to her. He is a threat. The Necrosword doesn't distinguish whom to kill—death gods included. If she understands this... conversation is possible. Not because she is kind. Because she isn't a fool."
"And do you know the right words?"
"Not yet. But I have an hour."
The ritual was conducted in the very heart of the dungeons.
Corridors led down, deeper and deeper, until the gold of the walls was replaced by gray stone, and torches by glowing moss. An ancient part of Asgard, built even before Odin. Here, history lay in layers, like geological strata.
The air changed long before we entered the hall. Heavier. More saturated. Something I couldn't define with words, but which my body felt as a warning. A place where the boundary between worlds is thinner. Where that which should be divided almost touches.
"Do you feel it?" Sif asked quietly, walking beside me.
"Yes."
"What is it?"
"Helheim. It's close. Relatively."
She gripped the hilt of her sword. A reflex. I noticed—and said nothing.
The hall opened suddenly—circular, with a domed ceiling covered in runes. There were no torches here. The light came from the runes themselves—cold, bluish, lifeless. In the center was a stone slab inscribed with symbols I had never seen in any book. Around it were nine pillars, corresponding to the number of the realms.
Frigga was already there. She stood by the slab, arranging candles—black ones made of wax that smelled of bitter smoke. Odin was beside her, without armor, without Gungnir, in a simple tunic. He looked... ordinary. Just an old man in a dark room.
"Stand by the slab," Frigga directed the three of us. "Close to each other. When the gates open, step through together. Do not delay, do not look back."
"What happens if we look back?" Thor asked.
"Nothing good."
We took our positions—Thor in the center, Sif on the right, me on the left. Shoulder to shoulder.
Odin approached me.
"Listen carefully," he said. Quietly, so only I could hear. "Hela is smart. Smarter than she might seem to you. She has spent thousands of years in solitude, and it hasn't broken her—it has sharpened her. She sees manipulations before you even manage to construct them."
"Understood."
"No, you don't understand." His single eye stared intently. "You think you know how to lie. That you know how to persuade. With her, that won't work. Not because you are bad at it. Because she is better."
"Then what will work?"
"The truth. A part of the truth. Enough truth for her to feel the difference."
A pause.
"If she refuses—do not try to defeat her. Do not try to argue. Run. Immediately. Helheim is her world, her power. Within it, she is invincible."
"And the Necrosword?"
"If Gorr is already there—run twice as fast."
Practical advice. I appreciated it.
Odin stepped back. Frigga began to draw runes in the air. They hung there, glowing with soft gold, forming a pattern I didn't recognize but felt—ancient, powerful. Her voice began to sound—words in a language older than Asgardian, older than the Allspeak.
And then I felt the first thing.
A scent.
Faint, barely perceptible. Something sweetish, unsettling—like flowers at a funeral, multiplied by a thousand years. The smell of places where the living do not go.
"It is beginning," Frigga uttered, without interrupting her chanting. "Yggdrasil feels it."
"Blood opens the way. Blood binds the worlds. The blood of the one who sealed it removes the seal."
Odin approached the slab. He pulled out a knife—simple, undecorated. He ran the blade across his palm. Deep, without hesitation, like a man who has done this before and knows that hesitation only makes it hurt more.
Blood—dark, almost black in the cold light of the runes—dripped onto the stone.
The runes on the slab flared.
And simultaneously—a sound. No, not a sound. A sensation. As if something within the walls of the room had come alive and was listening. As if someone vast and very quiet had turned their head.
Helheim felt the blood of the one who had sealed it.
"Thor," Frigga did not stop singing, but managed to say this, "do not let him fall. The blood loss will be severe."
Thor stepped toward his father, standing beside him. Odin did not pull away.
The candles in the hall flared all at once—and went out. All nine. Darkness weighed down for about three seconds, no more, but those three seconds changed something. When the runes gave off a new light—different, dark, the opposite of radiance—the air became different. Denser. Colder.
And from nowhere—voices.
Not words. Not languages I knew. Just a sound resembling human speech—whispers, multi-voiced, never-ending. Like wind in an empty building. Like surf in the darkness.
"What is that?" Sif asked, and there was no fear in her voice. Only tense alertness.
"The gates are waking up," Frigga answered. "Those who wait on the other side—they hear that something is changing. Pay no attention."
Pay no attention to the voices of the dead. Excellent advice.
Odin's blood continued to drip. Every drop was absorbed into the slab instantly—the stone drank thirstily, like dry earth drinks water. The runes became brighter. Darker. A darkness that was brighter than light.
It rose from the slab in a spiral. Twisting. The air above the stone trembled, distorted, began to tear—not beautifully, not spectacularly. It just tore, like old fabric.
The scent intensified. Now it was no longer a hint—it was a full-blown, oppressive smell of decay and eternity. It caught in my throat.
"The gates are opening," Frigga stepped back, breathing heavily. "Go. Now."
The rift widened. Through it, one could see—nothing. A gray void, infinite and oppressive. Neither light nor darkness—something in between that had no name in the languages of the living.
The whispering intensified. Dozens of voices, then hundreds. I felt them not with my ears—but inside, like a vibration.
"Go," Odin repeated. His voice was weaker than usual. Blood loss. "While the gates are open."
Thor was the first to step toward the rift. He stopped at the edge, turned around.
"Father..."
"Later. Everything later."
Thor nodded. Something passed over his face—complex, inexpressible in a single word. Then he stepped into the gray nothingness.
Sif followed him. Without hesitation, as always.
I lingered for a moment. I turned back.
Odin stood by the slab. The hand with the cut was clenched into a fist, blood seeping through his fingers. He was looking at me—and in that look was something I didn't expect to see.
Not a command. Not a warning.
A plea.
Frigga stood beside him. She was no longer singing—the ritual was over, the gates open. She just watched.
"Take care of them," she said. "Both of them."
"I'll try."
I stepped into the rift.
The fall lasted an eternity and an instant simultaneously.
The gray nothingness enveloped us from all sides, stripping away orientation. There was no up. There was no down. Only movement—somewhere, by rules that no one explained here. In this space between worlds, the whispering of the dead sounded louder than in the hall—and now I could distinguish individual threads. Not words. Just presence. A multitude of presences moving in the same direction.
These are the Dead Men's Paths. Everyone who dies walks here.
Thor's hand found mine in this void—or mine found his. A firm, hot hand. Living. Sif was somewhere nearby; I felt her presence even without seeing her.
And then—an impact.
Solid ground beneath our feet. A sharp, jarring transition. My knees buckled, but I held steady.
The first breath scorched my lungs—cold, stale, smelling of something sweetish and wrong. The scent I had felt in the ritual hall—magnified a thousand times. Here, it was the norm.
I opened my eyes.
Helheim.
The sky—if it could be called a sky—was gray, without a sun, without stars, without clouds. Just a gray void receding into infinity. Neither dark nor light—specifically gray, like old ash.
The ground beneath our feet was covered in something resembling grass. But the grass was gray, dry, dead. It crunched under our boots like old bones.
In the distance—trees. Black silhouettes without leaves, without bark, resembling skeletons thrust into the ground roots-up. They didn't move, but they created the sensation that they were watching.
To the left—a river. Not water. Something thick, silvery, flowing slowly. It absorbed light like a hungry mouth.
And silence. Absolute, oppressive, unnatural silence. No wind, no birds, no insects. Only the sound of our breathing—unexpectedly loud in this silence—and the crunch of dead grass.
"Everyone whole?" Thor asked, straightening up.
"Yes," Sif looked around, hand already on her sword.
I didn't answer immediately. I reached for the sensation that had haunted me since Omnipotence City—a cold pulsation on the edge of perception. A hunger that could not be sated.
The Necrosword was somewhere in this world.
"Faint," I said finally. "It is here, in this world. But far. For now, far."
On the horizon—if this world had a horizon—something massive loomed dark. Towers? Mountains? Just a shadow?
"The Citadel?" Thor pointed.
"Most likely. Let's go."
The dead grass crunched under our feet. We moved forward—toward the dark smudge on the edge of the gray world, beneath the gray sky that would never change while we were here.
Welcome to Helheim.
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100 power stones= 1 Bonus Chapte
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