Hela was winning—and it was magnificent.
Gorr retreated under a hail of black blades, leaking dark blood from a dozen wounds. Every movement of his became slower, every block less precise. The Goddess of Death in her realm was a force of nature, and even the God Butcher could not withstand her indefinitely.
Thor struck from the flank—the hammer slammed into Gorr with a force capable of shattering a mountain, throwing him directly under another fan of blades. Gorr tried to evade, but three blades found their mark—thigh, shoulder, side. He roared in pain, and that sound was music to my ears.
The Black Berserkers rushed to their master's aid—a black wave of creatures flooding in from all sides.
"Sif, perimeter!" I shouted, releasing the cold.
A wave of frost rolled across the floor, freezing the first rank of Berserkers. Sif was there instantly, her sword singing through the air, finishing off those I had slowed. We worked together—seamlessly, without unnecessary words, as if we had been doing this for years.
"Left!"
Three creatures—ice spikes pierced them through.
"Behind you!"
Her sword sliced through a Berserker that had crept up behind my back.
Hela's dead warriors also joined the fray—black figures with green fire in their eye sockets against black figures with emptiness instead of faces. Two armies clashed in the center of the throne room, and the clanging of metal, the cracking of bones, and the hissing of disintegrating necro-matter merged into a cacophony of battle.
In the center of this chaos, Thor and Hela pressed Gorr.
"Finish him!" Thor shouted, bringing the hammer down again and again.
Hela did not reply—words were redundant. She attacked with a fury she had stored for millennia; every blade carried her hatred for what had dared to invade her realm. Gorr blocked, evaded, retreated—and with every step back, he lost his advantage.
It seemed that just a little more—and it would all be over.
And then the Necrosword began to sing.
The sound was high-pitched, piercing—it penetrated the bones, the teeth, the very heart. I felt it before I heard it—a pulsation of hunger that resonated somewhere deep inside, in that part of me that had been to the other side.
The blade flared with dark light, and Hela's dead warriors began to fall.
One after another, like candles snuffed out by a gust of wind. They did not crumble or vanish—they withered, as if their very essence was being drained. Energy flowed out of them in green wisps, resembling the aurora borealis, and flowed toward the Necrosword, absorbed by the hungry blade.
"What is happening?" Sif froze beside me, watching the falling dead.
"He is feeding," I realized before I had even finished the thought. "The Necrosword is devouring them."
Hela retreated from Gorr, and for the first time in the entire fight, her face showed not anger—but fear. A real, unadulterated fear of a being who had just realized they had encountered something they didn't expect.
"Your realm," Gorr rose, and the wounds on his body were closing right before our eyes; flesh knit back together, blood stopped. "Your power. Your dead. All of it—energy. And energy—is food."
He stepped forward, and another twenty dead warriors collapsed around him, their strength flowing into the sword. Gorr glowed now—not with light, but with something opposite, a dark radiance that was painful to behold.
"He is drinking my realm," Hela whispered, her voice carrying the confusion of one who is not used to losing. "Every dead soul, every shadow..."
"Then don't give him time," Thor didn't wait.
The hammer crashed down on Gorr—a strike that should have shattered bones and torn flesh. But Gorr took it on the Necrosword, and the recoil threw Thor back. He slammed into a column, the stone cracking from the impact.
Hela attacked—thirty blades simultaneously from all sides. But now Gorr moved differently—faster, more confident. He parried all thirty with a single circular motion of the Necrosword, and Hela's black blades crumbled into dust upon contact with the hungry weapon.
"Loki!" Sif grabbed my shoulder. "The Berserkers!"
I turned. The creatures were no longer attacking us—they were retreating, creating a perimeter around their master. Not a defense—an arena. They were giving Gorr space to fight.
"We need to help," I said.
"How?"
A good question. Thor had already risen, back in the fight—hammer against Necrosword, thunder against emptiness. But every strike Gorr took seemed to make him stronger. He wasn't just feeding on the dead—he was feeding on the battle itself.
Hela joined Thor, and now they attacked together—coordinated, wordless, as if they had fought together their whole lives. Perhaps something in their blood knew how to do this. Perhaps it was just desperate necessity.
Thor struck from the front—hammer and lightning, pure destructive power. Hela attacked from the flanks—blades appearing from shadows, from walls, from the very air. Together, they forced Gorr to spin, to defend, to expend energy.
But he was becoming stronger by the second.
Every dead warrior that fell around them fed the Necrosword. Helheim was an infinite reservoir of energy, and Gorr drank from it like a well without a bottom.
"Sif, with me," I moved toward the fight.
"What are you planning?"
"Four are better than two."
We entered the fray from the flanks—me from the left, Sif from the right. Gorr turned, trying to track all four, and for a moment, his defense faltered.
Thor took advantage—the hammer found its mark, the strike landing on the shoulder. Gorr staggered.
Hela added to it—three blades in the opened side.
Sif struck from behind—her sword sliced through the necro-matter entwining Gorr's body.
I released the cold—not just a wave, but a focused stream, freezing the ground under Gorr's feet, binding his movements.
"Together!" Thor shouted.
We attacked simultaneously.
Hammer from above. Hela's blades from all sides. Sif's sword in the open side. An ice spear in the chest.
Gorr took it all.
The Necrosword described an arc—impossibly fast, impossibly precise. It knocked away the hammer, sliced through Hela's blades, parried Sif's sword, and shattered my spear—all in one motion.
And then he counterattacked.
An elbow to Thor's face—he recoiled, blood from a broken nose. A kick to Hela's chest—she flew back. The Necrosword slashed the air where Sif had been a moment ago—she barely managed to evade.
I created an ice wall between us and Gorr. He walked through it as if through paper.
"Separate!" I shouted.
We scattered—instinctively, without a plan. Gorr could not pursue all four at once. He chose Thor—perhaps because he was wounded, perhaps because he saw him as the primary threat.
The Necrosword rained blows down on Thor. He defended with the hammer, but every block threw him back; every parry cost him strength. A black web of necro-matter was spreading across his shoulder—where the blade had grazed him earlier.
"Thor!" Hela threw a fan of blades, forcing Gorr to be distracted.
He batted them away without looking and continued the attack.
I rushed toward them, creating ice spikes in Gorr's path. He leaped over them without slowing down. Sif came in from behind, her sword aimed at the spine—Gorr turned at the last moment and parried the strike.
We circled him—four against one, attacking in turns, not letting him focus. It was working, but not enough. Every second of the battle made him stronger, and us weaker.
Thor struck with the hammer—putting everything he had into it. Lightning crashed down on Gorr from above, a blinding light filling the hall. For a moment, I thought it had worked.
When the light dissipated, Gorr stood in the same place—scorched, but alive. The Necrosword in his hand pulsed, absorbing the residual energy of the lightning.
"Impressive," he said, and his voice carried almost sincere praise. "It has been a long time since I fought those who made me exert so much effort."
He attacked—faster than before, faster than ever. The Necrosword sliced the air, and Thor barely managed to raise the hammer for a block. The impact threw him across half the hall.
Hela tried to intercept—her blades flew in a hail. Gorr parried them and struck her in the chest with his fist. The Goddess of Death slammed into her own throne, and the bone construction collapsed, burying her under the rubble.
Sif attacked—desperately, fiercely. Gorr caught her sword with his bare hand, the necro-matter protecting his palm. A wrench—and Sif flew to the side, losing her weapon.
I was left alone.
Gorr turned to me, and there was a tired smile on his face.
"Jotun," he said. "You fight well. For a god."
"I am not a god."
The words came out on their own—and I realized I believed them. Truly believed them. I was not a god—I was a man who once died in front of a TV and woke up in someone else's body. A transmigrator, an impostor, a liar.
And reality changed under this belief.
Gorr blinked—confusedly, like a man who expected to see one thing but saw another.
"You..." he began and faltered. The Necrosword in his hand trembled, as if it too felt something wrong.
The God of Lies. When I believed in my own words strongly enough, reality shifted, bending under the weight of my conviction. Not an illusion, not a deception of perception—a real change. For a fraction of a second, for a moment—but it was enough.
Right now, in Gorr's eyes, in the Necrosword's perception, I was not a god. I was something else—a mortal who understood the pain of loss. And it was the truth, because I had made it the truth.
I didn't wait for him to recover. I reached for that part of me that had been to the other side—to the void, to the memory of death—and channeled it into the sword, weaving my words, my belief into the bond.
"Your pain," I said, and it was the pure truth—the bond with the sword allowed me to feel it as my own. "I feel it. Your family. Your children. The void that never fills."
The Necrosword trembled in Gorr's hand.
"What are you doing?" his voice was hoarse.
"Speaking the truth."
And there was the irony—the God of Lies, winning with the truth. But a truth reinforced by belief, a truth that resonated with something deep inside Gorr. He had spent millennia among liar-gods and had learned to sense falsehood. He did not expect sincerity.
Gorr tried to attack, but the movement was uncertain, slowed. The Necrosword resisted—not him, but me. It felt something in me it couldn't understand: not a god, but not quite a mortal either. Something in between.
"The sword feeds on your pain," I continued, putting all the power of persuasion I was capable of into my words. "Every time you remember—it becomes stronger. It doesn't let you forget."
"Silence!" Gorr lunged forward, breaking the connection.
The Necrosword crashed down on me—I barely managed to put up an ice shield, which shattered into pieces from the blow. I flew back, my back hitting a column. Pain shot through my ribs, but I saw his eyes.
There, behind the rage, was doubt.
My words had hit their mark.
The hammer slammed into his side.
Thor rose despite his wound, despite the necro-matter spreading across his shoulder. Lightning struck from his eyes, and he attacked—not with a Berserker's rage, but with the cold resolve of a warrior who knows this might be his last fight.
"Don't touch my brother!"
Hela scrambled out of the rubble—her face covered in blood, but her eyes burning with fury. She didn't waste time on words, she simply attacked—twenty blades, thirty, they flew from all sides.
Sif found her sword and joined the fight.
We were fighting as four again, and I continued to speak—between strikes, between evading, using every second.
"It doesn't let you forget! It doesn't let you let go!"
Gorr fought back, but something had changed in his movements. He was slower, more uncertain. My words were reaching their goal.
"You killed hundreds of gods!" I shouted, freezing the ground under his feet. "Did it get easier? Did your children return?"
Gorr stumbled—only for a moment, but Thor took advantage. The hammer found its mark, the strike landing on the shoulder. Hela added to it—three blades in the opened side.
"The sword is a parasite! It feeds on your hatred! Without it, it is nothing!"
Gorr clutched his head—with one hand, the other still gripping the Necrosword.
"Silence..." his voice was different, broken.
Tears were streaming down his cheeks—the first in millennia.
Thor, Hela, and Sif stopped, not attacking. They felt the same thing I did—the moment was fragile, like thin ice over an abyss.
"You can let go," I said softly, taking a step toward him. "Not the gods—they do not deserve forgiveness. Your pain. For your own sake."
The Necrosword pulsed violently, desperately. Black flame began to envelop Gorr, and I could see the struggle going on inside him—the man against the parasite, the memory of love against millennia of hatred.
"It's not enough," I realized. "He needs something more, something that will break the sword's grip permanently."
"What?" Thor asked quietly.
"His memories. What he hides deepest."
"How?"
I looked at the Necrosword in Gorr's hand. The blade pulsed, and I felt that pulsation—like the beating of a second heart.
"Through the sword."
"Loki, no..." Thor began.
But I was already walking toward Gorr.
Black flame struck out around him, but I did not stop. The bond with the sword was pulling me forward—or I was reaching for it, it was hard to tell.
Gorr raised his head. His eyes darted between rage and despair.
"What are you doing?" The voice was not entirely his; it carried the echo of something ancient and hungry.
"What I must."
I reached out and grabbed the Necrosword with my bare palms.
Pain was the last thing I felt before the world around me vanished.
Images flooded in like a torrent—another's life, another's pain, another's memories. A small boy on his mother's knees as she teaches him prayers. A young man burying her in the dry earth. A man holding his dying wife in his arms. A father carrying the bodies of his children to graves he dug with his own hands.
And deeper—a memory that Gorr hid from everyone. Even from himself.
The last day. The last child. His daughter, the youngest.
She was dying more slowly than the others. She held his hand and looked with eyes too large for her gaunt face.
Papa. Don't cry. The gods will take me to a good place. Mama said.
And he couldn't tell her the truth. He couldn't destroy her faith in the final minutes of her life.
Yes, he said. The gods will take you. There will be water, and food, and you will never be hungry.
She smiled. Closed her eyes. And died with a smile on her lips.
That was the key.
Not hatred—love. He lied for the sake of love, gave her peace in her final moments. This was not a god butcher—this was a father who did the only thing he could for his dying child.
The sword did not want him to remember this. The sword wanted only rage, only pain, only hatred.
But love was stronger.
I let go of the blade and fell to my knees, gasping. My hands burned—the Necrosword had sliced my palms to the bone. Blood flowed down my fingers, dripping onto the floor of Helheim.
But it didn't matter.
"Gorr," I raised my head. "Your daughter. The last words you said to her. You lied—so she wouldn't be afraid."
He froze. The Necrosword in his hand trembled.
"It was love," I said. "Not revenge. You are still that man who gave a dying child hope."
Tears flowed down Gorr's cheeks.
The Necrosword pulsed—violently, desperately, trying to drown out my words, to regain control over the host.
But Gorr was no longer listening to the sword.
He was listening to me.
"She wouldn't want this," I said softly. "None of them would. They loved you."
Black flame engulfed Gorr—the Necrosword's last desperate attempt to maintain control. Inside this cocoon, a battle was taking place that we could not see, but could feel.
Thor stepped forward, raising his hammer.
"Now! While he..."
"No!" I grabbed his arm. "If you kill him now—the sword will simply find a new host. One of us."
Hela was already forming blades, but she stopped.
"He is right," she said slowly, and there was something resembling understanding in her voice. "The Necrosword won't die with him. It will simply jump to the next one, the one with the most hatred."
Her gaze slid over us—at Thor with his fraternal rage, at Sif with her hidden resentment, at herself with millennia of hatred for Odin.
"Any of us—the perfect host," I finished for her.
Sif lowered her sword.
The black flame pulsed, striking out around Gorr like a living thing in agony. We could not approach even if we wanted to—the heat of the void repelled us, scorching space itself.
The man against the parasite.
The memory of love against millennia of hatred.
We stood and waited—Thor, Hela, Sif, and I.
Waiting for how it would end.
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100 power stones= 1 Bonus Chapte
advanced chapters available on{P@treon/Anna_N1}