Chapter 214 Walls

Norse Mythology's celestials quickly noticed something was wrong. Immeasurable amounts of them had died, just from attacking the wall.

It was a dominating sight. They witnessed the complexity of the sixth dimensional wall. Just from a single glance they realized they could do nothing to harm the monstrosity before them. It was all protecting, leaving to corners to invade, the only way to breach was to destroy the wall. A prospect that dawned on the celestials, as their morals dwindled.

It was impossible to tell how many realms the wall consisted of, as it broke reality itself, it had no definable size. It was constantly changing size, catching unlucky stranglers in its grasps, killing them instantly.

Even Ragthor and the rebelling Nords couldn't help but tremble. Even they, those protected by the wall lost their moral. It was an artifact created by superior beings, who could squash them any instant. A reality that finally dawned on the ignorant celestials and titans.

…

After the fourth dimension, most worlds and similar things no longer existed on simple plains. Like flat ground and such. Norse Mythology was no different, only Midgard retained such simplicity. Svartalfheim had long since become a mess, in mortal standards. There was no up and down, no sense of direction; instead things simply were. Gravity became an ever changing medium, that the celestials and titans could manipulate.

Most times titans would be too big for a place; but what if they were simply a different size than others. Another way to explain it would be to say that titans had a scale of a thousand to one and celestials one to a thousand. The space itself morphed for them and only them. They still possessed the same mass, the same power, but size mattered little in the fifth dimension, only one thing stayed the same, their presence in the dimension.

The wall worked on the same concept. Only, instead of shrinking a being, it was in a constant state of war, condensing the very realm known as Svartalfheim. The battlefield of said war, was the wall itself. It became a forcefield keeping everything inside and everything outside. If someone was to attempt moving through the battlefield, they would suffer the effect of a realm created by the corpses of hundreds of sixth dimensional beings and an artifact made specifically to shrink and manipulate its size. Not even Odin would survive the impact.

To simplify it, think of a blackhole. They've consumed so much mass that they can no longer function like a normal sphere of mass. They collapse upon themself, becoming million times smaller. But, the reward for such antics is the suction they gain, though suction isn't really the word, more like gravity. Suction is the lack of mass, that's pulling mass into itself, for the void can not be without mass. No, the blackholes do not lack mass, they are the opposite, they have too much.

In the early stages of the universe, when all the mass is contained within a tiny frame, blackholes feast. They have more mass around them than they can absorb, this leads an interesting occurrence. A quasar is formed, or might form. A blackhole can only consume so much within a timeframe. But their gravity will still have an affect on the mass around it, even if it can't consume it for the moment. This leads to an interesting turn of events. An accretion disk is formed. It consists of mass moving close to the speed of light around the blackhole, reaching absurd temperatures. This disk will glow very bright and is usually what we can see of the blackhole.

The wall is basically this, just worse. Immeasurable amounts of blackholes, almost infinitely times more powerful, with accretion disk's immeasurable times more powerful. They constantly form and deform inside the small wall, which is omni-trillion times bigger on the inside. Which is also, just like the blackholes ever changing.

If the artifact was to malfunction, an explosion powerful enough to destroy all the eight realms would ensure. Nothing, even Ragnar, would survive the blast, it might even damage other beings, outside of the realms in different dimensions. In other words, its not just a wall, but a bomb, that could go off any minute.

Naturally, beings like Odin knew this, that's why he kept away from the wall. Many of Norse Mythology's powerhouses sensed the colossal mass of energy and stayed clear, waiting for Odin to find a solution.

…

Ragnar's plan was simple and very dangerous. The wall was a bomb, for that was his intention from the beginning! Only Svartalfheim would survive the explosion, but what if Ragthor was part of Svartalfheim, well things would change. The realm would survive! That's why Ragnar wanted to merge the two realms. Not to Norse Mythology as a whole, but to Svartalfheim.

The method was cruel, efficient and dangerous. It was an uncertainty, that he had no way of knowing if it worked.

Even though Ragnar was proud of the knowledge he possessed from the rivers of time, he wasn't completely omnipresent. He knew little of the events in the seventh dimension, and could only see what had happened in the sixth and bellow. Through rare opportunities, he was allowed to glance at the superior beings, but not for long.

This left him with a hole of knowledge, that he's yet to obtain. He felt vulnerable with such gap and wanted to close it as soon as possible. That's why he took such drastic measures, because he knew they would lose to much in this war.

Ragnar had learned from his and others past, that he could have no mercy. In the long run, he would only lose if he was righteous. People tend to betray those who are nice, they are easy to manipulate and take for granted and he wanted no such thing.

Perhaps this was what Trickster wanted, when it attacked Ragnar, in every way possible. But he did not care, in the end, he felt no reason to dwell on the past and the actions of evil. He would move forward and make the present the past and only then could he judge his own deeds.

…

"We are reaching the end! Within a few months we will merge with the realm, or die trying!" Hephaestus told Ragnar.

The two of them stood on a balcony, in the middle of an upside-down world. They were located at the core of the world, which served as a base of sort. Giving them a view of the city above and below them, existing on the upper shell of the world.

"Revenge has consumed your mind for a long time Hephaestus, perhaps with this you can let go of your past and see only your future." Ragnar said, observing the world around him with a distant look.

"I must avenge my family and friends, even if they weren't the best sort, they were all I had!" Hephaestus said, relaxing against the railing.

"What will you do when this is over? Will you give in to the distant whisper of the All Knowing, telling you to kill me? You were after all a weapon made to 'destroy' me." Ragnar asked, curious about his friends future actions, they were after all, the only thing in time he would not know until it happened.

"No, I'm not that weak minded, I will simply retire from fighting and rebuild my home and honor my past. Build glorious statues of my dead family, construct marvelous architecture, cities spanning infinitely into the cosmos, a distant echo of my past!" he said with dreamy eyes, making Ragnar smile. A genuine smile, happy for his friend. Even if he had been denied rest, his friend could perhaps have something close to it when this was over.

"That's good, but let's not get caught up on the future, for we are in the present! Odin is preparing to barge in, he's somewhat seen through the wall, but we'll stop him, nothing will put this to an end. Norse Mythology will go down and we shall gain our freedom!" Ragnar said, and moved away from the balcony. No longer interested in the view; he had much to do.

…

It was a weird thing, some times it was thin and see-through, then, seconds later it would have thousands of worlds in-between them and the enemy. Scary, but mesmerizing. Many lost themselves observing the work of art that was the wall.

"It's beautiful!" one of Ragthor's celestials muttered. He had been through a lot over the years and had grown to be a strong celestials. Like many, he was once a human. A peasant in a random backwater world, until he was brought into Ragthor. He could only revere the sixth dimensional beings from the distance, but now he was in front of something built by them. It made him feel special, enlightened even.

On the other side of the wall the celestials restlessly waited for their leaders to act and they didn't have to wait for long. Odin, together with several other sixth dimensional beings appeared. In his hands was a weird artifact. It had the appearance of a red eye. The eye in question moved back and forth, until stopping at the wall. For a brief millisecond they saw a breach in the wall, until it shut itself again.

They watched with anticipation, ready to finally defeat the enemy. But the opportunity never came.

As the eye was about to do its work again, someone interfered.

A snake, a wolf, a humanoid and a giant fire monster appeared. Together with a blueish women with four arms. Before the fifth dimensional beings could comprehend what was happening, a war had already broke out.

A pure black sword cut every single one of them in half, then went straight for Odin. A golden spear met the sword, as they entered a dance of death.

A deadly game ensured, as Ragnar and Odin fought. Their every action made the realm tremble from the pressure. Only Muspelhiem and Nifelhiem stayed unaffected by their battle.

The snake and wolf found their opponents quickly, just like the women. Nothing around them stayed the same, as everything was destroyed. Only the wall they protected was left undamaged.

Ragnar pushed Odin back, with no intention of killing him, only delaying him. This didn't mean he avoided killing blows, no, he would be happy to kill him now, it wouldn't change things.

The realm had no reason to keep up its facade, leaving only darkness behind, as they fought in the starless sky, void of any light or life. Odin desperately searched for a way to kill Ragnar and help his servants, but he found no luck in the plan. Ragnar, like before was a wall, he wouldn't budge at anything and kept forcing Odin back.

This led to desperation, as Odin started attacking with everything he had, no regards for the injuries he would get. Each attack, reckless stab, or slash would be punished.

Ragnar slowly chipped away at Odin's health, making him weaker with each exchange. Their weapons met on regular bases, every time searching to end the opponent.

With a slight upper hand Ragnar slowly gained ground over Odin. The fight didn't become one sided, but had a clear lead. Odin realized this too and chose to forget his allies for the moment, for the sake of dealing with Ragnar.

The two entered their own world. Only the two of them existed. With pure instinct and skill, they fought for days, slowly hurting one another, but in the end Odin was losing. He had no drastic attack, or hidden card up his sleeve Ragnar didn't know. His attacks, physical or energetically did no harm to Ragnar. He had fought Odin once and knew everything about his fighting style.

At the tenth day, Odin was forced to retreat and recuperate and Ragnar could return to the wall and continue to defend it.

"Why is it always walls?" Ragnar muttered, reminiscing about the past.

(An: summer is here and more releases are on the way :) thanks for dealing with the low release date for all this time. Have a great day :) )