Chapter 43 - Fortress

Trees and plants were wooshing past as Hati was travelling faster than he ever had before. He was sitting on the back of Horny, the bloodhorn wolf. 

As a second-revolution beast with the build of a wolf, Horny moved at race-car speeds while hopping over tree branches and stones.

Hati held on to the beast's horns for dear life, careful not to fall off. Luckily, his mother had used her soul element of wind to erect a barrier around Hati that would prevent him from being tossed off from sheer wind pressure.

Sif was running next to Horny and Hati while in her bloodline transformation form. All half-bloods had bloodline transformations whose power depended on both the quantity and quality of the blood in their veins.

Unfortunately, true bloodline transformations had disappeared from Asgard, at least as far as was known publicly, because beings at the sixth revolution or equivalent are much rarer than in the past, and creating a half-blood with a humanoid race requires the non-humanoid to have passed the sixth revolution, allowing them to transform into a humanoid body.

So what Sif was using was a partial bloodline transformation, which usually showed mostly around the limbs, and so was the case with Sif aswell. Most of her body remained the same, but her feet and hands transformed into paws and claws.

She was now using those claws to jump limberly from tree to tree while travelling at a much slower speed than she would be able to normally so that the bloodhorn wolf with Hati on its back could follow her.

She didn't use her bloodline transformation so she could move faster since that was unnecessary; she did it for two reasons. First of all, because it felt great, giving in to the wolf-blood's instincts by travelling through the woods in this way was a rush that few things could compare to.

And second of all, because her transformed aura would be more effective at scaring away any nearby creatures at the third revolution or lower. Even the occasional fourth-revolution beast they came near would decide she wasn't worth the trouble.

Fourth-revolution beasts were on the verge of gaining human-like intelligence, which made them much more dangerous but also much more careful since they were not exactly mindless balls of instinct anymore.

Luckily, they didn't run into any fifth-revolution beasts, as those would usually only be found much further into the beast wilds while they were currently still in the middle layers.

On the way, they would occasionally set up camp and rest, where Sif would simply stay awake the entire night to watch over Hati. After all, Hati was still a mortal and needed his rest, while fourth-revolution Einherjar, like Sif, could go on for weeks without sleep.

In fact, Sif needed even less than that since her Sloth shard gave her some influence over her sleep. At least now that she managed to complete her shard with Belphegor.

After a little over a week of travelling, they ended up in front of a large mountain. They had long since left behind the forests and were now in a rocky, mountainous area. This was the edge of the inner beast wilds, an area typically much too dangerous for a fourth-revolution Einherjar protecting a mortal.

After all, the weaker fifth-revolution beast would usually hang around his area. But for some reason, they seemed to avoid this particular mountain. 

When Hati asked his mother why, she answered, "Simple, I didn't lie when I said Belphi is at the sixth revolution, and even if he can't leave here, the beasts are still instinctually afraid of this place."

Hati then asked, "Right, you mentioned that, but you haven't explained why he is stuck here."

Sif answered, "I'll let your father explain that." She then smirked and continued, "I wonder if you'll figure out what's keeping him there yourself. Now come on, we are almost there."

They now moved at a pace Hati could keep up with on his own two legs, so he got off of Horny's back and started walking next to his mother while looking around. After spending so much time travelling through the lively forests, this place looked a little desolate to him.

He couldn't imagine spending however long in this place all alone like his father had done.

They walked past several rock formations, with Sif constantly looking around as if she was trying to find something. Eventually, she seemed to have found what she was looking for as she stood in front of a large boulder. She then turned around, winked at Hati and… proceeded to walk through the boulder.

Hati looked perplexed, unsure of what just happened at first, but then he remembered reading about illusion formations. Such formations had the power to show illusions but generally couldn't physically stop anyone.

He was fascinated by his first time seeing such a thing but decided not to let his mother wait too long and quickly approached the boulder before he slowly pushed his hand against it and noticed how it moved through without resistance.

He quickly stepped through, followed closely by the bloodhorn wolf, Horny, only to find his mother waiting for him with a smile on her face while standing in what seemed like a cave. A small sphere of lightning was floating above her hands to illuminate the dark cave for him.

He quickly looked behind him, only to see a rocky wall with not even a seam in it. He mumbled to himself, "It's uncanny."

Seeing her son so fascinated by a simple formation, Sif had to chuckle, "Hehe, I know this is your first time seeing something like this, especially because such things didn't exist in your previous world, but Asgard is full of interesting things. Don't spend all your curiosity in one place."

Hati smirked in response, "Don't worry, Mom, I got enough curiosity to go around. Is this formation new, or was it already here when you found this place? And if it was, how did you figure out it was an illusion? Is it a weak formation?"

Since Einherjar have differences in strength, then formations would likely be the same. While Hati could not distinguish the formation from a real boulder, a fourth-revolution Einherjar, like his mother, very well might.

Sif started walking deeper into the cave while shaking her head, "No, your father has explored this entire place with his soul sense, and according to him, that formation could fool even a careless sixth-revolution Einherjar. It was already here when I found him.

As for how I found out it was an illusion, well, you know how they say that the two shard hosts who belong together will eventually find each other through fate? Well, that is really the only way I could explain what happened back then."

She shrugged at that last sentence and continued walking and explaining how she found this place, "I was working as a resource gatherer in the dwarven city of Nidavellir at the time. Basically, it was my job to travel into the beast wilds to gather resources on demand by dwarven crafters.

This was quite late in my adventures. After having travelled around the rest of Asgard searching for my other half, my lethargy had gotten bad enough that travelling became dangerous, so I decided to settle down in Nidavellir since it is not only the commercial centre of Asgard but also geographically very close to the centre.

Basically, I was hoping my other half would find me instead. Eventually, I travelled into the wilds, searching for a specific resource together with a group. Unfortunately, or fortunately, as the case may be for me, we were attacked by a fifth-revolution striped crow.

Long story short, the beast killed most of us and then grabbed the survivors in its claws before it took off deeper into the wilds. I wasn't sure what it wanted us for, but I figured it wanted life prey to feed to its children or something.

Anyway, during the flight towards its nest, it was attacked by another flying creature, causing me to be shaken loose and fall to the ground. Which, of course, happened right as it flew over this mountain.

I used my soul element of wind to slow down, and combined with my third-revolution body, I barely managed to survive the fall."

She then laughed, "As I fell, I barely even noticed I fell straight through a boulder, and I immediately lost consciousness upon hitting the ground. Can you imagine how I felt when I woke up in a dark cave after falling through the air?"

Hati scratched his head upon hearing that and said, "I guess fate really had to pull out all the stops to get you two together, huh?"

Sif laughed again, responding, "Well, since your father is locked inside a mysterious fortress under a mountain, I imagine it's hard to meet people."

At those words, they entered a large hollowed-out cavern that had multiple caves leading into it. The place was lit up by multiple magma rivers, giving a slightly eerie feeling to the place.

Right in the middle of the cavern was a sturdy-looking fortress that took up most of the cavern's space.

It looked formidable, and several of its towers were connected to the cavern ceiling, presumably to provide extra support.

Sif continued walking while beckoning Hati and Horny to follow her, saying, "Come on, let's go see if your father is home."