Chapter 1759: The Team Needs You
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The Scarred Nebula, Purgatory.
For the aborigines of this planet, the land they stood on and the sky above them have an immense meaning to them. The legends of the heavens and earth had passed on for ages, and these legends were intertwined with reality. In addition, very few mortal races had gone through what they did. The land that they stood on was the corpse of a planet-size superorganism, and the skies above their heads were covered by the leaves of these superorganisms. They had gone through living beneath the planet’s crust, and have seen the crust cut open by powerful mining starship, opening up foreign stars to the aborigines…
Then came the Yggdrasil’s dimensional chain that connected the star system together, and the glowing nebula vortex said to be connected to another universe…
These massive changes normally not seen across the span of millenniums happened within a span of a few years, and this would undoubtedly deeply and permanently affect the cultural and religious concepts of the Purgatory aborigines. And the effects were already apparent, as the elders and sages of all of the tribes had given their tribesmen explanation sufficient to calm their unease of the changes of the sky and land, and the outland continents floating in the sky. These explanations would undoubtedly become part of the legends many years in the future.
A living, breathing legend before them.
As he remembered the fact that he was one of those who had lived through this legend, and perhaps will be leaving his name in the epics, even a seasoned tribal warrior like Gezer would feel fluttery at times.
He remembered his newly-wed wife, and his unborn child. And in these times of great changes, for a tribal warrior who had “walked with the gods”, would such glory be extended to his offspring?
As these stray thoughts entered his mind, the very next second he was struck in the face by a golden glow and was sent spinning in the air.
After leaving a long trail on the ground, Gezer finally stopped. With much effort only did he held himself up and saw the golden armor was clanking its way towards him. The armor was ornate and elegant, just like the armor of the gods in the legends. Yet, there was nothing within the armor, and only light flowing like water among the armor parts. Its right hand held a flaming sword, while its left was extended towards him.
“My thanks…” Gezer received the hand with much embarrassment and as he was pulled up by the latter he looked around him. The large combat arena was divided into several individual zones and within each zone were a warrior and a sparring ‘heroic spirit warrior’. He was not the first to fall, and at least half of the warriors had left the platform defeated, but what depressed him was that he was not the last to fall: There were at least ten other tribal warriors that were fighting toe to toe with the heroic spirits.
“You were distracted,” a rather ghostly voice rang from the golden armor, and that drew Gezer’s attention back from the platform. “Otherwise you would be able to last longer. You are one of the best warriors here.”
“I shall remember this lesson,” Gezer bowed respectfully as if he was paying respects to his martial arts instructor so many years ago.
For a revered tribal warrior, Gezer very rarely had to be respectful to anyone, but before these heroic spirits, he was more than willing to be. These spirits from the ‘Aurora Realm’ were all powerful, peerless warriors, and all of them had souls tampered by endless training and martial skills beyond any mortals. Also, he heard that all these warriors had won at least a hundred battles in their past life, and so these warriors are deserving of all respect.
More importantly, these warriors from the floating continents above had brought many useful devices. And their lifeform that hovers between the living and the death had helped the ancestral spirits back in Requiem City to complete the spirit binding ritual, and they had also brought with them many knowledge and techniques of soul manipulation.
While the surface world would need to use food and meat to exchange these, the tribal elders had said, knowledge was the most important wealth, and that’s why Gezer held the outland warriors known as the heroic spirits with a higher level of respect.
Crops can be harvested from the ground every year, but not knowledge.
At the edge of the arena upon a tall rock platform, Bonia looked down at the daily sparring below. Two years had passed and the Saintess of the Fire Tribe had lost quite a bit of her naivety. While she was still immature in certain aspects, she was a woman of her own, thus she could use her status as the representative of the tribes to gather all of the great warriors from all tribes onto the arena and inspect them with the goddess of war from the Aurora Realm.
Bonia’s vision temporarily shifted away from the arena and onto the horizon afar. There was a dark green pillar that seemed to connect to the heavens, it was just as grand as the Heaven’s Pillar tree in the past, and several new settlements were seen near the base of the root. At the top of the pillar, there were phantasmal vines that extended across the area, and the phantoms grew among the clouds and the stars as it connected to the floating continents in the sky. At times a bright light would flash across the continents, and that was the machines left behind by the ‘apostles’ to maintain the Aurora Realm.
“Yggdrasil has totally stabilized now,” The tall lady spoke as she noticed Bonia’s gaze. The former’s voice was melodious, but had a bizarre inorganic feel to it, just like the ‘thinking machines’ left behind by the apostles. “The Tower of Heavens’ still shaking nowadays?”
Bonia looked at the outland woman called the goddess of war, she knew that the latter had another name called Valkyrie, but neither the goddess of war nor Valkyrie were her true names. She exuded a rather bizarre aura, but almost everyone from the Aurora Realm was somewhat bizarre.
The faint glow and the imposing aura coming from the goddess of war had dazed the young saintess for a bit, but Bonia quickly recovered and gently shook her head, “The Tower of Heaven had been calm, the Twin Gods of Black and White said that the ‘tentacle’ has successfully taken root. Aside from any unforeseen accidents or circumstances, there should not be any changes. The tribal elders were discussing to open up the civilian trade caravans and allow the commoners to climb the Tower of Heaven themselves. As your people appear across the land more frequently, more and more tribespeople are getting interested in the Aurora Realm.
“It is Yggdrasil,” the goddess of war corrected her seriously.
“But that is just too difficult for us to pronounce.” Bonia spat her tongue out. This immature action would land her hours of lecturing if the elders saw it, “On the ground, the name Aurora Realm is used much more commonly, as you guys are always covered by a veil of the aurora.”
“You’re right, as we too call your ‘surface world’, the hanging country.” The goddess of war nodded. “And to us, you are instead the ones floating in the air.”
Bonia softly lamented, “The power of god… sure is incredible.”
The goddess of war did not say anything. Even if her name had a “goddess” in it, and she was considered part of the pantheon by her former master, Odin, the goddess of war knew very well that a true god was a being of magnificence beyond comprehension. If she had to name it, the swirling nebula vortex in the night sky (the entrance into the Plane of Dreams) was a tiny display of a god’s power, and this distant thing was rather difficult to explain to Bonia, and even she found it difficult to comprehend all of this, so she chose to keep silent.
Bonia seemed to be used to the goddess of war’s silence, so she deftly changed the topic. “Say, you had requested thirty percent less food compared to last month, what happened?”
The goddess of war nodded. “The natural environment of Midgard is swiftly recovering, and the lands cultivated by humans were all yielding crops now, so our need for food will lessen over time.”
Bonia frowned as she heard that. “If you people no longer need food, what can we exchange in the future?”
The goddess of creation glanced at Bonia, a smile seemingly formed on her face. While this young saintess was talented with the runic arts and was well learned about the ancient civilizations, she was immature in other areas. “As long as Yggdrasil and your world continue to grow, commerce would only increase, there will always be something that one has and another lacks. You don’t have to worry about this, leave this to the elders who are used to handling this.”
“Alright, let’s leave this headache to the old geezers in Requiem,” Bonia said as she shook her head, before training her sights on the arena below. The tribal warriors had all retired from the arena as the newly chosen young warriors with the potential to be a ‘brave’ took to the field. The heroic spirits from the Aurora Realm then started an instructional spar with the young warriors, and while the intensity of combat had lowered quite a bit, the latter were still beaten to a pulp, and those tribal warriors, who too had suffered the same fate earlier laughed at their juniors who were toyed about like they were.
“The heroic spirits sure are powerful…” Bonia said, “They do not need to rest… Even the best of our warriors are not their match.”
“Becoming an Einherjar is difficult, and every Einherjar was a warrior of hundred victories in their past life. We had plucked the souls of warriors from the most horrible of battlefield across thousands of years to form the Einherjar,” the goddess of war plainly said. “So, the strength of these heroic spirits is assured, and there is no need for envy. If you could assemble the best of warriors in the past thousands of years, and then equip them with even more powerful equipment, they will be no less stronger than the Einherjars.”
Bonia was curious, “For your people to gather such powerful warriors, and to train them continuously, what sort of enemies were your people facing?”
“It was for the Twilight of the Gods,” the goddess of war said. “But now… it is for our new master, and to destroy the enemies of our new master.”
The tall, elegant Valkyrie who was clad in silver plate armor looked up towards the nebula vortex connecting to the Plane of Dreams as she spoke.
In her field of vision that was filled all sorts of precision measurement, auxiliary lines, and information projections, an eye-catching line suddenly appeared:
“The Lord of the Nine Realms summons the Einherjar to enter combat readiness, and head to the Golden Palace of Asgard in forty-eight hours, and prepare to board.”
“Oh, heroic spirits, war is upon us.”