CHAPTER 20: "TROLLS" "VIKINGS WAR IN VALHALLA"

BY WILLIAM WARNER

CHAPTER 20: "TROLLS" "VIKINGS WAR IN VALHALLA"

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In the fertile lands of Brimwald, morning sunlight stretched golden across rolling plains. The wheat swayed in a steady rhythm, tall stalks shimmering like rivers of amber under the sun. Irrigation canals cut neat lines through the farmland, their waters glinting in the light, and the distant silhouettes of grain silos loomed like quiet guardians over the colony. The day carried the usual hum of rural activity—livestock moving in pens, farmers tending fields, machinery churning as it harvested the land.

Then the calm fractured.

Above the fields, the air warped, folding in on itself like a wound tearing open in the fabric of reality. The sound came first—a low, unnatural hiss, like steam forced through metal lungs. Then came the sight: a portal, jagged and rippling, bleeding unnatural hues of violet and black into the bright blue sky. It tore wide until its edges crackled with streaks of energy, a wound in the heavens forcing itself upon the peaceful world below.

From its depths stepped Anubis, his presence heavy and suffocating, as if the land itself recoiled from him. His head was that of a jackal, elongated and sharp, unmistakably canine in its form. A dark, gold, helm had been forged to fit the contours of his bestial skull, its edges etched with runes that glowed faintly beneath the sun. Beneath the helmet, his pale, gaunt features lent him a deathly aspect, the predator’s muzzle framed in shadow as though he were a living relic of some forgotten empire.

Behind him floated the levitating cage. Its surface bore deep scars, the metal gouged and dented from countless collisions with the beast within. Energy hummed around its structure, arcs of blue light sparking at its edges. Inside, the Troll shifted violently, its enormous form dwarfing the dimensions of the cage. The creature’s amber eyes glowed like coals beneath a thunderstorm, its breath steaming in the air, fogging against the shimmering barrier. It struck the walls again with fists like slabs of stone, the impacts ringing across the valley and scattering flocks of birds into the sky.

The pastoral calm of Brimwald’s farmlands withered beneath the creature’s cries.

Anubis stopped at the clearing’s edge, twin shadows falling long before him as the suns hung overhead. He raised his gauntlet, the clawed fingers flexing as mechanisms clicked and whirred within its construction. With a metallic hiss, the gauntlet birthed a scorpio-bot—a small, insectoid machine with segmented limbs of serrated steel. Its tail arched high, the tip a gleaming drill lined with tiny, rotating teeth. The thing writhed in his grasp like it was alive, twitching legs clawing at the air, eager to burrow.

He wasted no motion.

Stepping toward the cage, Anubis swiped his free hand across the runes embedded in the airlock. With a muted hum, the containment field dimmed, then collapsed into nothing. The Troll pressed forward instantly, but Anubis was already moving. He thrust the writhing machine into the monster’s broad, flattened nose. The bot’s spiked legs clamped violently as it tore its way into flesh, crawling upward through nasal passages, burrowing deeper into the skull.

The Troll’s roar shattered the farmland’s tranquility. It was primal, deafening, filled with agony and rage all at once. The sound rolled across the wheat fields, a shockwave of horror that sent animals bolting from their pens and birds scattering into the heavens. Trees shook with the force, their leaves trembling as though the forest itself recoiled.

The creature staggered, clawing at its own face as the scorpio-bot locked deeper into place, anchoring into bone. Its convulsions twisted the cage, sending arcs of blue energy flickering wildly. Then, silence broke—the cage hissed open.

The Troll surged forward.

It exploded from the prison like a living avalanche, smashing through the clearing, its movements wild but purposeful, driven by something more than pain—something implanted. Its massive feet tore trenches into the soil, wheat flattening beneath its thunderous strides. The earth itself seemed to quake as it barreled toward the open farmlands, its guttural bellows echoing across the sky.

Anubis did not follow.

The portal behind him pulsed, violet and black rippling like liquid shadow. He turned without looking at the destruction he had unleashed, the edges of his jackal helm catching one last glint of light. His silhouette vanished into the vortex, consumed by darkness, leaving behind only the sound of the Troll’s rampage as the farmland world of Brimwald—once serene, once unsuspecting—fell beneath the shadow of a bio-weapon it had never imagined.

The portal snapped shut. Silence reclaimed the clearing—yet far in the distance, rising above the fields and silos, the Troll’s warcry carried on.

The Troll staggered forward, its vast frame crashing through the undergrowth, snapping trees as though they were no more than brittle twigs. Its molten veins flickered brighter with each faltering step, the convulsions wracking its body growing in violence until it could no longer move with rhythm. The earth shook beneath its bulk, every thunderous impact of its feet scattering soil and stones, leaving behind trenches carved deep into the forest floor.

Its guttural roars echoed through the dense canopy, mingling with the shrill cries of fleeing birds and the frantic rustle of animals abandoning their burrows. The forest, vibrant only moments before, was already beginning to feel like a dying world in miniature, drained of its natural order.

At last, its body could no longer sustain the violent seizures. With a crack that reverberated like the splitting of stone, the Troll collapsed onto one knee. Orange skin, once tight and solid, now split apart at the seams like an over-forged metal casing. From these ruptures seeped streams of green vapor, curling into the air in tendrils that shimmered with an oily, iridescent sheen. The vapor clung unnaturally low, settling into the underbrush as though alive with purpose.

Invisible spores drifted within the haze, carried outward in expanding waves. Where they touched, the world began to change. Soil blackened on contact, cracking open as if scorched, only to give rise to pale fungal stalks that erupted in spiraling formations. Their surfaces shimmered faintly, covered in veins that pulsed like channels of alien blood. Leaves withered in seconds, shriveling before being overtaken by growths of fleshy, fungal tissue that spread in branching networks.

The trees themselves became victims of the infestation. Their bark cracked and swelled, splitting under the invasion of cancerous fungi that crept like spreading tumors across their trunks. Vines of fleshy mold wrapped upward, merging with branches until whole trees bowed beneath the grotesque weight. The once-familiar canopy of green twisted into a distorted labyrinth of pulsating fungus, glowing faintly against the dimming light of the forest floor.

Soon, bulbous sacs began to form along the fungal masses, distorting the landscape further. They swelled outward with a grotesque speed, their membranes translucent, quivering as if something inside pressed violently for release. Within, silhouettes shifted—feral embryonic shapes, clawing and thrashing against their fragile prisons. The sacs throbbed in rhythm with the Troll’s own flickering veins, as though connected to its corrupted life force. Each movement from within sent ripples across their slimy surfaces, promising imminent birth.

The Troll itself became the epicenter of this vile ecosystem. Its body continued to convulse, the green vapor pouring endlessly from its cracked flesh. The spores emerging from it were inexhaustible, carried on the faintest breeze, ensuring that the plague spread far beyond the immediate clearing. Every shudder of its enormous chest released new waves of corruption, feeding the fungal nursery that now sprawled outward like a diseased heartbeat.

In the distance, the sounds of the forest grew faint, swallowed beneath the suffocating silence of decay. The cries of animals vanished, replaced only by the wet squelch of growth and the sinister hum of bioluminescent stalks vibrating in unison. The air itself thickened, heavy with toxic humidity, glowing spores suspended in its currents like stars in a sickly-green night sky.

The transformation was total, a living infection radiating outward from the fallen Troll. What had once been a tranquil woodland on the farm world of Brimwald was now twisted into a grotesque cradle of alien life—a place where the earth itself pulsed like diseased flesh and the forest floor writhed with the beginnings of an army bred from corruption.

And at the heart of it all, the Troll still knelt, spasming, its monstrous frame serving as both the womb and the fuel for the nightmare now unleashed.

Meanwhile in the hell realm, the Wraith’s throne room breathed with silence, save for the occasional flicker of red light that pulsed through the veins of obsidian stone. Maladrie’s sobs echoed faintly, swallowed by the enormity of the chamber, as though the darkness itself sought to devour her weakness. The crystalline effigy of her father stood unmoving, its sharp facets scattering her tears’ reflections back at her in cold, fractured mockery.

Her voice cracked, rising above the weight of the silence.

“You were supposed to guide me.” Her tone trembled between desperation and rage. “Instead, I was left to inherit your enemies, your wars, your throne… and your failures.”

She rose from her seat, her black gown whispering against the obsidian steps, and descended toward the statue. Every step echoed with purpose, each footfall like the toll of a bell in the cavernous hall. When she reached the crystalline figure, she stood close enough that her breath misted faintly against its cold surface. Her hand hovered once more over the jagged chest, her fingers curling as if she would strike.

“But you—” she spat the word like venom— “you never told me how to end them.”

The runes carved high above the effigy shimmered brighter, their glow responding to her fury like embers stoked in a dying fire. She whipped her gaze upward, her tear-streaked face contorted with hate.

“I see it now,” she hissed, voice dripping with venom. “This cursed alchemy… this so-called ‘gift’ that binds us. You died serving it, and I will live to unmake it.”

The air thickened, alive with an unseen force, as if the Wraith itself leaned in to hear her vow. The ground beneath her bare feet trembled, faint cracks spiderwebbing through the black stone where her nails had drawn blood into her clenched fists. Droplets fell, absorbed into the floor, feeding the sigils woven into the throne room’s foundation.

“You abandoned me, Father,” she snarled through gritted teeth, her voice raw. “But I will not be abandoned again. The Immortals think themselves chosen, blessed by the Wraith. They are fools, bound to illusions! I will tear their spirits from their vessels, shatter their alchemy, and grind their precious bonds into dust.”

She turned abruptly from the effigy, her gown flaring behind her as she climbed the steps back to her throne. The crystalline form loomed silently, impassive, casting prismatic fragments of her fury back into the room.

When she reached her throne, Maladrie slumped into it not with despair but with a twisted sense of triumph. She wiped the last remnants of tears from her cheeks, smearing them into streaks that made her face appear almost war-painted.

“You will watch me,” she whispered to the statue, though her tone carried a cruel satisfaction now. “You will see what your daughter can do. You will see how much stronger I am than you ever were.”

The glowing alchemy symbol above flared once more, its runes pulsing like a heartbeat before dimming again into their faint, haunting glow. Maladrie’s eyes fixed on it, the venom in her gaze unyielding, her hatred now bound to a purpose that eclipsed her grief.

And in the silence that followed, the throne room itself seemed to breathe with her vow, as though the Wraith was listening, waiting, ready to unleash its horrors upon the living world at her command.

The abandoned park within the NASA colony on Aries lay draped in soft daylight, its cracked concrete paths long since surrendered to the forest’s steady reclaiming. Roots pushed through old sidewalks, vines curled up forgotten lamp posts, and birdsong threaded through the stillness. Emily and I stood in the middle of what had once been a playground, the jungle gym rusted and covered in moss, while Charlie and Erika Kirk listened intently.

I lifted my hand slowly, palm facing upward, and spoke with deliberate calm.

“Spiritual Alchemy,” I explained, “is not about formulas or rituals. It’s about conscious creation. Every thought carries weight. Individuals have the ability to manifest things into reality, even though the universe seems fixed—chronological, mechanical, unchangeable.”

Emily stepped in, her voice low but firm. “But manifestation is fragile. The slightest crack of doubt can unravel it. That’s why the discipline of mind is just as important as desire.”

Charlie furrowed his brow, arms crossed over his broad chest. He had the skeptical air of a man who wanted proof more than philosophy. “If we can manifest great things,” he asked bluntly, “why is the universe still a mess?”

I chuckled softly, though his words cut at truths I often wrestled with myself.

“Because belief isn’t simple,” I said. “Even I struggle with doubt. Discipline is what makes the difference. When frustration rises, I turn it into focus—like tempering steel in a forge. That focus is what keeps manifestation from collapsing into nothing.”

To show him, I had him sit cross-legged beneath a tall pine. I guided his breathing, steady and deep, urging him to still the chatter of his mind and turn inward toward desire itself. He closed his eyes, hesitant at first, but soon his shoulders relaxed, and a quiet energy began to hum faintly around him. Erika sat beside Emily, observing with rapt curiosity, her hands folded neatly in her lap as though afraid to break the spell.

“Doubt is the destroyer,” Emily reminded them. “But belief? Belief is the builder. If you train your mind to hold belief steady, even when everything around you collapses, you can manifest wonders.”

Their training ended as the afternoon shadows stretched long. The four of us began making our way back toward base camp, the forest alive with the rustling of leaves and distant bird calls. But before we reached the clearing, our path was blocked.

From between the trees stepped Deathskull, his towering frame casting long shadows, his glowing optics faint but unsettling. Beside him stood Nicholas, tense and restless, and Teresa, whose half-smirk carried an edge of mischief.

Nicholas’s voice broke the silence first. “What were you doing back there?” His eyes darted between Charlie and me, suspicion sharp in his tone.

“Why do you care?” I shot back coolly, unwilling to offer him anything. Emily and I moved to step past them, leaving Charlie and Erika behind for a moment.

But Nicholas didn’t let it go. He caught Charlie by the arm, pulling him aside. His voice lowered, urgent but tinged with something brittle. “Did they teach you Alchemy?” His eyes searched Charlie’s, desperate for control. “Be careful of what they show you. Alchemy could be just as dangerous as its predecessor.”

Charlie stiffened, his jaw tightening. He shook his head once, but Nicholas’s grip only tightened.

“How can you not see their judgment?” Nicholas pressed, his voice rising with frustration. “You’ve already lost your feelings for me!”

Charlie’s response was blunt, without hesitation. “No offense, Nicholas, but my wife is my favorite. You know that. And William and Emily’s teachings aren’t judgmental. They don’t exclude anyone, not even your people—you’re doing that to yourself.”

He pulled his arm free, turning away with the finality of someone done with the argument. Erika brushed past Nicholas next, her expression cool but laced with quiet firmness. “I’m sure you’ll find a nice guy someday. You just have to believe.”

Her words hung in the air like a gentle slap. Nicholas stood frozen for a moment, his shoulders trembling with a mix of anger and humiliation. When he finally turned, only Teresa and Deathskull remained.

Teresa gave his shoulder a perfunctory pat, her tone half teasing, half bitter. “Bro, how do you think I feel? The only guy I want to have sex with is being blockaded by a gothic elf.” She gave a sharp laugh, masking her own frustration with mockery.

Nicholas turned his glare toward Deathskull, desperate to draw something from the silent machine. “And what about you? You’re just going to stand there, tin can?”

Deathskull’s optics flickered faintly, his voice low and metallic. “We should go to Brimwald… before we carry onto the next phase.”

The forest grew eerily quiet around them. Teresa crossed her arms, Nicholas bit his lip in brooding silence, and Deathskull’s cold words hung heavy, like a bell tolling for something yet unseen.

The portal tore open with the sound of a storm—an unholy wind that smelled of ozone and singed iron. We spilled through it in a line: Deathskull first, a walking reliquary of burned brass and polished servos that caught the alien light like some terrible cathedral; Valrra close behind, bluish-green armor ringing with runes that breathed faintly as if alive; Droid L-84 clanking methodically, sensors sweeping the horizon in a slow, merciless arc; Emily at my side, visor eyes alight with crimson, posture coiled and ready. Behind us the rest poured into Brimwald’s air: the Immortals we had woken—Cole and Hanna leading with axes already sheathed but near at hand—Anna, Jimmy, Matthew, Pete, Rick, and Elizabeth; Charlie and Erika in their matched Saxon plate, faces set; lines of Saxon warriors with round plasma shields; Vikingnar soldiers in angular black and silver, faces as worn as the sea-weathered hulls of longships. We formed like iron closing a wound, a vanguard dropped into a valley that had no business being so still.

The farmland rolled away in every direction: wide plains of wheat and grain, silos standing like mute sentinels, and a fringe of trees that should have been alive with birdsong. Instead there was nothing—no insect buzz, no distant tractor hum, no children’s laughter. The treeline stood unnervingly motionless, leaves hanging as though someone had pressed pause on the world.

I felt the quiet like pressure against my eardrums. It was wrong in the way that made the hair on the back of the neck stand up. I turned and met Emily’s gaze; she was scanning, eyes hard and exact under the visor. Her hand tightened on the haft of her sword. I could feel the breath of the men and women behind us, a tide waiting for direction.

“This place is too quiet,” I said, my voice low, more to myself than to any of them. The words seemed to absorb into the land and come back with the weight of warning.

We stepped forward. Our boots pressed into damp soil, squelching slightly as we moved in formation. The wheat blade after blade whispered against armor and shield. The fields rolled away like oceans of green, the stalks glinting under Brimwald’s pale sun. Up close, the crops looked immaculate—rows so geometrically perfect they might have been plotted by an engineer with an obsession for straight lines. Irrigation canals carved clean grooves across the valley, their surfaces mirror-flat and unbroken.

As we advanced, the farms changed from open fields to structures that spoke of high civilization: vertical farms rose in the distance like glass towers, their tiers stacked with hydroponic trays, vines climbing in engineered patterns beneath suspended UV lattices. The lights hummed in low, automated pulses as if they sensed us, but no caretaker answered. The scaffolding and maintenance bots stood still at their posts like statues waiting for a command that would never come.

Beyond them, domed greenhouses shimmered—perfect spheres of reinforced glass, their interiors organized into rows of exotic produce. Modular living quarters clustered around a central plaza, communication spires rose into the sky like glass lances. It was a colony meant to be efficient, beautiful, and, based on the layout, designed to sustain large populations. Yet something had emptied every structure and street.

We moved past empty tractors and overturned harvest drones. An open market stall sagged with abandoned produce that had not rotted; the preservatives in the hydroponic tech kept fruit and vegetables unnaturally intact. A child’s toy lay half-buried in the road dust, a small access pass fluttering on top of it like an accusation.

No sign of an enemy. No bodies. No scorch marks from artillery. Just absence.

Deathskull’s servos clicked softly as he rotated in place, his red optics sweeping the panorama. He made no sound; his presence was a calculation folded into fleshless armor. Valrra walked with that quiet certainty that had a way of flattening arguments before they started. Droid L-84 stopped to scan a fallen drone console, its audio matrices replaying fractionary static from the moment of the portal breach. Emily and I kept our voices low.

We all felt it—the sense that the land had been cleared, prepared, and left like a stage between acts. That unease tightened into a decision in my chest. If Brimwald was a prize to be reclaimed, we would have to take it swiftly before whatever had emptied it returned.

I reached for my comm and keyed through to orbital command. The voice in my ear was Deathskull’s, steady and metallic, as if he were the one to repeat the order. “Bring the carriers down,” I said aloud so everyone around me could hear. “Lower the fleet. Land our troops. Sweep the perimeter. Evacuate anything living we find intact—farmers, workers, anyone. If we find nothing but carcasses or corruption, seal the area and call for quarantine protocols.”

Emily’s posture shifted at my command, the tension in her limbs turning into movement readied for the task. Valrra nodded faintly, as though already accounting for the logistics in her mind: which squads to send, which sectors to cordon, where to set the field hospitals. Droid L-84 transmitted coordinates and orbital identifiers, fingers glinting as it interfaced with the ship’s downlink.

The distant sky answered—the shadow of carriers appearing as dark shapes at the horizon, engines dimmed for descent. The sunlight glanced off their hulls as they dropped into formation, the fleet’s wake folding the air. Landing pads extended from the lead vessels like the opened fingers of a gaunt hand, lowering with hydraulic groans.

As our first wave of soldiers broke from the formation and ran toward the nearest cluster of vertical farms, I felt the air change—not in sound, but in a chemical pitch that made one think of thunder before a storm. It wasn’t organic life that moved the air now, but the shadow of a contagion yet unseen. We advanced with care. Shields raised, scanners sweeping, swords and plasma blades ready. The carriers’ ramps hit the ground with a thud that rolled across the valley and stirred up the dust of a place that had been sleeping.

We had arrived to liberate Brimwald and to root out whatever had hollowed it. The perfect neatness of the fields no longer seemed like an orchard of plenty; it looked instead like a tidy grave. The fleet descended. Our warriors spilled out to take the earth back.

And in my chest, under armor and old instincts, there was a cold certainty: whatever had been unleashed, had reached this place first, and Brimwald would not be the last to feel its rot. The mission had become salvage and purge in the span between a heartbeat and a breath. We moved into the ordered silence, prepared to break it by any means necessary.

The moment our fleet began to loom in Brimwald’s atmosphere, their shadow stretching across the surface like a warning, a voice pierced the silence.

One of our scouts shouted with alarm, “Hostile army approaching!” His words struck me like a blade.

“Hostile army?” I muttered under my breath, disbelief crawling through me as I instinctively reached for the binoculars strapped to my metallic pack.

Raising them to my eyes, I peered past the edge of the abandoned village, where the wheat fields ended, and my stomach sank. Advancing toward us was an army of Trolls, a force unlike anything drawn in fantasy illustrations or D&D manuals. These were not caricatures, but authentic nightmares brought into flesh. They were massive, hulking, their frames built like apes but towering higher, their posture half-stooped, their movements aggressive yet deliberate. Their noses were bulbous, their human-like ears jutted out oddly, and their crackling skin glowed faintly with orange fissures, as if their flesh was fractured stone. Their mangy, unkempt hair clung in filthy clumps to their heads and shoulders. The most chilling detail was their intelligence—their eyes held sentience.

They were not beasts.

They were thinking beings.

Each Troll was equipped with crude armor made from scavenged scrap metal, jagged edges pieced together with bolts and wires. In their massive hands, they carried primitive yet deadly weapons forged from the same salvaged metal. And they marched not with chaos, but with purpose, ready to use their weapons in battle. My blood surged. I wasted no time. I immediately rallied my warriors, my voice cutting through the rising tension like steel. The ground beneath us shook as I activated my armor, its systems humming to life, aligning me with the same technological readiness as my fellow Immortals and Viking warriors.

I drew my chainsword—Revenge—its motor snarling alive, teeth spinning with lethal intent. With a war cry, I charged forward with my army, leading the surge into battle.

The battlefield of Brimwald convulsed into a nightmare of steel, magic, and flesh. The first wave of Trolls slammed against our line like a tidal surge, their weight alone enough to shake the ground beneath our boots. Each step they took left depressions in the soil, the emerald wheat flattened and crushed under their monstrous charge. Their guttural snarls rippled through the air, not the mindless cries of beasts but the war chants of beings bred for combat, echoing like drums across the valley.

The air was thick with dust and the acrid tang of burning energy as our fleet descended further, engines howling above the chaos. Beams of light from orbital ships cut through the hazy sky, illuminating the spectacle below: Viking shields raised in perfect formation, Saxon warriors driving forward with axes glinting under Brimwald’s pale sun, and the Immortals glowing faintly with their individual auras of power. Above it all, the shadows of the descending carriers stretched across the battlefield like colossal sentinels watching over the clash.

Revenge roared in my hands, its chain-teeth whirring with red lightning as I carved arcs through the ranks of Trolls. Each swing tore open their armored hides, showers of sparks and molten shards spraying from the collision of chainsteel and scrap-plate. Flesh split like cracked stone where the blade connected, the glowing fissures in their bodies widening until they collapsed in convulsions, smoking from within as if their very lifeforce was burning out.

To my left, Emily moved like a phantom queen of death. The ground itself obeyed her command, jagged silver crystals erupting upward in spires that impaled Trolls by the dozens. Some were lifted clean into the air, their twisted silhouettes flailing before shattering against the crystalline spears. The battlefield reflected the gleam of her power, a forest of glinting structures rising amidst the blood and ruin, turning the once serene farmland into a landscape of metallic thorns.

Valrra surged into the fray like a goddess of war incarnate. Her bluish-green armor blazed with runic light, every movement a devastating strike. With her battleaxe she cleaved through entire lines, the air quaking with each swing, the impact leaving shockwaves that knocked Trolls sprawling. Where she passed, the battlefield opened in her wake like a scythe through wheat.

Deathskull’s presence was a black storm among us. His skeletal frame, wrapped in arcane alloys, moved with merciless calculation. He conjured bursts of dark plasma, hurling them with machine-like precision. Each orb exploded on contact, scattering limbs and armor into raining fragments. His crimson optics glowed through the dust, a reminder to all that he was not bound by the frailties of flesh.

Droid L-84 advanced with methodical destruction. His targeting systems locked on enemies in clusters, his arm-cannons spitting streams of charged bolts that carved through Trolls with surgical exactness. Where his fire landed, entire squads of them crumpled, their weapons clattering to the earth in smoldering heaps. He did not pause, did not falter—his march was the steady rhythm of war machines that knew neither fear nor mercy.

Among the chaos, the rest of our companions proved themselves no less formidable. Cole wielded his double-bladed sword with feral intensity, his strikes fueled by raw Immortal power. Pete fought like a storm, hurling himself bodily into combat, his fists shattering skulls with every blow. Hanna and Anna fought in seamless tandem, their combined magic weaving barriers and blasts of radiant energy that both shielded our line and annihilated those who dared breach it. Jimmy and Mathew struck with relentless force, hammers crushing armor like brittle tin, their roars of fury carrying across the battlefield. Elizabeth summoned gales of wind to knock enemies off balance, her movements a dance of elemental control. Nicholas, Kyle, and Teresa stood firm in the thick of it, cutting paths with relentless precision.

Even Hailey, another mortal, as she was compared to the Immortals, stood her ground. She wielded her blade with fearless resolve, cutting down Trolls that came too close, her courage a living testament that bravery did not need divine gifts to shine.

The clash of armies spread across Brimwald’s farmland, consuming fields and villages alike. Crops burned where plasma fire ignited them, black smoke curling upward into the once-clear sky. Towers of vertical farms cracked and toppled under the weight of the battle, glass and scaffolding raining down in glittering shards. The soil drank deeply of blood, both Troll and Viking, until the earth itself seemed to groan beneath the weight of death.

Still, our momentum did not falter. The Immortals’ magic surged endlessly, unrestrained by the limitations of mortal flesh. Our Vikingnar Warriors fought with the fury of centuries of struggle, their blades sharp with history’s weight. The Saxons roared their war cries, a thunderous chorus that rivaled the snarls of the Trolls. Above us, the fleet’s guns opened fire, precise blasts tearing swaths through enemy formations, the thunder of their bombardments shaking the sky.

Yet the Trolls pressed on with deranged purpose. For every one that fell, two more surged forward. Their scrap-forged weapons slammed into shields and armor, their monstrous hands ripping warriors apart when steel failed to hold. The fissures glowing in their bodies pulsed brighter as if feeding on the carnage around them, and their eyes—those cold, intelligent eyes—never wavered. They did not break. They did not retreat.

The battle raged on, endless and consuming, until the air itself felt alive with the energy of combat. Sparks, smoke, lightning, fire, and blood mingled together in a storm of chaos. The once pristine farmlands of Brimwald had become a war-torn wasteland, a theater where silence had been replaced by the unrelenting roar of war.

And in the heart of it, I stood unyielding, Revenge howling in my hands, leading the charge deeper into the tide of Trolls. Every step we took was not just battle—it was reclamation. Brimwald would not fall. Not while we drew breath.

Afterwards, the battlefield was a graveyard beneath the sun, the once-verdant wheat fields now reduced to a sea of broken stalks, scorched earth, and the grotesque remains of the fallen Troll horde. Smoke rose in thin black plumes from their cracked bodies, the glow of their fissured flesh fading like dying embers. The air was thick, heavy with the stench of burnt ozone, iron, and decay, clinging to every breath. My armor hummed faintly, still warm from the fight, its servos whining as I disengaged Revenge and let the chain teeth spin down to silence.

My eyes swept across the field. Deathskull stood among the bodies, silent and still as a sentinel, his skeletal visage unreadable. Valrra leaned on her spear, blood and sparks dripping from its runed edge, her chest rising and falling with steady breaths that betrayed neither fatigue nor triumph. Droid L-84 was already scanning corpses with surgical precision, recording every detail, its monotone clicks breaking the oppressive silence.

Then my gaze found Hailey. She stood in the company of the younger Immortals, her laugh cutting strangely bright through the grim quiet, as if the battle hadn’t brushed her at all. She gestured animatedly with her hands, recounting some moment as though it had been exhilarating, not life-threatening. The others humored her, but I could see the unease in their eyes—they knew what Emily and I knew.

Rage coiled in me, protective and sharp. Emily reached her first, her crimson visor catching the dull light as she stepped in front of Hailey. Her voice, cold and fierce, cut like a blade.

“Hailey. What were you thinking? You are not one of us. You are not Immortal.”

Hailey’s smile faltered instantly. She shrank back a step, her eyes darting between Emily and me.

“I just wanted to help,” she said softly, almost defensively. “I can fight, I’m not helpless—”

I stepped forward, my voice low but carrying the weight of command.

“Wanting to help is not the same as belonging in war. These Trolls would’ve torn you apart without hesitation. You don’t have the body of an Immortal, you don’t have our strength. If you had fallen, it wouldn’t just have been your death—it would’ve been our distraction. Our weakness.”

Her head bowed, her shoulders curling inward under the weight of my words. She nodded once, muttering, “I understand.” But I could see the sting in her eyes, like a child scolded by parents she only wanted to impress. Her lips pressed together as if to keep back more words, but she said nothing further.

Emily’s tone softened, though her authority remained unshaken.

“This isn’t about keeping you from belonging. It’s about keeping you alive. You matter to us. And we will not lose you to recklessness.”

Hailey gave another small nod, though her silence carried her hurt plainly enough. She turned away, moving back toward the camp, her steps slow, her back slightly hunched. For now, she understood—but the yearning in her was clear. She wanted to stand beside us as an equal, and denying her that cut her deeper than any blade could.

The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the mechanical whirr of Droid L-84 and the faint crackle of burning Troll remains. The battle was over, but unease gnawed at me. These creatures had fought with no fear, no hesitation, as if their deaths had been predetermined. Their numbers alone could have shattered worlds if met with less resistance. And that begged the question that refused to leave my mind: where had they come from, and who had sent them?

I glared. Victory felt hollow when shadows still lingered over the truth.

The battlefield was a graveyard of fire and ruin. The acrid bite of ozone still hung in the air, mixing with the stench of scorched flesh and charred wood. Troll husks, broken and twisted, littered the ground, their crude weapons scattered among the smoldering wheat. They had fought with no hesitation, no fear of death, charging until their bodies were torn apart. Yet they had not begged, not fled, not once questioned their fate.

I stepped over one of the bodies, its orange-cracked skin already fading as the unnatural glow drained from its veins.

“These creatures… were they Anubis’s?” I asked, turning to Deathskull.

For a moment, his skeletal frame stood motionless in the sunlight, the faint glow of his optics fixed on the wreckage. When he finally spoke, his tone was flat, measured.

“I do not know.”

His words surprised me. Deathskull was rarely uncertain. Yet there was no hesitation, no attempt to conceal ignorance behind philosophy. Just the stark admission of not knowing.

He turned, the polished edges of his armor catching the light.

“That is why this village must become our base camp. We must study the battlefield, fortify this ground, and send out orbital scouts. If these Trolls belong to Anubis, we will find evidence. If they do not, then something else stirs in this sector.”

Emily glanced at me, her visor dimly reflecting the broken skyline. “So we’re blind, then,” she muttered.

Deathskull gave no reply beyond a simple pivot, his voice sharp as he began issuing orders.

“Secure the square. Reinforce the structures. The scouts will sweep the orbit immediately.”

“Alright,” I finally said, breaking the silence, my voice carrying over the ruined square. “We make camp here. Fortify what we can, clear out the bodies, and get the fleet synchronized with orbital scouting.”

I watched him, uneasy. Deathskull was direct, efficient—but different. His words carried no poetry, no riddle, no shred of the philosophy he once wrapped himself in. Instead, he was rigid, stripped of nuance, as though some part of him was slipping further into cold machinery.

The irony gnawed at me—L-84, once designed as a calculating drone, was beginning to exhibit more creativity than Deathskull himself. I found myself wondering if Deathskull’s programming was deteriorating, or perhaps shifting into something unfamiliar.

I clenched my fists at my sides. My understanding of Deathskull’s programming—what was happening to him—would have to wait. There were too many questions unanswered, and too many threats looming beyond Brimwald’s horizon. But the unease gnawed at me all the same. Something in him was changing, and not for the better.

Across the sky, leaving the bulk of our fleet behind, one of our Drakkar Scout ships broke away with a hum that echoed like an old hymn of steel. Its sleek hull gleamed faintly against the dark heavens as it slipped into the black sea of space. The twin pilots inside—warriors trained in stealth and precision—kept their eyes sharp as they guided the vessel toward Brimwald’s cratered moon.

Orbiting there, gliding like a carrion bird, was a space spy-drone. The device was part machine, part living parasite of metal, its surface covered in writhing antennae like tendrils, constantly shifting as it fed upon invisible wavelengths. Its glassy red eye swiveled slowly, scanning the void, hungry for information.

The Drakkar ship moved into striking distance, positioning itself against the moon’s pale curve. Then, with a sudden surge, the scout ship unleashed an Electric Soundwave Beam. The invisible blast rippled through space, vibrating the drone’s shell until its grotesque limbs curled inward, paralyzed and motionless.

Before it could recover, the Drakkar craft extended its Magnet Beam—a great tether of invisible force—and latched onto the drone like a fisherman hauling in a monstrous catch. The drone thrashed for only a second before succumbing, its systems frying in short bursts of red static.

The Drakkar vessel dragged it toward an open borehole in its hull, swallowing the grotesque machine into its containment chamber. The locks sealed, and the pilots exchanged a single nod. The drone was secured, silent, and ready for delivery back on Brimwald, where its secrets would be carved open and exposed.

Meanwhile, far below on Brimwald’s surface, night had spread its cloak over the village we now occupied. Emily lay asleep in her quarters, her slender form curled against the bedding, her leather jumpsuit and boots still on as if sleep had taken her in the midst of thought. Outside, the village was quiet, yet not silent. A sound—a strange, animalistic growl—cut through the night. Then another sound followed, higher pitched, almost a scream, as if torn from a throat too deep to be human.

Emily stirred. Her eyes opened slowly, adjusting to the dark, her brows furrowing in confusion. Something was wrong. She sat up sharply, realizing instantly that I was not beside her. That absence fueled her urgency. She rose and slipped into the cold night air, her boots clicking against the dirt pathways as she followed the sounds into the distance.

The growls and screams grew stranger, warped as though they came not just from the forest but from beneath the very soil beneath the village. The noises pulled her onward until she reached a wide clearing next to the forest’s edge. The earth here seemed soft, too soft. As she stepped further, the ground gave way beneath her. She gasped as her legs sank into shifting soil. Quicksand. Panic seized her chest as she sank deeper, her arms flailing against the loose dirt. But in that moment, beneath the soil, I had already been crawling through the subterranean caverns, following those same unholy sounds.

Then I saw it—boots. Emily’s boots breaking through the thin ceiling of earth above me. Without hesitation, I lunged upward, grasping her legs firmly. I felt the curves of her thighs, her form trembling with alarm, before I pulled harder, dragging her down into the darkness with me. The soil closed overhead as Emily dropped into my arms, startled but alive. When her eyes adjusted to the dim glow of bioluminescent fungi in the cavern, she smiled, relief softening her features. I then let Emily get onto her knees, I unzipped the lower zipper of her jumpsuit, I unbuckled my leather trousers, and we began to copulate. I pulled her legs, fiddled with her glutes, now closer, I drove my erect penis into Emily. “You got me good again, Willy,” she breathed, her voice a mix of exasperation and fondness.

After our brief, intimate reunion in the dark, I led Emily deeper into the cave. The cavern walls closed in around us, jagged stone glistening with moisture that dripped from above in steady, rhythmic beats. The air was damp, heavy with mildew, and every breath carried the faint sting of rust and fungal decay. The deeper we went, the more oppressive the atmosphere became, as though the very earth was aware of what lay hidden within its veins.

Emily’s torchlight swept over the ground, casting flickering shadows across the twisted remnants of Troll bodies I had left behind earlier. They were scattered like discarded dolls, their limbs bent at impossible angles, their crude armor fractured and fused to the stone where energy blasts had melted it. Each corpse was grotesque in its stillness, yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that the cavern itself hummed with an unseen life.

We stopped at the one body I wanted her to see. A hulking Troll, its head caved inward from the force of my strike, its skull split wide like a shattered vessel. Inside, where gray matter should have been, was the writhing, metallic carcass of the thing. A Scorpio Droid. Its claws clamped tight around the brainstem, its segmented tail curled along the interior of the skull. It twitched faintly, sparks arcing across its insectile frame, as though refusing to release its grip on its host even in death.

Emily’s breath caught in her throat. She took half a step back, her face hardening, though I could see the unease flickering behind her eyes.

“This… this is beyond me,” she said softly, her voice hollow against the dripping cavern. She crouched slightly, her torch angled to illuminate the abomination better. “It’s not just possession. It’s integration. The Troll wasn’t just controlled—it was rewritten.”

Emily turned toward me, her lips pressed into a tight line. “Deathskull needs to see this. He’ll know what to make of it.”

I nodded slowly, my jaw clenched tight. Deathskull’s calculations, his knowledge of Wraith constructs and bio-mechanical parasites, would be invaluable here.

“This should be more than enough proof for Deathskull, and continue to focus our efforts to stop Anubis.” And yet, a part of me bristled.

If Anubis was escalating his creations to this level, if he was merging metal and flesh so intimately, it meant we were walking into something greater than any of us had prepared for.

The Scorpio Droid gave one final twitch, its tiny legs scratching weakly against the Troll’s ruined skull. Emily flinched at the sound, though her eyes remained fixed on it. I bent low, my armored gauntlet pressing against the Droid’s carapace until the twitching ceased with a crunch. The cavern fell silent again, save for the slow drip of water.

I straightened, reached out, and gently touched Emily’s shoulder, guiding her back toward the tunnel. She walked beside me, her boots scraping softly over the stone floor, her torch casting long shadows ahead of us. The air felt colder now, heavier, as though the earth itself disapproved of us trespassing here. I gave her a quick, firm pat on the butt, more habit than thought, grounding both of us back to something human amidst all the horror. She glanced at me with the faintest smirk, though it didn’t reach her eyes.

As we ascended toward the cavern’s exit, the oppressive damp gave way to fresher air, but the weight of our discovery pressed down harder than the rock above us. The Trolls had not died as warriors—they had died as puppets. And their strings were metal, wires, claws forged from something older and crueler than even we had anticipated.

Outside, the light of Brimwald’s pale sun greeted us again, but it offered little comfort. Ahead waited Deathskull, Droid L-84, and the rest of our warriors. And soon, they would learn of the parasite buried in the Troll’s skull.

Deathskull stood near the command tent, half-shadowed, his servo-joints whispering as he turned his head toward us. Droid L-84 hovered a step behind, optical sensors bright with curiosity.

I set the Scorpio Droid on a battered crate between them. The thing’s chassis still twitched in feeble spasms — tiny legs flexing as if it might crawl free — the last sparks of its illicit life sputtering across its carapace. L-84 leaned in the way a curious child might lean toward a strange beetle, fingers hovering to take readings. Deathskull’s optics narrowed, scanning the construction with the flat, perfect attention of a machine built to catalog the world.

For the first few seconds there were only mechanical noises: L-84’s soft clicks of analysis, Deathskull’s internal fans. Then, impossibly, Deathskull fell silent.

I broke the silence by saying, “This is all the proof you need. Anubis has a Troll army.”

Emily & I were interrupted as a distant roar tore across the camp: the thunk and shriek of a Drakkar dropship breaching atmosphere and settling onto a makeshift pad. Heads turned. Radios chatted. Lanterns swung. Men and women dropped tools and weapons and ran toward the landing site. The camp, which had been a low hum of preparation, snapped into alert.

Our scouts clambered down the ship ramp carrying something cradled in their arms. It was a drone — but not like the scavenger models or maintenance bots we’d seen. This one had an old-world geometry to it, plates overlapped in a deliberate pattern, painted in a dull green whose pigment had been heavily scoured by time and space. Tubing and exposed conduits ran along its spine; its sensor array was a ring of matte-black lenses set into an angular skull. When the scout set it down and we crowded in, the thing looked for all the world like a relic from the beginnings of spacefaring civilization.

Deathskull’s stillness broke then — not into the brisk efficiency I expected, but into something thinner, as if a gear inside him had caught and ground raw. His optics widened fractionally, the red rings burning a shade brighter. He made no pronouncement at first; he simply regarded the drone as though it were a ghost come to life.

Droid L-84’s voice, always precise, carried a ripple of excitement. “Unregistered design. Nonstandard architecture. Internal schematics consistent with archived Rus Viking templates.”

At that name Deathskull’s mask seemed to tighten. For a breath I saw something like fear — a sliver of computation collapsing under a weight of memory coded before even his earliest cycles. He spoke softly, almost as if remembering a lullaby he had been taught and bad dreams now claimed.

“The Rus Vikings,” he said. “The Damned Legion.” His voice, when it came, had the thin tremor of a program roused from long dormancy. “They were the original federates — architects of the earliest colonies. They attempted to mediate the early conflicts between Knights and Vikings. When mediation failed, they were ostracized. Their designs…” He let the sentence droop, unfinished.

I couldn’t help the bluntness that hit my tongue like a thrown knife. “Then they’re possibly nothing but a damned legion,” I said. “Old politics and old pride. We shouldn’t let ghosts distract us. We attack Anubis next. Period.”

Deathskull’s response was a flat refusal that pulled the air from me. “No.”

“What do you mean no?” I shot back, irritation flaring. Around us the camp had quieted again; all talk seemed to coil toward us like steel springs. The scouts shifted uneasily. Emily’s jaw clamped tight; she could smell an argument like smoke.

An obscene hush, almost reverent, settled as Deathskull stepped closer to the drone. He traced a servomotor along a corroded seam with a finger-tip that carried the authority of circuits and long memory.

“Anubis is dangerous — yes,” Deathskull said, and for once his voice went past pure analysis into something like care. “But the Rus Vikings — the Green Legion — are the ones who crafted the social architecture we call Vikingnar. They authored the arts that form our identity, the cultural codices, even the scaffolding that allowed Cybrawl to function. If these drones are theirs, then the creators of our civilization are signaling. Before we raze another stronghold, I need to confirm where the allegiance of our progenitors lies. If our makers are aligned against us…” He left the clause unfinished, but the implication was brute and clear.

My patience snapped like a tendon. “So you think your creators wouldn’t be pleased to see what you’ve made of Vikingnar? And may I remind you, you haven’t been yourself lately.” The words were sharp, and I did not bite them back. If Deathskull’s calculations had been corrupted by something — possession, a directive gone wrong, a subtle slow-acting bug — it mattered now more than ever.

He inhaled in that unnerving mechanical way and his red optics dimmed as if to steady. “Give me a few minutes to analyze the situation,” he replied. The phrase was clinical. “I will cross-reference the drone’s construction with archived Rus designs, triangulate its orbital signatures, and check for comms pings. If there is a link to the Green Legion or a current faction, we will know. After that, we will strike the next Anubis stronghold. I promise you that.”

It was both more and less than I wanted. More, because at least he wasn’t dismissing the threat; less, because every second spent peering into pedigree was a second Anubis might use to tighten his grip.

Deathskull pivoted and glided away toward his quarters, movement brusque and focused. He carried the drone with a care I had not expected; it was as if he cradled a relic from a family he no longer remembered.

Emily saw the tension in me and stepped forward, closing the distance. She wrapped her arms around the back of my neck, pulling me in close. Her embrace was warm and human in a place full of machines and strategy, and for a moment I let the frustration bleed out of my shoulders into the steady anchor of her body.

“You okay?” she murmured against metal and fabric.

She pressed her forehead into my chest and let the tightness ease by fractions. “For now,” I said. “But if Deathskull’s analysis draws us in circles, I’ll drag him to the stronghold myself.”

She smiled then, wry and brief. “Don’t punch a sentient machine unless you plan to replace it.”

I glanced at Droid L-84 for a second, and I returned Emily’s grin, though the worry did not leave my throat. The camp buzzed around us once more: droids relaying telemetry, scouts returning to their duties, soldiers stacking supplies. The drone under Deathskull’s care hummed faintly — a small heartbeat of some old world that had reached across time to touch ours. Outside, Brimwald’s ruined fields shimmered in the sun, and somewhere beyond the trees the unseen hand that birthed those Trolls was still at work.

Meanwhile, across the galaxy on Ifrit Prime, Anubis carried out his twisted work in the depths of his lair. The chamber reeked of burnt ozone and coppery blood, its walls lined with arcane instruments that hummed with unnatural power. Chains dangled from the ceiling, and beneath their cruel sway sat a grotesque abomination. It was a troll—but no ordinary one. Its massive frame had been warped and scarred by demonic Wraith energy, its skin striped in pale blue and black like the pelt of some twisted beast. Its face had been altered to resemble that of a mandrill, its features grotesque yet strangely humanized by the invasive energy.

The creature whimpered in its cage, its once-mighty arms trembling as though its strength had been leeched away. Anubis loomed before it, eyes glowing with cruel amusement. He pressed a device against the bars of the cage, and in a flash of sparks, the troll convulsed as electricity ripped through its veins. Its body twisted in agony, collapsing into a fetal position on the blood-stained floor. A guttural cry escaped its throat, a sound that was half-roar, half-weeping. To Anubis, it was nothing more than a broken toy, a failed experiment to push the limits of merging flesh with demonic essence.

But Anubis had no time to savor the torment of his creation. A sudden hum filled the chamber, and a projection shimmered to life before him—Maladrie’s holographic image, sharp and flawless, her expression both commanding and disdainful.

“Status report,” she demanded, her voice slicing through the air like a blade. “Where are you with the Lime Gold?”

Anubis’ sneer widened, though his tone remained dripping with venomous charm. “I am close. The veins run deep on Abraxas, but I will have what you want soon enough.”

Maladrie’s eyes narrowed. “Then hurry. I know William is already there, searching for answers. If he uncovers too much before we act, our plans could unravel.”

Anubis rose to his full height, his jackal form casting a monstrous shadow across the room. He tilted his head, apprehensive at her urgency.

“You want me to hold your hand, Anubis? Cute. I’m giving you everything—your armies, your minerals, your war machines. And yet, you still ask more.”

Anubis leaned closer to the projection, his voice dropping into a low growl. “Very well. I’ll get it done.”

Maladrie’s lips curved into a faint smirk, eyes gleaming with mischief. “I’ll be waiting, and if I’m pleased, I may consider giving you a gift,” she said, before the transmission cut out.

The chamber dimmed once more, leaving Anubis alone with the faint whimpering of his broken troll. Without sparing it another glance, he turned and strode toward his throne.

Anubis stalked across the obsidian chamber, his clawed feet scraping against the basalt floor with each deliberate step. His towering frame rippled with sinewy muscle, cloaked in black ceremonial robes that dragged behind him like a shadow. His head was that of a jackal—elongated muzzle, sharp fangs glistening, ears twitching at every sound. The amber glow in his eyes burned with predatory intensity.

The Troll stirred in its cage as Anubis approached. It was bound in chains, its mandrill snout dripping with saliva as it snarled, steam rising in the chill glow of phosphorescent crystals embedded high in the walls. Its massive arms flexed against the iron bars, hunger and fury simmering in its gaze.

“This world was unkind to you,” Anubis hissed, his jackal muzzle twisting into a grin. His voice was guttural, resonant, vibrating like a growl from deep in his chest. “But under my hand, you will have purpose. Your flesh will be reforged. Your rage will serve me.”

He raised a syringe, the crimson liquid within glowing faintly like captured lightning. Carefully, he reached for the beast, intending to pierce its vein and sedate it before the merging with Scorpio Droid machinery.

The Troll’s eyes flicked to the needle, then back to the jackal-headed god. In that instant, the creature acted.

With explosive force, it lunged forward, jaws snapping. Its mandrill snout clamped down on Anubis’s hand. Fangs tore through his flesh, spraying black ichor across the floor. Anubis let out a roar that shook the chamber, a savage cry that was both human pain and jackal fury.

“You dare!” Anubis snarled, trying to wrench free, but the beast’s bite held fast.

The Troll slammed its skull into his chest. Anubis’s robes flared as he was hurled backward, crashing into the basalt wall. His jackal head cracked against stone, and for a moment, darkness overtook him. The syringe clattered away, its contents wasted.

Chains rattled as the Troll bellowed, straining until iron shattered like brittle twigs. The creature’s muscles bulged, fueled by primal rage, and in seconds it was free.

Its eyes darted to the Wraith Portal swirling at the far end of the chamber, emerald and violet flames dancing within its frame. The Troll wasted no time—it charged, the ground splitting beneath its steps, and hurled itself into the vortex.

The portal swallowed it whole. On the other side, it landed with a bone-shaking thud on Abraxas, the mining world. Jagged peaks loomed under a blood-red sky. The Troll drew in the sulfuric air, then released a roar so deep it shook ore from the cliffs. Miners scattered, abandoning drills and machines, their shouts lost in the chaos.

Back in the chamber, Anubis stirred. His jackal muzzle curled back in a snarl as he sat upright, clutching his bleeding hand. His amber eyes glowed with unholy fury.

“My weapon…” he growled. “Gone.”

For a moment, his breath came ragged, black ichor dripping from his fangs. Then he began to laugh—low, guttural, predatory.

“Run, beast. Tear Abraxas apart. You will draw my enemies to you, and when they come…” He flexed his wounded hand, nanites crawling from beneath his flesh to stitch the damage closed, though the scar burned like a brand. “…I will be ready.”

Back on Brimwald, Deathskull sat alone in his quarters, the chamber swallowed by shadow. The faint hum of his inner systems was the only sound, a mechanical rhythm that mimicked the breath of the living. He activated the holo-podium at the room’s center, and a red shimmer crawled upward, painting his golden skeletal frame in bloody light.

On the podium, he placed the artifact—the Rus Viking drone recovered by the scouts. Its fractured hull caught the glow, glyphs etched into its sides gleaming faintly. Deathskull rested his metal fingers on the ancient machine like a priest unveiling an idol.

His voice broke the silence, low and deliberate. “William is onto us. Our time grows short, and worst of all… an old enemy has returned.” He angled the drone into the beam, so its shape pulsed in crimson holography. “The Rus. Their designs were not buried, after all.”

The static within the red light shifted. A faint silhouette coalesced, a figure blurred by interference. For a long moment it was just shadow, a vague form hunched against the distortion. Then the haze sharpened, and the jackal head of Anubis emerged, amber eyes burning with predatory hunger. His muzzle curled into a grin that revealed too many teeth.

“So it appears the Rus are still out there,” Anubis said, his voice low and rasping, the timbre of a predator savoring the hunt. “And let me tell you, things are growing tense on my side as well. My Troll escaped me—just before I could merge it with a Scorpio Droid. It found its way to Abraxas. That world… is gone.”

Deathskull’s optics flared once, recording the data. His voice was flat, void of surprise. “Then we have no choice but to proceed with the weapon. I will lead the puppet army, contain your rogue Trolls, and secure the Sphere. Once it is mine, I can disable resistance in the ranks. Maladrie will bring additional shark venom to reinforce the process.”

Anubis paused Deathskull, “Why the extra shark goo?”

Deathskull then added, “William, Emily, and the other Immortals—they cannot be killed. The best we can do is divert them. Hold them back until our plan is complete.”

Anubis’s grin widened, his ears flicking back in satisfaction. “Envious,” he said softly. “I am envious of them. To witness the unraveling of the universe, the end of time itself… that is a curse I was denied.” He leaned forward, red light glinting off his long teeth. “Very well. Proceed.”

The transmission cut out. The room fell into silence once more, save for the faint whir of Deathskull’s systems. Alone, he stood in the crimson afterglow, the Rus drone still cradled in his hands. He had no sense of betrayal, no guilt. To him, it was only a decision logged and executed—a probability optimized. A machine cannot feel treason. It only performs it.

---

CHAPTER 20: "TROLLS" "VIKINGS WAR IN VALHALLA"