The Record of Unusual Creatures

After a while of fighting, Hao Ren finally cut off the head of an Asgardian warrior, but as the warrior fell to the ground, it was only an empty armor.

It was not a surprise though as Hao Ren had vaguely noticed something during the fight. He mumbled to himself, “Sure enough. I have suspected something earlier.”

The headless warrior did not really die. His armor still moved on the ground as bright electric light danced in the gaps of the rusty and deformed armor. As if the warrior could repair himself, he got to his feet again after a while. He did not look for his head but charged at Hao Ren.

“What the heck is this? It just won’t die!” A little stunned but remaining calm, Hao Ren raised his spear and blocked the alloy sword of the warrior. Almost immediately, he wielded his sword in the other hand at the arm of his enemy.

The Godslayer sliced through the arms of the headless warrior, who then disintegrated on the ground.

At about the same time, Lily, with her agility and strength, pounced at an Asgardian guard. As if rage had taken over, she roared like a beast and tore open the armor of the enemy. Just when she was about to bite the enemy, she suddenly stopped. She had also realized that the armor was empty underneath.

In confusion, the husky tilted her head slightly and finally came to her realization. “Arf! Mr. Landlord, it is empty inside!”

“These armors are all empty!” A loud bang came from the direction of Galazur, an Asgardian armored warrior was smashed to the ground, and his helmet rolled out into the distance. “What is this? Is it a robot guard?”

Knowing the secrets of these armors, things became more manageable. There were no physical bodies inside the armors, and these warriors seemed to not have any apparent weaknesses. Ordinary puncture damage, heat, arcane magic, and brute force attack could hardly defeat them. The most effective way was to smash them into pieces.

Galazur’s method worked the best.

“Tear them apart along the joints!” Vivian said aloud in the air. “I now remember what these are! They are einherjar! Don’t use magic, this thing is immune to magic!”

Those who were good at close-quarters combat became the main force. Galazur, Y’zaks, Hao Ren and Lily lunged at the heart of the enemy forces where the guards were basically being slaughtered by them like cattle. Seeing that, Nangong Wuyue took up the courage to throw healing spells at them while Nangong Sanba guarded her against the Asgardian guards. He may have been a half-baked demon hunter, but he had no problem dealing with the guards who could only rely on their simple and brute force attack.

Not far away, Anthony Alfonso watched as one of the einherjar he had smashed came alive again. Feeling his ego as a great magician challenged, he sighed, “I am most troubled by this kind of magic-resistant guy.”

He opened his dimensional pocket, threw his magic staff back in and then took out a golden spike club. When the old magician stopped his magic, the arcane balls dropped to the ground. He ripped off his robe and revealed his large brass-colored muscles underneath!

The old man bared his upper body with a heavy runic iron belt around his waist. Every inch of his skin was bursting with electric light under the charge of magic energy, just like a god. Striding towards an einherjar closest to him, he smashed the einherjar before it could even raise the sword. “The power of the bear! Strong and long lasting! Powerful stone skin! Powerful and Agile! Powerful and heroic!” he shouted.

*Bang!*

“Let there be death!”

*Bang!*

Amid the loud bangs, the heavy armors were thrown 20 meters out!

“There is no enemy that I have not seen before for the three thousand four hundred years! I will have been long dead if I’m only a mediocre magician.” Anthony Alfonso roared as he swung his spike club, hitting another guard again. “By the way, though I am working under the goddess, I actually believe in the Dark Valkyrie Bryndis!”

“Holy-effing light! Endow me with your strength! Let there be death! Let there be death! Let there be death!”

*Bang!*

The massive spike club was glowing with bright magic light as he smashed yet another einherjar into metal dust. One last loud bang marked the end of the battle. As the dust settled, the corridor became quiet again.

Because everything was over.

Except for Galazur who was emotionless, everyone including Y’zaks looked at Anthony Alfonso as if they had seen a ghost. Lily who was standing closest to Anthony Alfonso had her tail puffed up. An einherjar suddenly staggered to its feet, scaring the daylight out of Lily. Taking two steps backward, Lily reached out her claws poking the einherjar, she looked at the old magician and then the einherjar and said in a whisper, “Let there be death?”

The einherjar instantly crumbled to the ground.

The old magician looked around, delighted. With the wave of his hand, he was back into his original costume, a scholar’s robe with oak staff in his hand and a broad smile across his face. “Is everyone is okay?”

“You’ll get used to it,” Galazur’s loud voice jolted them out of their daze. “Anthony Alfonso has always been like this. He might look like an honest guy, but once his magic doesn’t work, he would go into a rampage, especially so since he believes in a goddess of violence.”

Anthony Alfonso did not argue, just smiling.

They had wanted to say something. But when they realized this old man had some quirky habits, they were all silent. Compared with the rest of his quirky characteristics, his rampage would seem like a child’s play.

No one serving under Raven 12345 could escape her influence, everyone had become neurotic in some way. So did Anthony Alfonso.

As the smoke dissipated, there was only debris left in the corridor. Deformed armors were everywhere. The most shocking thing was that even if the armors had been shattered, they still vibrated and jumped on the ground as if they were going to be restored again. Curious, he looked at Vivian. “Will these things come back to life again?”

Vivian shook her head. “I think not. At least not at the moment.”

She had recognized these enemies. Clearly, she knew these strange armored guards.

Y’lisabet jumped down from Y’zaks’ shoulder. Feeling upset for being unable to make any kill. She looked up at Vivian with her arms akimbo. “So what is einherjar?”

“It is the undead spirits in Norse mythology,” said Lily, who was next to Y’lisabet. The husky maiden had recovered from her mad-dog mode and explained matter-of-factly like a learned young scholar. “Einherjar is just a transliteration, Battie is just pretending to be—”

Vivian glared at her and snorted, “Get out of my sight! I just like how it sounds. I learned that word from some Chinese guy.”

At this time, Nangong Wuyue crawled over, still trembling. But she had untied her tail this time. Spitting bubbles from her mouth, she carefully poked the jumping broken armors with her tail. “These are the Einherjar? They don’t look the same as those in the mythology.”

“Legends are distorted. Real history is most often very different from what is thought of,” Vivian said, shaking her head and examining the wreckage of Einherjar. “The valkyries gathered the souls of the dead from the battlefield. These souls were forged together with steel in the soul furnace in Valhalla and called einherjar. They have no blood, no tears, and no pain. They are extremely aggressive because they have spent their last moment immersed in bloody battle. They are tough, and unless they are shattered into millions of pieces, they are essentially immortal. But they could be restored by a blacksmith if their broken bodies are recovered in time. As Asgardian gods had low fertility and limited population, the Einherjar was once a great army of Asgard. But during the Twilight of the Gods, Valhalla’s control center was destroyed internally, so more than half of the einherjar could not be sent to the battlefield, this was the important reason why the war had turned so tragic for the gods. If the strength of the Asgardian army had not been compromised, they would have likely crushed the giants and demon hunters early in the war, and been able to detect the movement of the demon hunters, and even change the trajectory of the Nine Worlds to avoid the destruction. But in real life, there is no what-if. So the Mythological Era ended.”

Hao Ren did not say anything, just watching the squeaking einherjar fragments as he sighed quietly.

He was watching a lost history.

The real history laid bare itself before his eyes. The Einherjar were the leading figures behind the Mythological Era.