The Record of Unusual Creatures

As Hao Ren stepped closer, the Valkyrie who was in a state of madness stepped backward. Like a beast that was forced into a corner, her nails planted deep into the gaps of the floorboards while she growled threateningly. Behind her messy hair was a pair of wild eyes that hardly look human.

“Relax. Relax.” Hao Ren had no choice but stopped after taking a few steps forward. He spread out his hands and motioned that he was not a threat. “See, we are not enemies, we are not coming to attack Valhalla. We are here to investigate the situation. Oh, we have an old friend of gods of Asgard here too.”

“Val… halla…” The Valkyrie trembled and hummed a few syllables in her throat, as though she only responded to those particular words.

Seeing that this worked, the words the valkyrie shouted a moment ago came to his mind. He further said in an even friendlier tone of voice. “Are you guarding Valhalla?”

The Valkyrie screamed reflexively. “Valhalla must not fall! Valhalla must not fall!”

“Yes, Valhalla must not fall, this place is solid, and no one is going to invade here!” Hao Ren immediately said, waving his hand gesturing to Lily behind him to stand down. “We are not here to attack you, we are friends of Odin. We want to help.”

“I don’t know you.” The expression of the Valkyrie suddenly became tense. “There have never been people like you in the Garden of Asgard!”

“Because we don’t live here,” Hao Ren said quickly. He hesitated. He knew that he had something that would definitely attract the attention of this Valkyrie, but it was hard to tell how the Valkyrie would react if he took out the thing. After all, the Valkyrie had reacted violently before because of that thing. But he still wanted to try it.

He opened the dimensional pocket and took out the Gungnir.

Sure enough, when the Valkyrie saw this spear, she was instantly agitated and about to go on a rampage. But before she could do so, Hao Ren said aloud, “We found this spear in the battlefield! We want to hand it to Odin!”

Perhaps the restoration done by Vivian on the Valkyrie had worked, though the Valkyrie was crazy, she was able to understand the words. After hearing Hao Ren’s explanation, she appeared confused and in thought. This was an opportunity for more communication. Hao Ren said, “We just checked the battlefield outside the Garden of Asgard, Odin was not on the battlefield. He only left behind this gun. Do you know where he is?”

“I can’t hear… I can’t hear the voice of Holy Father…” the valkyrie lowered her eyes and trembled a little. “I can’t hear… I can’t hear…”

Seeing her condition, Hao Ren was worried that she might go violent again. He interrupted. “Well, it is okay. We can find him ourselves—”

Before Hao Ren finished, the disoriented valkyrie suddenly roared before she turned around and ran. Her movement was so fast that before they knew what happened, she had already disappeared into the dark corridor.

“She has run away.” Hao Ren turned around and spread out his hand helplessly. “I didn’t get to say much.”

“It doesn’t matter, there has been some progress,” Vivian said. “It seems that the reset function of her core works. She is not aggressive anymore. I guess she now lacks humanity and behaving like a beast. She is driven by beast instinct.”

Nangong Sanba glanced at Vivian. “Should we still go ahead?”

Vivian thought for a while. “Let’s go to the central control room to find her. We might be able to find some clues there.”

They set off again and continued to move deeper into the palace along the long corridor of Valhalla. They found traces of the Valkyrie along the way: the deep scratches of her fingernails on the walls and floor, as well as the holes at the corners of the corridor, which she might have banged into. These shocking scenes could tell how violently the Valkyrie moved in the hallway.

They also encountered more einherjar. As they went deeper into the palace, the Einherjar, which was still active, were patrolling along their designated routes. They were not wandering around aimlessly. As before, when Hao Ren took out the Gungnir, the einherjar would behave as if not seeing them. So they were able to move around the palace without a hitch.

“The Valkyrie could be the one activating the Einherjar.” Watching the last group of einherjar disappeared from their views, Vivian said thoughtfully, “She seems to be still performing her duty of guarding Valhalla. She might have gone crazy, but she still arranges the patrol.”

At last, they arrived at the deepest part of the Valhalla Palace, at a place that Vivian called the central control room.

It was a hemispherical hall supported by many thin columns. The inner wall of the hall was covered with a silver-white alloy of unknown material. In between the columns were floating symbols and magic lines. At the top of the hall, bright electric arcs were dancing between the columns. Hao Ren had spotted the valkyrie instantly. She was squatting on a chair at the other side in the round hall, staring at the floor, head slightly trembling. She had not noticed them.

Behind her were dozens of identical chairs neatly arranged, but those chairs were empty.

Hao Ren carefully walked towards the Valkyrie who was still in deep thought. When Hao Ren was halfway towards the Valkyrie, the Valkyrie suddenly looked up and stared dead at him for a long while before she uttered, “Oh, it is you.”

“It seems she is now easier to communicate with than before,” Lily said in a whisper to Nangong Wuyue, both following behind Hao Ren.

“What are you doing here?” Hao Ren continued to spread out his hands, indicating that he was friendly.

The Valkyrie jumped down from the chair and pointed at the dozen empty chairs behind her. “We are guarding Valhalla.”

Hao Ren mumbled, “But there is no one here…”

“We are guarding Valhalla,” the valkyrie repeated earnestly, eyes having a hint of anxiety.

Hao Ren quickly nodded. “Oh, guarding Valhalla. With all of you here, this place is impregnable.”

The anxiety in the valkyrie’s eyes gradually receded. She seemed to be satisfied with Hao Ren’s answer, or rather she was satisfied with the world in her imagination. She nodded with a smile. “This place will not fall. No one can attack this place. After the war is over… After the war is over…”

“The war has already ended two thousand years ago…” Hao Ren suddenly corrected his words halfway. “Oh yes, after the war is over, Odin will have other instructions for you. You are right to be here.”

Not far behind, Vivian suddenly sighed softly.

She could already guess why the Valkyrie had gone crazy.

During the Twilight of the Gods, the crumble of Valhalla from the inside was the deadliest blow to the gods of Asgard. It was because the vital Einherjar army was trapped in the barrack here that the Norse gods met their tragic end.

This Valkyrie had gone insane under this circumstance.

Her madness was so thorough that the human part of her fusion soul had almost wholly disappeared, and then she lived alone for more than two thousand years in this place. Eventually, restarting the Core of Valkyrie could no longer save her mind.

On the other hand, Hao Ren had finally gained the trust of this insane Valkyrie by continually talking to her — or rather singing to her tune. He looked at the columns surrounded by various holographic images and asked randomly, “You are alone?”

“There are them.” The Valkyrie pointed at the empty chairs. “And the Einherjar outside.”

Hao Ren immediately nodded. “Oh yes, there are them. Other than the Valkyries and Einherjar, has anyone been to the Garden of Asgard?”

The Valkyrie shook her head. “Everyone is fighting outside.”

“What about outside the Garden of Asgard? Who have been outside the Garden of Asgard all these years?”

The Valkyrie kept shaking her head, and then suddenly nodding again. “At the end of the Rainbow Bridge… towards the lower bound, there are mortals peeping, are there… no, aren’t there?”

The Valkyrie became talking indistinctly. Lily suddenly whispered from not far away, “Mr. Landlord, come to see this!”

Hao Ren came up to her. It turned out that Lily had found a column that looked very unique. Visual images were floating around the column, showing an unknown location, but the background looked as if the aftermath of the Twilight of the Gods: scorched and twisted earth.

On the scorched earth, there were several moving figures!