Chapter 206
Nyx in their serpent form, arrived without warning , like a myth breaking through the storm.
From the shroud of blinding snow, her silhouette coiled into being , vast, sinuous, and silent. Obsidian scales caught flashes of lightning as she descended, each plate edged with runes that burned faintly blue. Her arrival was not heralded by roar or thunder but by presence , an ancient, suffocating weight that bent the mountain wind itself.
Below her, the remnants of nameless sixty war clan Valdyrheim froze.
Sixty men with women , tattered, starving, and exiled from their own bloodlines , crouched among the barren rocks. Once proud warriors, now branded cowards, they had fled the battlefield months ago when their fortress fell. They ran where no sane man would follow , into the Ormheim heights, to the flat open land below the slope at the foot of the of the plateau were the cursed Ouroboros Cave was located , There they thought they could fade, forgotten and just remain silent as they knew those who were tracking them will sure reach them and end their dis honored life.
But now the serpent had found them.
Nyx's mouth opened like the pages of a black gospel, her shadow spilling across the snow. The ground trembled as her tail uncoiled from the cliffs , ninety meters of divine machinery and ancient power. Her eyes, twin lenses of molten brass, scanned the valley and fixed upon the huddled band.
For a heartbeat, no one moved. the beast slowly move down from the plateau until in reach one of the few slopes that was part of the mixed mountain formation, it was so heavy the rock formation holding the slope were crushed , the beast scale were obsidian and the spikes on its back were sharp with different size and length from its head toward the very tip of its tail. seeing a monster like this will scare any hardened warriors in their tracks.
Then came the sound ,not a roar, but a deep, living note that hummed in the marrow. It was the sound of legends, the same dirge sung by their forefathers before, as the six nameless war clan Valdyrheim fell. The old warriors shuddered. Some wept. Others gripped their rusted weapons with trembling hands. To them, the serpent was no mere machine , it was the old gods returning to judge them.
Behind them, through the fog and ash, their pursuers' din torch lights were seen from afar appeared , the enemy closing in. The exiles realized their trap: a monster before them, a slaughter behind, and in that moment, pride once buried under hunger and shame, didnt ignited , dread consumed them all again.
A scarred man with a torn banner for a cloak stood first. He spat blood into the snow and raised his broken spear toward the serpent."If this is how we die," he growled, "then let Valdyrheim die fighting!"
The others followed , sixty trembling different voices rising into the storm, not in hate .but in fear and disgrace. The serpent lowered its head, the light in its eyes shifting as if to answer the call.
From above, Leviathan's decks stirred. Siglorr's hand hovered over the crstal panels waiting ; Melgil's red eyes flared in anticipation . Daniel's voice came cold and steady, this plan must work if we intent to establish comradery toward a war torn land
"Let them fell fear ," he said. "Let the old ghosts test their worth."
Snow turned to ash as Nyx finally settle at the lower slopes as Daniel wanter his fused vassal retainer was ordered to do,
Her coils struck the earth with the weight of prophecy , shaking the mountain ridge and scattering rock like broken shields. The serpent's body arched in fluid rhythm, every joint singing with the hum of divine body . Steam hissed from her spine vents, haloed by lightning, painting the night in light
The sixty nameless war clan of Valdyrheim warriors braced themselves, their battle cries lost to the storm. They knew this was no ordinary being , this was judgment itself, forged in the image of the serpent god they once prayed to and now feared. But they did not raised their arms they just kneel and bow their heads out of respect and fear.
The first to look up and stare at it eyes was was the warrior, names Karnulf, once a captain, now a ghost with a heartbeat. His sword was chipped and blackened, but his roar was whole. He sprinted across the dead snow, cloak flapping like torn wings. Around him, others sixty did not ,against the impossible, but two joined his attract and hope to die instantly .
Nyx moved like water in reverse, a tide collapsing inward. Her jaw opened — a cathedral of blades and light. The sound that followed wasn't a roar but a chord, tuned to shatter courage and test faith. The front ranks staggered, but still the three came.
Karnulf leapt onto a slope, slammed his broken blade into one of Nyx's scales, and screamed. Sparks danced where steel met rune-metal. Others followed, striking at her flanks with axes, spears, and makeshift hammers. The serpent's hide flared in a lattice of shifting wards — shimmering blue under each impact , and then answered.
A tail sweep came like a stormwind. Three warriors were hurled into the air, their weapons clattering into the snow. But the serpent's control was measured. The blows were brutal, but not fatal. Siglorr's restraint systems sang faintly through her armor — the "stop" pulse holding back annihilation.
From above, Daniel watched the readings spike. "Maintain power threshold at sixty," he ordered.Siglorr gritted his teeth. "They're not stopping. They want to die standing."
Below, the clash became ritual.
Axes struck metal. Mana roared. The serpent coiled tighter around the clearing, her movement no longer a slaughter but a dance , testing, pressing, forcing the warriors to remember their strength. A bolt of magic erupted from one of her runes, blasting a trench through the snow but missing flesh. A counterthrow of spears followed, bouncing off her scales like rain.
One warrior, a woman named Freka, climbed the serpent's back, using the gaps between scales like footholds. She drove her spear into the runes that pulsed like heartbeats. Nyx's eyes flickered — the Hive within processing defiance as data and memory alike. The serpent twisted, but Freka held on, teeth bared in savage joy.
"we are the Skjoldr Clan "Clan of the Shield" we shall live on even if we are dead" she screamed.
The serpent paused. Not out of pain , but comprehension.
Within Nyx, Melgil's signal wove through Daniels a command not to kill, but to test them . Every strike, every cry, every name was being archived. These three warriors forgotten by history were being made immortal by their defiance.
Karnulf fell to his knees, his sword broken in half. Steam rose from the snow where his blood hit, not enough to kill but enough to scar. He looked up as Nyx's vast head lowered, her glowing eyes reflecting his ragged face.
Bomier who was a veteran warrior , ram his heavy shiel to stop the serpents attack but it was too stong
"Go on, beast," he rasped. "If we are cowards end it."
Nyx's jaw opened, light spilling across his body. But instead of flame, she breathed out warmth — a wave of mana that carried neither death nor mercy, but recognition. The wind shifted; the serpents hum softened into something almost reverent.
Freka, still on her back, felt the serpent stop moving. The storm quieted around them.
Then the serpent bowed , low, deliberate , until her head touched the earth before the warriors. The runes along her spine pulsed with the old Valdyrheim myth, a forgotten crest, long thought lost in the constant wars, a symbol know to many at the Chaos bringer
Karnulf blinked through tears. "No," he whispered. "It remembers…"
Above, Daniel exhaled. " its confirmed the Neatherborn Myth also exist here " he said quietly. "They've proven it ."
Melgil turned to him, voice barely audible. "They think they fought a being in the past."
" so this only means each sealed realms ate connected with the same history?"
" the countless war in this land might be related to the Neatherborn war that i heard about when i was still a young Dwarf," a Siglorr stare at the enchanted mirror on the main control deck.
Daniel's gaze stayed on the clearing where sixty broken warriors stood in silence before the bowed serpent. "Let them understand that the story that were share to them is real, because then need something to hold on, they need one."
"The god of war cares not for victory nor defeat," Daniel's voice echoed, deep and solemn. "To such a being, conflict is but a spectacle — a theater of blades and blood. Every clash, every scream, every rise and fall of empires… all are mere amusements to its hollow divinity."
He raised his gaze toward the sky, as if speaking to an unseen presence. "Wars are not born of honor or destiny," he continued, "but of greed — the hunger of men who crave what is not theirs. Greed for power. Greed for land. Greed for meaning where none exists. And the god of war smiles upon it all, for it feeds the endless cycle it so desperately craves."
Daniel's voice deepened, echoing across the stone hall as the sixty Valdyrheim stood in silent reverence. Their torches flickered, casting long shadows like spirits clinging to the walls.
"The god of war finds joy only in the screams of the dying," he said, pacing before them, his cloak dragging lightly across the runic floor. "But the Netherborn do not fight for joy, nor for the false honor that mortals chase. We fight because existence demands it. We are the silence after the chaos, the reason after the rage."
He turned to face them, his eyes glowing faintly like embers behind frost."You must understand this truth: war itself is a lie. It is not born of righteousness or faith, but of the hollow hunger of those who fear stillness. They wage war to drown the silence that terrifies them."
Daniel raised his hand, and the torches dimmed as if the darkness itself obeyed him."The Netherborn see beyond this illusion. We know that from the decay of battle, from the corpses of greed, comes the soil where truth takes root. Death does not end the world—it cleanses it."
He stepped closer to the front row—soldiers, hunters, mothers, all kneeling before him. "To be Netherborn is to see the pattern beneath suffering. To understand that every war, every death, every silence is part of the same breath. The gods may delight in slaughter, but we," he said, his voice lowering to a calm, chilling whisper, "we shape meaning from it."
Daniel then raised his staff toward the carved emblem of the Netherborn—a spiral descending into black stone.
"The god of war entertains itself with the ruin of men. But we are not its jesters. We are the reckoners, the ones who walk the gray road between life and nothingness. We do not seek victory; we seek understanding. And in that understanding," he declared, as the hall began to tremble faintly, "we find power that no divine laughter can drown."
Silence followed, deep, sacred, and heavy.And in that silence, the Valdyrheim understood: they were not merely soldiers or survivors.They were the Netherborn's chosen, bound not by worship of blood, but by the wisdom to see purpose in its shadow.
The mountain trembled again.
It began as a sound too low to be heard — a pulse that lived beneath the skin of the earth. Snow sifted from the cliffs in thin white veils. The air thickened, carrying a taste of iron and static.
Karnulf turned first. "Wait" he began.
The serpent's eyes opened.
Twin furnaces of brass and starlight blazed in the dusk. Nyx's pupils contracted into narrow slits, scanning the horizon with inhuman focus. The dormant plates along her spine began to shift and realign with slow, thunderous clicks. Steam vented through the ridges of her jaw, curling upward like incense.
"Bomier… Freka…" Karnulf's voice broke into a whisper. "It's waking again."
The old bearded man, Bomier, clutched his frost-bitten broken shield tighter. His voice shook not from fear, but recognition. "No," he said. "Not waking. Listening."
Then Nyx moved. Her colossal form rose from its resting coil, scales whispering like chains sliding across a cathedral floor. The wind turned wild again, spiraling outward in concentric rings that flattened the snow and bent the pine treetops below. When she opened her mouth, the sound that came out was not a roar it was a command, a vast, resonant cry that struck the hearts of all sixty warriors like a divine summons.
They dropped to one knee, not by choice, but by instinct. The air trembled with it — as if the serpent's voice was rewriting gravity itself.
At that moment, through the blizzard's thinning veil, their pursuers arrived.
Two hundred soldiers , the same enemies who had hunted the Valdyrheim remnants across the mountains , emerged from the forest's edge. Their armor clanked, breath heavy with exhaustion and victory too soon claimed. But then they saw it.
The serpent.
Nyx stood between mountain and forest like a god risen from beneath the stone. Her silhouette filled the entire horizon , ninety meters of obsidian sinew and rune-fire, her wings arched like blackened banners of war. The runes along her flanks flared with blue fire, their reflections dancing in the terrified eyes of the new arrivals.
No one spoke for several breaths. Then the enemy captain, a man in furred pauldrons and a crest of red iron, broke the silence.
"By all the gods…" he murmured. "Is that"
"It's the beast of Oroboros," said another, his voice thin with terror. "Then those sixty fools…" the captain muttered, forcing composure. " They're as good as dead. That thing must awaked , we need to report this to the Jarl Bloodmane war council "
He turned sharply. "Order the line back! We're not dying here. Whatever that creature is, it's tied to the old myths , and I've no wish to test them."
Drums echoed as horns blared the retreat. The enemy lines began to pull back, their formation rippling in the falling snow.
But not all obeyed.
At the far right of the formation, one warrior remained still , a young man with a jagged scar running down his cheek. His eyes burned with something other than fear. Hatred. In his trembling hand, he held a bloodstained axe carved with a name: Verrin — his brother.
He stared across the fifty-meter clearing of dead, cursed earth separating forest from mountain. The land there was lifeless, as if burned by divine hands long ago. No grass grew, no snow dared linger. It stretched to the foot of the first slope , five meters high, steep and barren — and beyond that the mountain climbed thirty meters upward, crowned by the Plateau of Oroboros, a hundred meters wide. Above it, the mountain chain rose again, fractured and jagged, the ancient fault-blocks interlocked like the vertebrae of some dead titan.
And at the heart of it all , the serpent moved.
Nyx turned her head toward the forest edge. Her gaze fell directly upon the young man who had not retreated. The light of her runes washed over him in pale gold, illuminating his rage and the frozen tear tracks on his cheeks.
Every soldier near him shouted, "Fall back! FALL BACK!"But he did not hear them.
His eyes were locked with the serpent's.
Karnulf and Freka saw it too , the motion of defiance at the tree line."By the gods," Freka breathed, "he's going to attack."
Nyx's body unfurled, blotting out the faint light, shadowing the forest. The rune-fire along her spine flared like a storm reborn. The young warrior screamed and charged across the open cursed ground, axe raised, his fury echoing through the wind.
The serpent did not strike. it simply waited.
And then Daniel's voice came faintly through Nyx mind , cold, deliberate.
"Siglorr," he said. "Keep her restrained. Let's see if the myth spreads itself… or if we have to give it another push."
Inside Leviathan, the deck lights dimmed as Melgil's fingers hovered over the control runes.
"The cycle begins again," she whispered.
But Below, the lone warrior ran a spark of human defiance against a god of forged night and the world itself seemed to hold its breath to see which would break first: the man's courage, or the serpent's restraint.
The sixty Valdyrheim warriors knelt only a few meters away from the cursed field, frozen between disbelief and terror. Nyx loomed just above them, her vast body coiled along the slope like a black river of living iron. Steam curled from her nostrils, slow and rhythmic, but her eyes — those twin furnaces of brass , tracked the lone man charging through the open ground.
The storm itself seemed to hush. Even the enemy lines at the forest edge faltered, watching in horror as the mad warrior crossed the dead earth. His axe gleamed once in the pale light — a heartbeat of courage before the end.
Then, a single flash.
It was not seen, only felt , a sudden displacement of air, a streak of blue light faster than thought. The man stopped mid-step. His axe slipped from his fingers.
For an instant, he stood perfectly still.
Then his body collapsed, folding to its knees before toppling forward into the snow , headless. Steam hissed from the wound, thin and grey, rising like incense before a shrine. His severed head landed a few meters away, rolling once before it came to rest at the base of the slope.
The clearing went silent.
No one breathed. No one dared.
The sixty warriors before the serpent trembled, unable to move, their kneeling forms locked in place like statues carved from fear and faith alike. They had seen battle, famine, gods, and ghosts , but this was something else. Something absolute.
Karnulf's throat worked soundlessly before he found his voice."It didn't even move…" he whispered.
Bomier's eyes reflected the serpent's glow. "It didn't need to."
Nyx's massive head shifted, slow and deliberate, her gaze sweeping over the corpse and then toward the forest. Her scales rippled once, shedding flakes of ice like dust. The runes along her body pulsed , one, then another , until the pattern formed again, the ancient Neatherborn sigil.
At the tree line, the enemy captain cursed under his breath and drew back. "Fall back!" he barked. "Fall back now! That thing is Oroboros', it guards the dead land! Move, damn you!"
Two hundred men began to retreat into the forest, weapons shaking in their hands, their formation breaking into chaos. They stumbled over roots and snowdrifts, desperate to escape the gaze that seemed to follow them.
On the slope, the serpent movement were heavy , the sixty kneeling below her from the wind. the serpents coils tightened around the slope ridge like a fortress of living steel. The air vibrated faintly, filled with an unseen hum, the resonance of her inner engines cooling after the strike.
Freka pressed her hands together, voice breaking. "I breath .. its so powerful, why is it protecting us
Karnulf swallowed hard, still staring at the body below. "No… it judged us. The fool who sought vengeance , he just failed "
Bomier nodded slowly, his eyes wet with reflection. "A god of old would not speak. It would show."
High above, aboard Leviathan, Daniel watched the entire event through the enchanted mirror . The readings flickered in gold and red across the console.
Siglorr's knuckles were white on the controls. "That wasn't me," he said quietly. "No command input. the serpent acted on its own."
Melgil looked up sharply. "Then the Nyx made its own judgment."
Daniel didn't answer. His eyes stayed fixed on the serpent, on the way she lowered her head toward the kneeling sixty, as if confirming their survival.
"The Netherborn doctrine," he murmured. "Judgment. Sacrifice. Renewal through chosen death…"
Melgil frowned. "You think it's awakening here, too?"
Daniel's reflection in the glass darkened.
"If the myth spreads itself , if they begins to believe . then we're no longer shaping history.
"He turned away, his voice low. "We're rewriting it."
Outside, the storm broke again , not with fury, but with silence. And beneath that silence, Nyx's eyes dimmed once more, her breath slow and steady, as if she too was dreaming of the myth she had just made real.
The forest had gone silent long after the last of the enemy had fled. Only the storm remained , a dull whisper of snow and wind moving across the battlefield, sifting over corpses and broken steel.
The sixty Valdyrheim warriors, survivors of what seemed like a divine judgment, remained kneeling before the great serpent. None dared to rise. None even dared to speak until the last echo of thunder had faded.
Nyx lay coiled upon the slope like a living mountain, her scales glistening with frost and starlight. The runes along her sides had dimmed to a soft, pulsing blue , no longer the cold rage of battle, but something like breath. Her eyes glowed faintly, golden and distant, as though watching something beyond the mortal plane.
At last, one of the warriors , Freka, a warrior priestess of the Old Flame , stepped forward. Her cloak was torn, blood crusted along her cheek, but she held her ground beneath the serpent's gaze. She unsheathed her blade and laid it flat upon the ground before Nyx, bowing her head.
Freka's breath misted in the cold air as she kept her head bowed, the runes on her blade faintly pulsing with dying light. The hall seemed to listen — even the embers in the torches quivered as if the air itself held its breath.
"We are what remains of the Skjoldr Clan," she continued, her voice steadying with each word. "The Clan of the Shield. Once, we stood as the guardians of the northern fjords — sworn to defend the weak and hold the line between man and the devouring dark."
Her hand trembled over the blade, remembering."But the gods we trusted abandoned us. The Old Flame dimmed, and our sacred halls turned to ash. Our warriors fell to madness, our children to hunger. When the snows came, they whispered curses and old enemies upon the wind , survival that carried us here."
She looked up then, her eyes catching the faint gleam of Nyx's serpent gaze, and for a heartbeat, her courage seemed almost divine."We crossed the Wailing Pass and entered this cursed domain not for glory, but for truth. We sought to know who cursed our blood, why the spirits of our kin wander without peace. If this land is the end of all things, then let it end with us standing. We came to face the darkness and those who wanted our lives, not flee from it."
The Valdyrheim around her lowered their heads, some whispering the old tongue of mourning — a chant once used to send warriors into their final battle.
Freka pressed her forehead to the cold floor. "If the chaos now reigns where the gods are silent, then may our oaths be renewed under its shadow. Let our shields bear your mark, and our souls be tempered by your will."
As her words faded, a hush fell upon the hall. The torches dimmed to blue embers, and from the far end of the chamber, a sound , soft, like the hiss of coiled wind , slithered through the silence.
Her words carried in the wind. Slowly, the others followed, placing their weapons before the serpent. Swords. Axes. Even banners. They bowed their heads until the clearing was filled with silent reverence.
Then Nyx moved.
The serpent's head lowered, massive and shadowed, her breath rolling like smoke through the snow. Her eyes flared once, burning molten gold, and the warriors felt their hearts seize in their chests , not in fear, but in awe. The snow around her began to spiral, drawn into a circle that glowed faintly beneath her coils.
From above, Leviathan's viewing deck glimmered with light. Daniel stood there, motionless, eyes half-closed. The connection link with Nyx shimmered like threads of liquid glass across his arms. Siglorr's instruments crackled as the readings surged beyond safe levels.
"Daniel," Siglorr warned, "if you synchronize now, the gods ruling over this realm might notice you."
Daniel didn't answer. His gaze was fixed on Nyx below , on the kneeling warriors and their faith. i am already shaping belief," he murmured. "They see a god. Then I must give them one."
"arrogance maybe , but i wants the one who saw my retainers that way, i might , or we might as well guide them,"
He stepped forward. The runic conduit flared. His shadow elongated across the deck as the air began to twist, warping light and gravity alike. The sigils engraved on his armor flared to life , one by one , until his entire form blazed with the black-blue of void energy.
"Link stability… dropping" Melgil started, but the words died in her throat as Daniel's voice resonated through the ship , a thousand echoes speaking as one.
"Nyx," he commanded softly, "lower your guard. Prepare for my descent."
Outside, Nyx's body shifted , not in defiance, but in recognition. The serpent uncoiled slightly, her gaze lifting toward the heavens as if awaiting the coming of something she had known long before.
The sky darkened.
Then, the storm parted.
Daniel descended—not as a man, but as something forged from shadow and divine machinery. His armor had fused into a seamless living shell of obsidian and silver, etched with pulsing veins of crimson light. Behind him, nine serpentine heads of energy coiled and moved—fragments of Nyx's essence bound to his will. Their eyes blazed like dying stars as they whispered in forgotten tongues.
The air convulsed. Winds howled in spirals, uprooting banners and bending trees. Even the snow turned to mist, swirling in reverent chaos around his descent. When he struck the slope, the mountain shuddered. Warriors collapsed where they stood, unable to raise their gaze.
The nine serpents circled, their voices hissing in unison:"Witness the bearer of chaos… the child of the void…"
Daniel's visor split open, revealing eyes burning with blue cosmic fire. His voice thundered—not loud, but resonant, vibrating through air and marrow alike.
"Rise, warriors of the Skjoldr Clan," he commanded. "You have seen judgment and survived. Your courage was tested. not to punish, but to measure."
Freka, trembling, lifted her head. "Then… you are the one the serpent serves? The god of the serpent?"
Daniel stepped forward. The serpents reared behind him, their forms glowing like molten storm light.
"I am no god," he said coldly. "I am Netherborn, the being of Chaos and Void, the storm that reshapes what even gods fear to touch."
He raised a hand. The snow froze midair, not from cold, but by will alone."I come not to rule, but to remind this world what it means to stand before creation itself and not break."
The sixty warriors fell to their knees, armor cracking under an unseen weight. Swords melted. Shields turned to ash. Even the air felt too heavy to breathe. None dared look up.
The Netherborn hovered above the slope, nine serpents spiraling like halos of living energy. When he spoke again, the sound was felt more than heard.
"You beg for mercy from the void," he said, "and yet you stand upon its gift."
He extended a hand. Wisps of blue-violet light coiled around his fingers, memory made visible."Your world has forgotten belief. You sought war, and found me instead."
One by one, the warriors' heads lifted, compelled by an unseen force. His glowing eyes hollowed their fear into reverence.
"I will not destroy you," the Netherborn continued. "Your lives now belong to the silence that follows me. Carry my name into the shadows. Let your world remember what sleeps beneath it."
The invisible pressure eased. Freka rose weakly, voice shaking. "Then… what are you truly?"
The serpents flared, their eyes forming a ring of burning light."I am the bridge between end and beginning, the silence after creation's scream. Soon, my kind will descend. We will purge the wicked and defend the innocent."
The mountain fell silent beneath Leviathan's hovering shadow. The air around Daniel shimmered; snow that touched him burned into mist. The Valdyrheim, once feared conquerors, knelt as ghosts before a being they could neither name nor comprehend. Fear turned to awe, awe to devotion.
Daniel, no, the Netherborn, spoke again, his voice echoing through their bones."You kneel in fear, but I come to make you remember. I am the stillness between life and death. The gods you served have abandoned you, but I have not. Every fallen name is written upon my scales; every oath you broke is a wound I carry."
Freka's eyes widened. "Then… we are not lost?"
"Lost?" he murmured, a faint smile beneath his helm. "No. You are remembered. Your defeat, your shame, your exile, all of it is mine now. The world cast you aside; I call that survival. You endured where glory turned to dust."
Tears froze on the warriors' cheeks as Daniel raised his hand. Void light flickered between his fingers, blue, violet, and black entwined."You will rise again, not as exiles, but as the Chosen Silence. Through you, the world will remember what it means to face the void and not be consumed."
Nyx hummed behind him, her coils glimmering like rivers of night. The serpent's breath melted the snow around the kneeling warriors, turning the slope into steaming glass.
Daniel's tone deepened, transforming from sermon to covenant."The Netherborn does not destroy without reason. I burn to unmake decay. I shatter not to end, but to begin again. In darkness, I am the breath that rekindles the dying sun."
The nine serpents flared outward, whispering in tongues older than gods. Visions filled the warriors' minds, fields reborn from ash, their dead brothers walking beneath new stars.
"If you would follow me," he said, "then cast away your broken emblems and bear my mark. Speak my name where shadows reach, and let all who fear learn reverence."
He raised his arm toward the sky. Voidlight surged upward, carving a sigil of a burning eye encircled by nine serpent coils into the clouds. Its radiance illuminated the mountains for miles.
"I am the bridge between ruin and rebirth, the judge of what must end, and what must rise anew. I am the Netherborn, silence made will. Through me, your world shall remember."
When the light faded, the mountain was still. The Valdyrheim bowed until their foreheads touched the steaming earth, whispering Netherborn like a prayer. For the first time since exile, they felt not lost,but chosen.
High above, Leviathan's sigils pulsed as Daniel's vitals spiked."He did it," Siglorr whispered through the comms. "They've accepted the myth."
Inside his helm, Daniel's eyes opened, steady and calm. A system voice echoed in his mind:
[Quest Updated: "Reforge the Broken Faith"]Covenant of the Netherborn EstablishedFirst Followers: sixty Skjoldr Clan RemnantsFaith: 63% Stabilized
Daniel smiled faintly. The doctrine had taken root. He had not merely survived the Second Floorhe had become its new law.
As he turned away, his form dissolved into streams of violet light. The snow began to fall again softly now, a curtain closing over something too vast to name.
The sixty warriors knelt in silence.Above them, Leviathan watched, recording it all.
Daniel's voice murmured through the control deck , quiet and thoughtful:"So they kneel… as if they've seen a god."
"Perhaps," Siglorr replied, awe still in his tone,"they just did."