Chapter 1 The Beginning

Among the many ancient “gods” active on Earth, the Odin lineage was the last to perish. They were like the finale of the mythological era, and the collapse of Yggdrasil more than two thousand years ago was the last scene of this era.

The twilight of the Nordic gods was also the twilight of the entire mythological era. When the hunter's beam cannon tore through the sky of Asgard, and the entire Nine Realms collapsed with a bang, the history of the alien races ruling the human world truly came to an end.

Under Anthony's control, the spherical aircraft switched to a low-speed hovering state, slowly circling over the torn land of Asgard. The detection magic array at the bottom of the aircraft emitted a faint blue light, scanning the devastated land, detecting any abnormal energy reactions.

On the aircraft, Vivian was telling Anthony and Galador about the fiery destruction of this place based on human legends and her own memories: "There were omens before the arrival of Ragnarok. In the years before the war began, Yggdrasil became corrupted, and the climate in the Nine Realms became unbalanced, ushering in years of continuous winter. Then the magic used by the Aesir and Vanir gods failed one after another. Their contractual connection with Yggdrasil was interrupted for unknown reasons, and various spells and oaths within the Nine Realms were broken. The races living in it accused each other, and then, incited by those with ulterior motives, war broke out in the human world, and these wars further destroyed the balance of the various kingdoms."

The aircraft crossed the ruins of the temple complex's walls, and the high walls and mansions of Asgard were gradually left behind. After flying over a narrow wilderness of rubble, the group arrived above the scorched earth of the Vigrid Plain. Various huge wrecks could be seen everywhere on this scorched earth, not only war weapons, but also the bones of creatures scattered throughout. Although more than two thousand years had passed, the bones of these powerful creatures were not so easily weathered away. In addition, the alien space lacked large-scale geological changes, so the battlefield retained its original state to a great extent. Many things had not been completely buried or dissipated.

Vivian continued: "The day Ragnarok arrived was a cold winter day, with dark clouds and withered everything. Midgard, the human realm, had already experienced three consecutive winters. The cold wind blew into Asgard through the cracks in the mountains, and the whole world was frozen. Alarms rang continuously in Odin's Golden Palace, and the entire family, men, women, and children, were preparing for war. Even I was helping them move weapons. The Valkyries stuffed the souls they had collected into fine gold armor, preparing to send them to the front lines. On the other side of the Rainbow Bridge, the giants gathered a large army, and Hela of the Land of the Dead also led the undead to attack from the lower space... Hao Ren, you've met Hela. She's guarding the door at the Athens Sanctuary now. You'd never imagine how impulsive and ruthless she was back then. She didn't realize that the entire war was a conspiracy. All she wanted to do was destroy Asgard and rescue her father, Loki. Later, the warring parties met on the Vigrid Plain. Although Odin had investigated and found that the hunters were behind the changes in recent years, the giants and the undead would not listen to any reason, and neither would the other demons, so Odin could only meet them in battle."

The aircraft arrived at its destination. Anthony had the sphere slowly land, and the middle of the hemispherical platform recessed to form a passage. The group followed the passage outside and finally set foot on the land of Asgard. Nangong Wuyue was the last to leave the ramp, transforming into a sea serpent form to increase her courage (although the effect of doing so was highly questionable). She meandered to a huge skeleton, which was three times the size of an ordinary human. Although it was far smaller than Mimir, the ten-meter-tall guardian giant, it still deserved the title of "giant" on Earth. Obviously, this was the main force that attacked Odin's realm back then, the giants from Muspelheim. Beside this giant skeleton, some remains roughly the size of humans but with slightly different structures could also be seen.

Those must be the remains of the Aesir gods. These creatures with supernatural powers, who were regarded as gods thousands of years ago, were ultimately mortal. Even if they were stronger than ordinary Earthlings, they could only keep these bones strong after two thousand years of open-air weathering.

Hao Ren noticed that the equipment on the giants was completely different from that of the Asgardian warriors—not just the different equipment specifications due to the difference in size, nor the different styles due to the different cultures of the two races, but a more fundamental and thorough difference.

The armor on the giants was thick, cast from a dark steel, and its shape was more like the heavy plate armor of the Cold Weapon Era, but with some runes, it appeared primitive and reliable. The Asgardian warriors were equipped with obviously more refined and lightweight alloy armor. Those armors were inlaid with gold and silver, with smooth and clean lines. Each piece of armor was obviously a standardized product from the production line. In some damaged parts of the armor, the complex inner lining and cable bundles inside could be seen. Almost every Asgardian soldier had two small square boxes on his waist. Those boxes had now lost their function, but the delicate cables and various unidentified components inside could still be seen: this was much more complicated than the giants' equipment.

"Those are radioisotope thermoelectric generator packs," Vivian noticed Hao Ren's gaze and explained casually, "Ah, that's the translation. I didn't understand these things at all back then, but now when I think back, I have a sudden realization: In addition to using the magic they learned from the Vanir, the most commonly used energy source in the daily life of the Aesir gods was radioactivity."

"They should be from different civilizations," Galador had been an inspector for many years, and she understood many things at a glance. She pointed to the various skeletons, and the weapons and equipment scattered around the skeletons presented at least three technology tree branches in her eyes. "The giants' technical level is lower, but their equipment uses special metals, and coupled with their own powerful qualities, these 'Aesir gods' who use advanced weapons do not have a great advantage. In addition, some equipment is purely a product of magical energy, these..."

"Belong to the Vanir gods," Vivian interjected. "They do come from different civilizations. I now speculate that they may come from three planets: The giants are a fighting race that uses shamanic witchcraft and steam power. The Aesir gods use radioactivity, machinery, and some kind of innate mental power to fight. The Vanir gods are a pure magic civilization. Their forms are very close to humans, but they have some elven features. Because of their similar forms and cultures, the Aesir and Vanir families quickly reached an understanding and formed an alliance in the mythological era, but the giants were never able to integrate into this circle, so when they lived together in the Nordic region, their resentment deepened. However, this was already the middle and late stages of the mythological era. The power of the hunters rose rapidly, and the 'god' families in other regions of the Earth were destroyed one after another. These three races were forced to temporarily put aside their disputes and coexist for a period of time due to external pressure. At that time, they already had the prototype of the current Athens Sanctuary, where various races coexist, but... in the end, they failed to reverse their fate. The hunters at that time were far more fanatical than those in modern times. The Combat Order would absolutely not allow any aliens to survive, even if they huddled together in Yggdrasil. Therefore, the hunters still found a way to provoke war in Northern Europe and eventually forcibly blasted open the gates of Asgard."

Anthony used his staff to poke at the wreckage on the ground, and used the mage's hand to lift some relatively intact relics and put them into his personal space (Hao Ren and Galador were doing the same thing). The old mage sighed, "To be honest, I'm quite envious of you, Hao Ren. Your jurisdiction has the most special civilization structure in this universe. It's an extremely rare observation sample. I wish I could work under you. I wouldn't need to do anything. Just researching mythology could keep me busy for hundreds of years."

"If you really worked under me, do you think you could conduct research peacefully?" Hao Ren glanced at the old mage. "A pile of troubles would annoy you to death. The mythological era has collapsed, but after the collapse, debris fell everywhere, all kinds of counterattack parties and old remnants. It's so annoying."

Vivian was the only one among all of them who was familiar with this battlefield. Her unreliable memory was finally able to help a little this time: she still remembered the battle that took place here more than two thousand years ago. Following her fragmented memories, she led the group to trek through the scorched earth in search of something.

The group passed a huge skeleton, which looked like it belonged to some kind of long, narrow reptile. Its length was astonishing, probably dozens of meters long. The vertebrae were covered with scorched lightning strike marks. This was the remains of the Great Serpent Jormungandr: it was much smaller than described in mythology, but still a terrifyingly huge creature. Near the remains of Jormungandr, Hao Ren also saw a shriveled and deformed human corpse. The armor of this corpse had been corroded through, and its owner must have suffered a terrible fate in his life.

However, he dared to challenge a terrifying beast like Jormungandr, and his courage was still awe-inspiring.

Vivian searched for something between these two skeletons of vastly different sizes, and finally found a dim one-handed warhammer. She injected magic into the warhammer, and the latter immediately burst out with beams of electric light, but the electric light quickly went out, and a crackling strange sound came from inside the warhammer.

Vivian handed the warhammer to Hao Ren: "Thor's Hammer. Thor overloaded its core capacitor when he killed Jormungandr. This thing can still be used after it's repaired, but I don't think it will be more powerful than your plasma lance."

Hao Ren looked at the scarred Thor's Hammer and couldn't help but mutter to himself: "How many mythical items must there be here?"

"As many as you want," Vivian opened her hands, facing the wreckage all over the ground. Countless acquaintances and friends she knew were lying here. "Welcome to the stage of Ragnarok. This is where the mythological era ended."