Chapter 279 Einherjar

After some fighting, Hao Ren finally managed to chop off the head of an Asgardian warrior, but with a clatter of metal, only an empty suit of armor lay on the ground.

The armor was empty.

Hao Ren wasn't too shocked to see this, because during the battle just now he had vaguely noticed something was wrong. At this moment, he just muttered to himself, "Sure enough... I knew the feel was off."

However, the armor that had its "head" chopped off by a sword did not completely "die." It clanged and jumped on the ground, with glaring electricity arcing between the gaps in its rusted and deformed metal plates. After a process that seemed like self-repair, this steel shell actually stood up again, and without looking for its head, it shook its body and pounced once more.

"What the hell... it's still not dead?!" Hao Ren was really surprised this time, but he didn't lose his composure. He raised his spear to block the dangerous alloy greatsword in the enemy's hand, and then swung his sword again, this time aiming for the opponent's limbs.

As the Godslayer Sword danced up and down, the armor was finally completely dismantled into pieces all over the ground.

At almost the same time, not far away, Lily also relied on her agility and strength to knock down another Asgardian guard. She was now completely enraged, roaring like a primal beast, using her claws to forcibly tear open the armor plate in front of the enemy's chest, while lowering her head to use her sharp teeth—but her movements stopped abruptly, because after tearing off the chest armor, she only saw an empty metal cavity.

The husky girl, a little confused by her rage, tilted her head and "woo'ed," finally realizing, "Awoo! Landlord, this thing is empty inside!"

"These armors are all empty!" A thunderous crash came from the direction of Galazur, as an Asgardian heavy armor was smashed into pieces by the dragon queen's steel fist, an empty helmet rolling far away on the ground. "What is this thing? A robot guard?"

After discovering the secret of these armors, everything became easier. Everyone's attacks used wide, sweeping moves, and after a few attempts, they finally understood the enemy's weakness: there was no one inside these armors, and the armor itself didn't seem to have any obvious vital points. Ordinary piercing damage, high temperature, arcane magic, and blunt force trauma could hardly hinder them. The most effective response was to use brute force to tear them apart.

Galazur's method was the most effective.

"Tear them apart along the joints!" Vivian also flew in the air and shouted, "I remember what these things are! They're Einherjar! Don't use magic, these things have terrifying magic resistance!"

The few who were good at melee combat immediately became the main force of the attack. Galazur, Izhaks, Hao Ren, and Lily directly broke into the most densely packed area of the enemy and began to smash wildly. Nangong Wuyue, seeing that all the DPS had already activated their bloodlust and charged forward, had to muster up her courage and throw various healing spells at her teammates like they were free. Nangong Sanba acted as a guard beside Wuyue, preventing the armors from interfering with his sister's spellcasting: this mediocre demon hunter might have average strength, but he had a lot of tricks up his sleeve, and he was quite effective at holding back those armors with their simple attack methods.

Not far away, Anthony looked at the "Einherjar" that he had just blasted away only to have it jump up again, full of vigor, and felt that his dignity as a great mage was being seriously challenged, so he could only sigh. "Alas, that's why I hate encountering these guys with high magic resistance..."

After saying that, he waved his hand to open his portable space, threw his staff back in, and took out a wolf's fang mace studded with fine gold spikes. The old mage retracted the arcane orbs around him, landed on the ground with a bang, and then tore off his robe, revealing a body of bronze muscles underneath!

The old man was shirtless, with a heavy rune iron belt around his waist, every inch of his skin was bursting with scorching electric light under the stimulation of magic, as if a god had descended. He strode towards the nearest Einherjar, and before the opponent's greatsword could strike, he swung his wolf's fang mace down: "Bear's Strength! Enhanced Endurance! Enhanced Stone Skin! Enhanced Agility! Enhanced Heroism!"

Bang!

"Lethal Strike!"

Bang!

Amid the loud sound of metal colliding, the heavy alloy armor was blasted twenty meters away!

"I've been an investigator for three thousand four hundred years! What kind of enemy haven't I seen?! If I could only cast Frost Arrows and follow up with a guaranteed critical hit Fireball, I would have died hundreds of times at the hands of various magic-resistant monsters!" Anthony roared, swinging his wolf's fang mace in a full rage strike, "By the way, although I work under the Goddess of Magic, I worship the Dark Valkyrie, Ibdith!"

"So holy light! May the Goddess grant me strength! Lethal Strike followed by Lethal Strike followed by Lethal Strike!!"

"Boom!!"

The heavy wolf's fang mace shone with the light of divine術, and a single powerful swing directly knocked another Einherjar warrior into a cloud of flying metal dust. This loud crash was the end of the battle, and when the dust settled around Anthony, the entire corridor fell silent.

Because it was all over.

Except for Galazur, who was expressionless, everyone else on the scene, including Izhaks, was looking at Anthony with a ghostly expression. Lily was closest to the latter, and her tail was already standing straight in fright. An Einherjar armor, half-dead, happened to be crawling up beside her again, and the clanging sound startled the husky girl. She jumped back two steps, propped her claw blade against the shaky armor, and hesitated between the old mage and her enemy, muttering very quietly, "Execute?"

With a crash, the last armor shattered into debris all over the ground, just in time.

The old mage looked at the results of the battle with satisfaction, waved his hand to change back to his original attire, wearing a scholar's robe and holding an oak staff in his hand, his face full of amiable smiles: "Is everyone alright?"

"Just get used to it," Galazur's loud voice brought everyone back to their senses, "Anthony is always like this. He looks honest, but in reality, he'll go berserk once his magic stops working, and it's even worse after he started believing in a berserker-type goddess."

Anthony didn't argue, just continued to smile amiably: "Hehe, hehehe..."

The others on the scene wanted to say something, but they all remembered the old man's other quirks, so they all fell silent: compared to his other problems, this bit of being a show-off... didn't seem like much?

Anyway, none of Raven 12345's subordinates seemed normal. The ripple effect of a female lunatic is endless.

The smoke cleared, and the palace corridor was left with only debris and wreckage. Twisted and deformed armor parts were everywhere, and shockingly, even after being smashed into such a state, these armor parts were still jumping around on the ground and making clattering sounds, as if ready to reassemble at any moment. This eerie scene made everyone's scalp tingle, so much so that Hao Ren forgot about the scene of Anthony's outburst just now. He curiously looked at Vivian: "These things won't jump up again, will they?"

Vivian shook her head: "No, at least not for now."

Considering that she had called out the enemy's name just now, it was obvious that she knew about these strange armor guards.

Elizabeth jumped down from Izhaks' shoulder. The demon girl had been a fixed turret on her father's shoulder for half a day, throwing a bunch of evil energy fireballs but not achieving much results. At this time, she was puffed up with anger, and she looked up at Vivian with her hands on her hips: "So what exactly are Einherjar?"

"They're the heroic souls in Norse mythology," Lily said, interrupting. The husky girl had deactivated her mad dog mode, and was explaining in a serious manner with her arms crossed, looking like a knowledgeable young woman. "Einherjar is a transliteration, the bat is just trying to show off when she..."

Vivian immediately glared at her: "Go away! I just like calling them that! I've always called these things that back then. The term 'heroic soul' is something I learned from the Chinese in recent years."

At this time, Nangong Wuyue crawled over tremblingly (it was rare that she untied her tail herself this time), poking at a piece of chest armor on the ground that was still jumping around with the tip of her tail while burping carefully: "Hic... these are the heroic souls? They don't feel quite like the ones in legends."

"Legends are distorted, and the historical truth is often very different from what people know today," Vivian said, shaking her head while examining the remains of the Einherjar. "The Valkyries collect the souls of the fallen on the battlefield, and deep within the soul furnace of Valhalla, these souls are forged together with steel, and permanently cast into a suit of armor. This armor is the Einherjar. They have no blood, no tears, and know no pain. They are always immersed in the excitement of their last bloody battle, making them extremely aggressive. And they are extremely tough, almost impossible to destroy unless they are smashed to pieces - and even if they are smashed to pieces, as long as they are recovered in time, the gnome blacksmiths can repair them. Because the Æsir gods had difficulty reproducing and had a limited population, these Einherjar were once an important military force in Asgard, but when Ragnarok arrived, the control center of Valhalla was sabotaged from the inside, and more than half of the Einherjar failed to be sent to the battlefield as a result. This was an important factor that led to the tragic outcome of that war: if the original military strength of Asgard was used, it was very likely that they could have suppressed the giant and demon legions in the early stages of the war, so that they would have had the spare strength to detect the movements of the demon hunters, and even change the trajectory of the Nine Realms in advance to avoid the destruction beam. But... history has no ifs, and the age of mythology is over after all."

Hao Ren didn't say anything, just silently looked at the clattering Einherjar fragments, and a sense of emotion rose spontaneously.

He was directly facing that lost history.

Stripped of the glamorous embellishments of legends, stripped of the mysterious veils of religion, the true history was laid bare before his eyes. Behind these cold, soulless armors was the true age of mythology.