Chapter 172 In the Central Control Room

As Hao Ren approached step by step, the Valkyrie in her frenzied state actually retreated step by step as well. Like a trapped beast forced into a corner, she crawled on the ground, her nails digging deeply into the cracks of the floor. She retreated while emitting a threatening growl. From beneath her disheveled hair, a pair of mad eyes were revealed, almost devoid of any trace of humanity.

"Relax… relax…" Hao Ren could only stand still after taking a few steps forward. He opened his hands to show that he was not a threat. "We are not enemies, and we are not here to attack Valhalla. We are here to investigate… Oh, we also have an old friend of the Aesir gods."

"Val… halla…" The Valkyrie's body trembled, and she uttered a few hoarse syllables from her throat, as if she only reacted to these words.

Seeing that these words worked, Hao Ren immediately thought of what the Valkyrie had shouted earlier. He immediately adopted an even more harmless posture and tentatively asked, "Are you guarding Valhalla?"

The Valkyrie immediately roared reflexively, "Valhalla must not fall! Valhalla must not fall!"

"Yes, Valhalla must not fall. This place is impregnable, and no one will conquer it!" Hao Ren immediately replied, waving his hand to signal Lily, who was eager to do something, to remain calm. "We are not here to attack. We are friends of Odin and are here to help."

"…I don't recognize you," the Valkyrie's expression suddenly became tense. "There have never been people like you in Asgard!"

"Because we don't live in Asgard," Hao Ren quickly said, hesitating for a moment in his heart. He knew that there was something that could definitely attract the Valkyrie's attention, but the consequences of taking it out were also difficult to predict, after all, the other party had already gone berserk once for the same reason. But after hesitating for two or three seconds, he decided to try.

He opened his personal space and took out Gungnir.

Sure enough, the Valkyrie's expression instantly became agitated when she saw the divine spear again. It seemed that she was about to enter a state of violent rage like before, but this time Hao Ren spoke loudly before she could act: "We found this spear on the battlefield! We want to give it to Odin!"

Although the Valkyrie was crazy, perhaps Vivian's earlier actions had really worked, and she could still understand human speech in her madness. After hearing Hao Ren's explanation, she showed a confused and thoughtful expression. Seeing this opportunity, Hao Ren quickly continued to communicate with her: "We just checked the battlefield outside Asgard. Odin was not on the battlefield, and he only left this spear. Do you know where he is?"

"Can't hear… can't hear the Father's voice…" The Valkyrie lowered her eyelids and trembled her head slightly. "Can't hear… can't hear…"

Seeing that the other party's state was so strange, Hao Ren was very worried that she would suddenly go crazy again, so he immediately interrupted: "Um, well, it doesn't matter if you don't know, we can find it ourselves…"

However, Hao Ren did not finish his words. After muttering a lot of things to herself, the delirious Valkyrie suddenly let out a strange roar, then turned around abruptly and ran madly into the depths of the corridor. Her speed was so fast that people couldn't react at all.

"She ran away," Hao Ren turned around and spread his hands innocently. "I didn't say anything extra."

"It's okay, there's already progress," Vivian waved her hand. "It seems that resetting her core was useful. Her aggressiveness has been shut down. I guess her current state is that her humanity has disappeared—after her humanity disappears, only her bestiality remains, and she only becomes like this under the drive of instinct."

Nangong Sanba glanced at Vivian. "Are we still going forward?"

Vivian thought for a moment and made a decision. "Let's go to the central control room to find her. In any case, there should be some clues there."

The others had no objection, so the team set off again, continuing along the deep and long corridor of Valhalla toward the depths of the palace. Along the way, they found many traces left by the Valkyrie: deep finger marks on the walls and floors, and dents in the walls at the corners of the corridor. Just looking at these shocking traces, they could imagine how violently the Valkyrie had been traveling in the corridor.

They also encountered more Einherjar armor: as they went deeper into the palace, the number of Einherjar who could still move also increased. These heroic spirit armors were all patrolling in an orderly manner, not wandering around randomly. And as before, when Hao Ren took out Gungnir, these Einherjar would turn a blind eye to the group, and they arrived at the deepest part of the palace without any obstacles.

"Those Einherjar were probably activated by the Valkyrie just now," Vivian said thoughtfully, watching the last team of heroic spirits disappear at the end of the line of sight. "She seems to still be carrying out the task of guarding Valhalla. Although she is crazy, she still arranged patrol routes for these heroic spirits."

Finally, the group arrived at the deepest part of Valhalla Palace, a place Vivian called the "central control room."

This was a hemispherical hall supported by many thin pillars. The inner walls of the hall were covered with a silver-white alloy of unknown material. Between the thin pillars, symbols and magic runes floating in the air could be seen everywhere. At the top of the hall, bright electric arcs continuously jumped from one pillar to another. Hao Ren immediately saw the Valkyrie who had escaped earlier: she was squatting on a chair on one side of the circular hall with her hair disheveled, staring intently at the ground, her head trembling slightly, seemingly unaware that anyone was approaching.

Behind her, dozens of identical chairs were arranged, but these chairs were all empty.

Hao Ren cautiously walked towards the meditating Valkyrie. When he was halfway there, the other party suddenly raised her head. She stared fixedly at Hao Ren's movements, and after a long time, she muttered, "Oh, oh, it's you."

"It seems easier to communicate with than before." Behind Hao Ren, Lily whispered to Nangong Wuyue.

"What are you doing here?" Hao Ren continued to open his hands to show that he was harmless, and asked curiously.

The Valkyrie jumped down from the chair and pointed to the dozens of empty chairs behind her: "We are guarding Valhalla."

Hao Ren subconsciously muttered, "But there's no one there…"

"We are guarding Valhalla." The Valkyrie repeated earnestly again, with a hint of anxiety in her eyes.

Hao Ren quickly nodded: "Oh right, guarding Valhalla, with you here, this place must be impregnable."

The anxiety in the Valkyrie's eyes gradually faded away. She seemed very satisfied with Hao Ren's answer, or rather, she was very satisfied with the world in her imagination. So she nodded, revealing a distorted smile: "This place will not fall, no one can attack it. After the war is over, after the war is over…"

"The war ended two thousand years ago…" Hao Ren suddenly changed his words halfway through, "Oh right, after the war is over, Odin will definitely have other instructions, it's right for you to guard here."

Not far behind, Vivian suddenly sighed softly.

She could already guess the reason for the Valkyrie's madness:

In Ragnarok, the internal fall of Valhalla became the most fatal blow to defeat the Aesir gods. It was precisely because the crucial heroic spirit army was trapped in the barracks and unable to attack that the Norse mythology met its tragic end.

The Valkyrie in front of her was driven mad by the impact of this fact.

Her madness was so complete that the human part of her fused soul had almost completely disappeared. Then she survived alone in this place for more than two thousand years. In the end, even restarting the Valkyrie core could no longer save her mind.

On the other side, Hao Ren finally succeeded in establishing preliminary mutual recognition with the crazy Valkyrie by constantly talking to her (or rather, catering to her thoughts). He observed the thin pillars surrounded by various holographic images, and asked casually: "Has it always been just you here?"

"And them," the Valkyrie stubbornly pointed to the empty chairs, "and the Einherjar outside."

Hao Ren immediately nodded: "Oh right, and them—then besides these people? Besides the Valkyries and Einherjar, has anyone else been to Asgard?"

The Valkyrie shook her head: "Everyone is fighting outside."

"What about outside Asgard? Has anyone come to Asgard from outside these years?"

The Valkyrie continued to shake her head, but suddenly she nodded again: "The end of the Rainbow Bridge… the direction leading to the lower realm, mortals are peeking, there is… no, there isn't… is there?"

Just as the Valkyrie's words became more and more chaotic, Lily suddenly shouted in a low voice not far away: "Landlord, come and see this!"

Hao Ren went over to check the situation. It turned out that Lily had found a special thin pillar. Surrounding this thin pillar were video images—it was not known what place was displayed on the images, but looking at the background, it seemed to be a place that had also been destroyed by the flames of Ragnarok. The desolate and desolate earth was full of twisted scorch marks.

And on this scorched earth, there were actually several figures shaking!