Chapter 1: chapter 1: back

“Aeons ago, the progenitors of life were born, the first's name was Ymir. He was born of the void, of the primordial. He was one of frost, and one of creation. There was Audhumla, born of nothingness, similar to Ymir. using the milk of Audhumla for sustenance, they originated all of creation, be it gods or jötunn, realms or mortal.” Says the man,” that is the beginnings of our creation, according to the Norse, at least.”

The bell rung and the chattering started. The kids in class bantered about homework, games, and other random things, seemingly paying no mind to the teacher’s Ramblings.

But one child was enamored, and deeply intrigued by the myth of creation the teacher mentioned. After getting back home, he looked up more info about the mythology. His eyes widened, learning about the questionably weird, yet marvelous world that the Scandinavians called home. He went up to his father.

“Hey dad, could buy me some books?”

his father was surprised by the sudden request, considering his son had never shown any interest in books. He welcomed his son’s new hobby with open arms.

“Sure! What books do you want?” he exclaimed, giddy.

“I’d like to get some about the Norse mythology!” he smiled.

His father was slightly taken aback considering he was from Scandinavia himself.

‘haa, does blood really affect interest?’ he thought to himself.

“You know, I probably have some old books about that in the attic.” said the father.

He went up to the attic and brought back some really old scrolls and books with him.

The boy was thrilled with a huge grin, spanning the entirety of his face.

“Thanks!” he said, still grinning.

He opened the first scroll, which explained the family tree. This gave him insight into the Vanir, Æsir, and the Jötunn. He studied what the teacher taught them, but in greater detail.

He saw one entity that intrigued him deeply, tyr. A god of war who seeks peace, He was of the Æsir, but you would almost believe he belonged to the giants as he would help them on multiple occasions, going against the all-father, Odin.

The boy, still reading the scrolls despite hours going by, wore a disgustingly depraved smile on his face. Bloodlust flushed over him. He wished to meet Tyr, he wished to kill tyr. He wished to destroy his peace, for no reason other than that he felt like doing so. The deity deeply interested the boy. As it was late, the boy put the old writings away and fell into the land of dreams. He saw visions of a great battle, one so great that it destroyed the world, so great that it shattered the fabric of reality, and tore tears in the realms themselves. He saw an old man with hair white as snow, he was fat, yet strong, very strong. He fought with an uncanny type of magic, containing large amounts of runes. The second had black hair, reminiscent of obsidian, he transformed into a great salamander-like dragon, raining down his hell flames on his enemies. There were hundreds of thousands of figures in his dreams, but... one was impossible to identify. It was pure white yet it was strangely familiar. It didn’t fight, it just stood there, completely still.

Amid the grave battle, the boy woke, interrupting the dream.

“Damn it... I liked that dream” he grumbled to himself.

During the next couple of months, the boy saw multiple other visions, some depicting great battles between all manners of beasts and humanoids, while others portrayed great roundtables.

One night he saw a vision, one that would reoccur hundreds of times in his life. He could never remember the specifics, but he could muster up some rambling about a great battle between eternal rivals.

Each time he woke from that specific vision, he felt huge amounts of bloodlust, so much so that he would get a rush of adrenaline that would pump him up for the rest of the day.

 

Years went by, with his passion still burning as strong as it did in his youthful prime. He went through many jobs and relationships. He saw the death of his family, losing them one by one, and ending up alone.

He looks himself in the mirror, only to see the white figure looking back at him.

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“I’ll find you”, Says the old man, with nothing left to lose.

He takes out his savings, buys himself a plane ticket to Small Island near Iceland, and becomes a nomad. He wandered around the island for years, finding barely anything of note.

While taking one of his usual walks, he takes a new route.

“Now what is this?”  he asks himself, gazing upon an exposed root that shines dimly, and emits an interesting aura, unlike anything he’s seen before.

He follows the root, going for hours. The root eventually disappears, but rather than into the ground, it seemed to just... stop.

“This is!” exclaims asker, in utter surprise.

He touches the area where the root should’ve had continued, and surprisingly enough, despite there being no trace of it, he feels the invisible tree on the tip of his fingers, surprised, the old man follows the tree. He eventually bumps into the trunk, surprised, he trips, breaking off a small shard of the invisible tree.

The tree appears, dispelling the illusion, dispersing a great disc of light around the entire world. The man gathers himself and gets back up, he finds himself in an unfamiliar area, taking a breath, he checks his body for wounds, but instead finds himself muscular and lean and that his body has become youthful, almost like he has gone back in time, but his face feels somewhat different.

“....”

He notices the tree, which is glowing brightly, has now become completely visible; he notices that tree’s eerie similarity to Yggdrasil, the tree of life.

After confirming that he hasn’t gone insane yet, a depraved grin flashes over his face, acknowledging that he has either gone into the past or the future and that his body has rejuvenated, he walks over to a still pond and gazes upon himself.

“I don’t remember looking this good, you know?” he says to himself.

His appearance could only be described as devilishly handsome, and his body has become significantly more toned and sturdy.

Testing out the limits of his new rejuvenated body, he jumps.

“This isn’t normal. This jump took me over 3 meters, not even being my maximal output...

He throws a couple of punches in the air, creating a vortex of wind in front of his fists.

“HAHA!” he screams in joy “the last time I have felt this good was... Never! I have never felt this good in my entire life before.”

“GGGGGGGGGrrrhhggghggggggggrr”

“What the hell was that!” says Askr.

Running towards the loud grunt, the man finds himself facing a giant troll.

“Haha...  what the hell?”

 

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