Chapter 628: Ravens in the Fog

Chapter 628: Chapter 628: Ravens in the Fog

Hour six.

Six hours of flying, and I had to admit it: this was the most peaceful I’d felt since arriving in this frozen hellhole.

The wind rushed past my feathers, the Fog hung thin and silvery far below, and for once the air didn’t feel like it wanted me dead. The Valkyrie form really was something else. If I could keep it permanently, I might never turn back into my usual form.

Okay, that’s a lie. I like my tits too much. The Valkyrie form is a combat-oriented form. Great for flying, great for fighting. Not so great for... well, breeding.

Don’t get me wrong, I look so damn hot in it. Absolutely 100% breedable. It’s a goddess in shining armor, with huge feathery wings and a perfect hourglass figure. What’s not to like?

It’s just that I got used to my standard form, and it’s more... flexible. More suited for my depraved lifestyle.

So here I was, flying in a straight line for damn hours.

My ass was starting to hurt! How the hell is that possible? I am flying! My ass is not touching anything!

"Herma, status report."

[You have been flying in a straight line at approximately 120 kilometers per hour for six hours and fourteen minutes. You have covered approximately 746 kilometers. The landscape below remains uniformly bleak.] Herma answered. [Divine energy at ninety-one percent. Your wings are functioning within normal parameters. Fuel is not a concern.]

She paused.

[Your attention span, on the other hand, is.]

"Rude."

[Accurate.]

"I’m basically the world’s most overpowered pigeon right now," I said, stretching my wings. "A majestic, deadly, gorgeous pigeon."

[You’ve said that three times in the last hour.]

"No, I haven’t."

[Yes, you have. Word for word.]

"..."

I stared at the white horizon for a few seconds.

"Three times? I only remembered saying it once."

I closed my eyes and reached for the memory orb inside my mind. It was warm and pulsing steadily, quietly uploading everything I was and downloading it back whenever the Fog tried to take a bite. Everything was fine. It was working.

"It’s the wind," I muttered. "The wind makes everything sound repetitive."

[Of course,] Herma said, in the voice of someone choosing not to start a fight.

I let it go. I really did.

That was when I heard it.

Whoosh... whoosh... whoosh...

It was faint, almost hidden under the howl of the wind, but it was there. A slow, heavy rhythm, like the beating of wings. But it wasn’t me.

My wings. Beating at their own pace.

And this was a different pace.

"Herma."

[I know,] she said, and her voice had changed. The sarcasm was gone. [Morgana. Something is following you.]

I banked left, looking over my shoulder.

At first I saw nothing but clouds. Then the clouds shifted, and a shadow slid out of them. Then a second one, then a third.

Birds.

Giant, black birds, each the size of a goddamn warhorse, with feathers like polished obsidian and a single burning eye in the middle of each skull, glowing the same pale gold I’d seen on a certain old bastard’s face.

"Oh, come on," I groaned. "Seriously?"

[Identification complete,] Herma said. [Huginn and Muninn. Odin’s ravens. Thought and Memory.]

"Memory?" I repeated. "Of course one of them is called Memory. Why not send a bird whose whole job is to eat my brain? I’m sure that’s a coincidence."

[Norse mythology rarely concerns itself with subtlety.]

"No shit."

There were only two ravens, in the end; the third shadow had just been a trick of the clouds. They kept their distance, hovering a hundred meters behind me and matching every shift of my wings.

Who was the third one?

No fucking idea. My only concern was why they weren’t attacking.

Just watching.

That was worse.

Their golden eyes stayed fixed on me without blinking, and I could feel the weight of them, like staring into a mirror that wasn’t mine. Then I realized.

Somewhere very far away, someone was looking through those eyes.

"They’re relaying my position," I realized. "Every second I stay in his sight, the old bastard knows where I am."

[Correct,] Herma said. [However, since you’re using the Mask of Silence, they can’t recognize you, or Odin himself would have been here already. So to them, you’re an unknown being in a Valkyrie form.]

She paused.

[Huginn and Muninn are the scouts. The watchers. They are Odin’s eyes and ears. He definitely sent them to find you.]

"Then he knows I survived."

[Hard to say. But I recommend breaking line of sight immediately.]

"Yeah. Got it."

I folded my wings and dove. The wind turned into a shriek in my ears as I plunged toward the endless white of the Fog, my feathers streaming back, my stomach somewhere near my throat.

Behind me, the ravens followed.

They didn’t flap or struggle. They simply ’adjusted’, tucking their wings and falling in perfect sync, like they knew in advance exactly where I’d go.

Because they did.

’Should I just kill them?’

For a moment, the thought was tempting, very tempting.

But then...

’No, Odin will know, and currently I’m not ready to face him.’

[Warning,] Herma said. [Huginn is predicting your trajectory. You are being tracked by calculation, not sight.]

"Then I’ll be unpredictable!"

I snapped sideways, flaring my wings, then dropped, then climbed, then rolled. The ravens mirrored every move in a heartbeat after I made it.

Ziip!

Something struck my back.

It wasn’t a physical hit. It was a bolt of raw divine light, bright and cold, that clipped my left wing. Pain flared, sharp and electric, and when I glanced over, a handful of my feathers were gone. They didn’t fall; they just dissolved into mist, as if they’d never been there.

"Ow! That’s my favorite wing!"

[You have 18 wings.]

"The left one is my favorite!"

[Of course.]

I whipped around mid-flight and lashed out with Hunger. A black tendril shot from my back, long and hungry, aiming straight for the nearest raven.

It dodged. Easily.

Huginn tilted its wing a fraction before the tentacle moved, as if the bird had read the thought off my mind. Muninn, the other one, darted in from the side, sliding right into the gap where I’d left my guard down.

’Thought predicts what I’ll do, and Memory remembers what I did.’

Annoying, effective, and very, very unfair. I tried feinting again, a high climb that turned into a power dive, but Muninn simply glided in a lazy circle, waiting for Huginn to correct its course.

I wasn’t fighting two birds.

I was fighting a tactical network that lived in a dead god’s skull.

’Fuck it.’

"Herma, counter!"

[Attempting.] There was a pause, then a crackle in her voice. [Prediction models are... unstable. The Fog is interfering with my processing.]

"Great. Love that for us."

Zap!

Another lightbolt, this one aimed at my head. I ducked, and the bolt passed so close I could smell the scorched air. It sizzled against the surface of the Fog behind me, leaving a brief, clean hole in the white.

They were herding me.

I didn’t need Herma to tell me that. They were pushing me in a specific direction, away from my planned search pattern, away from anything that might have looked like a ’root drinking a silent sea’.

"Hmm?" Suddenly, I noticed something.

Ahead of me, a dark wall of cloud was rolling across the sky, with flashes of lightning crawling inside it.

A blizzard front.

"Hehe." I grinned. I was having a terrible time, but I had the beginnings of a plan.

"Hold on to something, Herma."

[I do not have anything to hold on to.]

"That’s the spirit!"

I flew straight into the storm.

The moment I crossed the edge, the world went white. Snow lashed my face, the wind screamed, and everything beyond my own wingspan vanished. Jagged spires of ice rose out of the blizzard like the fangs of some enormous, buried beast, and I had to twist and weave between them with only half a second to react to each one.

Behind me, I heard the ravens scream.

They’d followed me in, and the storm didn’t care who it was killing.

It was glorious. It was terrifying. It was probably the dumbest thing I’d done this week.

[You forgot about the ’ice breeding’ thing again.]

"Fuck you, Herma."

I was still weaving between ice spires, but now I was doing it with a smile on my face. I was having fun.

Then the third raven showed up.

It didn’t emerge from the storm like the others. It was just there, a sudden shape in the white, a silent bird of pure midnight with no eyes at all, just a smooth, featureless blackness where a face should be.

It didn’t fly.

It ’drifted’.

And it wasn’t moving with the wind; it was moving against it, gliding through the snow and ice as if they were still water.

"Herma.... I think it’s time to return home. I left some cheese on the table that is probably getting cold by now."

[I agree. The wine, too.]

"Yup."

Without a second thought, I opened the map and used the waypoint teleportation, instantly vanishing in a flash of crimson light.

...

Greetings, everyone! I hope you’re doing well.

I would like to ask for your opinion on something I’ve been thinking about lately. I’m considering writing Morgana: The Mother Of All until Chapter 640 and then pausing it for a month or two so I can focus on the other two novels.

You’ll find it on Discord

I would love to hear your thoughts on the matter.

Thank you for your amazing support, and have a nice day!