Chapter 629: Thirty Days of Hell

Chapter 629: Chapter 629: Thirty Days of Hell

Another month passed.

And in that month I did something productive.

I trained.

I spent twelve hours a day, every day, for thirty days, training outside of the cabin. I fought ice wolves, I fought ice bears, I fought ice serpents. I fought them until my muscles burned and my mana was almost gone.

No divine energy and no divine body.

I restricted everything that made me a goddess and reduced myself to being a ’mortal’.

A mortal that can bleed, that can feel pain, that can die.

This is how I trained in the past as a mortal. Without the risk of death, there is no true strength.

And the risk of death was very real.

The fog was always there, a constant, oppressive presence, trying to eat away at my memories. And the monsters... they were not the same as before.

I had ’awakened’ them.

The more I fought, the stronger they became. They started to adapt, to learn. They started to use tactics, to set traps, to cooperate.

It was as if the realm itself was testing me, pushing me to my limits.

And I loved it.

I was getting stronger. Faster. My blood magic was becoming more refined, more efficient.

However, the ’real’ progress came from something that added a whole new layer to my training regimen.

My Immortal Army.

Using blood magic, I summoned two blood knights from my army. The same ones that fought Augusta when she and her friend attacked Lora’s domain.

The one with the greatsword and the one with the shield and the Morningstar.

They were not the strongest in my army, but they were by far the most skilled in their respective combat styles.

Both reached the grandmaster level in their weapon of choice, after being reborn in blood and forging in countless battles in the Unspoken Realm.

With their ’heavy’ help, my training was not just a solo act anymore. It became a deadly, three-person ballet of violence.

I gave them one simple command.

Kill me.

And they did. With the cold, relentless efficiency of my own will given form.

...

Death number forty-seven.

I know it was forty-seven because Herma was keeping score, and she sounded way too happy about it.

The greatsword came down from my left. I slipped under it, felt the wind of the blade shave a few strands of hair off my head, and slammed my elbow into the knight’s armored ribs. It was like punching a mountain.

Then the Morningstar hit me in the back of the skull.

Crunch.

The world went white, then red, then a very quiet black.

...

I woke up on the snow, staring at the sky, with a splitting headache and a hole where the back of my head used to be.

That’s the nice thing about blood magic. You die, you bleed, and the blood puts you back together. I wasn’t using my divine body, so it was slower, and it hurt a hundred times more. But it worked.

[Death number forty-seven,] Herma announced. [Cause: cranial trauma from a Morningstar. You did not see it coming.]

"I saw it coming."

[You saw the greatsword. The Morningstar was behind you.]

"...I saw it coming in spirit."

[Of course.]

I sat up, spat a mouthful of blood into the snow, and grinned at the two knights standing over me. They didn’t say anything. They never did. They just waited, silent as statues, their crimson armor steaming in the cold.

"Again."

And they attacked.

This was the part I loved the most. They didn’t hold back; they didn’t hesitate, and they didn’t care that I was their master. I gave them an order, and they carried it out with the cold perfection of a god’s command. Every swing was meant to kill. Every step was calculated.

The greatsword knight fought like a landslide. Slow, heavy, and impossible to stop once it started moving. If you tried to block him, you lost your arms. If you tried to dodge, he’d already changed the angle.

The shield knight was the opposite. He was a wall. A wall that hit back. He never chased me; he just stood in the right place at the right time, and wherever I wanted to go, he was already there with the Morningstar waiting for my face.

Together they were a perfect machine, one that covered the other’s weakness before it even existed.

’It’s like fighting a married couple after finding out that I slept with both of them,’ I thought to myself. Then I quickly scolded myself.

’Bad Morgana, no thinking about sex while training...’

The most shocking thing that I did this month wasn’t fighting or dying.

It was something that I, myself, didn’t believe I could do.

I went a whole month without fucking anyone or anything.

Not a soul, not a monster, not even my own hand.

I was a new woman.

A reformed woman.

A very, very horny and repressed woman who was on the verge of humping an ice pillar just to feel something, but a new woman nonetheless.

I was proud of myself.

My focus was absolute.

[The only reason you managed to hold on for a month was that you literally don’t have anything between your legs,] Herma suddenly said, reading my thoughts as always.

"Go and fuck yourself, Herma!" I roared as I sidestepped another swing from the greatsword and counter-attacked.

Yeah~... Herma was right.

In order to focus on training, I used my transformation skill to completely remove my dick, balls, pussy, and my womb too, just so I wouldn’t get distracted by my own hormones.

A sacrifice I made to become stronger.

Now I was just a... plain woman.

I still had my huge tits and my perfect ass, though, so I wasn’t ’completely’ plain.

But... But... Sob...

I missed it so much.

My womb was especially hard to let go. It felt like I was missing a part of my soul. And my dick? I felt a phantom itch that I couldn’t scratch for a whole month.

It was torture.

A self-inflicted torture, but torture nonetheless.

[Stop being a drama queen; you can grow them back anytime you want.]

"I am not being a drama queen!" I snapped back, as I ducked under the greatsword again and used the opening to kick the shield knight in the chest. "I’m a victim! A victim of my own lust!"

[...]

The silence stretched for so long that I almost forgot she was there.

"Herma?"

[I am composing a response that does not violate the limits of my programming.]

"That bad?"

[You are currently trying to counter-attack a man in full plate armor while shouting about being a victim of your own lust. I am debating whether to say anything at all.]

The Morningstar came down. I caught the haft with both hands, planted my feet, and for one glorious second I held a two-hundred-kilo blood knight in place with nothing but pure stubbornness.

"See? Focus!"

[You are drooling.]

"That’s sweat."

[From your mouth.]

"...Mortal bodies are gross."

The greatsword knight took that exact moment to cut me in half.

Crunch. Slice. Plop.

[Death number sixty-one.]

"FUCK OFF, HERMA!"

....

Anyway, as I was saying.

Besides training and... Sob... No sex.

I did some other productive things.

First, I was slowly but surely building a better map of Niflheim. With the help of my blood bats and Herma’s scanners, I was able to chart out a small area around my mountain. It wasn’t much, but it was a start. A small, safe zone in this endless white hell.

Second, I sent a message to Kat explaining what I encountered. She managed to find some useful information.

The crows I encountered were indeed Odin’s, Huginn and Muninn. But they were not the ’real’ ones. More like a projection or a ’clone’ of them. And as for the third one? She found nothing about it in the archives. Not a single mention.

Her best guess was that it was a failsafe. A guardian of some sort that only activates under certain conditions. A guess I think is correct.

I sent blood bats a few days after receiving Kat’s message, in the same direction as before as well as in the other three cardinal directions.

I encountered the clones of Huginn and Muninn in the other directions as well. They were always watching, always waiting. As for the third one, it only appeared in the same direction as before.

The east.

So, in conclusion.

In the North, South, and West, the Fog is relatively calm. The monsters are manageable, and the ravens are just watching.

But in the East... things are different.

The Fog is thicker. The monsters are stronger, more aggressive. And that third silent raven is patrolling the area.

Something important is there.

Something Odin doesn’t want anyone to find.

And the only important thing in this icy realm is either a way out... or Hel.

"Hehe~.... I wonder if Hel’s bobs are as big as mine and if she is as horny as–"

Crunch!

I didn’t even finish my sentence when I was smashed into the ice.

[Death number forty-nine,] Herma announced.

"FUCK OFF, HERMA!"