Time flies so fast…
When you look back, twenty-four years have passed since you first arrived in this world. A lifetime for some, a mere moment for others—but for you, it was enough to reshape everything.
The Shadow Kingdom—the domain you've born, ruled, and dominated—is vast, but compared to the outside world, it's still just a small corner of something far greater. Beyond this single plane of existence, there are multiverses, parallel timelines, alternate realities—entire cosmic playgrounds just waiting to be visited, explored, and eventually… conquered.
So much had happened.
You had met Attila the Hun—a woman feared as a scourge, a force of destruction, yet when you found her, she was nothing but an amnesiac, lost in the fog of her forgotten past. She had no memory of her true nature, of what she once was—Sefar, the White Titan, the Destroyer of Civilizations.
Why?
That question plagued you. You had the power to pry into her very soul, to rip apart the veil hiding her past, to uncover the truth buried deep within her being. Yet, when the moment came, you held yourself back.
Because you knew better.
The soul was a delicate, dangerous thing. Observing it—exploring it—was taboo unless you had mastered the Third Magic or fully obtained its secrets. Without that mastery, you ran the risk of reducing her to a mindless husk, a broken doll with no way to piece her back together.
And no matter how tempting the truth was, no matter how much you desired to know the depths of her mystery, you refused to destroy her just to satisfy your curiosity.
She was yours.
She was your lover, after all.
You had already taken advantage of her naivety, shaped her to your liking, molded her obedience until she clung to you like an addict craving her fix. She never contradicted you, never denied you.
Always eager, always willing.
And that was why you had no need to dig deeper into her soul.
She was perfect just as she was.
So in the end, you let her secrets remain buried.
Now that you think about it, nearly a hundred years have passed since the Crimson Moon War. The aftermath of that battle had left scars across history, but you had dug deep into its consequences, searching for the real reason why the True Ancestors had vanished from the world.
It turned out, they didn't just fade away.
They were hunted. Hounded like wild beasts by the Counter Force. The moment Crimson Moon fell, the very fabric of the world turned against them. They were besieged, forced into hiding, and systematically eradicated.
From hundreds, only a handful survived.
Now? There might be five to ten left. At most.
That number was far too small for your tastes.
You wanted more.
You wanted to devour them all, to consume every last one, to absorb their power into your Shadow Legions until you could rival the Throne of Heroes itself.
The Heroic Spirits, those eternal warriors bound across time, existed in unlimited numbers—their souls preserved, their essence stored, an endless army of legends across parallel worlds.
And you wanted the same.
To command them all.
To have an unstoppable force, spanning across realities, answering only to you.
Of course, such a goal was still far beyond reach. Unrealistic? Maybe. But every man was allowed to dream, wasn't he?
For now, though?
You'd earned your rest.
The conquest was over. The spoils were yours. And for once… you let yourself bask in the satisfaction of your undeniable victory.
You sat cross-legged in the solitude of your tent, the dim glow of a brazier casting flickering shadows across the fabric walls.
The world around you was eerily still—no Attila, no subordinates, no lingering distractions. Even your sister and mother were absent. Only you remained.
For the first time in what felt like an eternity, there was silence.
Your hunger—for power, conquest, and women—had been satiated, at least for now. The endless indulgence, the ceaseless taking, the breaking and remaking of those beneath you, had left you in a rare state of contentment. It was almost amusing. After all the blood, the screams, the submission, what remained?
Reflection.
You found yourself slipping into a sage-like state, contemplating existence itself—your origins, your purpose, and every action that had led you to this very moment. With no one around to interrupt, no eager lips to worship you, no trembling bodies to claim, your mind wandered into depths you rarely explored.
And what you found was... intriguing.
You had long accepted that your actions were far from noble, that by the moral standards of Earth, you would be deemed monstrous. A tyrant. A butcher. A godless force of destruction.
But did that bother you?
You pondered the question for a brief moment—then discarded it.
You didn't care about the answer.
You never had.
So long as you remained satisfied, so long as you continued to devour all that you desired, morality was nothing more than a useless abstraction.
Simple.
Now, onto the more pressing matters—your harvest.
Your conquests had been fruitful. The vast grasslands had been bled dry by your hand. Men, women, entire bloodlines—all had been added to your ever-growing collection. You had taken from humans, magi, even gods themselves. No lineage was sacred, no bloodline beyond your reach. Even the so-called descendants of divinity, the self-proclaimed heroes, had fallen to you.
You had claimed them, just as you had claimed everything else.
But you weren't naïve. There would be consequences.
Odin.
That one-eyed bastard would not remain silent forever. He had watched. He had waited. You could feel it in the shifting air, in the whispers carried by the wind. The Allfather was biding his time, watching you closely, considering his next move.
The only question was—when?
And more importantly—who would he send?
Would Alaya allow you to keep going? To continue slaughtering gods, razing civilizations, and carving your path through anyone who dared stand before you?
Or would she turn on you?
You knew the Counter Force had allowed this to happen. They were the reason everything had been so smooth lately.
You had slaughtered magi in this grassland—all of them—and provoked the Mage Association with their blood, and yet—silence. No reinforcements. No attempts at revenge for their fallen.
Was it apathy? Did they not care enough to act?
Or had the Counter Force intervened?
Perhaps they were still licking their wounds after their brutal war with Crimson Moon, too weak to retaliate. Whatever the reason, the result remained the same—no one had dared challenge you.
Once, you had anticipated Alaya's inevitable retaliation. You were a rogue variable, one who devoured lives without hesitation, turning every warrior, every slain enemy, into another soldier for your Shadow Legion. You had expected Alaya to crush you for your defiance, to snuff out your existence before you could tip the balance too far.
But she hadn't.
And now, in this moment of cold contemplation, you finally understood.
Alaya had allowed this.
That was why gods had fallen so easily. That was why Attila had conquered the grasslands without resistance, why entire civilizations and empires had crumbled into yours and hers. The Counter Force had let you run rampant, had allowed you to wrought havoc across the world unchecked.
But why?
Was it because they needed a monster to do their dirty work? To wipe out the last remnants of the gods? Was this all part of a plan to end the Age of Mystery once and for all, ushering in the full dominion of mankind?
Or was it indifference?
No. That wasn't it.
You knew the nature of Alaya. You knew how aggressive it was. It cared about humanity's survival, cared enough to strike down any anomaly that threatened its grand design.
So the real question was—why hadn't she turned on you yet?
And how long until she did?
The answer disgusted you.
You weren't a threat to Counter Force yet. You weren't ruthless enough. Not monstrous enough.
They saw you as nothing more than a tool—a weapon forged to exterminate the lingering remnants of gods and mystery. A pawn in their grand scenario, a necessary evil to wipe the slate clean before they disposed of you like all the others before you.
That thought alone boiled your blood.
You refused to be a pawn.
You refused to be used and discarded.
If the Counter Force was waiting for a reason to put you down, then perhaps it was time to give them one.
It was time to strike first.
Then, Atilla entered.
"Ashborn, the Valkyries have arrived," Attila announced as she stepped into your war camp. Her tone was calm, but there was a flicker of curiosity in her crimson eyes. "They were sent by the Allfather himself to strike you down. And yet... for some reason, he only sent Valkyries."
She crossed her arms, her expression turning contemplative. "Not a single god has come. No Odin. No Thor. No Tyr. None. It's as if they refuse to engage us directly."
The revelation made you pause.
Only Valkyries?
Odin had sent his handmaidens of war to face you alone—no gods, no divine champions, no true forces of Asgard at his back.
A tactical blunder, or a ploy?
Your lips curled into a smirk as you rose to your feet, stretching your limbs before meeting Atilla's gaze.
"Good," you said, voice thick with anticipation. "Let's meet them on the battlefield, shall we?"
Atilla tilted her head slightly, then crossed her arms, as if contemplating the upcoming battle with the same casualness one would have before a hunt.
"Are you ready?" you asked.
She blinked once before nodding. "Uhm… they're bad civilization."
You chuckled at her bluntness. A force of battle-hardened warrior maidens, sent to kill you—yet here was Atilla, reducing them to nothing more than a failed civilization waiting to be crushed and absorbed.
By then, neither of you hesitated any further.
The two of you departed, stepping out into the cool night air, your forces already stirring at the call of war.
The thought of breaking them, bending them, owning them flickered in your mind.
Perhaps some could be absorbed into your legions, reforged into warriors who swore their lives to you instead of their Allfather.
Perhaps others could serve a different purpose—handpicked to become your women, worshipping you, and learn true submission under your rule.
The possibilities were endless.
But what truly intrigued you was Odin's reasoning behind this.
Why send only Valkyries?
Was he underestimating you?
Did he genuinely believe a flock of shieldmaidens could accomplish what gods could not?
Or was he playing a deeper game, orchestrating a plan unseen, waiting for you to step into his snare?
Or… maybe, just maybe, he really was that fucking stupid.
You intended to find out.