章節 85: Chapter 82: Wait, what just happened?
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Sorry for the late update, I was feeling very sick this past few days.
...
(Percy POV)
I woke up in my bed. I blinked a few times.
My bedsheets were drained in my own sweat, and I noticed I was wearing nothing except undershorts. My mind asked a lot of questions: How did I got here? Why was I in my undershorts? How did Loki know about Bianca. Why was Frey so stupid to give away his sword?
Someone knocked on my door. Thinking it might be one of my hallmates, I leaped out of bed and ran to answer.
I threw open the door, found myself face-to face with the Valkyrie Gunilla, only to realize. I was still in my undershorts.
"Gunilla." I said trying to sound relaxed instead of panicking.
She blushed and so did I. "You are…"
"Awake." I finished her sentence, or at least I guessed she was going to say that.
She nodded, "You were causing quite a stir."
I frowned, "What do you mean?"
She raised a brow, "You don't know?"
"Nope."
"You went berserk and almost destroyed Valhalla." Gunilla said nervously, like I would go berserk upon hearing the news. My eyes widened, "You're kidding right?"
She shook her head, "No, you almost broke Valhalla. I knocked you out and brought you to your room."
I realized what this meant and blushed, "Uhm...thanks for helping me."
She waved it away, "Of course, anyway."
She looked around, "Most einherjar are still reforming, want to take a tour through Valhalla?"
"Why?" I asked.
She blushed even more, "We need to talk about our situation."
"You mean the death prophecy Magnus, and I got?"
She nodded, clearly relieved, "Yes, exactly."
She was lying, my Apollo lie detection kicked in without any reason. Nor was it useful.
People lied all the time. I just learned that after I got blessed by Apollo.
"Sure," I said, "Let me get changed, and we're ready to go."
(Linebreak)
One thing I discovered, Valhalla must be the Norse version of the Labyrinth,
Gunilla got turned around in the endless corridors, banquet halls, gardens and lounges. At one point we were riding in a service elevator when Gunilla said, "Here's the food court."
The doors opened and a wall of flames engulfed us both.
I was fire resistant, Gunilla...wasn't.
Gunilla screamed in pain and staggered backwards, I slammed one of the buttons and the doors closed.
Gunilla was still on fire. I poured water out of the air and quenched the flickering flames.
I knelt down and said, "Are you alright?"
Gunilla's flesh was red and burned away. The entire upper arm was black like coal. Her face was covered with red patches of skin and hot steaming flesh.
"Oh my gods." I muttered, and I tried to touch her arm but she yanked it away, which caused her to groan in pain.
"Let me try something." I mumbled and touched her arm again.
"It's not the time to try things." Gunilla snapped but the tightness in Gunilla's voice told me how much pain she was in.
"I think I might be able to heal it." I said and closed my eyes and silently prayed to Apollo.
Apollo was the healing. Since I was blast by him, I might be able to…
Golden flashes of light shone through my hands and filled the entire elevator in a calm soft glow. I pressed my hands closer against her arm.
Her arm glowed, I saw the golden...whatever it was…crawled up her skin and covered her entire body.
Finally, it faded away. With awe I watched the skin slowly turning back to normal the redness faded. Her burns disappeared.
"Wow!" I said as Gunilla got to her knees. She studied her arms with admiration,
"How?" she asked.
I shrugged, "I got blessed by Apollo. He's the gods of healing, so I figured I could do something similar."
She frowned, "You were not sure this would work?"
I gulped, "Well, I was like 70% sure it would work."
I tried to stand to, but I almost fell to the ground, Gunilla caught me before my head could slam against the elevator wall.
"Hey take it easy!" she said and kept me up.
I waved my free hand and a square of Ambrosia appeared in my hand, it was a risk to eat it, especially since I was only exhausted but I did not want to spend the rest of the walk feeling tired and needed to be dragged by Gunilla.
I took a small bite and felt immediately better and less exhausted.
I got to my feet and smiled, "Feeling great again."
The elevator doors opened again. This time we really were at a food court. The smells of lemon chicken and pizza wafted in.
"'Let's keep walking."
We got some strange looks as we walked through Valhalla, the Greek and the Valkyrie capitan.
We turned into a corridor lined with conference rooms. Inside one, a guy in studded leather armor was giving a PowerPoint presentation to a dozen warriors, explaining the weaknesses of mountain trolls. A few doors down, Valkyries in glittering party hats socialized over cake and ice cream.
The birthday candle was shaped like the number 500.
"You got a lot of powers." Gunilla said. "On the battlefield I saw you controlling water, fire, nature and the ravens."
"Ravens?" I asked, "What do you mean with Ravens?"
"They were going nuts and attacked the Einherjar on the battlefield."
I paled, "No one got hurt right?"
Gunilla laughed and pulled me into one of the corridors. We reached a five-level department store combined with a convention-center trade show. We passed through a supermarket, a clothing boutique with the latest in Viking fashions and an IKEA outlet (naturally). Most of the showroom floor was a maze of stalls, kiosks and workshops.
Bearded guys in leather aprons stood outside their forges offering free samples of arrowheads. There were specialized merchants for shields, spears, crossbows, helmets and drinking cups (lots and lots of drinking cups).
Gunilla noticed me glancing at all the goodies Valhalla sold.
"I know," Gunilla said with a sad tone, "It's not enough."
I chuckled, "Not enough?"
"Not enough for Ragnarok."
She led me down the Nordic Knick-knacks aisle to a big iron door marked: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
She slipped one of her keys into the lock. "What I'm about to show you is disturbing, not a lot of people get to see it."
"I can take it." I said.
Behind the door was a set of stairs. Then another set of stairs. Then another set of stairs.
By the time we reached the top, I'd lost count of how many flights.
At last we stepped out onto a narrow balcony. "This," Gunilla said, "is my favorite view."
The balcony ringed the opening in the roof above the Hall of the Slain.
The tree Laeradr's topmost branches stretched upward, making a green dome the size of Spaceship Earth at Epcot. Inside, far below, hotel staff scurried around the tables like termites, getting things ready for dinner.
From the outer edge of the balcony, the roofline of Valhalla sloped away – a thatch of gold shields blazing red in the evening sun.
I felt like I was standing on the surface of a metal planet.
"This is amazing." I murmured,"It reminds me of…"
Camp half-blood I wanted to say but I didn't finish my sentence.
Gunilla gave me a sympathetic look, "You miss home don't you?"
I gave a half-heartedly shrug. "Kinda."
She grabbed my hand and pulled me to a spot where I could gaze down between two sections of roof.
My eyeballs felt like they were going to implode.
Stretching out around Valhalla, gleaming to the horizon, was a city of palaces, each as big and impressive as the hotel.
"Asgard," Gunilla said. "The realm of the gods."
'Boring, Tartarus is better.' Lyssa complained.
I did not agree with her.
I saw roofs made entirely of silver ingots, hammered-bronze doors big enough to fly a B-1 bomber through, sturdy stone towers that pierced the clouds.
Streets were paved in gold and circling the edge of the city were white ramparts that made the Great Wall of China look like a baby fence. At the very edge of my vision, the city's widest avenue ran through a gateway in the walls. On the far side, the ground dissolved into multicolored light – a roadway of prismatic fire.
"The Bifrost," Gunilla said, "The rainbow bridge between Asgard and Midgard"
It reminded me of the true form of a god. I knew that looking at it too long would break my mind.
"'Only the gods may cross over,' Gunilla said. 'Anyone else would burn the moment they set foot on it."
"You're kidding," I mumbled. "It looks completely harmless."
The bridge was definitely not a cute rainbow.
She rolled her eyes, "We are allowed to enter Asgard when Ragnarok we will defend the gates."
"Sounds like a blast."
Gunilla chuckled, "Anyway. Look at the city, what do you see?"
I scanned the neighborhood, trying to see past all the silver and gold and the scary huge architecture. In one window, rich drapes hung in tatters. Along the streets, fire braziers stood empty and cold. The statues in one garden were completely overgrown with thorn bushes.
The streets were deserted. No fires burned in any of the windows. "Where is everybody?" I asked.
"The Gods...Some may be slumbering. Some are roaming the Nine Worlds. Some still appear from time to time. The fact is, we don't know what's going on. I've been in Valhalla five hundred years, and I have never seen the gods so quiet, so inactive. The last two years …"
Two years…
Two years ago world war 3 almost started with Kronos trying to rise, the same year Apophis tried to destroy the world with a godly pyramid.
Could it be...related?
I pushed the thought away, deciding I had more important things to figure out.
"Two years ago, something changed. The Valkyries and thanes all felt it. The barriers between the Nine Worlds began to weaken. Frost giants and fire giants raided Midgard more frequently. Monsters from Helheim broke into the worlds of the living. The gods grew distant and silent. This was around the time when Samirah became a Valkyrie – the last time we saw Odin."
"Is that the reason you don't like Samirah?" I asked, "because to me it sounds like a coincidence."
"She's the daughter of Loki, the father of evil. She cannot be trusted." Gunilla said bitterly, "Besides, she brought a Greek and son of Frey. I'm not sure why but I don't trust her."
I nodded, "Look, I get why it is weird I got in Valhalla but why is Magnus such a big deal?"
Gunilla sighed and explained, "A long time ago the gods were divided into two tribes. The war gods and nature gods. Aesir and Vanir. They almost destroyed the Nine Worlds. They finally settled their differences. They intermarried. They joined forces against the giants. But still they're different clans. Some Vanir have palaces in Asgard, the seat of the Aesir gods, but the Vanir also have their own world, Vanaheim. When a child of the Vanir dies bravely, they don't usually go to Valhalla. More often they go to the Vanir afterlife, overseen by the goddess Freya."
"Magnus was supposed…"
"To go to the Vanir afterlife, Folkvanger. Instead, Sam brought Magnus to this place." Gunilla said. "I don't think Magnus is a threat. Just a pawn of Sam's game."
"Her game?
"To hasten Doomsday, of course. To bring the war before we are ready. That's what Loki wants."
"If you hate Sam so much,' I said, 'why did you let her be a Valkyrie in the first place?"
"That wasn't my choice. I oversee the Valkyries, but Odin picks them. Samirah alAbbas was the last Valkyrie he chose, two years ago, under what were … unusual circumstances. The All-Father has not appeared in Valhalla since…"
"There are probably other explanations than Sam killing Odin."
"Percy," Gunilla said worried, "you don't know her. There was another child of Loki here once. He – he wasn't what he seemed. He –"
She stopped herself, looking like someone had just stepped on her heart. "Never mind. I swore to myself I wouldn't be fooled again. I intend to delay Ragnarok for as long as possible."
"Well," I said with a smile, "I've been doing that since I was twelve years old."
She raised a brow, "Why do I have the feeling you're serious?"
I laughed. "Because I am. Stopped it like," I counted on my fingers.
Retrieving the lightning bolt.
Preventing the sky from falling down.
Preventing Seth and his evil buddies turn America in a dessert.
"Three times."
She glanced at me with admiration, "Wow. That's a lot."
I shrugged, "I just can't stand the thought of doing nothing while I can do something good."
She stepped closer to me, "Can you do something for me?"
I frowned, "Of course, what?"
"Save the world from Ragnarok."
I smiled, "Already got in on my-"
I wanted to say agenda but before I could finish my sentence she yanked me towards her and covered my mouth with a hungry kiss.
My mind short-circuited and I was unable to process what was happening for a second.
Her mouth was so warm and her lips were softer than I could imagine.
Suddenly, Gunilla pushed away as if she'd been burned.
"This didn't happen." She said sternly and turned around.
She leaped over the side of the balcony and flew down through the branches, leaving me to find me confused and frozen.
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