Chapter 184: Walking in Baldr's Shoes

Jade's mind was instantly transferred to a dark place, his memories were swiftly isolated from his mind and he knew nothing. He opened his eyes and the darkness gave way to light as he looked at the face of the woman before him. It was his mother Frigg.

She looked at him with so much love and compassion, he could feel it. Another face joined the scene, a man that looked to be in his 50s placed his head beside his mother's to look at him. It was his father Odin. He looked at him with joy and pride, he could feel it.

Time fast forwarded and Baldr, previously Jade, was a 4 year old. His father gave him his first spear to practice with. He stood beside his father who stood before a dummy with a target circle on its supposed heart, waist, shoulders, fore head and knees.

Odin held a stick and executed some moves, hitting the targets in succession, before Baldr. And as if he was a machine the image was registered in his mind in high quality. The flow of every movement memorized. Odin gave him the go ahead to try the moves he just witnessed.

He positioned himself as he saw an illusionary image of Odin scaled down to his size and positioned himself accordingly with it. He performed the moves exactly as his father had shown much to his father's surprise. He was told to do it again and again and he did it, perfectly. The news spread and he was known not only as Odin's first born, but as a prodigy in combat.

Time fast forwarded again and Baldr was in a battle with an army of Frost Giants. Anyone could see that the giants were clearly avoiding him and focusing his brother Thor. Baldr didn't go to Thor's aid, he knew Thor hated being helped but he watched his brothers battle with one eye from afar.

A Frost Giant noticed his lack of concentration and tried to use that gap to get a hit in with a sword thrust. The attempt failed marvelously as Baldr parried the sword into the ground with his glaive and lifted it up afterwards and a flash of light followed.

The giant was split into two and the other giants reinforced the idea that they should just stay on the defensive. Baldr smiled as he saw a world of lightening overcoming the surge of Frost Giants. It reminded him of when he also was being targeted exclusively by the giants only when they realized that he was too strong to be defeated by numbers did they start treating him like a plague.

Time flew by as Baldr took part in countless battles and businesses facing various opponents. From wars, skirmishes, challenges, duels, strategy to economics, politics, science, magic, diplomacy, trading, Baldr excelled in everything, he was perfect in every way.

He grew older and married a wife and had a child. He woke up from his sleep one day breathing heavily, he dreamt of his death. Baldr went to consult with his mother who had the ability to see into the future about the dream. He knew that the dream wasn't normal but an effect of the Vanir clan talent which he possessed.

When he went to his mother's chamber she was already waiting for him, having foresaw his coming. He told her all the contents of his dream and she told him, much to his surprise, that she had the exact same dream. Baldr sighed and they discussed a solution to problem.

Time fast forwarded and Baldr was wearing a light piece of clothing to battle. This was after his mother had made the Immunity Codex for him. The battles he fought mostly had plans revolving around others apart from him since no one fought him anymore, they just ran.

It was to be expected since before he got the Codex he was undefeatable. Now he was even more undefeatable so no one bothered to try their luck. Time passed again and after another year of victorious battles they were having celebrations.

The main event for today as it had been for 200 years was the Everybody-attacks-Baldr event. It involved Baldr taking weapon attacks from different influential people while encouraging them tauntingly to try to at least make him bleed. It was a really fun event as they usually just went for his clothes and tried to strip him naked by attacking his clothes to oblivion. His stripping was a pleasure and a tease to the eyes of the women and it was fun to the men to see him running about and masterfully dodging trying to save his clothes instead of his life.

Today was such a day and he was dodging a hail of various projectiles that were aimed masterfully, curving in the air, teleporting, homing on him or even drawing him towards them. He dodged again and again and blocked the unavoidable hits with his body as he teased the men to try a little harder with a mischievous smile, the women who craved to see his naked body encouraged the men to do better.

"BLAAM!" A spear lodged itself in his head which he had used to protect his shirt and his vision went completely dark afterwards. His mind darkened and he woke up in Niflheim the realm of frost and death.

What emotions, shock, confusion, distraught, despair, dread? There was none of that, only a sigh and a smile. Baldr thought 'Just as planned, perfect'. The death of the Shining One, Baldr, was the beginning of a series of events that would lead to the end of the reign of the Asgardians. But that wasn't the only one part of the prophecy, his death would also lead to his resurrection and ascent to the peak of all the 9 realms. This was the dream that Baldr and Frigg had.

With the All-Father, Odin, in power, one would think it was impossible for the fall of Asgard. One would also realize that since Odin would never die, none of his sons would get the chance to rule. Baldr had accepted this reality quite easily like he did most things but a new variable arrived, Loki.

No one knew where he was from yet he was accepted into Asgardian society, records of his childhood we're none existent but still an Asgardian claimed him as their child. Naturally, Baldr investigated and came up with nothing time and time again but he didn't give up. He found out later that Loki was an alternate version of Odin, but he was not just any alternate version, he was the version that was destined to bring down Odin's empire that was built on the corpse of Ymir, the Cosmic Titan, her children the giants and a host of other creatures that died in Odin and his brothers' frenzy war.

Loki's existence was the price Odin had to pay to acquire the power to defeat a being like Ymir. His brothers were paying their own price same as Odin. Baldr couldn't imagine the type of power Odin sought or his goals in defeating the Titan that caused him to allow the creation of something that would end him. But he wasn't willing to suffer the repercussion of Odin's actions with him. Hence, he told his mother about his discovery and when she got the full picture he asked her to divine a way for them to escape the catastrophe.

The escape and the cause of the catastrophe were one and the same; Baldr's death. Baldr was the balance tipper between the forces of Odin and Loki. Loki birthed many creatures capable of rivaling all the Asgardian war pillars but no one like Baldr.

Odin could never kill Loki, it was his curse, but others could do it for him but only two people had the required specializations to beat Loki. The only Asgardian that could see through Loki's illusions and have a chance at fighting him was Heimdallr, the white god. But this advantage just made him match Loki in power not superseding him.

The other person that had the right specification was Baldr, the god of light. Possessing the light manipulation ability, Baldr had many features that allowed him to see light from different perspectives hence his perception of the world was very complex and unique compared to a normal person.

Loki's illusions never looked real to him, the quality always looked lacking from his perspective, there were always details that he saw naturally that were missing in Loki's illusions. Baldr could see through the illusions and was more than capable of killing Loki. With him around the war with the forces of Loki would always end in defeat for Loki.

Hence, Loki puckered up to the Asgardians instead of trying to destroy them utterly. He helped them get powerful weapons and even saved some of their lives. But his aim was to kill Baldr.

Knowing this and knowing the fact that he was destined to die, Frigg and Baldr came up with a way to guide his death so that more people survived the war. Hence, the Immunity Codex that gave the 'perfect' Baldr a clear weakness in the eyes of Loki, hence his death, hence Ragnarok, hence Baldr's resurrection, hence the new world where Baldr could rule his own domain and the sons of Thor could rule theirs.

Baldr wondered the realm of the dead. He didn't know how he would resurrect but he planned on understanding the realm of the death and frost better so he could understand the Frost Giants that were Asgard's eternal enemies.

He wondered for eons and eons learning more and more until he got bored. The concept of death and the afterlife that thrilled him before was now a bore. He understood everything and even knew how to escape as some souls had but he knew that they just escaped into the void and got lost there forever. Knowing that he would surely resurrect and return he also ventured into the void.

He found himself outside of the 9 realms the Asgardians had mapped using Heimdallr's familiar. He was in the uncharted void of space. The light from stars sparkled in the distance and Baldr's soul journeyed toward them. He kept losing parts of himself as he traversed the void with a bare soul and the pain of loss assaulted him but he moved on. He realized that this was why those who left the realm of death could never come back. They lost themselves as they traversed the bare void and ceased to exist.

Baldr didn't want to resurrect without his memories so when he lost a part of himself he would patiently search for it again and again to refill himself. This caused him to lose more of himself as he moved to search causing him to wander eternally trying not to lose himself.

He became more adept at finding the missing parts of himself as his soul evolved. He could split his soul up to search and return the parts he lost in a constant cycle of loss and gain that put his soul in constant interaction with the void.

He eventually stumbled upon new realms. On entering these realms Baldr's soul would be reincarnated as inanimate matter or even abstract concepts, electricity, light, stone, water, peace, gravity, war, torment etc. These experiences made Baldr's soul evolve into a Cosmic-Soul. He understood more than just people, he understood matter and concepts.

Baldr eventually stumbled on the disposed parts of Ymir. He had given up on anyone resurrecting him, he was sure the world had forgotten about him. He forged the parts with his soul and made a body for himself out of it. On noticing the capabilities of Ymir's body to replicate any form of matter Baldr tried to make the perfect Immunity Codex but he understood from his failure and creation of a subpar Immunity Codex that his soul couldn't possess such a body. He didn't have the right Soul Glyphs for it.

With his new body ready, Baldr retraced his steps as he proceeded back to the 9 realms. A new age was coming and it was the age of Baldr, he would gather an army and conquer the realms he had found during his wandering. He wouldn't be like Odin who wouldn't give his sons realms to rule due to the lack of discovered realms.

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