Gungnir and Sleipnir

"Nidhogg... is actually a female dragon?"

Thrud's expression was strangely peculiar. Although she had never heard anyone mention Nidhogg's true gender, looking at the beautiful woman in front of her, she couldn't help but feel a sense of disillusionment.

The Dragon of Despair that brought Ragnarok was, unexpectedly, a black-haired beauty?

What a bizarre turn of events!

'There's actually another woman beside him. The time they spent together is even longer than mine...' Artoria tightly squeezed her palms, her lowered head obscuring her expression.

Arkhan was perhaps the calmest among the three. After all, before reincarnated to this world, he had already been through the baptism of countless anime, manga, novels, and games. So this kind of development was nothing new to him.

Even King Arthur had turned into a woman; why couldn't Nidhogg? What's more, not just dragons, even something as ridiculous as ships or guns could transform into beautiful women.

But, to be honest, Nidhogg did look gorgeous. Especially from his aesthetic perspective, it was almost perfect.

In his previous life, while scrolling through the internet, Arkhan wasn't really into the cliche 'waifu' with white hair and red eyes that most people usually like. What intrigued him more was the black-haired beauty with a touch of aloofness, similar to Nidhogg.

If only she had a pair of black stockings, it would be perfect. As he thought like that, his gaze involuntarily slid downward, observing Nidhogg's smooth legs.

"What are you looking at?" Nidhogg questioned with confusion, her head tilted sideways.

"Ahem, nothing. I'm just curious why you ended up like this." Arkhan coughed lightly, trying to hide his awkwardness.

He suspected that Nidhogg might be teasing him deliberately; otherwise, why would her human form end up looking exactly like his tastes?

"What are you talking about?" Nidhogg looked bewildered. "What do you mean by 'ended up like this'? This is simply my human form."

"So, you didn't intentionally choose to look like this?" Arkhan asked carefully.

"I am the embodiment of rules, and rules are the most rigorous things in the world. How can they change at will?" Nidhogg rolled her eyes. "If I could truly do as I please, I would have discarded these useless bulges on my chest long ago. They are cumbersome and serve no purpose whatsoever."

'I love the rules of this world...' Arkhan said inwardly with a grateful tone.

Nidhogg reached out, and a crack suddenly appeared in the withered trunk of Yggdrasil. A crystal-clear egg and a decaying spear floated out and landed in her palm.

"Hey! Isn't that..." Thrud covered her mouth, a look of disbelief in her deep red eyes like agate.

"Odin's weapons, Declaration of the Great God—Gungnir, and his mount, the eight-legged horse—Sleipnir."

Nidhogg threw the spear and the egg to Arkhan.

Arkhan, looking at the spear and the egg, showed a somewhat strange expression. He glanced at Nidhogg with confusion.

"This wouldn't be something you secretly took from the battlefield after Odin died, right?"

"Do you think I am a scavenger?" Nidhogg retorted impatiently.

'Scavenger?!' Thrud exclaimed with anger inside her mind. How could the divine horse and the divine spear of the All-Father be considered junk?!

"So... Why do you have these things then?" Arkhan asked with a raised eyebrow. 

Nidhogg rolled her eyes in a rather charming way.

"What else if not because of that old man Odin? He gave me these things when he was dying. He said that when I leave Norse Realms, I should give them to the man who helped me get out of my trouble."

"How did he know Teacher would help you?" Artoria asked with surprise.

Nidhogg shrugged, then crossed her arms. "I don't know. That old man was always like that, muttering nonsense all the time."

"Odin drank from the Well of Wisdom, gaining some ability to foresee the future to some extent." Arkhan explained.

Examining the inscription on Gungnir in his hands, Arkhan suddenly noticed a line of Rune letters below.

—The one who pursues eternal silence, those who have departed will eventually return to nothingness.

"The one who pursues eternal silence..." Arkhan furrowed his brows slightly. "What does this mean?"

He showed the inscriptions to Thrud, who looked equally puzzled.

"I don't know... Strange, I remember there shouldn't be such inscriptions on Gungnir..." Thrud muttered with confusion.

Arkhan pondered, realizing that there appeared to be no corresponding existence in Norse mythology that fit the description.

"Whatever, forget it. It doesn't matter now. All the Norse gods are gone anyway. What's the use of thinking about these things?" Arkhan shook his head. "Maybe Odin wrote it one day when he was drunk. Who knows?"

Odin only drank at feasts, never eating meat himself; all the meat went to his two loyal wolves, Geri and Freki. Physiologically, drinking without eating makes one more susceptible to getting drunk, so Arkhan felt his speculation had some merit.

He stowed Sleipnir's egg and Gungnir in his Rune's space storage, planning to contemplate them later.

Arkhan then handed the shrunken Oath of Judah to Nidhogg. Stepping out of the white bounded field, she tested it and found that the rules indeed no longer affected her.

Free from the constraints of the rules, Nidhogg was ecstatic. She ran back and forth for ten thousand meters on the spot. If Arkhan hadn't grabbed her head, she probably would have run a few more laps.

"The feeling of being able to move freely is amazing!" Nidhogg exclaimed sincerely.

As Helheim still had rules laid by Hela, Arkhan couldn't use the Primordial Rune to open a space portal here. Hence, it took them more than ten days to reach Asgard.

On the mountain peak, Thrud gazed at the familiar yet unfamiliar scenery. A complex expression flickered in her red eyes.

"If you want to stay here, I won't force you to follow me." Arkhan said while glancing at Thrud.

Thrud remained silent for a moment, then shook her head and smiled. "No need. Staying in the past is meaningless. Besides, I promised Ortlinde and Hildr that I would meet them again."

"In that case, let's set off."

Arkhan snapped his fingers, and the void twisted and tangled, transforming into a two-person-high space portal.

Arkhan, Artoria, and Nidhogg entered it one after another. Thrud walked to the portal, looked back one last time, sighed, and then walked in.

After a moment, the portal gradually disappeared. The cold wind blew over the desolate mountaintop as if nothing had ever happened.