55 A giant soul gem and back to Alice

I'm walking up the mountain by myself. I reach a clearing with a small hut surrounded by bones, both human and animal.

I walk up, open the door and enter a small room with only the bare necessities. A bed and a firepit for heat and cooking. Other than that it's empty except for the bones hanging from the ceiling.

On the bed, I see an old man with a facial deformity. There's skin growing over his eye sockets, leaving him blind.

"I've waited for you for so long. It's an honor to meet you mighty Fenrir. Slayer of the pretender."

"You're one of their descendants aren't you? *sniff* Frigga's bloodline. That explains your ability to predict the future. I thought none of them had children."

"Yes, they all decided not to have children, except for her.

During the centuries you were sleeping, they grew impatient at mankind's insistence of Odin's virtue, and their denial of yours.

They knew you're a god of animals so when the humans started sacrificing animals in honor of Odin, they were horrified and took certain steps to ensure these sacrifices would somehow honor you instead.

They could no longer call upon the powers they had once possessed but they could still manipulate magic through runes.

They dedicated themselves to centuries of study and eventually crafted an immensely powerful spell.

The spell had to be tied to one of their bloodlines and passed on to work. My mother volunteered.

The spell ensured that every animal soul sacrificed to a god, across the entire world would be assimilated within Frigga's own soul.

When she gave birth to me, she died and all the souls were passed to me, causing these deformities on my face as a side effect and granting me a longer lifespan.

I would now like to present these souls, including my own, to you, master. For you to do with whatever you see fit."

The next moment, the seer takes out a knife and drops his robes.

Now bare chested I see his body is covered in runes. One rune in the middle of his chest remains unfinished.

He puts the knife to his chest and with two cuts, carefully placed, he finishes what I can only judge to be the work of a true Runes Master.

The runes, starting from his chest, begin radiating a beautiful blue glow.

He slowly starts growing bigger and bigger as the light grows brighter until he pierces through the ceiling. I go outside and watch as he continues to grow larger.

After a few minutes the glow fades, revealing a giant soul gem over seventy meters tall and at least twenty meters wide.

I feel an enormous amount of magical energy flowing through the crystal. I put my hand on it and immediately I feel the creatures inside.

"Be patient. I'll breathe new life into all of you one day."

I sink my fangs into the crystal and devour the spell that absorbs all the souls of sacrificed animals.

From now on, I can save the souls of all sacrificed animals in every world I visit.

As I feel the souls inside the crystal reaching out, I notice how many there are.

Over half a billion.

I put the crystal in my storage space and return to Kattegat.

The next morning we're all standing on the beach, ready to return to Fenrikshavn.

"We'll see you in the summer Earl Fenrik." Earl Haraldson says.

"Until then." I say as I get in my ship and take my seat.

While we're sailing back to Fenrikshavn my mind keeps wandering to the souls I'm now carrying around. The way they all died and the sheer amount.

It makes my constant anger worse.

"...rir? Fenrir? Helloo?" As I was staring off into the ocean drowning in my own thoughts and came dangerously close to caving in to my anger, Lagertha was trying to get my attention and shoved her hand in front of my face.

"What?!" I unintentionally lash out.

Immediately Lagertha looks at me scared.

'What the hell did I do?'

"I-I'm s-sorry. I just wanted to s-see the w-whales."

As I look at where she was just pointing, I see a pod of killer whales.

"I'm sorry Lagertha. You did nothing wrong. It's my fault I lashed out, and I'll find a way to make sure it won't happen again."

With Lagertha clearly still scared, I look at the Orcas and call them closer.

I put Lagertha on my lap so she gets a better view.

"Can you forgive me?"

Without averting her eyes from the pod, she nods. "Yes, I forgive you."

'I seriously need to fix this anger situation.'

A few hours later we get to Fenrikshavn.

As we're standing on the beach, Lagertha waves the Orcas goodbye. "Bye bye whales."

*Foosh* Answering her, they all shoot air out of their blowholes.

We get inside the longhouse and I immediately tell everyone to leave.

Once I'm alone with Lagertha, I explain to her where I'm from and why I'm in this world.

"Would you like to meet Alice?" I ask her.

"Yes, she sounds really nice."

"Alright then, let's go."

I take out my claws and create a portal back to Danmachi.

When we step through we arrive in the mansion I had built before leaving.

"You wait right here, okay? I have to go talk to her first."

"Alright." She sits on the couch as I give her a disproportionately large cookie and walk upstairs when she starts nibbling.

I walk into our bedroom and see Alice sleeping. To her I only left right before she fell asleep, no more than an hour ago.

I've been without her for so long.

I lay down next to her, wrap my arms around her and roll her on my stomach.

She opens her eyes and looks at me. "Fenris?"

"Yes, my love?"

"Why are you so muscular?" she asks while caressing my pectoral muscles.

"Haha, you like it?"

"I could get used to it." she says as she runs her fingers along my arm. Noticing how long it is, she looks a little confused, gets off me and looks at the rest of my body.

"Why are you taller? Fenris, what happened?"

"Don't worry. It's just been a little longer than I thought it would take." I say as I grab her waist and pull her back on top of me.

"How much longer?" She asks as she sits on my stomach.

"About two hundred seventy-five.." Before I can finish she interrupts. "Two hundred seventy-five years?! How did that happen? You were supposed to go there, hunt down the giant monsters you wanted and then come back to me."

"Million years."

"What?"

"Two hundred seventy-five million years. Buuut, I did spend almost all that time sleeping. I was only awake for about ninety thousand."

"Ninety thousand years alone. How did you-"

"By remembering why I was doing it.

After I devoured the first Titan my body pretty much shut down a few minutes later. I woke up after about thirty-five million years of what I came to call hibernation. My body had to adapt to the physiology of every single Titan I devoured.

Over time this process became faster but there were so many of them. I even decided not to devour a few I didn't think were worth it.

Every time I had to learn how to control my new abilities."

"And? These abilities, were they worth it?"

"I think so. Even without my fangs, I'm now capable of destroying a large planet."

*Tock Tock*

Before Alice could respond, we get interrupted by Huginn and Muninn tapping the window with their beaks.

I send them a telepathic message to come back later.

"Why were those ravens trying to get your attention?"

"Well, during my last hibernation a few things happened you see. There was this guy Odin..."

"They ate your flesh?! Please tell me you killed them!" Alice reacts furiously after hearing what Odin did.

"Of course I killed him. But he also had animals like those two ravens just now, an eight-legged horse and two wolves. They wanted to stay with me so I sent them here."

"I see. Any more surprises? You didn't have sex with other women, did you? I'd forgive you if you did, I mean ninety thousand years is a very long time. But did you?"

"No! Of course not! But there are two things you still need to know. Come with me."

We walk downstairs and the moment Alice sees Lagertha she grabs me by the ear. "You just said you hadn't been with anyone else. Who's her mother? I'm going to have to kill her mother, you reallize that right?"

"Wait, wait, wait. Relax honey, she's not my child. She was about to be killed. I then saved her life and over the course of twenty-four hours she almost died four more times.

She's an orphan who was sold into slavery by vikings. She has PTSD and I kind of unilaterally decided to raise her. I'm sorry about that last part."

" Hmm, that's actually kinda sweet. You said there were two things I need to know? What's the other thing?"

"I'm angry all the time and I can't control it. The last two creatures I devoured were driven by anger. It drives their race to destroy as much life as possible. I feel like killing everyone around me all the time. I need to find a way to control this."

Alice looks at me attentively for a while and then looks to the side. In the middle of the room, where I left the portal open.

"You're not staying, are you?"

"No. But I'm not staying away for ninety thousand years ever again. And when I find a way to control this anger, I won't be going anywhere without you at all."

"Alright, but you should stay a little while at least. Also, don't you think you should be introducing me to her?" she asks pointing to Lagertha.

We walk over to Lagertha and I introduce them both. "Lagertha, this is Alice, my wife. Alice, this is Lagertha."

Alice gets down to Lagertha's eye level. "Hi Lagertha, it's nice to meet you. What do you have there?" Alice asks, looking at the large cookie she's holding.

"It's a chocate chip cookie. Fenrir gave it to me. It's good, you want some?"

After a few hours of getting to know each other Alice and I put Lagertha to bed.

"Ninety thousand years without sex. You poor man. We should do something about that before you leave." Alice says as she drags me to the bedroom.

"My thoughts exactly."