Snow spilt into my boots as I tumbled forwards, still affected by the speed which had launched me through the portal. The ground beneath me was uneven, churned by battle. The stench of something metallic filled my nose with every frozen breath, mingling with a bitter sting of ash and sulphur. Coming to my feet, I could tell that the wind whistling past me had come from the shattered ridgeline in front of me. The wind clawed at my neck like it wanted to drag me back into the portal I had come from. Speaking of which...! I turned around, but my hopes were dashed immediately. It was gone.

  I took a moment to collect myself. What on Earth is going on? I was playing in the tournament, and then a strange event or virus took over, and the world collapsed beneath me. Am I still in virtual reality, or is this real reality? I pinched myself quite hard, and indeed, it hurt. I don't quite know what I expected, maybe that I'd feel nothing despite being able to feel the wind and cold? I'm probably losing my marbles, but who wouldn't in this situation? After pinching myself, I realised my clothes had changed - I was now dressed in some Asgardian Einherjar plate armour, I recognised it from Gods and Heroes.

  I realised there was no point in standing around waiting to freeze to death as the mysteries of my current situation continued to pile up, so I decided to find out if anyone else was here. Moving forward, my every step was slippery with what looked an awful lot like blood whilst a weak sun shone overhead, illuminating it all with its shallow rays. Eventually, I stumbled upon what was clearly the site of a recent battle; cracked or broken helmets and discarded weapons littered the ground in front of me like broken promises. Everything about this place felt much too vivid and too sharp to be part of any simulation.

  Suddenly, a horn echoed in the distance as a woman in shining silver-white armour skidded to a halt beside me, her wings trailing frost - I never even heard her approach. Her face was angular and sharp, as if carved from glacier ice, but the eyes that looked me over were warm. She held a glaive decorated with faintly glowing runes down the shaft, and we locked eyes for a moment. I realised her identity almost immediately, a Valkyrie!

  She nodded at me once, as if she’d expected me to be here, stumbling around a battlefield. “Newblood, huh?” she said with a slight smile, "Make sure to have your sword ready!" before turning away to face a lumbering Giant that had just announced its existence in the distance with a suitably ground-shaking roar. Before I could ask her any questions about what I was doing here, the Valkyrie darted atop the snowdrifts towards the Giant like a speeding bullet, her form blurring with each stride before she leapt up into flight.

  The way she had arrived, calm and sure, talking to me with a slight smile, clicked something in my mind. She had talked to me the way I did when meeting new players in Gods and Heroes!

  (This was a little humiliating in hindsight, now that I’m writing this all down…)

  I belatedly drew the sword that was fastened to my waist whilst I watched as silver flakes of frost trailed behind her charge like falling feathers. With a cry, she hurled her glaive. It sliced through the wind and struck the towering Giant in the forehead with the sound of metal clashing with a sheer rock face. Fully expecting it to keel over and die, I had peacefully watched the glaive fly through the air.

  But not only did the Giant not die. It was barely even wounded.

  The Giant somehow roared even louder than before in its pain and anger.

  I flinched as the wall of sound hit me like a runaway truck, vibrating my whole body. The Giant continued to bellow in fury, its hot breath fogging the air as it looked for its attacker. But the Valkyrie was already gone, having recalled her glaive, leaving behind only the eddying movement of snowflakes in the air. She reappeared seconds later, harrying another target and shouting to (I presume) unseen allies as the enraged Giant lumbered after her. I stood frozen, sword trembling in my grip. Surely, she didn't expect me to fight that?

  I remembered what I saw at the end of the strange virtual reality screen previously, Lives Remaining: 3.

  Was this a dream? A hallucination? Another game layer? I looked around, still half-expecting HUD prompts or menus to appear at my repeated gestures. But there was nothing. Only the weight of my sword in my hand, the cold in my bones, and the sound of distant horns. Clearly, I wasn’t a spectator here. I am now involved in this place, wherever this place is supposed to be.

  A horn rang again. Closer now.

  “Einherjar!” someone shouted.

  I turned. A warrior in battered frost-blue armour sprinted toward me, axe in one hand and a dented shield in the other. Snow clung to his thick brown hair and filled the creases of his scarred face and heavy beard. He was broad-shouldered and solid as a statue, like some kind of bodybuilding warrior. He had a fierce gaze, like someone who had faced death more than once.

  “Get your blade up! You want to die before your second breath on this land?”

  “Who are you?”

  “Eirik,” the warrior snapped. “Now get into position.”

  “I’m Kai-”

  Eirik shoved me into position in a shield line that was suddenly forming around us as other warriors arrived. “Eyes open. Knees bent. Don’t stand there like a corpse unless you plan to become one.”

  The ground trembled. Something massive approached the top of the shattered ridgeline, trailing fire and shadow. Upon seeing its figure revealed, I realised it was actually a Fire Giant the size of a small building. Its molten blade left a glowing scar in the snow as it dragged behind it. Heat shimmered around it, warping the air into smoky haze. But it wasn’t alone; shadowy figures moved behind it. At first, I thought they were regular mobs, basic game enemies. But these were different. Hulking berserkers advanced, their flesh blistered and glowing with runes; their eyes were much more focused and alive than the glassy-eyed mobs that I knew well. The hostility that was coming off them like a physical force indicated them being very real. Then came the beasts; massive and houndlike, like a large panther, but subtly wrong. They moved with smooth, heavy steps, with too many eyes and skin like obsidian. Chains dragged from their necks, and their tails ended in jagged, rusted hooks.

  They were definitely Chthonic Hounds, but the problem is, they shouldn't be here. The Valkyrie and the Giant's presence indicate this area belongs to Asgardian mythology. But the beasts belong to Tartarus, the foes of the Olympian Pantheon. They were from the wrong pantheon to be in a battle from Asgard's mythology.

  “Shield wall!” someone yelled.

  I had barely processed the command before the line surged. Warriors braced together, locking shields. Eirik glanced over, checking on me. “Why are you helping me?” I asked, still staring at the slowly encroaching nightmare. “Because you’ll likely be dead in ten seconds otherwise,” Eirik growled in his gravelly voice. The fire Giant raised its sword, and heat rolled down the slope towards us. “Kai,” Eirik said, not looking at me, “you do know how to fight in a shield wall, right?” I opened my mouth to reply, then hesitated. This seemed nothing like the VR combat I knew. Eirik saw my hesitation and cursed before responding. “Knees bent. Sword up. Don’t think. Just survive.”

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  I obeyed, raising my sword to the guard position I knew. I took a deep breath, trying to calm my racing heart. My body moved without much conscious thought. Assuming a protective stance honed in thousands of game hours, my training and experience kicking in.

  The enemy charge hit the shield line like an avalanche. Einherjar war cries met the snarls and shouts of the Giant's forces. The first berserker I saw up close wore ice-caked furs with a macabre scar covering half his face like a mask. Tattooed runes burned angrily across his chest. His axe came down like a guillotine towards me. To my eternal shame, I flinched, raising my sword to block him much too late. I braced myself for the pain of death.

  The axe suddenly redirected to slam into the side of the shield of a warrior beside me, sending the man reeling. Another Einherjar shield warrior behind me attempted to cover the gap. I belatedly swung, clumsy and wide. I barely grazed my opponent’s chest. I heard a grunt of pain, but it wasn't a deep wound. Another berserker next to my opponent unleashed a powerful swing with a mace, and I heard the awful crunch of a shield splintering. The warrior beside me collapsed; it was the warrior who had come to fill the gap I had inadvertently created. He looked up at me as he fell onto the snow; his chest had been pierced by the spikes of the mace after his shield broke. It felt like his gaze towards me was full of betrayal; his death the direct result of my inadequacy.

  To my right, at the same time, Eirik broke a berserker’s defence with a feint from his axe and a shield bash to the face. He then sank his axe into the stunned berserker's chest. “Stay focused!” he barked at me, using his leg to push the dying berserker off his weapon. Another pair of enemies lunged towards us; this time, I met my opponent head-on. Our swords clashed, and sparks flew. The berserker snarled and tried to spit in my face to make me flinch, but I was more in my element now, the shock wearing off, and I twisted his blade aside as I had done in the past, and pulled him off balance. I swung my sword to his exposed side, and it pierced the protective leather and frozen skin of the berserker's chest before reaching the heart. I pulled my blade from his body as he fell backwards in defeat.

  I had just killed a man.

  The realisation came with a jolt, sickening and hollow. In every game I had ever played, there were no screams like this. No blood that sprayed warm across your cheek. No feeling your blade slicing between your enemy's ribs under your thrust. No company would allow this as a simulation. This was… slaughter. Everything was mindless noise; the howl of the wind, the crunching of bone, the screams of the dead and dying.

  A massive shadow suddenly loomed above us all. The Fire Giant had leapt from the ridge like a falling star, molten blade raised high. It crashed into the middle of the battlefield, crushing friend and foe alike. The shockwave shattered what remained of the shield line. We stood no chance of resisting it. The blast wave launched me through the air, and I hit the ground hard, my armour and greaves scraping across churned snow as I rolled helplessly, trying not to lose my grip on my sword.

  My head was ringing like a church bell in the Vatican as I tried to stay conscious after finally coming to a ‘relatively’ gentle stop in a snowdrift. The taste of copper filled my mouth as I began to stand up. I had bitten my cheek when I had rolled around.

  At that moment, I caught sight of a shape moving on the left side of my now blurry peripheral vision - it was something fiendishly fast. As my vision cleared, the blur turned into a Chthonic Hound leaping towards me, eyes burning like coals and jaws slavering. In a panic, I threw myself down just in time to dodge the jaws snapping together where my head had just been.

  I scrambled up, the sword I had somehow kept hold of now raised. The hound circled me, dragging its chains, claws gouging the ground as it growled its hunger for my flesh. The hound came towards me once more. More prepared this time, I parried its wild swipe, returning with a swing of my own, my blade met its hide, cold metal cutting deep as we passed each other. The hound howled and recoiled from me; its burning ichor was now spilling into the snow from the wound.

  It came for me again, even faster this time, as if determined to end this duel as soon as possible. I ducked another swipe and slashed upward, scoring another shallow cut along its haunch. The creature twisted away from my sword with a hateful yowl and circled me, watching, waiting. I turned to follow its movements, pleased at my success. At that moment, I slipped on a patch of watery snow, melted by the burning blood the beast had spilt earlier - breaking my stance. Not one to waste such an opportunity, the beast sprang. And this time, it caught me square in the chest.

  We went down together, sliding through the blood and snow as I lost my grip on my sword. The beast roared its victory right into my face, its heavy weight and claws keeping me down as its disgusting hot breath and warm saliva sprayed over me. I took the opportunity it provided me during its roar to wedge my sword scabbard between its jaws, trying to hold back its sharpened teeth. My arms shook at the strain; I was already exhausted after the previous fights, and the adrenaline was starting to wear off. My armour slowly began to buckle beneath the weight of the beast, furrows being created as its claws raked against me, seeking purchase in my soft flesh. The stench and heat of the hound made it hard to breathe. Its fury, its hunger for me, was palpable.

  Suddenly, the hound shrieked in pain, and the weight on me lessened momentarily.

  There was a tremendous impact. Eirik barrelled into the beast with a roar; his axe was buried deep into its ribs. Eirik had thrown the axe at the beast just before shouldering it off from me. He grabbed the handle of the axe, ripping it free before driving it even deeper into the beast. He swung repeatedly against the body of the monetarily stunned hound, like he was chopping a tree. The hound collapsed with a spray of fiery black ichor. I blinked in disbelief at my sudden change in fortunes; I panted as I rolled to my side, determined to pick myself up to help Eirik. Exhaustion filled my every breath, but I was alive.

  Seeing the beast dying at his feet, my brain tries to file the moment under a “flawless victory,” but my hands are shaking just a little too hard as I pick up my sword to believe it wholeheartedly. I turned to Eirik, laughing through my gasping breaths.

  “That was—”

  Thunk.

  Pain. Indescribable pain filled me.

  I looked down. A spear jutted from my chest, piercing me clean through. I froze. Eirik shouted something at me, but I couldn't hear it over the blood roaring into my brain as my body reacted to the crisis. Time seemed to slow, every moment stretching into infinity in front of me. I couldn't even feel the cold anymore; there was just a soul-piercing pain. My sword slipped from my nerveless fingers as I stared at the shaft of the spear protruding from my body.

  I tried to lift a hand, but my arms didn’t respond. My legs buckled beneath me, losing all feeling, and I fell to one knee before the world tilted, and I collapsed. Now it was my warm blood spreading in a red wave beneath me.

  My lungs stopped filling properly as the cold grip of death closed my throat. With my remaining consciousness, I knew that this was truly the end - I was going to die, I tried to turn towards Eirik, hoping he could save me.

  Then-Darkness.

  Patchy’s Note:

  Valkyries aren’t just “warrior angels.” They’re Odin’s battle-maidens: (though they officially ‘serve’ under Freya’s direction) They’re scouts, champions, and recruiters for Valhalla. In theory, they choose who lives and who dies on the battlefields of the Nine Realms. In practice, they deliver orders, lead charges, and annoy Giants twice their size. The winged helmets though; purely a fashion choice.

  Patchy’s Note:

  Seeing as how Kai never explains any of this, I guess I must. Einherjar are the “honoured dead”, warriors who perish on the battlefields of the 9 Realms are ‘chosen’ by the Valkyries and given a second life in Valhalla (which makes it especially odd that we are here in the first place, as none of us ever ‘died heroically’ on Earth).

  In theory, Einherjar train and feast until Ragnarok, ready to fight at Odin’s side in the ‘final battle’ of the 9 Realms. In practice, they brawl, boast, and occasionally start feast-hall fights over who gets the last roast boar. They’ve already died once after all, which makes them fearless. Or reckless. Usually both.

  Patchy’s Note: Fire Giants, those charming J?tnar from Muspelheim, are living furnaces. Their weapons stay heated for hours after battle, and their breath can melt metal (and smells awful). They’ve got a complicated relationship with the other Giant clans: sometimes allies, sometimes mortal enemies. But they all agree on one thing: they hate Asgardians, and they really hate Odin.

  Patchy’s Note: I’m certain he meant to write ‘momentarily’ stunned here, but reading this was so funny to imagine, I’m just going to leave it for other readers to enjoy.