Chapter 900: The Healing Valkyrie
The cross-shaped opening created by Yamato appeared in the center of Sparda without warning, splitting space into four sections before allowing Vergil to step through.
The contrast between the two worlds was immediate.
Behind him, for a few brief seconds, it was still possible to see the completely black sky and ash desert of the Inverted World of Exile.
Ahead of him, there were colors again.
Buildings.
People.
Energy.
And that almost strange feeling of being somewhere alive.
Vergil stepped out of the fissure carrying Frey over one shoulder as though he were transporting a particularly inconvenient sack of potatoes, closing the dimensional cut with a casual movement of Yamato’s sheath.
Frey’s condition, however, removed any possibility of the image actually being funny.
The god remained unconscious, so thin that his bones seemed drawn beneath his skin, his long filthy hair hanging down Vergil’s back while the remnants of his clothes swayed without resistance.
The first people to notice his arrival were two women talking not far away.
Selene stood in front of a Valkyrie Vergil did not yet know, apparently discussing something related to the newcomers adapting to Sparda.
The warrior had long, light-blonde hair carefully tied back so it would not interfere with movement, while her blue eyes carried an unusual softness compared to the Valkyries Vergil had met so far.
There was no weakness in her posture.
Quite the opposite.
Every small movement revealed refined martial training and the natural confidence of someone capable of crossing a battlefield without hesitation.
Even so, there was something different about her compared to Brynhildr, Sigrun, or even the impulsive Göll.
Her eyes observed first to understand and only afterward to judge.
Among the Valkyries, Alvitr was one of those who came closest to what other cultures would call a healer, although any enemy who interpreted that as an inability to fight would probably have very little time to regret the mistake.
Selene was the first to recognize Vergil.
"Vergil?"
Alvitr followed her gaze and immediately stopped speaking.
Her gentle expression vanished the instant she saw the unconscious man over the Demon King’s shoulder.
She did not even ask who Vergil was.
Apparently, she had received enough descriptions of the Valkyries’ new sovereign to recognize him at first glance.
What caught her attention was Frey.
Her eyes quickly traveled over the dry skin, the extremely thin limbs, and the shallow breathing before she simply abandoned her conversation with Selene and ran toward them.
"What happened to this person?"
Vergil looked at her for a moment.
He still did not know all of the thousands of Valkyries who now lived in his kingdom, and his direct experience up to that point had been mainly with Brynhildr, Göll, and Sigrun.
That woman’s reaction, however, clearly told him she understood medical assessment better than most.
"I found him in the Inverted World of Exile."
Alvitr slowed when she got close.
Vergil removed Frey from his shoulder and carefully placed him on the ground, laying him on his back before continuing.
"His name is Frey. Norse god. Freya’s brother. He had been missing for months, and I found him walking nonstop through that place."
Alvitr immediately crouched.
"Walking in this condition?"
"Yes."
She placed two fingers against Frey’s neck, checked his pulse, then opened one eyelid to observe the pupil.
Vergil continued while she worked.
"He didn’t react when I called his name. Didn’t recognize my presence and kept trying to move in one specific direction. Qliphoth examined his mind and found no corruption, hypnosis, or any direct mental alteration. According to her, his mental structure is practically intact."
Alvitr frowned slightly.
"Then why is he unconscious?"
Vergil shrugged.
"I hit him."
Selene closed her eyes.
Alvitr slowly raised her face.
Vergil added:
"Before that, he punched me hard enough to send me flying for kilometers. I thought it was better to shut him down before I got another one."
The Valkyrie looked again at Frey’s nearly mummified body.
"Him?"
"Him."
Alvitr became thoughtful for a few seconds.
That definitely did not match the physical condition she saw in front of her.
She passed her hands a few centimeters above his body, allowing a clear energy to travel across different regions without directly touching his skin.
Her eyes narrowed.
"Did you check whether there are runes on his body?"
Vergil went silent.
Alvitr looked up.
"Runes."
"I heard you."
"Did you check?"
"I didn’t have time."
That was not entirely true.
He could have examined every inch of Frey’s body in the Inverted World, but between the trance, the absurd punch, and his desire to get the god out of that place, hidden runes had not exactly been his first concern.
"Can I look?"
Vergil gestured toward the man on the ground.
"Go ahead."
Alvitr turned Frey onto his stomach with surprising care, supporting his head to one side so his breathing would not be compromised.
Then she began removing the scraps of ruined fabric that still covered his torso.
Some simply fell apart in her hands.
Other pieces had to be carefully cut until Frey’s back was fully exposed.
Vergil immediately noticed the marks.
There were dozens.
Maybe hundreds.
Small and apparently random lines spread across his back, shoulders, the sides of his ribs, and part of his spine.
Some looked like ordinary scratches.
Others resembled old scars, dark spots, or small lines caused by the skin’s deterioration itself.
That was exactly why he had not noticed anything before.
Alvitr, however, froze.
"Ah."
Vergil crossed his arms.
"Is that ’ah’ good or bad?"
"Bad."
"Naturally."
The Valkyrie brought two fingers close to one of the marks without touching it.
A thin blue line appeared at the tip of her nail and began following the existing traces.
Alvitr connected one mark near the shoulder to another located a few centimeters below.
Then she added a third near the spine.
Apparently disconnected when viewed separately, they began forming a geometry.
A rune.
Alvitr continued.
She connected five marks around the lower back.
Another rune appeared.
Then nine near the ribs.
A third.
Within a few minutes, practically all of Frey’s back had transformed into an enormous runic network made from smaller symbols layered over one another.
Some runes were familiar to traditional Norse knowledge.
Others were archaic variants.
There were also symbols that appeared deliberately incomplete, depending on marks scattered across different parts of the body to exist as a single structure.
Vergil became serious.
"You know this."
"Parts of it."
Alvitr moved her hand over one of the sets, and her gentle expression became far more focused.
"This was made to look natural. These lines imitate physical damage, wear, dehydration, and even cracks caused by dry skin. Separately, none of them look like a rune. You need to know exactly which marks to connect."
Selene had also moved closer and was now watching over the Valkyrie’s shoulder.
"What do they do?"
Alvitr took a few seconds to answer.
"Movement."
Vergil narrowed his eyes.
She touched another sequence.
"Direction."
Another.
"Persistence."
Another.
"Recognition suppression."
Vergil immediately remembered Frey’s dead eyes.
Alvitr continued connecting smaller sections, and as she progressed, her expression grew increasingly concerned.
"This didn’t destroy his mind. It didn’t need to. The runes are bypassing consciousness."
Qliphoth immediately spoke inside Vergil’s soul.
"So that’s why I didn’t find anything."
Vergil answered aloud, knowing only he would hear the first part of the conversation.
"You were searching inside his head."
Alvitr looked at him, not entirely understanding who he was speaking to, but continued her explanation.
"Whoever did this didn’t need to control his thoughts, erase memories, or change his personality. They created runic instructions directly on the body and probably linked those instructions to the soul. The mind can remain perfectly healthy while the body receives independent commands."
Crymsaria murmured inside him:
"So I was right about it being something beyond mental manipulation."
Nivara replied:
"Partially."
"Don’t ruin it."
Vergil ignored the argument.
"Can you remove them?"
Alvitr sat back on her heels and observed all the connected runes.
"Not right now."
Vergil did not pressure her.
She pointed toward several sequences.
"There are Norse runes here, but they’re mixed with structures I’ve never seen used this way. Some seem to function as keys for others. If I erase the wrong one first, I might activate another part of the enchantment."
"Could it kill him?"
"Maybe."
The answer came seriously.
Vergil remained silent.
Alvitr quickly added:
"But I can decode it. I need a few hours, maybe more, depending on how deep the layers go. I can start by isolating the parts I recognize and reconstruct the pattern from the outside inward. Then I’ll know exactly what they did to him."
Vergil nodded.
"So he was manipulated by someone capable of using Norse Runes."
"Yes."
Alvitr looked again at the symbols spread across Frey’s back.
"And someone very skilled. This wasn’t improvised. Whoever did this knew how to hide a complex command inside the body of a god without directly altering his consciousness."
Vergil’s expression hardened for a moment.
This was the first concrete evidence they had about Frey’s condition.
More importantly, it confirmed that his state was not simply a consequence of the Inverted World.
Someone had done this deliberately.
"Do everything you can, please."
Alvitr looked up at him.
The sentence caught her attention more than it should have.
She knew far too many stories about the man standing before her.
Demon King.
Lucifer.
Aethernox.
The being who had entered Asgard, stolen Bifröst, taken Mjölnir, fought Thor, survived Gungnir, and confronted Odin before leaving with thousands of Valkyries.
She had expected arrogance.
Orders.
Maybe indifference.
Instead, he had asked.
For a Demon King... he is extremely kind.
Alvitr nodded.
"I’ll do everything I can."
"Thank you."
Vergil looked at Frey one more time.
"I’m going to tell Freya."
Selene raised an eyebrow.
"Maybe it would be better to tell her gently."
"She’s been looking for her brother for months."
"Exactly."
Vergil thought about it.
Then placed a hand on Yamato.
"I’ll try."
Selene saw the complete lack of conviction in the answer.
"That did not reassure me."
Vergil drew Yamato and made a small vertical cut through space.
A passage immediately appeared in front of him.
Before crossing, he turned back toward Alvitr.
"If he wakes up and tries to walk..."
Alvitr waited.
"Don’t stand in front of him."
She blinked.
Vergil crossed through.
Space closed behind him.
For a few seconds, Alvitr remained staring at the empty point where the Demon King had disappeared.
Then she slowly turned toward Selene.
"Is he always so..."
She searched for the right word.
Selene sighed.
"Like that?"
"Yes."
Selene crossed her arms and watched Frey while Alvitr carefully returned to her work.
"Vergil is extremely arrogant."
Alvitr slowly nodded.
"That much I noticed."
"Cruel."
The Valkyrie stopped.
Selene continued calmly.
"Evil."
Alvitr blinked.
The description did not fit very well with the man who had just carefully placed a subordinate—or not even that, considering Frey did not belong to the kingdom—on the ground, explained everything to a stranger, and ended by asking for help with a ’please.’
Selene noticed the confusion.
"But with his own, he’s different."
"How?"
"Kind when he wants to be. Polite almost all the time. Gentle far more often than he admits."
Selene let out a small smile.
"He can threaten to destroy an entire kingdom in the morning and, by afternoon, stop everything because someone close to him is hurt."
Alvitr looked back at the runes on Frey’s back.
"That’s... contradictory."
"You get used to it."
"For a Demon King, he’s pretty strange."
Selene shrugged.
"He’s better than most kings."
Alvitr thought for a moment.
Then looked toward the place where Vergil had disappeared.
"That doesn’t exactly sound difficult."
Selene smiled.
"Now you’re starting to understand Sparda."