Chapter 1 Though He Had Guessed

Despite having already guessed what the world on the other side of the Rainbow Bridge would be like, and despite guessing what kind of destructive power the "mana radiation" in Vivian's mouth would have, it was not until he and the others stepped out of the teleportation gate that Hao Ren realized how miserable the kingdom outside Asgard was now.

They crossed the spiral gate of the Rainbow Bridge and stepped into a place that seemed like purgatory.

The earth was burned to ashes, and everything in the world collapsed into dust. Hao Ren stood on the wreckage of the Rainbow Bridge on this side and looked into the distance. Every inch of land he saw showed signs of severe distortion. Huge and terrifying ravines were everywhere, and thick smoke billowed from the ravines, as if the endless karmic fire in the ground fissures had not been extinguished to this day. Outside the ravines, continuous patches of greenish-yellow vitreous bodies covered everything. Those vitreous bodies glowed, and their shape resembled disgusting, viscous liquid. They were distributed in clusters, extending from under the Rainbow Bridge to the end of the horizon. These vitreous bodies were the product of mana radiation—unprecedentedly powerful magical energy, coupled with the catalytic shock of the hunter's beam cannon, the resulting mixed mana completely burned and destroyed the earth, turning all organic matter on the earth into this disgusting and strange, glass-like substance. These mana-soaked remnants could hardly be used for anything, they were like a curse itself, hot and nauseatingly covering the earth, making it impossible for anything to grow here for thousands or even tens of thousands of years.

A sky ruled by ashes and dust enveloped the earth, and the heavy clouds of dust almost obscured all light. Heaven and earth were shrouded in dimness, making this purgatory-like world even more terrifying and gloomy.

This was a burned-out world, a world where all prosperity and vitality had been melted into slag. The air was filled with deadly poisonous gas and radiation, the sky no longer had light to shine on it, life was extinct, everything was contaminated, and no creatures could thrive in this environment—at least, not most ordinary species.

May clutched Hao Ren's arm a little fearfully, stretching her neck and trying to find a trace of life in the distance, but it was clear that she couldn't find it. In this completely burned place, there was only one living creature, and that was the tentacles on the edge of the continent.

The powerful Yggdrasil, its tentacles that ran through the continent could still survive even here. Now everyone was standing on one of its tentacles, and a dozen other tentacles were swaying slightly in the distance, with strange silver-white runes shining on them as well. However, these biological tissues could not bring a trace of life and warmth to this place. On the contrary, these strange things could only make this place appear more eerie and terrifying, like a nightmare from the abyss.

The Rainbow Bridge on this side, like the Rainbow Bridge in Asgard, only had the spiral gate still operating. The crystalline walkway covering the branches of Yggdrasil was already fragmented, and due to the erosion of mana, the crystalline walkway on this side appeared in a more tragic state. Hao Ren walked in front, leading everyone slowly towards the completely dead earth along the eldest son's tentacles. He had seen what Asgard looked like after Ragnarok, and at that time, he thought it was already quite a tragic wasteland, but when he arrived here, he realized how beautiful Asgard was.

Although it was also destroyed by war, compared to here, it was almost like paradise.

"Which kingdom is this? The land of the dead, Niflheim? Svartalfheim? Muspelheim?" Nangong Sanba couldn't help but mutter, "It can't be Midgard, can it… This is too miserable."

"I can't recognize it at all," Vivian frowned, "I never thought the mana would burn so violently, it actually… This space has been completely burned over, everything is unrecognizable, the mountains have collapsed, the rivers have dried up, I don't even know where we are."

"Those 'battlefield scavengers' we saw on the surveillance footage came to Asgard through the Rainbow Bridge," Hao Ren looked at Vivian, "In other words, they crossed this wasteland, who do you think could do that?"

"The strong among the Aesir gods or the fire giants should be able to barely survive in this environment, but they definitely can't survive for long: there's no water or food here, and it doesn't seem likely that it produces those things. Also, judging from the clothing, dress, and physical characteristics of the figures in the surveillance footage, they are clearly not giants or Aesir gods. They look more like humans from Midgard to me," Vivian said, spreading her hands helplessly, "Humans absolutely can't survive here for more than ten minutes, I can't explain this problem."

The group walked down the Rainbow Bridge and explored this dead world. There were no relics to collect, and no battlefield ruins to examine. The mana storm equally destroyed everything here, leaving only worthless ashes for people to look at.

If nothing could be found here, Hao Ren's next goal was another Rainbow Bridge more than a hundred kilometers away, where there was a gate leading to the next "world."

According to Vivian, apart from Asgard's only "omnipotent Rainbow Bridge," the other eight kingdoms each had two space channels that could point to two kingdoms respectively. When Heimdall died, these space channels were fixed in pairs, connecting several kingdoms into a chain.

Now that they didn't have Odin's gemstone guidance, Hao Ren and the others couldn't control the Rainbow Bridge's mapping, so they could only go down one kingdom at a time.

Originally, Hao Ren didn't have any hope for this desolate continent, but hope always came unexpectedly: this place wasn't really without anything.

"Landlord! There's something here!"

Lily, who was running around everywhere in the front, suddenly stopped in front of a small hill and turned her head to shout loudly.

The group hurried over, and Lily pointed to a pile of objects on the ground: "It looks like it was left by humans."

Several rocks that had been hammered into shape were neatly stacked together. Some unrecognizable pottery shards and leather fragments were scattered around the stones. At the top of the stone pile, there was a metal-cast staff, and next to the staff was a small device that looked like a compass—these things might be some kind of symbolic souvenirs. A smoothed stone slab was lying flat on the ground, with some ancient writing on it.

Hao Ren bent down and used the translation plug-in to identify the writing on the stone slab: "...Seeker Tanarosa rests here. His life was devoted to finding the embers of starlight in the Nine Realms, but he found nothing until his death. This warrior fell in Vanaheim. May the ancestors and Valkyries protect his soul and guide him to the eternal kingdom."

Lily carefully turned over the stone slab and found that there were indeed more words on the back of the stone slab:

"Friend, I will continue our journey, even if there is only one person left, I will reach Asgard. May you protect me in the palaces of the eternal kingdom, and if I fall, may we reunite in the eternal kingdom. If someday there are new seekers who set out, I hope they can see these words. We are trapped in the long night, but we advance towards the light until death."

"Seeker…" Vivian repeated the word in a low voice, "I haven't heard of this saying in the Norse cultural system."

"Obviously, it's a term that emerged after the Nine Realms separated from the Prime Material Plane," Hao Ren frowned, reasoning the meaning hidden in this text, "Fell in Vanaheim… In other words, this is Vanaheim?"

"The former home of the Vanir gods. This place was originally lush with water and grass, with several large rivers and an inland sea, and there were often phantom lights in the sky," Vivian looked at the surrounding land that had been completely destroyed by mana and sighed softly, "I really didn't expect it to become like this."

Anthony carefully observed the small tomb and suddenly made a discovery: "The handwriting is fresh."

Hao Ren immediately perked up: "Just left behind?!"

The old mage immediately summoned a detection-type magic orb, which circled the metal staff a few times and then disappeared: "No more than... two days. This place is full of mana. Based on the accumulation of mana on the metal surface, we can judge when it was last touched by a living thing."

Lily immediately jumped up: "The person who left these things is probably still in Vanaheim!"

"Search separately!" Before Vivian could finish speaking, she summoned a swarm of small bats in a flash. A large, dark swarm of bats spread out in all directions. "There are no signs of anyone passing through the Rainbow Bridge on the Asgard side. This person is probably in trouble!"

Hao Ren, Galazriel, and Anthony also immediately opened their respective portable spaces and released all the detection probes they carried with them. The detection probes and bat swarms quickly disappeared into the chaotic sky of Vanaheim, and a rapidly expanding scanning area was mapped out in the data terminal and Vivian's mind.

Galazriel looked worried: "This person said he was going to Asgard, but we didn't find any trace of him when we came over from the Rainbow Bridge. He's probably lost."

Hao Ren's heart sank: "Getting lost in this hellhole… I really can't imagine the consequences. That person was able to walk all the way here, hopefully he has more ways to save his life, otherwise we'll be one step too late."