Chapter 101

Even a powerful Valkyrie wouldn't fare well after being hit point-blank by a Vivian-brand bat bomb. The crazed warrior was completely still, lying on the ground. Her armor was even more tattered, and scorch marks from the electricity stretched along her waist, through the gaps in her female-style armor. The damage nearly covered half of her torso.

Yet, she wasn't dead.

Vivian had deliberately controlled the power of that small bat. Based on her memory of Valkyrie traits, she designed the attack to incapacitate the enemy with a tremendous electric shock, so she could figure out what was going on with her.

"Is she dead?" Lily came to Vivian's side, crouching down and cautiously poking the Valkyrie's face with her paw. "I think she's cooked."

"No, Valkyries are very tenacious. That shock was just enough to overload and stun her," Vivian said, skillfully disassembling the Valkyrie's abdominal armor. "This should be a high-ranking Valkyrie. Her Thunder Sword requires a huge amount of magic to drive. It's understandable that a Valkyrie of this level could survive Ragnarok."

Nangong Sanba patted his chest, a bit shaken. "I didn't expect the legendary Valkyries to be so powerful. Even one Valkyrie has such high combat power."

"You think Valkyries have low combat power in the Aesir pantheon?" Vivian raised an eyebrow at him. "Later legends aren't accurate. In fact, Valkyries are quite powerful warriors in Norse mythology. Although they're called Odin's 'handmaidens,' that's just a title. They're standard combat experts. Valkyries are the commanders of the Einherjar legion, the top combat force of the Aesir main army. Each Valkyrie has combat power comparable to the Norse gods. And this one... she should actually be even more powerful. Valkyries can cast spells in battle, but this one is completely insane and only knows how to charge around."

As Vivian spoke, she deftly removed the largest piece of armor from the Valkyrie's abdomen, revealing equally tattered white clothes underneath. Hao Ren, watching from the side, felt a bit awkward. "What are you doing... should I leave?"

He thought that if she kept taking off clothes like this, this chapter would have to be blurred out with holy light and censor bars...

"Can you not be so perverted at a critical moment?" Vivian rolled her eyes at him, then ripped open the last piece of tattered cloth on the Valkyrie's abdomen.

Beneath the clothes wasn't skin, but a translucent, light-gold shell.

The shell's material was like amber, emitting a constant, faint glow. It covered two-thirds of the Valkyrie's abdomen, and several silver-white lines extended from the shell's edges, gradually merging with the surrounding skin tissue. Beneath this shell, a large number of complex cables and metal strips were intertwined, and a bright blue-white light source was wrapped in the center of these cables, flickering slightly, like a heart.

"Huh?" Hao Ren was stunned when he saw this, muttering subconsciously, "Is this a robot? A magic puppet?"

"It's a fusion body. You can call her a mecha-girl, since fusion bodies are only female. This is because only the spirit of a female Aesir can perfectly synchronize with the Valkyrie core," Vivian said, tapping lightly on the light-gold 'amber shell' with her finger. As she tapped, various complex lines and symbols appeared on the shell. It was actually a control panel. "As I said, the Aesir gods—or the Aesir race—they're a race that excels in radiation and electromagnetic technology, and they also have strong mental powers. Many of their warriors are produced on this basis. Valkyries are strictly selected female warriors. When they're still alive, they undergo extremely harsh training. Almost from the moment they can walk, they're sent to the academy, honing their combat skills day and night, eventually becoming unmatched combat experts. Then they're sent to the front lines of Jotunheim to engage in continuous combat without supplies or support. The only purpose of this combat is to make them die in battle. The senior Valkyries accompany these candidates. Whenever a candidate dies, she's immediately taken back to Asgard, and Frigg personally implants something called the 'Valkyrie core' into them. This core transforms the newly deceased candidate, turning her body into a combat tool while pulling her soul back from the land of the dead. Thus, a new Valkyrie is born."

This cruel method of training warriors left everyone present speechless. Even Izhaks couldn't help but click his tongue. "That's ruthless."

"Every race has its own way of survival. In the Valkyries' own eyes, they don't think their experiences are special. It's just a special profession, with a special training and onboarding process. The Aesir are good at using mental power. They see all kinds of dead people as important resources because the mental power at the moment of death is the strongest and easiest to use. You should have heard by now that the Einherjar creation process is actually a simplified version of the Valkyrie process, and the simplified version is naturally much worse than the real thing. Einherjar (spirits) can't retain their personalities from life, their combat power is quite low, and more importantly..."

Vivian looked at Gungnir in Hao Ren's hand. "They're just combat puppets. Valkyries can think. That's why you can suppress Einherjar with this gun, but you can't suppress Valkyries."

Hao Ren oh-ed, then curiously watched Vivian's movements. "What are you doing?"

"Applying appropriate stimulation to the Valkyrie core can restore the Valkyrie to normal, usually it works," Vivian said without looking up. "Warriors who become Valkyries can't really be called human anymore. Half of their body is machine, so calling them mecha-girls is right. That's why all kinds of machine repair methods also work on them."

Nangong Sanba, watching from the side, became more and more curious. "How are you so familiar with this?"

Vivian gave a bright smile, casually sending an arc of electricity into the Valkyrie core: "Because I was close to Frigg back then."

"Zap..."

A light crackle of electricity came, and then the deeply comatose Valkyrie began to tremble. The Valkyrie core in her abdomen instantly became extremely dim, then brighter and brighter, and the metal tubes and cables around the core slowly changed color. As this system self-check process came to an end, the Valkyrie suddenly opened her eyes.

A blank expression remained on her face for a few seconds. Then her eyes darted around, staring at Hao Ren's face and letting out a strange roar. Hao Ren just raised his hand to greet her when the Valkyrie suddenly flipped over, scurrying several meters away on all fours, crouching like a wild animal and growling threateningly.

Her movements revealed an irrational wildness, no different from an animal.

"Uh... why hasn't she recovered yet?" Lily was dumbfounded. "Bat, did you press the wrong button when you restarted her?"

"It shouldn't be... the Valkyrie core has been reset. They all have automatic restoration. After the reset, they either keep lying there, or they'll definitely recover," Vivian said, scratching her hair. "No Valkyrie has ever escaped this forced restoration."

"She seems a little different from before," Hao Ren said, watching the Valkyrie who was crouched not far away, disheveled, constantly growling at them. He noticed a change in her behavior. "This time, she's not attacking us."

"And she's scared," Lily suddenly said. "She's bluffing because she's afraid of being attacked, so she's putting on this tough act."

Gala卓尔 curiously looked at Lily. "How did you see that?"

"This guy is best at tucking her tail between her legs and howling at people," Vivian said casually. "She speaks the same language as all four-legged creatures."

Although she habitually teased Lily, Vivian really thought the husky girl made sense:

The Valkyrie in front of them, despite still looking crazy, had completely lost her aggressiveness.

Nangong Sanba hesitantly suggested, "I think we should go and communicate with her."

May glanced at her brother. "You want to try?"

Sanba shook his head vigorously. "No, no, let's pick someone who can take a beating. If the negotiations fall apart, they can come back with a shield wall."

Izhaks spoke in a rough voice. "Then I..."

Everyone said in unison, "Shut up and step back!"

Izhaks: "..."

"Looks like it's just me," Hao Ren looked around, resigning himself to the fact that this kind of chore would eventually fall on his head. "Can take a beating and has a friendly face, who else could it be but me."

After muttering this, he raised a rigid shield and, under everyone's gaze, slowly moved towards the Valkyrie not far away.