Einherjar Becomes Valkyrie

With Izana's high consumption of magic cores, Elena sent the Izana Knights to hunt monsters within her territory, and she ordered Necro to send his skeleton soldiers even outside the territory for the same purpose. The Izana Knights should not stray far from Izana as they could be required, instead, the skeleton soldiers were disposable.

Elena did not expect to get even A-cores from all this. Even so, lower-quality-cores would feed the magic circles that generated water for Izana.

Fulfilling this task, the Necro's skeletons made a singular discovery.

Across the border, in Sadora territory, the soldier skeletons found a huge cavern hidden on the wall of a rugged canyon. The place was inaccessible without the proper equipment, but for the skeletons, it had only been a matter of doing a few jumps over a few rocks embedded in the canyon wall.

The problem with that discovery was that after entering that cave, the entire group of fifteen skeleton soldiers was destroyed, or at least this was the obvious conclusion. This had happened so quickly that the skeletons did not have time to transmit a bit of information to Necro about the interior of the cavern.

Intrigued by this and not wanting to disturb Elena, who was happily living with her father, Necro sent a second group of skeleton soldiers. This time the group comprised forty skeletons.

To Necro's bewilderment, after the new group of skeletons entered the cavern, he lost full contact with all of them. This meant that all of them had been destroyed.

Without further choice, Necro informed Elena about what had happened.

Forty skeleton soldiers destroyed before they could even transmit a single message. There could be nothing good behind it.

By Elena's judgment, even if there was an S-rank monster inside that cavern, the skeleton soldiers should have had enough time to send a mental message to Necro and report what was inside the cavern.

However, if what was inside that cavern was an SS-rank monster, then this was a problem that could be turned into a benefit.

The cavern was not too far from Izana territory, so the existence of an SS-rank monster so close was not a good thing, and from another perspective, wasn't this an unmatched opportunity to get an SS-core?

Determined to find out what hid in that cave, Elena left Izana. She did not want to leave Izana unprotected by taking with her Izana Knights. Now that her father was in Izana, it couldn't be ruled out that the court would send professional assassins to finish the job.

Elena also denied Nia and Harlan's offers to accompany her, Nia was not strong enough yet, and Harlan could make up for her absence at Izana. Despite Harlan's age, based on Kaname's eyes, Elena estimated that Harlan was probably stronger than an Izana Knight.

Also, if what was in that cavern turned out to be something as dangerous as a dragon, Elena was sure she could easily escape using warp, something that would be more complicated if she had to worry about someone else's safety.

Following Necro's map, it took Elena half a day to get to the canyon. She had used runic magic and sorcery on her horse.

Elena dismounted and walked to the edge of the canyon.

At first glance, there seemed to be nothing unusual with the canyon stretching for hundreds of meters, and with a depth of about fifteen meters at the deepest part. It was impossible to see the access to the cavern from the edge of the ravine; the skeletons found it since they had gone down to the bottom of the canyon looking for monsters to kill and get magic cores.

「It would interest if it was a dragon」

Elena mumbled that mockingly. She did not wish for a fierce battle. If there was a dragon down there, she would escape without hesitation.

If she working hard, Elena could defeat a True Dragon using Aesir mode and thanks to her carrying a mytril sword. However, a very different matter was whether it was an Ancient Dragon, an SS+ rank monster.

Elena did not want to engage in a death battle with an Ancient Dragon, and she did not even seek to test her abilities against a True Dragon.

For Elena, the interesting thing in such scenarios would be to find something that would force her to flee for the first time since she got the legacy of Kaname.

Elena unsheathed her sword and then leaped into the cannon. She turned her body and then stuck her sword on the wall.

The mytril sword did not find much resistance between the earth and the rocks, so Elena had to rest her feet on the canyon wall to decrease the speed with which she glided towards the bottom.

Elena only had to worry about going down to return to where her horse was she could use warp.

Soon the canyon wall sank inward and Elena could finally see the access to the cavern.

Elena put some force on her feet and withdrew her sword from the canyon wall, then made a few turns in the air and finally fell to her feet in front of the entrance to the cavern.

「This place…」

Elena narrowed her eyes suspiciously once she could look carefully at the access to the cave. The shape of the access was perfectly rectangular. There was no way this had been done by nature.

Inevitably Elena felt the desire to enter, her adventurous spirit, and of which she was not aware that she possessed asked her to enter this place that probably had not been explored in centuries.

Without forgetting caution, Elena finally entered the cavern.

The path was straight and dark, but Elena could see in the dark, the only worrying thing for her was that the corridor was empty, with no marks, loose rocks or any notable sign, just the perfectly rectangular corridor of about two-and-a-half meters high and three meters wide that stretched without a visible end.

Elena tightened her sword hilt and increased her level of caution. There was not a single trace of Necro's skeleton soldiers. Had they been completely devoured?

She continued to move forward cautiously as she searched her mind for any SS-rank monster or higher that would devour bones.

As she took one more step, Elena heard a sinister screech coming from the front. However, two shocking phenomena occurred that did not allow her to pay attention to that sound.

Elena felt an alteration in the flow of her magic power, and her eyes widened with great surprise when she saw how the blade of her sword lost its lustrous silver-blue shine.

「Anti-magic?」

That leaked through Elena's lips on her own and she lost her breath. That shocking effect was the same as the one in Aesir mode.

The sound of heavy footsteps echoing down the corridor, Elena pushed her thoughts aside and brought her gaze forward. Her vision in the dark had decreased considerably because of the alteration in the flow of her magic power.

All Elena could see in the shadows ahead was a crimson flash, coming toward her accompanied by the sound of those footsteps and sinister squeaks.

Elena's heartbeat rapidly. A God?

In this world, there were only two types of beings that could generate an anti-magic effect, those with the Aesir ability, and the Gods...

As that approached and Elena sweat coldly, the option of opening a warp to escape took shape in her mind.

Elena was experiencing fear for the first time since she gained Kaname's legacy.

If what was approaching in the dark was a God, using warp was the stupidest thing she could do. Only the gods and transmigrants could use warp, if she used it within the reach of the magic eyes of a God, she would end up in the same way as Kaname, being chased by the gods. They would try to catch her to find out why she could use warp, and once they found out that her soul was Kaname's, they would not hesitate for a second to destroy her entirely.

Elena bit her lips to use the pain to clear her mind.

If I do nothing stupid, they won't find out —Elena regained her composure once this thought came to her mind.

As long as she did not use magic beyond the reach of a human while it was within the reach of the magic eyes of the Gods, they would suspect nothing.

Elena took a deep breath to prepare herself for what she thought would be an unfortunate encounter with a god, yet her deep breath halted and her pupils constricted.

That which emerged from the shadows of the corridor caused Elena's mind to go blank. Her heart even stopped beating for half a second.

Four arms, two of them severed at the elbow. A huge jaw covered in several rows of sharp triangular teeth and eight slimy tentacles protruding from the edge of what appeared to be lips.

The body of the creature about two meters high was entirely covered with scales and black spikes. A single and ominous blood-red eye occupied a quarter of the grotesque creature's head.

The creature stopped about fifty feet away from Elena, opened its ominous jaw, and made a hideous screech as its eight tentacles danced wildly from the vibration caused by its own screech.

「Xibil…」

Elena murmured that name, the name of a creature that should not exist in this world. A Xibil, a demon of old, one of those creatures that Kaname fought against.

The ghastly screeching of the Xibil stopped, and the creature immediately charged at Elena.

Being in front of such an ominous creature stunned Elena. She barely returns to reality once the Xibil stretched its only two fully functional arms towards her.

Elena reacted barely in time to back off and evade the Xibil's arms, and as a reflex act, she thrust her sword forward.

The tip of Elena's sword reached Xibil's chest, a breaking sound was heard and Elena held her breath as she saw her sword break.

That had been a mistake caused by a lack of mental clarity, but a mistake without major consequences. The mytril was not only ineffective against the Xibils, but against these ominous creatures, the mytril was even weaker than iron.

Elena tossed aside what was left of her sword and as she continued to step back, she raised her palms forward.

「Fire Ball!」

A large ball of fire emerged from Elena's hands and flew at high speed towards the Xibil.

The fireball exploded on contact with the Xibil; the creature gave a faint screech, and the corridor shook. However, just half a second later the Xibil emerged unscathed from the smoke.

「Fire Ball! Fire Ball! Fire Ball! 」

Elena made several successive attacks while continuing to back away.

Because of the anti-magic effect that was created by the Xibil within a hundred-meter radius, Elena needed time to prepare sorcery more complex than that simple low-magnitude spell with which she was attacking.

The impact and subsequent explosions of the fireballs barely slowed the Xibil down a bit. It was more likely that the corridor would collapse before the Xibil was injured.

「Fire Ball! Fire Ball! 」

After launching two low-magnitude magic attacks, Elena hurriedly turned around.

「Warp!」

Elena practically jumped towards the light door before it finished taking shape.

Elena's body entered the light gate and a thousandth of a second later she emerged about five meters away from her horse.

Elena rolled onto the ground as she hastily cut off the flow of magical power towards the warp.

A powerful screech emerged from the warp, but that was it, the warp closed and Elena let out a very long sigh of relief.

A Xibil, a demon of old.

Necro's skeletons had not been defeated before sending any messages. Once they had entered the Xibil's anti-magic field, the magic of their bodies vanished and they were common bones again.

Spirits, homunculus, puppets, and every magical creature lost consciousness or ceased to function upon contact with a Xibil's anti-magic field, and the mytril lost all its effectiveness becoming less useful than rusty iron. As if this were not enough, the physical strength of the Xibils was comparable to that of the giants, their scales provided them with bodies as hard as wrought iron, and their eight tentacles produced a paralyzing effect that magic could not directly neutralize.

It was difficult to determine if the Xibils were living beings or machines. As long as their hearts were not destroyed, their bodies could continue to move even if they were beheaded. As for food intake, the Xibils could survive by eating rocks and dirt, and they did not feed through their ominous mouths.

After many battles against the Xibils, Kaname determined that these creatures were bio-machines.

With all the above into account, it is easy to understand why the world was on the brink of destruction in the distant past.

The Xibil's anti-magic field weakened the creatures of this world or nullified them entirely. Only the transmigrants and the gods were immune to this effect, but Elena was not a transmigrant, her magical flow had become clumsy and for a few seconds she felt as weak as she had been before obtaining the legacy of Kaname.

However, there is a shocking truth that must be taken into account. The Xibils were only soldiers, disposable pawns of much more powerful masters, the Ajawab, the Lords of Xib'alb'a.