"And the winner of the third round of Ragnarok is...Jack The Ripper!"
As the God of commentating and the arena, Heimdall, announced the victor for the third fight of the Ragnarok tournament, cheers of dissatisfaction and hatred rang out on both sides of the ring. Gods and humans alike both began to spew insults at the old man who was now haggardly walking back to his living quarters after his performative final bow.
Rocks were tossed and hurled at the elder as tears wailed out for the now fallen hero - Heracles.
While all of this was happening however, a despondent soul that had somehow lost its own sense of self and floated aimlessly in Helheim, suddenly awakened.
The white hovering mass of memories slowly began to form and gradually hardened. After a couple of hours it now took the shape of a gigantic humanoid with six arms.
A powerful surge of fragmented thoughts and memories then surged within the entity's mind and now it could only remember two things.
"I-I am...Asura!"
And the wrath that was ingrained into its very soul.
...
An entire day quickly passed by and by now, the six-armed demigod had gained a physical form but still could not remember his past. All he knew was that his name was Asura and he was consumed by an inexplicable rage that burned hotter than any flame, a fury that felt eternal and justified, though he couldn't recall why.
Asura stood at a staggering height of four meters. His build was extraordinarily muscular, each of his six arms corded with power that seemed to radiate from within. His skin was a lustrous gold, marked with dark crimson tattoos that pulsed faintly like a heartbeat, covering his entire body in intricate patterns that spoke of something ancient and divine. His white hair flowed wildly behind him, and his eyes—when they weren't closed in frustration—glowed with an inner fire.
He had been wandering aimlessly through Helheim's desolate landscape for what felt like an eternity. The realm was a twisted nightmare of jagged obsidian cliffs, rivers of toxic sludge, and skies that churned with sickly green and purple clouds. Yet everywhere he went, a trail of few demon and monster corpses followed in his wake—creatures foolish enough to mistake his amnesia for weakness.
The silence that followed his latest encounter was broken by the sound of cackling laughter echoing through a narrow ravine ahead.
Asura's snow white brow furrowed as he moved forward, his bare feet crushing bones and debris beneath them. As he rounded a corner, he found himself face to face with a hunting party of creatures that made the previous monsters look like insects.
There were five of them.
The largest stood nearly three meters tall—a hulking brute with dark purple skin stretched over grotesque muscles. Its body was covered in bony protrusions that jutted out like armor, and its face was a nightmare of too many eyes and a mouth that split its head nearly in half, revealing rows of serrated teeth. Two massive arms ended in claws that could rend steel, and a thick, spiked tail swayed behind it menacingly.
Flanking it were two identical creatures—twins perhaps—with elongated, skeletal frames covered in patches of matted black fur. Their limbs were disturbingly long and ended in fingers tipped with curved talons. Their heads were vaguely canine but with hollow eye sockets that leaked a black mist, and their jaws hung open perpetually, dripping viscous saliva.
The fourth was something entirely different: a floating mass of writhing tentacles surrounding a central body that appeared to be made of living shadow. Dozens of glowing yellow eyes blinked randomly across its form, and when it moved, reality seemed to distort around it slightly, as if it existed partially in another dimension.
But it was the fifth creature that caught Asura's attention.
Unlike the others, this one appeared almost human. It stood upright like a man, roughly two meters tall, with slate-gray skin that had an almost metallic sheen. Its features were sharp and angular—a narrow face with high cheekbones, pointed ears, and eyes that glowed with an eerie intelligence. Two curved horns swept back from its forehead, and it wore tattered robes that suggested it had once held some position of status. This one was clearly the leader.
"Well, well," the gray-skinned demon said, its voice smooth and cultured despite the menacing undertone. "What do we have here? Another lost soul wandering our territory?" It tilted its head, studying Asura with those glowing eyes. "Though I must say, you're certainly more impressive than our usual prey."
The purple brute laughed, a sound like grinding stone. "Looks strong! Good fight!"
"Strong?" one of the skeletal twins hissed. "Strong means better feast!"
"Silence," the gray demon commanded, and the others immediately complied. It took a step forward, circling Asura slowly. "You're no ordinary soul, are you? Perhaps something that crawled out of one of the deeper pits? Or maybe..." Its eyes widened slightly with dark amusement. "A demigod? How delicious."
Asura's eyes remained fixed on them, his expression neutral but his body tensed like a coiled spring. His six arms hung loosely at his sides, but there was an aura of barely contained violence radiating from him.
"Tell me, golden one," the demon continued, "do you even remember how you died? They never do at first. The memories take time to return in this place. If they return at all."
Asura's jaw tightened. "I don't care about the past. Get out of my way."
The demon's smile widened, revealing pointed teeth. "Such contempt in those words. Such delicious, impotent rage. I think we'll enjoy breaking you slowly before we—"
The demon never finished its sentence.
Asura moved with explosive speed that defied his massive size. His middle right fist connected with the purple brute's face before any of them could react, and the impact sent a shockwave rippling through the air. The brute's head snapped back with such force that its neck audibly cracked, and its massive body was launched backward, smashing through a rock formation and disappearing into the darkness beyond.
The skeletal twins shrieked in unison and lunged at him from both sides, their talons aiming for his throat and midsection.
Asura caught the first one by its elongated arm with his upper left hand and swung it like a club into its twin. The collision produced a sickening crunch of breaking bones, and both creatures tumbled across the ground in a tangle of limbs. Before they could recover, Asura was upon them. His lower left fist crashed down on the first twin's skull, cratering it into the ground with such force that the earth around them fractured like a spiderweb. The second twin attempted to scurry away, but Asura's middle left hand shot out, grabbed its leg, and yanked it back.
"Please! Mercy! We—" the creature began.
Asura's expression didn't change as he brought his lower right fist down, silencing it permanently.
The floating tentacled mass let out a sound like hundreds of children screaming and launched itself at Asura, its appendages extending impossibly fast to entangle all six of his arms. The yellow eyes blinked rapidly, and Asura felt a strange pulling sensation, as if the creature was trying to drag him into whatever dimensional space it occupied.
For the first time since awakening, Asura smiled—but it was a smile devoid of joy, filled only with savage satisfaction.
"That's the Wrong move," he growled.
His six arms flexed simultaneously, and golden and scarlet energy began to emanate from the crimson markings across his body. The tentacles began to smoke and sizzle where they touched him, and the creature's screaming intensified. Asura pulled his arms apart with overwhelming strength, and the creature's tentacles tore like wet paper. Black ichor sprayed into the air as the creature's central body was exposed. Asura's upper right fist shot forward, punching clean through the shadow-mass at its core.
The creature imploded with a sound like a thunderclap in reverse, its form collapsing into itself until nothing remained but dissipating black mist.
The gray demon had watched all of this transpire in perhaps ten seconds. To its credit, it didn't flee. Instead, it raised its hands in a placating gesture, though Asura could see fear beginning to crack through its composed facade.
"Wait! Wait!" the demon called out, taking a careful step back. "Perhaps we can come to an arrangement. I am Valreth, the former advisor to—"
Asura closed the distance between them in a single stride and grabbed one of the demon's horns with his upper right hand, lifting Valreth off the ground as easily as one might lift a child. The demon kicked and struggled, but it might as well have been trying to move a mountain.
"I don't care who you were," Asura said, his voice low and dangerous. "Tell me where I am. Tell me what this place is."
Valreth gasped, clutching at the hand that held him suspended. "H-Helheim! You're in Helheim!"
Asura's golden eyes narrowed, his grip tightening slightly on the horn. "What does that mean?"
The demon winced in pain but seemed to sense that cooperation was its only chance at survival. "You...you might understand your location better if I called it the Underworld. Helheim is simply the name the Norse entities use to describe this realm. It's a land of the dead, a prison for souls, a dumping ground for those who died without glory or were cast down by the gods."
Asura's expression darkened at the mention of gods, and his other free hands clenched into fists. His eyes narrowed further as he processed this information. "The Underworld," he repeated, his voice barely above a whisper. "Continue."
Valreth swallowed hard, speaking quickly. "It's one of the Nine Realms in Norse cosmology. The realm of—"
"I don't care about your mythology," Asura interrupted, giving the demon a shake that made its teeth rattle. "Tell me why a place that should be crawling with dangerous monsters and demons at every part is so empty. I've been walking for a day and barely encountered anything worth mentioning. And tell me how to leave."
The demon's eyes widened with understanding, then something like bitter amusement crossed its features. "Ah, so that explains the corpses we've been finding. You've been clearing a path through everything in your way." Valreth coughed, then continued. "Most of Helheim's denizens have gathered near the borders of the realm. There's been much activity. Something drawing them away from the interior."
"What activity?" Asura demanded.
"To leave Helheim," Valreth explained, seeming to sense this information might buy him his life, "you must follow the trail of fire in the sky. Where the ground itself burns and where the storm grows most intense—that is where you'll find the Bifrost, the Rainbow Bridge. It's the gate between realms that will transport you to either Midgard, the mortal world, or Valhalla, the realm of the gods."
Asura's grip loosened slightly as he absorbed this information, his gaze distant as if trying to latch onto some forgotten memory. "The realm of the gods..."
"Though I doubt you'd be able to get past the gate..." Valreth muttered, almost to himself.
The words had barely left the demon's mouth when Asura's eyes snapped back into focus, and a low growl rumbled from his chest that made the very air vibrate. Valreth's eyes widened in terror as he realized his mistake.
"I-I apologize! I meant no offense!" the demon stammered. "Please, let me explain further! There's something else you should know—something important happening right now that has drawn so many creatures away!"
Asura's scowl subsided, but his godly grip remained firm. "Speak."
Valreth took a shaky breath. "There's a tournament. Ragnarok. All of the deities from every pantheon you can imagine have agreed to a certain Valkyrie's request for a fighting tournament. One fighter for humanity's side goes up against a god in single combat, thirteen rounds in total. Whichever side wins seven rounds first determines whether humanity gets to survive for the next thousand years, or whether the gods will wipe them out."
This information seemed to strike something deep within Asura. His jaw clenched, and the golden markings on his skin began to pulse with a brighter light. "The Gods...are deciding humanity's fate through combat?"
"Yes," Valreth confirmed, sensing the shift in Asura's demeanor but not understanding it. "It's the third round now, or perhaps the fourth by the time we're speaking. Many of Helheim's residents have found ways to watch or even travel to the arena. It's quite the spectacle."
The demon's tone had shifted to something sneering and contemptuous. "Foolish mortals! How dare they think they can challenge the wrath of the Gods? They're insects pretending to be—"
Asura's lower left hand shot up and joined his upper right in gripping the demon. The other four arms clenched into fists so tight that the air around them began to shimmer with heat. His entire body began to radiate power, and his eyes blazed with an intensity that made Valreth realize he had made a grave miscalculation.
"No," Asura said, his voice starting quiet but building in intensity with each word. "That is precisely why humanity is so great. They are but mere mortals, fragile and finite, yet still they stand up and challenge the might of the gods!" His voice rose to a thunderous declaration. "And what you may call wrath? No...you haven't seen the true power of a Deity's wrath yet!"
With those final words, Asura's right fist became enveloped in the crackling fiery energy, and he drove it forward with devastating force. The impact connected with Valreth's head, and the demon didn't even have time to scream. Its entire head atomized instantly, particles scattering into the toxic air of Helheim like dust in the wind. The body hung in Asura's grip for a moment before he released it, letting the lifeless form crumple to the ground.
Asura stood there for a long moment, his six arms slowly lowering to his sides as the golden glow faded from his markings. Steam rose from his body in the cold air of the Underworld.
"Humanity fighting against Gods," he muttered to himself, fragments of something—memories, perhaps—flickering at the edge of his consciousness. Images of faces he couldn't quite recall, of battles he couldn't quite remember, of a rage that had once had a purpose beyond itself.
He looked up at the sky, scanning for the trail of fire the demon had mentioned. There, in the distance, he could see it—a faint glow on the horizon, like an aurora of flame dancing through the sickly clouds. Beneath it, he could sense rather than see the intensifying energy, the buildup of power that marked the boundary between realms.
"The Bifrost," he said, committing the name to memory. Then, quieter, "Valhalla."
Something about that word resonated within him. "Rangnarok".
A tournament to decide humanity's fate.
His hands clenched once more, and for the first time since awakening, Asura felt something beyond aimless fury. He felt a sense of purpose.
"If the Gods think they can decide whether humanity lives or dies," he said, his voice carrying across the empty wasteland of Helheim, "then they're about to learn that there are some forces even they cannot control."
Without another word, Asura began walking toward the distant trail of fire in the sky, each step leaving craters in the barren ground. The storm was growing more intense in that direction, and somewhere beyond it lay the gate to the realm of the divine.
And Asura intended to crash through that gate, whether it wanted him to or not.
Behind him, the corpses of the demons lay scattered and broken, just another addition to the trail of destruction that marked his path through the Underworld. But ahead of him lay something far more significant than mere survival.