Another Side.13 · [The Final Battle]

Foreword:

Patience is bitter, but the result is sweet.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

[Part①·Yuanzu]

Parting the thick fog in the ocean, materialism walks at a depth of about 1,400 meters.

It is getting further and further away from the beach, and the relative distance has exceeded twenty kilometers.

The seawater became clearer and clearer, and the visibility increased. It was as if, after breaking through the Ice Man's first line of defense, a smooth road lay ahead.

But what's puzzling is...

--The closer you get to Niflheim, the lower the water temperature gets, almost to freezing point.

Similar to the strange phenomenon when Xue Ming first arrived in the Northern Territory, the powerful geothermal activity should have turned this land into a living hell. However, at this moment, the deep water area was not boiling, and there were no stones such as gabbro or basalt. Instead, it was dominated by strong magnetic and electric coastal sand and igneous rocks.

The underwater probes detected no useful signals, and the remaining three corrupt giants seemed to have vanished into thin air in the ocean.

Jiang Xueming clearly remembered that when they were still fighting the Power People in the shallow sea area, he could see the shadows of the last three Underworld Gatekeepers lurking underwater from several kilometers away.

"Ming Ge! Could it be that they're scared?!" Meteor shouted nonchalantly, "The Fire Man is so imposing! They don't dare to bother us, so they're hiding!"

Xue Ming: "That's possible."

Even as they die Laughing Man still display expressions of fear; these colossal creatures have not lost their instinct for survival.

In the story described by [Power Man], the Immortal Lune are more like a curse, leaving these ancient creatures here to be used as tools. However, when faced with an invincible enemy, these tools will still feel fear, terror, and be terrified.

Perhaps materialism has long since invaded Niflheim, intruded into the territory of the Helmholtzia, leaving the gatekeepers far behind, hiding in that deep, dark mud, too afraid to come out and face people.

Nevertheless, the situation remains far from optimistic.

As the data monitoring center for various departments, the UI of [Phoenix] sometimes lights up and sometimes dims, indicating that VIP Su Ling's mental state is very bad.

From the moment she set off from Albert Research Station, she acted like a devoted wet nurse, constantly nurturing the Inspiration of the main combat personnel. From the Pavlovian substation to the central square of Red Star Hill, she clashed with the frogman troops, wrestled with hybrid warriors, acquired the Vita Imprint, fought with the Lord of Cinder, and managed the materialist oil and ammunition reserve control center. Then, she boarded the [Red Salamander] and headed into the deep ocean, facing the abyss alone without the protection of materialism.

She was still bleeding, her severed arm had just healed, and her vital essence had been taken away by the unreasonable water elemental, making her injury worse.

This was beyond Xue Ming's understanding of "human beings"; this woman was like a peerless wonder forged from iron. Perhaps this was the origin of Xia Xia's comment that "A Ling super amazing."

Except for a nap in the outpost, Su Ling remained conscious and fought continuously for more than fifteen hours.

The VIP's voice came from the broadcasting center.

Su Ling said, "I need to rest for a while."

Her face was pale, she had lost too much blood, and even after eating several bags of military rations, she could not recover her strength.

In low-temperature environments, any wound on the human body is difficult to heal, and scars from injuries sustained in winter will not disappear until spring.

When she said those words, people finally understood—

--This VIP is also a human being; they experience pain, fatigue, and need rest.

As the radiance of the Phoenix gradually faded, those who had been blessed by the Phoenix— whether it was Yibu in the Battle Division or Meteor, who desperately needed a mental shield—immediately felt a pang of anxiety.

An incomparably malevolent spiritual pressure threatened to devour them alive.

Xue Ming's psychological defenses were breached; to use a peculiar analogy—

--Just like when he was in the battery factory, when he was removing paint from workpieces, the strong acid paint remover splattered on his bare skin, sometimes hot, sometimes cold, accompanied by intense pain.

The spiritual pressure within the Dark Abyss is already capable of causing substantial harm to the human body!

All that could be heard on the radio was the eerie howl of a shooting star.

--The boy saw that the skin on his hands was covered with dense red spots, like frostbite. Unlike the Vita Imprint, this was just a natural allergic reaction caused by intense pain stimulating nerve endings.

William sat stiffly in the driver's seat, shivering from the Surter. He kept an eye on the cabin temperature, which was around 27 degrees Celsius, a very comfortable temperature.

But William still felt cold.

--This coldness comes from the spiritual pressure of Niflheim.

Phoenix, his core temperature plummeted, as if the blood in his body was about to freeze. Along with the disordered signals from his brain, his metabolism dropped to freezing point, and his heart rate fell from 81 per minute to 42.

He could barely speak; the cells in his brain were rapidly dying due to ischemia and hypoxia, making him sluggish and unable to respond.

What Jiang Xueming sensed was even more bizarre—

He often heard strange, inexplicable noises coming from the quiet control room.

A sharp screech, like that of a mosquito or a mouse moving swiftly, brushed past his ears and cheeks, as if a furry little animal had just run past his shoulder, neck, or thigh.

He reached out to scratch, and immediately saw bits of flesh and skin remaining under his fingernails.

Looking up, he saw his bloodied and mangled face reflected in the smooth, mirror-like porthole—a vision of indescribable chaos and madness.

But in the blink of an eye, these illusions vanished.

Apart from the red marks on her cheeks and the dry, cracked lines on her skin, there was nothing else.

When the annoying noise returned, the terrifying hallucinations once again assaulted Xue Ming's senses.

Their Gate of Death were half-open, their physical essence becoming fragile and brittle, as if they were getting closer and closer to Helheim, and closer and closer to death.

Materialism blindly marched forward, and finally reached its destination.

The navigation lights on the shoulders and neck immediately revealed a bottomless trench.

All around was quiet. The spectral values of the sonar detectors fluctuated violently. The distance to the slope and cliff was 3,110 meters, and the distance to the bare rocks and strange stones below the cliff was 5,561 meters.

A full minute later, the powerful shockwave from the mine explosion revealed the ultimate depth of the trench to materialists—15,600 meters.

Dozens of fluorescent flares fell into the bottomless trench, along with a forward-firing navigation light source.

Materialism once again unleashed a high-energy beam from its chest, but this time, the crimson laser failed to detect anything on the seabed.

Only the evaporated water vapor turns into huge bubbles, slowly floating towards the sea surface.

"What is that?" Jason asked in astonishment, as if he were witnessing something unbelievable.

In the farthest, farthest place.

There is a wall--

--Specifically, it's an impassable transparent wall.

When the laser beam hits this wall, it is immediately deflected and dispersed, absorbed and refracted by countless tiny crystals.

The light spread across the wall, gradually turning blood red, and the high wall stretched all the way to the sea across a vast plain stretching for tens of kilometers to the left and right.

It's like a piece of ice with extremely high transparency. In an extremely low temperature environment, it naturally and neatly transforms into a wall. The ice flowers and textures inside are very regular, much like rare earth semiconductor components in modern society. Whenever any energy or photoelectric signal is injected, all the ice flowers will light up, conveying this scene to the visitors.

It is very similar to the real world.

--But they are completely different.

Just like the structure of chiral molecules, it seems to be two sides of a mirror, the boundary between life and death.

Jason Megan finally understood why the living could never reach Helheim, and why the [Power Man] told Surter that it was all in vain.

Something with a physical body cannot pass through this high wall.

Only spirits can emerge from such intricately designed doors.

Wendy: "Iason, that thing was created by the divine power of a giant."

Jason: "What is it?"

Wendy: "It's [Isa] -- another [Ice Man]."

Jason: "Didn't we already blow up the Ice Man?"

Wendy: "Unlike ice in the ordinary material world, this rune represents [cessation of movement, eternal peace, freezing and cooling] -- it originally stood not far from the beach of Red Star Hill, but as materialism took a step forward, it took a step back, eventually hiding inside the gates of Niflheim, faithfully guarding the underworld of Helmholtz."

Jason: "We can't get through."

Wendy: "Take a closer look. We've come all this way, so let's take lots of pictures."

Before the words were even finished, the Canaan unit immediately began working. Under the interference of such strong magnetic and electric fields, the efficiency of the small Canaan unit visibly decreased.

They gathered in the industrial area, using alumina to create several thick lenses, aiming to use primitive optical instruments to combat environmental interference and build a telescope for materialism.

Six minutes later, a golden titanium-plated steel pipe popped out from the shoulder of Materialism. The two ends of the mirror were crystal clear. The left arm of the damage control department grabbed it and immediately looked closely at the distant iceberg.

A clearer picture was transmitted to the control center.

--The energy beam illuminated the iceberg once again.

The highly transparent ice flowers shimmered with dense red lines, among which was a giant. Judging from its shape, [Isa] was female.

A long flaxen robe wrapped around its body, and the green laurel-woven neck and head rings had turned black and dark. Immortal Lune climbed onto the white-haired goddess's profile, her right eye and right nose lost the protection of flesh and blood, her bones exposed, and her dark brain tissue sprayed out, only to be frozen by eternal frost.

It was inside the ice hole, completely still.

In order to deal with the rampaging Surter, it seemed to think that this method would stop the fireman and make him realize his mistake.

Further behind [Isa] was a massive pyramid.

The tower temple was unlike any ancient Egypt tomb or Mayan temple; instead, it was as angular and simple in structure as the crystal containing the ashes of Soviet martyrs.

However, it is black and gold, with polygonal gold lines like an circuit board laid on the surface of the triangular prism, sometimes releasing a powerful current, like a heartbeat.

[Part ② The Gatekeeper]

Everything in the world fell silent.

--There was no marine life, nor dust or mud.

There was no fog, and even the sound of a materialistic engine could not be heard.

This bizarre and magnificent tower seemed to possess a life of its own; upon closer inspection, everyone in the previously bustling combat department fell silent.

They tried to use language to dispel the terrifying hallucinations and powerful spiritual pressure of Niflheim, but their minds were instead drawn into this eerie ancient architecture.

Wendy: "I can't watch anymore!"

Jason snapped awake, and in the instant he came to his senses, he used the fingers of his right arm's combat unit to crush the telescope.

The image signal from the surveillance screen suddenly cut off, turning into shattered lenses and twisted steel bars.

Jiang Xueming breathed a sigh of relief, regaining herself from the hazy illusion.

Within the massive iceberg, the temple seemed to devour people. Just looking at it caused Xue Ming's spirit to involuntarily detach from her body. She was already perched by the porthole, half her body flying out of the materialistic armor's large arm—

After the brain perceives the true form of Niflheim, it seems as if the soul will involuntarily return to the underworld of Niflheim.

Right now, at this very moment.

The release of two consecutive energy beams seemed to have alerted some enormous object.

The ground beneath their feet began to tremble, and the brothers in the combat unit were on tenterhooks, constantly on guard against everything around them.

"The enemy is here?"

"Only three left. Only three left."

"Where could it come from?!"

[Materialism] suddenly lowered its head; the high-energy signal came from the deep trench beneath its feet!

A golden light suddenly shone from the once pitch-black abyss, and from the eerie darkness that was invisible and imperceptible, a part of the bottom of the abyss could suddenly be seen!

The lighting environment was good, and the seawater was highly transparent.

Everything seemed to become bright, clear, and luminous!

Looking down from the cliffs of the trench, the soft light gives one a strange sense of warmth.

William the Elder awoke from his state of confusion and bewilderment, Niflheim's spiritual pressure completely dissipated by this miraculous light source.

At the bottom of the trench, Jason's extraordinary Inspiration caused him to hallucinate.

Blood flowed from his mouth and nose. Just like his previous experiences of staring directly at enormous objects, his brain sent incorrect commands to his body, and the sudden surge in intracranial pressure caused his capillaries to burst.

Through Surter's eyes, he glimpsed the true face of "Mother".

According to the [Power Man], Niflheim is very close to Mother Gaia.

At this very moment, in the deepest part of the trench, a dark mass of mud is constantly rolling. Its exact form is impossible to describe in words.

This vast amount of primordial matter is distributed in an endless abyss of nearly 30,000 square kilometers beneath the trench.

Its cilia constantly discharge and absorb energy, and the energy cycle is like it is doing its best to absorb the heat from the external environment, trying to turn this ocean into lifeless ice water.

Its form resembles a large, black-spotted, golden-scaled serpent ball, its head and tail indistinguishable. Its smooth, muddy-like primordial matter separates and recombines, being whipped by lightning, transferring matter and information between its coarse cilia.

It is embedded in a wider and deeper igneous rock, as if it has absorbed the heat of the volcanic group and is hidden deep in the mantle.

It's like a living animal! It's a life!

The exposed primordial matter is like a very small part of its organs, including the pyramid-shaped temple, which seems more like the giants' worship of the ancestor of life, creating a regular and angular statue in the image of the god.

At this very moment--

--Two runes, gleaming brightly, emerged from the depths of the trench.

That's [Algiz] · Elk.

And there's [Surisaz Thunder]

The moment the runes materialized, a dull thud of hooves pounding on rocks could be heard from the bottomless darkness; this was the source of the earthquake everyone had just felt.

Before Ibrahimovic could even shout the slogan "Prepare for battle!"

Two skeletons emerged from the deep trench.

The knight rode a giant elk, galloping upwards across the solid ice from the golden light of the trench.

Its webbed feet, resembling ox hooves, opened and closed, slamming against the water with countless rotting insect corpses. The thunderous stimulation and violent pressure changes caused ice blocks to magically appear beneath its feet as footholds.

The larvae of the Madness Butterfly nearly gnawed the knight and his mount dry.

They appeared to be infested by insects and parasites, with not a single piece of intact armor visible in the cavalry armor and deer armor.

The flesh and blood of the limbs were half-hanging on the bones; if it weren't for the marine environment, it probably wouldn't even be able to stand up!

The knight carried a bone warhammer encircled by lightning, and his head was also a skull, with a light shining in his empty eyes.

They lagged behind materialism, and the elk raised its forelegs, kicking up a torrent of water to bring the enemy back to their senses and urge them to a decisive battle.

The knight held the reins in one hand and a warhammer in the other. The golden light emanating from his body touched the ocean, and dazzling lightning split the water, instantly unleashing a fierce burst of flames.

They were like loyal watchdogs guarding Princess Isa. Abandoning their companions on the mudflats near the coast, they returned to their home ground, a near-death wasteland, to face the challenge of the Fireman Surter.

Jason looked at the two colossal creatures, which together stood over six hundred meters tall. The enormous elk became a powerful asset to the knight.

"Patience is bitter, but the result is sweet."

Meteor: "We're going to fight something like this?!"

Yibu: "Are you scared?"

Lively music was playing from the radio station.

Meteor: "Listen! Listen to this! I'm filled with determination!"

Xue Ming: "Meteor, turn off your phone!"

Meteor: "It wasn't me! I can be pretty unserious, but it wasn't me this time!"

Surter has awakened and has secretly chosen a playlist for his comrades.

"That rebellious brat Surter is playing war songs for us." Su Ling rolled over, having slept for fifteen minutes, her eyes bloodshot, preparing for the final battle. She had diligently maintained perfect attendance throughout this event. "Let me check NetEase Cloud Music."

"A Ling, wake up! There's no internet here!" Xia Xia shouted excitedly, "Old Man Ring! It's Old Man Ring's <The Final Battle>, the final battle! Perverts... oh no, I mean, faded ones!"

William and Meteor complained in hushed tones, "Can't this woman show any respect for my father? What does 'rebellious brat' even mean?"

Su Ling: "Then let's call it 'Rebel Against Me'?"

"I need data monitoring. VIP! Here it comes!" Jason gritted his teeth and saw the knight riding the waves, warhammer in hand.

Phoenix is back online.

Two bright red health bars appeared before everyone's eyes, accompanied by a deafening earthquake and thunder.

The VIP's spirit appeared in the center of his companions' vision, projecting a large line of text onto the surveillance screen, thus unveiling the curtain on the final battle.

The Gatekeeper of Helheim

[Surisaz and its loyal elk]