My Wives are Beautiful Demons

Vergil kept his eyes fixed on the gray mass stretching beyond the rift and took a few seconds before making a decision. The Valkyries’ signatures were there, faint, clustered somewhere far away among gigantic roots, but entering blindly would be exactly the kind of mistake that had already caused entire patrols to disappear. He looked at Brynhildr, who still held her spear ready and watched every movement inside the dimensional tear, and spoke with the calm of someone who had already accepted that he would need to cross.

"I’m going to take a look at that thing. Keep an eye on the passage."

Brynhildr immediately turned toward him. "Alone?"

"For now."

Before she could argue, six wings opened from Vergil’s back. Three carried a demonic nature, dark, rigid, and marked by violet lines from the Authority of Death. The other three were divine, covered in pale feathers that created an almost absurd contrast with Helheim. Vergil flexed the wings once, felt the stability of the portal maintained by Yamato, and crossed through.

The wind on the other side struck his face with force.

It was not exactly wind. It felt more like displacement produced by the monstrous scale of that environment. Air currents traveled between roots larger than mountains, carrying gray dust, fragments of bark, and golden particles falling from Yggdrasil’s upper regions. Vergil spread his wings completely and glided, allowing his body to lose speed while his eyes began to understand the true scale of the place.

Then he saw the dragons.

Not one.

Not ten.

Thousands.

The bluish forms moved among Yggdrasil’s roots like swarms of predators. Some were large enough to destroy cities with their bodies. Others resembled winged serpents, with short wings and long claws used to climb the bark of the World Tree. Many remained attached to the roots, biting into the divine wood with jaws far too large for their heads. Others flew in circles around natural cavities, probably protecting nests scattered throughout the lower regions.

Vergil slowed even further.

"Qliphoth."

The answer came immediately inside his mind, this time without the exaggerated excitement that usually accompanied any discovery related to trees.

"These are descendants."

"Of Niddrog?"

"Probably. Now it makes sense."

Vergil watched one of the largest dragons pass beneath him. The creature was perhaps a few hundred meters from head to tail. Still enormous by ordinary standards, but far too small to justify the paw he had severed moments earlier.

"You thought the size was strange."

"Yes. The true Niddrog is colossal. Much larger than these things. The paw that crossed the rift probably belonged to an older offspring, perhaps one of the first generations. The true Niddrog would not fit a paw through that portal. She would fit half a mountain."

Vergil remained silent for several seconds, absorbing the information.

The idea that an even larger creature existed somewhere in that region was not exactly comforting, but it also explained why Norse stories treated Niddrog as something very different from an ordinary dragon. This was not merely a creature living near the roots.

It was an entire species organized around her.

Vergil angled his body and began descending.

Only then did he notice something even stranger.

What looked like ground from a distance was not stone.

Gray dunes covered entire regions between the roots. The material looked like fine sand, dry and completely devoid of energy. There was no vegetation. No plants. No fungi. Nothing grew across that surface. Whenever a gust passed through, the dust shifted in waves and revealed even deeper layers of the same material.

Vergil landed on a side root and looked downward.

"Is there ground here?"

Qliphoth answered, "Not in the sense you’re thinking."

"What is that?"

"Leaves."

Vergil frowned.

"Leaves?"

"Yggdrasil’s leaves. They fall, rot, lose their energy, and eventually become this dust. You’re looking at ages of dead material accumulated here. Maybe millions of years."

Vergil looked at the dunes again.

The explanation made it even more unpleasant. The gray material was not natural sand. It was the corpse of countless leaves from the World Tree reduced to dust, compressed over one another until they formed a false desert beneath the roots.

"This looks like the end of the world."

Qliphoth took a few seconds before answering.

"Possibly the closest thing to a post-apocalyptic environment that can exist without an apocalypse actually happening. Everything here is born from something gigantic, dies, falls, and rots without anyone caring for it. The tree remains alive above, so this part simply accumulates what it discards."

Vergil watched the roots sink into that dead dust.

There were no ruins of cities, corpses of civilizations, or signs of war, but the feeling was the same.

A territory abandoned after anything important had already left.

He returned toward the portal and moved close enough to put only his head and one shoulder through the passage. Brynhildr was exactly where he had left her, although now she held Gjallarhorn in one hand and her spear in the other.

"I’m going to take a look around Yggdrasil."

She narrowed her eyes. "You’re already looking."

"Deeper."

"Vergil."

"I’ll be back soon."

Brynhildr looked at Yamato, which kept the rift stabilized. "If you move too far away, will the portal close?"

"Yamato will keep it open."

"And if something interferes?"

Vergil pointed toward the lower part of her abdomen, exactly where the mark he had placed earlier remained hidden beneath her armor.

"Yours is special."

Brynhildr went still for an instant.

Vergil winked at her.

"Even if the portal closes, I can return to you."

Color rose subtly into the Valkyrie’s face.

"You could have explained that without pointing."

"I could."

"And without winking."

"That too."

Brynhildr released an irritated sigh. "Just go before I change my mind."

Vergil pulled his head back through the passage and threw himself downward.

His wings partially closed during the fall, allowing him to gain speed between two enormous roots. The world rushed past around him at absurd scales: cracks in the bark looked like canyons, small fungal formations were the size of towers, and drops of golden sap slowly flowed across some surfaces like luminous rivers. When he was close to the false gray ground, Vergil opened his wings again and slowed his descent, landing on one of the dunes with a small wave of dust around his boots.

He started walking.

"What kind of dragon is Niddrog?"

Two voices answered almost at the same time.

Nivara was first.

"A fucking lunatic."

Crymsaria came immediately after.

"Extremely insane."

Vergil kept walking. "Very technical description."

Crymsaria seemed to ignore the comment. "She eats Yggdrasil’s roots."

"That I know."

"No, you know the words. That’s different from understanding. You’re looking at a structure that connects realities, sustains worlds, and transports absurd amounts of energy. Niddrog looks at it and thinks of food."

Nivara added with her usual coldness, "A rational creature would avoid damaging what sustains its own environment. She does the opposite out of instinct, pleasure, and hunger. Some stories say she chews the roots because she hates the tree itself. Others say she simply likes the taste."

"So she’s insane."

"That is exactly what I said," Nivara replied.

Crymsaria added, "Very insane."

Vergil sighed. "I’ve heard the word insane more times in the last thirty seconds than necessary."

A shadow passed overhead.

Vergil did not immediately look up.

Three more followed.

Then seven.

The smaller Niddrogs had noticed his presence.

The first descended with its wings folded and claws ready to tear him from the ground. Vergil kept walking. When the creature came within less than twenty meters, he simply raised his right hand.

A black flame appeared above his fingers.

It was neither White Fire nor ordinary demonic fire. The Authority of Death had been compressed into the manifestation, creating a flame that did not burn only matter.

It destroyed vitality.

Vergil opened his hand.

The flame spread.

The first dragon did not even have time to react. Its entire body was covered by the black fire and disappeared before it could hit the ground. The second tried to change course, but the flames leapt to it.

Then to the third.

Within seconds, every dragon that had dived toward Vergil was consumed in the air, reduced to dark particles that vanished before the remains could even touch the dunes.

The others approaching from farther away stopped advancing.

Vergil continued walking.

"Come out."

Silence.

He glanced sideways.

"It’s boring talking to myself."

His own shadow expanded.

Nivara emerged first, taking human form on Vergil’s left side. Her hair and cold presence contrasted violently with the dry environment, and tiny ice crystals formed in the gray dust with every step. Crymsaria appeared on the other side, carrying enough heat to distort the air around her body. Itharine emerged just behind them, elegant and silent, still wearing that calm expression that made walking among Yggdrasil’s roots surrounded by predatory dragons look like an ordinary activity.

Qliphoth was last.

She practically stepped out of Vergil’s shadow as though passing through a curtain, her long red hair falling over her shoulders while her eyes immediately turned toward Yggdrasil. Unlike the others, she was not looking mainly at the dragons.

She was watching the roots.

Her expression was strange.

Curiosity.

Respect.

And a very obvious amount of envy.

Vergil noticed.

"Don’t start."

Qliphoth turned her face. "I didn’t say anything."

"Your face did."

Crymsaria laughed.

Nivara looked over the roots. "She’s wondering how long it would take her to grow that large."

"Someday," Qliphoth murmured.

"Don’t steal anything else," Vergil said.

"I didn’t say anything about stealing either."

Itharine looked at her. "You thought it."

Qliphoth grimaced.

Vergil ignored the discussion and kept walking. Now that all four were materialized, their presences caused a much more obvious reaction among the dragons around them. Some smaller Niddrogs fled toward higher regions of the roots. Others watched from caves, growling, but lacked the courage to attack after seeing the first group erased by a single manifestation.

The Valkyries’ signatures became clearer.

Vergil stopped at the top of a dune and looked ahead.

Between three gigantic roots was a region where the gray dust thinned. Large smaller trees grew there, although calling them smaller trees was relative; many were hundreds of meters tall. At the center was a circular clearing surrounded by formations of bark, gigantic bones, and structures that looked like nests made from torn-out roots.

Something enormous had lived there for a very long time.

Vergil pointed.

"So that over there is Niddrog’s nest?"

Qliphoth narrowed her eyes. The connection she now possessed with a branch of Yggdrasil allowed her to perceive the structures of that region more clearly. After several seconds, she nodded.

"It seems so. The root beneath the clearing is extremely damaged. There are old bite marks, tunnels, and accumulated draconic energy across several layers. If the true Niddrog sleeps somewhere nearby, this is probably one of the entrances."

Nivara watched the caves around them.

"There’s a lot moving inside."

Crymsaria smiled faintly. "Finally."

Vergil did not share her enthusiasm.

His attention remained on the marks.

Now they were clear.

Dozens.

Then hundreds.

Signatures of Valkyries trapped inside or beneath that clearing. Some strong, others weak, but all close enough to distinguish from one another.

He narrowed his eyes.

"Well."

The four looked at him.

Vergil pointed toward the nest.

"The Valkyries are there."

Any trace of humor disappeared from his voice.

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