My Wives are Beautiful Demons

Vergil descended the dune without changing his pace.

There was no reason to surround the clearing, prepare an ambush, or try to find another entrance. The signatures were beneath that place, hundreds of them compressed into a relatively small region, and none seemed to be moving. If Niddrog was there, he would deal with her. If she was not, even better. His objective remained the same: get the Valkyries out of that place before anything else happened.

Nivara walked on his left, constantly watching the open cavities between the roots. Crymsaria did the same on the opposite side, although her attention alternated between the smaller dragons still following them from a distance and the deep marks scattered across Yggdrasil’s wood. Itharine remained slightly behind, letting her own shadow travel across the ground and enter some of the cracks through which smaller creatures might try to approach. Qliphoth was the only one still looking more at the World Tree than at the nest.

Crymsaria finally broke the silence.

"Before you go in there, you should know something about Niddrog."

Vergil did not slow down. "I assume you’re going to say she’s insane again."

"That too, but it’s not just that." The dragon crossed her arms as she walked. "The true Niddrog is ancient. Very ancient. Not in the sense of being a few thousand years old. She existed when several structures of the Nine Realms were still stabilizing."

Nivara added with her usual objectivity, "She spent ages consuming matter belonging directly to Yggdrasil. That means her body does not merely endure the World Tree’s energy. It adapted to it."

Vergil looked at the roots overhead.

"So she absorbs part of that energy."

"Constantly," Nivara replied. "That’s one of the reasons it’s difficult to measure her strength. Inside this environment, Niddrog is almost always fed. Even when she isn’t fighting, she continues receiving energy through the roots she consumes."

Crymsaria looked at Vergil. "If you fight her here, don’t expect it to be a normal fight against a dragon. She has absurd endurance, regeneration, venom, movement between roots, and probably knows this region better than any living creature."

"Besides creating rifts between Helheim and Yggdrasil," Vergil added.

Nivara nodded. "If that really is her doing."

The observation made Vergil briefly look at the blue dragon.

"You also think something else may be behind this."

"I don’t rule it out."

Vergil looked back toward the nest.

"It doesn’t matter for now. My objective is the Valkyries."

Crymsaria released a low sound. "You say that as if Niddrog is simply going to let you enter her nest, remove thousands of prey, and leave."

"I would prefer that."

"She won’t."

Vergil shrugged. "Then she chooses the problem."

Qliphoth glanced sideways at him. "You really don’t want to fight her?"

"No."

The answer came without hesitation.

All four turned their attention toward him.

Vergil explained while continuing forward. "I came looking for Frey and the missing Valkyries. I didn’t come here to start a war against a dimensional dragon that spends her life eating the roots of the World Tree. If I can get everyone out of here without meeting Niddrog, even better."

Crymsaria smiled. "That was surprisingly sensible."

Vergil looked at her.

"Don’t get used to it."

"Already an improvement."

The clearing had seemed close from the top of the dune, but Yggdrasil’s scale constantly distorted perception. It took several minutes of walking before they reached the first formation marking the edge of the nest. What had looked like a pile of tangled roots was, up close, an irregular wall hundreds of meters tall. Enormous bones were trapped among the fibers, some clearly belonging to dragons, others to creatures Vergil did not recognize. There were also remains of armor, broken weapons, and objects brought from various parts of the Nine Realms.

Vergil passed a Norse sword buried halfway in the dust.

Then a broken shield.

Farther ahead were pieces of a carriage.

"Does she collect trash?" he asked.

Qliphoth examined a pile of metal trapped between two roots. "Dragon nests tend to accumulate objects. That doesn’t mean she values all of them."

Nivara looked at a skull larger than a house. "It could also be what remains of the things she eats."

"Charming," Vergil murmured.

As soon as they crossed the final wall of roots, he understood that calling it a nest was an oversimplification.

It was a territory.

An entire region carved out between the bases of Yggdrasil, filled with cavities, tunnels, dark lakes, formations of bark, and natural elevations stretching across distances comparable to a small country. The center was dominated by a gigantic crater, wide enough to swallow an entire city. Several entrances descended along its sides, some covered in bones, others in loose scales and remains of chewed roots.

Vergil stopped at the edge.

"Niddrog isn’t here."

Nivara closed her eyes for several seconds, expanding her perception.

"Not the true one."

Crymsaria searched as well. "There are many offspring in the tunnels. Some large. But nothing with enough presence to be the mother."

Qliphoth looked toward a distant direction beyond the roots.

"She’s far away. I can feel recent damage in other parts of Yggdrasil. Maybe she’s feeding."

Vergil considered that good news.

He lowered his gaze toward the crater.

The signatures were there.

At the bottom.

Very far away.

Normal vision would not be enough, so his eyes filled with demonic energy. The distant space drew closer in layers, and shadows stopped concealing details. Between two enormous root structures, almost at the deepest part of the crater, there was a pale mass covering a huge area.

At first, it looked like snow.

Then Vergil noticed wings.

Armor.

Bodies.

Hundreds upon hundreds of Valkyries were piled on top of one another.

Some lay on their sides, others on their backs, some with wings spread, and several partially covered by the bodies of their companions. There was not enough blood to suggest a massacre. Their armor was relatively intact. Some had drag marks, but few showed serious injuries.

Vergil remained silent for several seconds.

Then he sighed.

"At least they’re alive."

Nivara observed the same area. "Most of them."

Crymsaria agreed. "Their spiritual rhythm is low, but stable."

Vergil jumped.

He did not use his wings immediately. He allowed his body to gain speed along the side of the crater, sliding over one of the enormous slanted roots. His boots tore fragments from the bark as he descended, and only near the bottom did he open his wings to slow the fall. The four followed behind him.

He landed near the pile of Valkyries.

The sensation was even stranger up close.

Thousands of women breathing slowly, completely unconscious, arranged without any care in a kind of living storage. Some had been there for days, perhaps weeks. Others had signs so recent that they had probably been kidnapped only hours earlier. The six marked by Vergil were near the surface, exactly as he expected.

He knelt beside the first and placed two fingers against her neck.

Spiritual pulse present.

Nothing broken.

No obvious corruption.

Only an extremely deep trance.

Vergil moved to another.

Same condition.

Then another.

"They aren’t being fed," Itharine said, observing the bodies.

"They don’t need to eat like humans," Vergil replied.

"I’m not talking about food. Something is draining energy from them slowly."

He examined them more carefully.

Itharine was right.

Each Valkyrie had an extremely thin connection leaving the soul and entering some region beneath the crater. It was not enough to kill them quickly. In fact, the process seemed deliberately slow, as though whoever had created it wanted to keep them alive.

Vergil cut one of the threads with his nail.

The Valkyrie breathed more deeply.

"The trance depends on this."

Qliphoth approached. "Maybe they’re being used as batteries."

"Or as reference points for the routes," Vergil replied.

Crymsaria looked over the quantity of bodies. "It’ll take time to wake them all."

"I don’t need to wake them all here."

Vergil expanded his perception again.

That was when he noticed a different signature.

One of the nearby Valkyries was almost conscious.

He carefully moved aside two warriors who were partially lying over her and found a woman with very long silver hair spread between feathers and metal. Unlike many of the others, her expression remained serene even under the effects of the trance. Her features were delicate, almost priestly, and there was an unusual calm in her spiritual presence. Her closed eyes moved occasionally beneath the lids, indicating she was already close to waking on her own.

Vergil did not know her.

Nivara observed over his shoulder. "This one is resisting."

"Yes."

Vergil placed two fingers against the Valkyrie’s forehead.

Demonic energy carefully entered her body. He did not try to dominate the soul or break everything at once. First, he found the structure of the trance. It was a strange enchantment formed by a combination of draconic energy, remnants of Yggdrasil, and an almost imperceptible layer of the same absence he had found in Frey’s metal.

Vergil isolated the three.

The Authority of Death destroyed the external bond.

His demonic energy expelled the draconic influence.

Finally, he allowed a little life energy to circulate through her mind and reactivate her senses.

The woman inhaled sharply.

Blue eyes opened.

She remained completely still for several seconds, staring directly at Vergil without recognizing him. There was no immediate panic. Her first reaction was analysis. Her eyes moved over his face, the partially hidden horns, his clothes, the position of his hands, and finally the thousands of unconscious sisters around them.

Her serene expression cracked.

"Where..."

She tried to stand.

Vergil placed one hand on her shoulder.

"Slowly."

The Valkyrie immediately tried to push him away.

"Who are you?"

"Vergil."

The name did not seem to mean anything to her.

"What happened?"

"That’s the question I intended to ask."

She took a deep breath and looked around again. The confusion slowly increased as her memory tried to organize the last events.

"I was in Helheim."

"I know."

"Lower patrol. Six units."

She brought a hand to her forehead.

"A passage appeared."

Vergil paid attention.

"A door?"

"No."

She closed her eyes for a moment.

"A crack. Then a blue thing..."

Her voice failed.

When she looked back at the pile of bodies, she finally understood the scale.

"My sisters."

"Alive."

"All of them?"

"Most that I can feel."

She tried to stand again.

This time Vergil allowed it.

The Valkyrie remained on her knees, still weak, supporting herself with one hand on the ground.

"I need to warn Brynhildr."

"That’s simple."

Vergil stood.

Yamato appeared in his hand.

The woman looked at the sword without understanding, but Vergil had already made the cut. The blade crossed space-time and opened a vertical passage directly to Helheim.

On the other side, Brynhildr still stood before the original rift, Gjallarhorn in one hand.

She noticed the new portal.

Then saw who was kneeling beside Vergil.

Her expression changed immediately.

"Sister!"

Brynhildr did not wait for permission.

She jumped through the cut.

Reginleif raised her head at the same instant.

"Brynhildr?"

The two met before Reginleif could fully stand. Brynhildr took her hand, pulled her upright, and embraced her with enough force to nearly make her lose balance. Reginleif remained still for the first second, surprised by such an open gesture from her older sister, but soon her arms also wrapped around Brynhildr.

"You’re alive," Brynhildr said, her voice quieter than Vergil was used to hearing.

Reginleif took a moment to answer.

"I think so."

Brynhildr pulled away only enough to look at her face.

"How long were you here?"

"I don’t know. Days?"

Brynhildr pressed her lips together.

"You disappeared almost three weeks ago."

Reginleif went still.

"Three..."

She looked around again.

The weight of the information hit harder.

"Then all of them..."

"We’ve been searching for you since then."

Reginleif finally noticed that Brynhildr was different.

The horns.

The sacro-demonic wings.

The strange signature in her soul.

She stepped back half a pace.

"What happened to you?"

Brynhildr released a small breath.

"That conversation is going to take a while."

Vergil coughed deliberately.

Both of them looked at him.

He pointed toward the mass of sleeping Valkyries occupying a huge region of the crater.

"I hate to interrupt the family reunion, but I need help carrying all these Valkyries."

Brynhildr turned.

Only then did she manage to see the true extent of the pile.

Hundreds visible.

Others hidden below.

Possibly more than a thousand.

Her expression became serious immediately.

Reginleif’s did too.

Vergil pointed toward the open portal.

"We can start with the ones in the worst condition. Then I’ll widen the passage."

Brynhildr nodded, fully returning to her commander’s posture.

"Reginleif, can you walk?"

The silver-haired Valkyrie took a deep breath, looked at her own legs, and stood.

"I can."

"Then you’re going to explain what happened while we work."

Reginleif looked at Vergil one last time, still trying to decide who exactly this man was who could open space-time like a door and appear inside one of the most dangerous places connected to Yggdrasil.

"Who is he?"

Brynhildr began crouching to check another sister.

"Your new king."

Reginleif froze.

Vergil sighed.

"That part is also going to need an explanation."

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!