Chapter 624: A Warm Refuge

Chapter 624: Chapter 624: A Warm Refuge

"Ahh~... It’s nice to have a warm, relaxing bath after a long, hard day of being dragged across the frozen wasteland," I said out loud while stretching my arms and legs on top of a nice, comfy bed.

What? Oh right, you must be wondering how I went from freezing my ass off in a cave to chilling in a warm bed.

Well, it’s simple.

I used my Breeder system and spawned a small wooden cabin right inside the cave. Complete with a fireplace, a fully stocked kitchen, a bathroom with a hot tub, and of course, a big, comfy bed.

As long as I have breeding points, I can buy anything in my shop.

And my breeding points? They were overflowing.

Thanks to my children and their children and so on, I was getting a passive income of points that was just absurdly high.

Last time I checked, I had half a billion. Now? I don’t know, too many numbers.

So I spent a few hundred points on a cabin, a few thousand on some nice, warm clothes, and a few million on some top-quality scouting and protection wards from the demon section in the shop.

Now I was sitting on my bed, wearing a silk nightgown, sipping a glass of divine wine that I also bought from the shop, and munching on some cheese that would make a god weep.

All while the blizzard raged outside.

"Is this a threat or an invitation?" I asked myself as I looked out the window of my cabin at the never-ending blizzard outside.

I had some time to do self-reflection.

I got cocky and underestimated the Norse gods. Odin’s little watchdog, Heimdall, saw right through my disguise. And Odin himself... he was no pushover. That spear of his, Gungnir, was a bitch.

In my defense, my old way of thinking was to be blamed- no, not just my way of thinking but my strength too.

I was a mortal who could slay gods as if they were nothing but cannon fodder.

Because of my experience, I grew arrogant and thought that I could do anything.

Sigh... It seems that I forgot the one absolute rule of the cosmos.

There is always a bigger fish.

But at the same time, my little ’surprise’ worked. I managed to infect Odin with a dose of Miasma. He might have escaped, but he’s now a ticking time bomb. I wonder how long it will take for the rot to set in.

"Hehehe~... I wish I could see the look on his face when he realizes that his precious cock is about to fall off."

Anyway... after some thinking, I realized that I need to ’re-train’ myself.

I have been relying too much on my divine power and my ’cheat’ abilities.

I need to re-learn how to fight, how to think, how to survive without them. Or at least, go back to the way I was when I was mortal.

And this realm, Niflheim, was the perfect training ground.

It was a harsh, unforgiving environment, full of monsters, and the memory-eating fog would force me to stay on my toes.

I’m not in a hurry to leave. In fact, I plan to stay here for a while.

Fortunately, the Nexus’ chat works too, so it was easy to pass a message to my family and my lovers, telling them that I’m safe and that I’m ’training’ in a ’special realm’.

One quick note since we are on the topic of the Nexus.

How did the chat still work in the first place? The Nexus system was blocked. Even my special link to my offspring is blocked, so how?

Based on Herma’s explanation, it seems that the Nexus is not just one system but a collection of many sub-systems.

The chat system, for example, is a separate entity that operates on a different set of rules. It doesn’t rely on the main system’s ability to teleport or scan; it uses a direct soul-link to communicate, and that’s something that even a primordial realm like Niflheim can’t easily block.

As for my offspring’s link?

Well, that’s the tricky part. The Fog in Niflheim is not just a magical attack; it’s a fundamental law of this reality. It erases information, and my link with my children is essentially a stream of information.

The main server is me, and the other end is my children. And since I’m inside the realm, the Fog is interfering with the signal, corrupting it.

My guess on the whole matter?

Niflheim didn’t block the Nexus. It’s more like... The Nexus respected the ’laws’ of the realm and disabled some of its functions to avoid a conflict.

Think of it like this: You’re in a foreign country with strict laws. You can still use your phone to call home—the chat—but you can’t use your local apps—teleportation, scanning—because they violate the local regulations.

And my link with my children is a local app. So it’s blocked.

But enough with the technical bullshit.

Herma is trying to replicate the Nexus’ chat system to create a new chat with my children, but it will take some time.

In the meantime, I have decided to go hunting for monsters.

The best way to train is by fighting.

Sigh... I really hope this realm has some big and strong monsters.

...

After a good night’s sleep and a hearty breakfast, I stepped out of my cozy little cabin, back into the biting cold of Niflheim.

The fog was as thick as ever, a swirling, white curtain that muffled all sound and blotted out the horizon. The ground beneath my feet was a treacherous sheet of ice, hidden beneath a thin layer of fresh snow.

Fortunately, I was wrapped in a warm fur coat and wore a pair of sturdy boots that I had bought from my shop.

"Herma, any luck with the map?" I asked, my breath misting in the frigid air.

[Partial success.] Herma’s mental voice was a welcome distraction from the oppressive silence. [I have managed to create a rudimentary topographical map of the immediate area and set up a waypoint for you.]

One thing that we realized was that the fog prevents teleportation in and out of the realm, but it doesn’t prevent short-range teleportation within the realm.

So I decided to use one of my waypoints and set it to the cabin.

This way, even if I get lost, I can always find my way back.

"Alright, let’s see what this frozen hell has to offer," I said with a grin, as I bit my wrist and sprayed my blood in the air.

Using my blood, I created a small flying bat scout and sent it off into the fog.

The bat was a simple creation, but it was effective. It could see in the dark, and its small size made it almost invisible in the swirling white. It was my eyes and ears in this blinding landscape.

I waited patiently for a few minutes, my senses on high alert. The silence was so absolute that I could hear the blood pumping in my veins.

Really disturbing and gets on my nerves. I prefer a battlefield with explosions and screams.

If the battlefield was on a bed while I’m fucking some hot chick? Even better.

Sigh... I’m really getting horny.

"Herma, can you please turn on some music? Something... upbeat," I asked, trying to distract myself from the growing desire between my legs.

[...]

"..."

No reply.

"She is still mad at me," I sighed. "Alright, fine. Be that way."

Just as I was about to give up and head back to the cabin for some ’self-love’, one of my bats sent back a signal.

A faint but clear image of a large, moving shape in the distance.

They were smaller than the ice bear, but there were a lot of them.

A pack of something.

"Jackpot," I smirked. "Let’s go say hello."

With a thought, two crimson wings made of pure blood erupted from my back, and I shot into the air, flying towards the signal.

The wind howled in my ears, the cold biting at my face, but I didn’t mind. I was in my element.

Hunt or be hunted.

Kill or be killed.

That’s the rule I live by. And this realm was the perfect place for it.

It didn’t take me long to find them.

They were... wolves.

But not just any wolves.

They were made of ice, just like the bear, but they were sleeker, faster, and more numerous. Their eyes glowed with the same cold, blue light, and their fur was a mosaic of sharp ice shards.

A pack of twenty ice wolves, all of them sniffing the ground, tracking something.

Or someone.

"Hehe~... dinner is served," I said, landing silently on a nearby ice formation, my blood wings retracting into my back.

I watched them for a while, studying their movements, their habits. They were hunters, efficient and deadly. They moved with a fluid grace that belied their frozen nature.

And they were hunting... something else.

I could see tracks in the snow, faint but discernible. Something had passed through here recently. Something... warm.

’Could it be another survivor?’ I thought, a flicker of curiosity sparking within me. ’Or maybe it’s just bait.’

I decided to find out.