Bloodlines of the Ancient Pantheons

*boom*

Freya's fist triggered an explosion that spread throughout the arena, hitting spectators with a gust of wind.

When he finished coughing by the dust and managed to open his eyes, Dag noticed that his two arms were still crossed in front of him and that he had managed to stay on his feet.

His opponent was more than ten meters from him and all that way, his feet had dug into the ground, crawling to his current position.

"What?!" 

"Do you understand what I mean now? I said your body is strong, Dag! Use this strength!" Freya yelled, who for the first time since meeting the Okstorm's warrior raised her voice.

After those words, the Goddess disappeared from her position and teleported in front of Dag, running so fast that she was imperceptible.

A violent punch struck the young man in the stomach, causing him to bend for the second time: Dag grabbed Freya's forearm and with all the force he managed to impress, pulled her backward, trying to open a window to hit and momentarily immobilize her.

Through a game of levers, similar to the one Taya used on her novice little pupils when they trained in Jernhest's Arena, the Goddess pulled Dag's body forward, placed a leg behind his ankle, and caused him to lose his balance, slamming his back to the ground and cracking the terrain.

*booom*

"Yeeah!" 

"Go, Freya! Show that mortal what you're made of!"

After days of absolute silence, all the people who populated the arena stands began to cheer and behave like a real audience, shouting the name of the Goddess, the favorite between the two challengers.

"Aargh!" Dag yelled when his back slipped into the ground, as he tried with a kidney hit to get up immediately.

Just then, in front of his eyes appeared Freya's foot, which stomped on his face, causing him to sink even lower.

"Cough! Cough! Ouch!" poor Dag exclaimed, who looked like a training bag being kicked and punched.

Completely ignoring his pupil's verses of grief, Freya continued to hit him until he stopped moving.

At that point, after more than fifteen blows from the immense power, the woman grabbed him by the neck of the armor and lifted him from the ground, detaching his shoulders and hips from the soil in which they were wedged.

"And you should save all of us? You can't save yourself either!" she exclaimed, looking at Dag on his face full of bruises and throwing him to the ground soon after as if it was a disposable object.

As Freya walked away at a slow pace and the audience continued to scream her name, Dag stood still to look up at the sky above his head, with his body and face full of wounds.

"I will not save anyone... I can't even save myself..." 

Images of his childhood came to his mind and began to flow fast before his eyes: training in the arena, fighting against other recruits, Gridd's departures, the Clan's choice, Freydis' anger.

"I won't save anyone... I will not save anyone..." 

Stein's death, the exile from the Temple Of Orn, the battle against Hjalmar and his Renegades, Magn's death.

"I can't save myself either... how can I save everyone else?" 

His memories began to flow as fast into the sky as the pages of an infinite book and after the dark moments of his life, he remembered the most beautiful episodes, such as the encounter with Freydis on Vaeren Island and the creation of the Iron Alliance, which had led him to travel to Krypstorm and learn about his true destiny.

"I can't save myself... but... who says I need to be saved... I chased my destiny... I have already saved the lives of hundreds of people and killed hundreds of enemies... It was me! Me and no one else! I can do it! No one can tell me what I can do!" Dag said, increasing the volume of his voice more and more until he shouted the last words of the sentence, continuing to look at the sky above his head.

"Aaaaargh!" the young warrior's scream continued for several seconds and his body reacted to that sudden stimulus, healing the deepest wounds and progressively diminishing the feeling of pain that pervaded his bones and muscles.

He turned his palms towards the ground and squeezed the soil with strength: suddenly, a huge bundle of dark matter splashed out of his back and chest, wrapping all four of his limbs and quickly lifting his body upwards.

"I don't have to be saved... I must not fear darkness... I am Darkness!" shouted Dag again, giving voice to his thoughts and letting the anger and frustration of that hard training turn into pure power.

All the noise caused by him soon caught the eye of Freya and Freyr, who turned backward and were enchanted by that unprecedented spectacle: a kind of whirlwind formed by dark matter rotating on itself was holding Dag's body in mid-air and the fluid substance that had wrapped his limbs had penetrated their tissues, becoming one thing with his body.

Letting all his power flow, the last bundle of dark matter floating attached to his shoulders enveloped his entire head, continuing to rotate and emit that strange viscous fluid sound.

"What happened to the earthling?" 

"What is he doing?! That dark aura... it looks so much like that of... it looks like that of..." 

"It looks like a Frostsinner!" 

The crowd in the Arena stood up, as soon as they saw that Dag's body was totally wrapped in the same material that characterized the powers of the Xis, began to agitate.

"This is enough, Dag. Stop it!" Freyr yelled, noting that his pupil was pushing his body over his limits.

Freya remained silent to watch, while the darkness of Dag's power reflected in her sky-blue eyes.

After a few seconds of noise caused by Dag's black arms and legs wriggling from side to side, the liquid that wrapped his head suddenly compressed, entering it.