Chapter 1

The red pulsing lights of the stones matched perfectly with the gruesome pools of crimson that continued to spread from what remained of his crew.

His friends.

The beasts responsible lay next to and among his companions, their black blood coalescing with viscera to make something truly horrifying.

Torsten Redsail now regretted the decisions that led him here. The hunger that had driven every part of his life, the need to search out each ever-widening horizon for the unknown. His quest had now led him to this, a crewless leader on a foreign shore, surrounded by monsters that the gods themselves did not create. Could anything be worth this?

Torsten looked down at his trembling hands and deactivated the nanoparticle blade of his ax and let the handle fall back into the loop on his belt. This place was supposed to be it. Where was the artifact?

This realm… the shattered realm of metahumans was nothing but a small atoll on the infinite sea that the black of space provided. What he... no; what his crew, and their ship had proven, was that there were spaces in between spaces, infinite destinations for those with the technology to take them there.

Of all the possibilities, why had it been this one?

In the distance, he could hear the guttural growl of more of the flame-imbued beings pounding their massive feet that would all lead them here, and to his death. Of all the deaths Torsten had imagined, being mashed into a paste had not been one of them.

He chuckled and winced. His ribs were broken.

Reaching up, he pressed the small runic symbol that appeared beside his right eye and engaged his device. His left eye went black as the microprocessors began to whir in the small machine and started to process all spectrums of light around him.

The X-Ray setting showed that he indeed had two fractured ribs before spotting a shattered radius. He hadn't noticed that one.

His implants were pouring out numbing agents at their maximum setting. Flexing his arm, he turned his all-seeing eye to the structure that had served as the battleground for his life's final defeat.

A small megalithic structure of massive stones, that were set in a semicircle. Unlike the shades of black around him mixed with the pulsing reds of this hell. They were solid gray stone and their chemical signature read something truly unexpected.

Midgardian. Old Norway Earth.

In a daze, Torsten followed the projected path through the stones that his advanced eyewear recommended. Lacing him through a path he had not noticed before, the maze-like structure unfolded before him. As he reached its center, with the roar of the sea behind him and the constant crackle of the ever-crackling flames before him, stood a rune that he recognized.

Blot.

Blot was an old ritual, one that went back to the very founding of the Viking culture all those millennia ago. It was born on the branch of Yggdrasil herself and the power it granted was not questioned.

Torsten saw small effigies to the All Father and one to Tyr, the one-armed God of honor and sacrifice.

A simple stone bowl sat at the center of the megalithic complex, one marked in blood.

Torsten did not hesitate.

Following in the path of Odin himself, he pulled the ax from his belt and tore out his left eye with the impossibly sharp blade. He laid it in the bowl as he felt his strength leave his legs. Falling to his knees, his eye saw something… something he could not believe.