Karl slaughtered dozens each second, lost in pure carnage. He activated every werewolf ability as much as he could, becoming an unstoppable force of Nordic nature.

  He barely noticed the eclipse nearing its end as he ripped through a Roman’s face at the arena’s edge. Only seconds remained before detonation.

  The remaining hundred or so gladiators clustered near the center, trying to flee what they could not see, while Kara shepherded Björn and Mýra away from them, reading Karl’s thoughts.

  Karl decided it was better that the remaining gladiators feel the sun’s return.

  He ripped a Corinthian helmet free from the corpse before him and hurled it toward the center, Elf Leaping after it. The moment he teleported in the middle of the crowd, he detonated like the sun itself.

  A radiant shockwave erupted, evaporating every gladiator nearby, sparing only Kara, Björn, and Mýra thanks to his cake’s protection. Light exploded outward, not as a mushroom cloud, but as a vast, brilliant white halo expanding in an ever-growing ring, incinerating everything in its path.

  Alpha Path (+16): lvl 33 350/430

  Moonlight Meter is now 380/380

  Reiði Points (+16, -9): 7

  Wealth (+2,300): 11,000 Gold

  Glory (+480): 4,630

  Level (+1): 54 (280/550)

  Skill Points (+1): 4

  Once the solar flare receded, he received a peculiar System message.

  Contestants Remaining: 6

  Colosseum Floors: 5/5

  System Message: “You’re officially a mass murderer now, just so you know. 587 Kills just from that little solar eclipse of yours.”

  There are six left? Karl thought, but his thoughts were quickly quieted by the celebration from the ravenous arena.

  The burst of a thousand trumpets and fanfare erupted all around them. Karl stood to his feet to see tens of thousands of multicolored streamers shooting from metal canons at the top of the arena, raining down on them and the cheering crowd. Karl was perplexed to see them not trying to murder him until he glimpsed the imperial clerics handing out the cursed bread again, which seemed to appease them, for now.

  Kara, Björn, and Mýra approached Karl from behind as he looked solely at the Emperor’s box. The Emperor remained seated on his gilded throne, though his sons stood and politely clapped for Karl’s victory.

  “Are you still in your killing mood?” Ratatoskr asked, who came limping up the crumbled edges of the arena.

  Karl nodded, struggling to keep Fenrir at bay within him. The wolf god wanted Karl to seek revenge, to take on the Emperor.

  Kara’s claws found his, stopping him from such a suicidal path. An image of their child came to her mind, cooling his rage slightly.

  Karl huffed in anger, letting himself calm down while the crowd cheered incessantly. He stood even as he and Kara became nude briefly from the transformation, not caring what the Emperor or anyone else thought.

  A golden metal pathway extended from the Emperor’s box, angling down past the ruins and towards Karl and his friends. It stopped precisely at Karl’s feet, the edge just kissing the toes of his Moltenveil boots.

  Of course, the Emperor would have predicted with such precision.

  Before they could decide what to do next, dozens of royal Praetorian Guards came marching down the path, two by two. Each wore matte obsidian steel-veined armor, glowing red visors, and midnight black capes. They soon encircled Karl and his friends with their humming spears that could shoot them at a moment’s notice.

  Karl hesitated at the edge of the walkway. The environment was too similar to Kara’s Baldr prophecy of doom. Everything in Karl screamed to not let her walk up that pathway, but she gave him a confident glance and a smile that melted away all fears.

  “Let’s go get our boon,” Karl said.

  The Trickster whooped in agreement. “Lead the way, cyborgs!”

  The Praetorian Guards led them up the path to ensure nothing got out of hand. But the moment they walked up the path, Umbra flew down from the cotton clouds above. The red dragon landed on top of the covered box, huffing at Karl with suspicion.

  “You need a breath mint, pal,” Ratatoskr said, pinching his bent nose in exaggeration.

  “My harem would disagree,” the dragon growled back.

  The Emperor raised a hand to silence them all. His sons stood faithfully behind him, with Remus still wearing his royal Egyptian armor and Romulus his Roman armor. Seeing them up close was strange to say the least. They were supposedly the spitting image of Maximus, according to Sporus.

  For a few tense moments, no one said anything. Even the Praetorian Guards remained like statues around them.

  “Congratulations, Vikings,” the Emperor said, leaning back on his golden throne, as if he were bored watching a movie he had seen a thousand times, which, in his case, it was a reality. “You have earned the privilege of my boon. State whatever your heart desires, and it shall be yours.”

  Before Karl could respond, the Trickster spoke for him. “How many boons are we talking about here?”

  “One,” the Emperor said. “The Valkyrie shall take this draught and receive the Glory and Odin’s blessing. But that is the only exception.”

  The Emperor handed Kara a glowing, golden flask. She carefully accepted it, holding it like some priceless treasure. With one look at Karl, she drank it. Through her mind, Karl could see her Valkyrie quest completed with more than enough Glory as she was already close to completing it, and a System notification that Odin had overlooked her werewolf curse.

  Karl had to look away; the end was coming.

  “I feel like you can do a bit better than that,” the Trickster said, placing his hands on his broken hips like some disapproving child. “I means did you see how much fun the audience had? Can you imagine how much more they’ll love you for your generosity? After all, there are two couples here, so two rewards on top of that Glory potion!”

  The faintest smile came from Remus, who immediately forced it back down; the opposite was true of Romulus, whose brow only tightened with frustration.

  “Very well, Ratatoskr,” the Emperor said. “You shall have two requests.”

  “Great!” Ratatoskr said. “I’ll have grilled cheese⁠—”

  Kara muzzled the robot with her hand. She motioned for Karl to speak.

  Quickly, she thought to him, before this rat speaks again.

  Ratatoskr continued speaking inaudibly through her hand.

  “I want a full imperial fleet for Ragnar’s army before spring,” Karl said, staring the Emperor right in the dark eye slits of his black helmet.

  “May the gods will it,” the Emperor said, nodding.

  Immediately, Karl received a notification stating he completed his quest, but he was too focused on the monster in front of him to read it.

  Björn cleared his throat behind him. Karl turned to see him and Mýra, hand in hand, ready to state their boon. “We would like to have a chi⁠—”

  A chorus of gasps broke their conversation.

  Everyone turned to see the strangest sight: There, ascending from the ruined ring of the arena, came Sporus. But it was not just the dark archer, for following him were hundreds of factory children.

  The kids were gaunt, their eyes widened, smelling faintly of coffee, no doubt the Café Aeternum 2.0 mixture that Valerius had concocted for them, who was still somewhere beneath the tunnels of Rome, blinded.

  Sporus led them, reminding Karl of the Pied Piper, carrying a little girl with dark curly hair in his arms. She rested against his dark archer chest armor.

  Karl looked quickly back at the Emperor, who didn’t seem surprised by Sporus’s survival or arrival. Björn and Mýra nodded at Sporus in honor.

  As Sporus ascended the golden ramp past the Praetorian Guards, he left the other children behind. “Stay right here. I promise I’ll be right back,” Sporus said to the kids, then walked past Björn and Mýra.

  Sporus nodded briefly at Karl, Kara, and the Trickster before approaching his old friend.

  “Yes, your request is granted,” the Emperor said, just as Sporus opened his mouth.

  Sporus sealed his lips, pressing them into a thin line. “All of them?” he asked, his voice trembling with rage.

  “Even those that are not mine,” the Emperor said. “I will make it illegal to hire children, slave or free, from here on out.”

  Sporus only looked at the Emperor with confusion and hard-boiled hatred. “What is it for?” Sporus finally whispered, having to pat the little girl in his arms when she started to weep at the Emperor’s sight.

  The two sons of Rome looked at each other with confusion but said nothing.

  For a second, the Emperor did not speak, and Karl feared he would grow wrathful and strike them down. But the Emperor responded with cool, calculated measure.

  “Memento mori,” the Emperor said, which translated in Karl’s mind as: “Remember, you will die.”

  The Emperor said nothing else as he dismissed them with a flick of his hand. Sporus only shook his head as the Praetorian Guards escorted them down, the Emperor and his sons watching them with curiosity.

  “Wait, was that the second boon?” the Trickster asked as they descended the golden ramp to join the hundreds of kids awaiting in the now-cleared arena after Karl incinerated the gladiators.

  “I think so,” Karl said, looking at the kids and wondering what to do with them all as the crowds continued to cheer and celebrate at the end of the Games.

  “Karl,” Kara said, grabbing his arm and redirecting his attention to a beautiful blonde woman in silver armor standing amidst the children. Karl hadn’t noticed her before. Beside her was a white Pegasus, and her eyes were golden, just like her sun-kissed hair.

  Kara’s mother looked at her. “You have impressed Odin,” she said, offering Kara a smile. “You have avenged Frigg, defended your new home, and saved it from King Arthur and his knights. At the Emperor’s request, Odin has decided to overlook your werewolf curse. Should you take my hand, you may join the ranks of the Valkyrie right now.”

  Kara’s mother extended her hand. The factory children looked in awe as it radiated splendorous light, just like the rest of her being.

  Karl, seconds ago full of wrath, found himself choking up. Words would not come as he realized this was the end of his wife and their life together.

  He turned toward Kara, finally ready to let her go. She was the best thing that had ever happened to him in this life and the life before. As painful as it was, he was blessed to have shared every single moment with her.

  Karl gripped her hands as the crowds disappeared, streamers continuing to fall around them, and looked into her beautiful blue eyes again.

  He saw in her mind their first memory together—him being chased by a Draugr; when they swam together in the sea, though it was freezing cold, only to hunt dwarfs on a nearby farm; how they battled Fenrir together; how he chased after her breathlessly through the forest to save her; their first kiss—violent, yet beautiful; how they fought Viktor together; their wedding night; their first time together, alone in a bed.

  All the memories filled him with warmth and sorrow at the same time, filling his heart and bursting it simultaneously. Tears ran down her face as they did his. They embraced, hugging each other as the world melted away around them.

  “I love you,” Karl whispered, his lips trembling. His wife would finally be safe, and she would finally begin to become the woman she had always wanted to be.

  Karl held onto her for the few precious seconds he had left, trying to soak up as much of it as he could.

  “I’m sorry, Mother.”

  Karl froze, uncertain of the words he had heard from Kara. He pulled back to see that Kara wasn’t looking at him, but at her mother.

  “Tell Odin that I am grateful, but that I will not be joining him in Valhalla.”

  Björn and Mýra opened their mouths in shock, as did Sporus and the Trickster.

  Her mother shook her head in disappointment, then turned away without another word.

  Karl could feel Kara yearning for her mother’s affection and was scorned at being shunned, but he also saw in her mind that she no longer cared. In her mind, Kara was thinking of Titus and Livia’s children braiding hair with Constantia, watching Justus decorate his cake with Karl, and then the image of their future child shooting a bow with Karl.

  “I’m ready to start living my dream,” she said, turning back to Karl, “and not my mother’s. I’m ready to start that with you.”

  She placed Karl’s hand on her belly and smashed her lips against his in a breathless embrace.

  42

  VIKING DADDY

  It would have taken several hours to get out of the Colosseum, with the streets filled with people drinking in celebration and getting flat-out drunk.

  Thankfully, Karl was able to Elf Leap Kara, Björn, Mýra, and the Trickster to the top of the Colosseum, then onward from the rooftops back to Titus and Livia’s house.

  Sporus promised to be right behind them, explaining that he needed to take care of the kids first before coming back to the house, which was understandable.

  Kara was elated with joy, so much so that Karl barely noticed they had arrived back at Titus’s house, as he and Kara kissed the entire way.

  I am literally going to kill myself, Fenrir said in his mind. I’m going to find a way to commit spiritual suicide, because I cannot stand another second of this.

  Karl and Kara both laughed, the joy intoxicating.

  He still couldn’t believe his luck—that she had chosen him over a life as Odin’s warrior. He truly was the luckiest man in the world.

  The kids were the first to burst out of the door once the slave Hermes opened it to welcome Karl and his friends.

  “I had no doubt that you would win!” Justus shouted, hugging Karl, who had cleansed his body of all the gore with his Nøkk’s Hand Soap. “And you brought me my sword, right?”

  Karl froze, having totally forgotten about the weapon.

  “It’s right here,” Kara said, unsheathing her Sólbrandr sword and igniting it as Titus, Livia, and the other kids gathered around.

  “That’s mine?” Justus asked, reaching out carefully, as if approaching a holy relic.

  “Just with the fire ability off,” Titus said, chuckling as he grabbed the blade, extinguished it, and handed it to Justus.

  Justus shouted with triumph and rushed back inside, Marcus and Quintus chasing after him.

  “You sure about that?” Titus asked, patting Tullus on the butt as he cuddled in his arms.

  “I’m sure,” Kara said, smiling. “I can always make another one.”

  Constantia shifted on her toes as she watched everyone go inside.

  Feeling guilty that he had only gotten something for Justus, Karl reached into his inventory, only to find Mýra handing him back his Hököga Bow. She gave Karl an understanding nod, and he thanked her silently.

  “Here, this is for you,” Karl said, handing her the dark bow once owned by Jorulf the Patient.

  Her eyes widened as she looked up at Karl with uncertainty. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  She grinned at Sabina, and the two of them rushed to the garden to practice their archery.

  Kara kissed Karl on the cheek as they came back inside the house.

  As Björn and the Trickster told the tale of how they had defeated the Colosseum and how Karl had saved them all by unlocking his werewolf powers, Karl looked at his quest completion notification, amazed at the rewards he had received.

  Quest Completed: The Winter of Kings

  “You survived! Not even I could predict if you would, unlike the Emperor. Gods only know what he’s planning or what all of this was for. I guess time will tell! At least you won’t have to worry about English Knights crusading on your shores anytime soon.”

  Primary Objectives:

  Unite the Winter Jarls under Ragnar’s banner (1/1)

  Rebuild a Fleet Worthy of the Heathen Army (1/1)

  Rewards:

  Settlement Upgrade: City of the Moon — Unlocks Mythic Mounts (Can summon your mount ANYWHERE via moonbeam, Mounts gain +50% Speed and +40% Defense). All food production +300%, food buffs last twice as long, and warriors recovering here heal at +100% rate.

  Item: Wolf-King’s War-Standard (Legendary) — When raised on a battlefield or ship: All allies gain +30% Damage, +30% Defense, Fear Immunity, and frost and moonlight swirl around the user, granting +20% movement speed.

  Item: Holmegaard Bow (Dei) — Time slows by 50% for everyone, but the user, and its unbreakability allows it to be drawn in any condition (like Werewolf form).

  Fleet Reward: Viking Armada — 20 Heavy Longships, 40 Standard Longships, 1 Flagship, +35% Naval Damage, +30% Speed.

  Glory (+300): 4,930

  Level (+1): 55 (30/560)

  Skill Points (+1): 5

  A sleek, dark Holmegaard Bow appeared in his hands, which left Justus and the other boys staring in awe. Time crawled as he half as he held it; it only resumed normal speed when he willed it. That would’ve come in handy in the Colosseum Tower, but it was better late than never.

  System Message: “At the Emperor’s request, here’s a new Title for you. Don’t know why he insisted, but here you go!”

  Title (+): Gladiātor Lupī, Stormbreaker of Gotland, Protector of Visby, God-Tiered Chef, Mythological Serial Killer, Viking Raider, Troll Hunter, Dwarf Exterminator, Unicorn Slayer, Brokkenator, Inky Blinders

  From his new gladiator Title, he received a new visual and effect added to his other ones.

  Visual: Your reflection now portrays a wolf in a man’s body, crowned with a golden laurel wreath.

  Effect: You can now wield your weapons in werewolf mode.