Chapter 871: Gungnir vs Excalibur

Odin attacked first. There was no warning beyond a slight change in the way his fingers held Gungnir. The spear rotated a fraction in his hand, its point stopped aiming at Vergil’s chest and shifted several centimeters to the side. It looked like an alignment mistake, but Vergil immediately realized it was deliberate.

He moved Excalibur to block.

Gungnir did not go where the point indicated.

Odin advanced with a single step, and the spear changed trajectory in the middle of the attack, curving around Vergil’s blade before rising toward his throat. The movement was too clean to depend only on speed. The shaft rotated between the God-King’s fingers, using Excalibur’s block as support to change the angle.

Vergil tilted his neck.

The point crossed his skin and opened a thin cut beneath his jaw. The Authority of Death tried to cling to the metal at the instant of contact, but Gungnir expelled the influence with a discharge of golden runes.

Vergil retreated two steps.

Odin was already in front of him.

The shaft came from below toward his stomach. Vergil blocked with his knee and tried to cut Odin’s arm, but the God-King withdrew Gungnir before Excalibur arrived. In the same movement, he struck the back end of the spear against Vergil’s wrist.

His fingers opened by reflex.

Excalibur almost escaped.

Vergil tightened his grip again and turned his body to avoid the point advancing toward his heart. Even so, Gungnir pierced his shoulder and passed through the armor formed by the Authority of Death as though it were only leather.

The spear entered twenty centimeters.

Odin pulled.

Flesh, energy, and shadow were torn away with the point.

Vergil jumped backward, created distance, and answered with a horizontal slash. Excalibur’s energy crossed kilometers of Asgard, splitting walls, mountains, and clouds, but Odin was no longer there. Ravens exploded in front of the attack, and the old man’s true body appeared on Vergil’s left side.

Gungnir descended toward his head.

Vergil raised the sword in time.

The collision between the two Divine Weapons made the entire battlefield sink.

Odin’s strength crossed his arms and traveled down his spine. The black plates over his shoulder cracked, his knees gave way several centimeters, and a golden wave spread across the ground. Excalibur endured, but Vergil immediately felt the difference in reach. Gungnir kept Odin outside the space where he could use the sword freely. Even while blocking, Vergil had to advance to answer. Odin only needed to withdraw the spear and attack again.

The point vanished from his sight.

Vergil moved his head aside.

Gungnir passed through his cheek.

He tried to seize the shaft with the hand covered in shadow armor, but runes lit across the metal and exploded against his fingers. The entire hand was opened down to the bones. Before it could regenerate, Odin turned the spear, using the side of the point to cut Vergil’s face and push him backward.

Vergil slid through the ruins, Excalibur dragging a line of light across the ground.

This was nothing like the fight against Thor.

Thor wasted power because he only knew how to apply it in one way. Odin wasted nothing. Not distance, not movement, not information. Every attack served two purposes. The thrust toward the throat also displaced Excalibur. The strike to the shoulder also compromised his stance. Magic never appeared separately from technique. The runes were not cast before or after the attacks. They existed within them.

Odin advanced again.

Vergil watched his feet.

The first step was short. The second did not exist. The old man used a spatial rune beneath his sole and appeared two meters beyond the expected range. Gungnir attacked from above while three magic circles opened behind Vergil.

He noticed too late.

Runic chains wrapped around his ankles and pulled his feet to the ground. Vergil cut two with Excalibur, but Gungnir’s point was already descending.

The spear passed through his chest.

His heart was pierced.

Odin’s divine energy exploded inside his body, burning organs and rupturing vessels before regeneration could begin. Vergil seized the shaft with his left hand and tried to use the contact to send the Authority of Death into the weapon.

Gungnir resisted.

Not merely as an enchanted object.

As a weapon conscious that it carried the right to kill gods.

The Authority of Death advanced through the metal like a shadow trying to contaminate solid light. The runes reacted in sequence, expelling the black energy little by little. Vergil felt that he could overcome that resistance if he had time.

Odin did not give him any.

A rune appeared over the old man’s fist and discharged magic directly through the spear. Vergil’s chest exploded backward, and his body was torn from the point, flying through a row of towers.

He crossed gold, stone, wood, and defensive enchantments before falling inside a destroyed hall. His heart was already beginning to reform when he stood.

"He is mixing spells with spear technique," Nivara said inside his mind. "I can contain the runes for you."

"No."

Crymsaria answered irritably.

"This is not training. He is trying to kill you."

"I noticed."

"Then let me burn him."

Vergil rested Excalibur against the floor for an instant while the muscles in his chest rebuilt themselves. Blood ran from his mouth, but his breathing was already returning to normal.

"No."

Nivara remained silent for a second.

"Pride?"

"Responsibility."

Crymsaria laughed without humor.

"That is pride under another name."

Vergil raised the sword and looked toward the hole opened in the wall.

"I have to be the one who survives this."

It was not an empty statement. If he depended on the dragons every time he encountered someone above his level, he would never understand where his own strength ended and theirs began. Odin was not merely an enemy.

He was a reference.

A God-King at the peak of the divine hierarchy, bearer of knowledge accumulated over ages, magic, technique, and a Divine Weapon capable of piercing gods.

Vergil needed to understand it with his own body.

Even if the lesson came in the form of punctures.

Odin entered the hall walking.

He did not appear hurried. Gungnir remained lowered, its point dripping with Vergil’s blood, while small golden symbols rotated around the God-King’s single eye.

"You confuse stubbornness with courage," Odin said.

Vergil wiped his mouth.

"And you confuse knowledge with superiority."

"Knowledge is superiority."

"Then you should know when someone is learning from you."

Odin stopped.

Vergil advanced.

This time, he did not attack the body.

Excalibur collided with Gungnir’s shaft near Odin’s right hand. The old man tried to rotate the spear to redirect the cut, exactly as he had before, but Vergil followed the movement. Instead of resisting the rotation, he allowed the sword to be guided and used the momentum to attack from the opposite side.

Odin moved his head.

Excalibur’s point cut a lock of his hair.

It was the closest attack yet.

Vergil saw something change in the old man’s eye.

Small.

But real.

Odin answered with a sequence of thrusts so fast that the space in front of him seemed covered by hundreds of golden points. Vergil retreated, dodging and blocking. Some passed through his arms. Others opened cuts across his neck and abdomen. He could not follow all of them.

But now he understood their origin.

Odin’s technique was not identical to Sapphire’s, but it possessed a similar foundation. Not in stance or runes. In the way he treated the spear. Sapphire did not see the weapon as a long object used to pierce. She used every part. The point, the side of the blade, the shaft, the rear end, the central weight, and even the empty space created between one strike and the next.

Odin did the same.

The difference was that Sapphire pressured the enemy through speed and control of the body. Odin filled the spaces within the technique with magic. Where she would step, he placed a rune. Where she would shift her weight, he distorted distance. Where Sapphire would use a feint, Odin created an illusion capable of killing.

Vergil allowed a thrust to pass through his left side.

Odin believed he had found an opening.

That was what Vergil wanted.

He trapped the shaft between his arm and body, ignored the tearing flesh, and advanced along Gungnir’s length. Odin tried to retreat, but Vergil had already shortened the distance controlled by the spear.

Excalibur rose toward the God-King’s neck.

A runic barrier appeared.

The blade passed through it.

Another appeared beneath it.

Excalibur cut through the second.

Odin tilted his body and escaped by the smallest margin. The sword opened a superficial wound across his chest, destroyed part of his robes, and reached the skin.

The Authority of Death entered.

For one second, the cut darkened.

Vergil smiled.

Odin touched the wound with two fingers. An unknown rune appeared across the skin, isolating the authority before it could spread. The old man pulled the black energy from his own body as though removing a thorn and crushed it between his fingers.

Vergil’s smile disappeared.

"Interesting," Odin said.

The rear end of Gungnir struck Vergil’s stomach.

He bent forward.

Odin rotated the spear over his shoulder, and the main point pierced Vergil’s back, emerging through his chest. The movement was almost identical to an execution Sapphire had once used during training: allow the opponent to believe they had defeated the distance, then reverse the weapon and attack using the space behind one’s own body.

Vergil recognized it too late.

But he recognized it.

He opened his hand.

The Authority of Greed seized the strike’s energy. Gluttony began devouring part of the runic magic. Wrath reinforced his muscles, while Sloth reduced the speed around the point for a fraction of a second.

It did not prevent the wound.

But it prevented Gungnir from destroying his heart again.

Vergil turned his body with the spear still piercing him and struck Odin with Excalibur’s guard. The God-King blocked with his forearm, retreated, and pulled the weapon free.

Both moved apart.

The ruins around them barely existed now. The battle had spread across a vast portion of Asgard, leaving burned forests, divided towers, sunken roads, and mountains marked by Excalibur’s cuts. Ravens watched from every direction, but none approached.

Vergil breathed more heavily.

Odin did not.

That was also information.

The old man’s divine energy remained superior. Not by an impossible amount, but enough to turn a prolonged battle in his favor. Vergil compensated with regeneration, authorities, and adaptation. Odin answered every new lesson with another layer of knowledge.

When Vergil began reading the spear, Odin changed the sequence.

When he noticed the runes, Odin began hiding them inside illusions.

When Vergil found a way to approach, Odin lengthened Gungnir’s shaft with magic, changing its reach in the middle of an attack.

It was like fighting a library wielding a spear.

Odin attacked again.

Vergil blocked.

The point changed direction.

He expected it.

Excalibur rotated beneath the shaft and tried to reach Odin’s hand. A temporal rune slowed the blade. Vergil broke the spell with the Authority of Death, but Gungnir was already retreating.

They exchanged dozens more strikes.

None were decisive.

Odin pierced Vergil six times. Three attacks destroyed organs. One tore away part of his neck. Regeneration rebuilt everything.

Vergil cut the robes, struck the shoulder, and opened another wound along Odin’s side. None were deep enough. The old man knew every opening before it fully formed.

After another collision, both were thrown in opposite directions.

Vergil landed on a broken wall.

Odin remained in the air, supported by runes.

They watched each other.

Vergil finally understood.

It was not a question of who possessed more strength at that moment. Odin could not overcome his regeneration quickly enough to kill him permanently. Vergil could not surpass enough technique, reach, magic, and prediction to produce a fatal strike.

If they continued, Asgard would be destroyed before either of them fell.

Odin reached the same conclusion. His single eye remained cold, but Gungnir stopped advancing for a moment.

Vergil lowered Excalibur.

"This will not end today."

Odin tilted the spear.

"You are retreating."

"I am avoiding wasting my time."

"You stole my bridge, my Valkyries, and my son’s weapon."

Mjölnir vibrated at Vergil’s waist.

"She does not seem to consider herself stolen."

Odin did not answer.

Vergil raised Excalibur and cut the space beside him. A fissure opened, revealing the Demon Realm on the other side. Qliphoth’s roots crossed the horizon, and far beyond them the Rainbow Bridge shone over black territory.

Vergil entered the portal.

Before disappearing, he looked over his shoulder.

"We will meet again."

Odin threw Gungnir.

The spear left his hand like a golden line destined to cross any distance, defense, or dimension. Excalibur closed the cut before the point reached Vergil.

Space sealed.

Asgard disappeared.

Vergil emerged in the Demon Realm before the stolen Bifröst. The Rainbow Bridge crossed the dark sky like a river of violent colors, held by enormous roots of Qliphoth that were still working to establish a permanent connection with Sparda. Demons, engineers, and sorcerers observed the structure from a distance, none daring to approach.

Vergil took one step.

He felt danger.

He turned.

Gungnir tore through the dimension behind him.

The point came directly toward his head.

Vergil raised his hand and seized the shaft only centimeters before the blade pierced his skull. The impact tore him from the ground. He was thrown backward through rocks, walls, and roots of Qliphoth while holding the spear with both hands.

His right arm broke first.

The bone shattered in three places.

The left began giving way immediately afterward, muscles tearing while Gungnir continued trying to fulfill its enchantment of always striking the target. Vergil clenched his teeth, twisted his body, and diverted the point from his head by only a few centimeters.

He struck the ground and opened an enormous crater.

Gungnir vibrated between his hands.

Then tried to return.

Vergil tightened his fingers despite the broken bones protruding through his skin.

"Oh, no. You are not getting away."

The Authority of Death spread through the shaft. Demonic symbols appeared around the spear, forming chains, layers of sealing, and circles meant to interrupt the bond with Odin. Qliphoth sent thin roots over the metal, trying to bind Gungnir to the Demon Realm.

The spear’s runes exploded.

Vergil maintained the pressure.

One more second and the first seal would close.

A hand appeared in the air.

There was no portal, body, or warning. Only an old hand covered in runic energy that crossed space, seized Gungnir by the center, and pulled.

The spear disappeared.

The seals closed over emptiness.

Vergil remained sitting at the bottom of the crater, both arms destroyed and his expression filled with irritation. Regeneration began rebuilding the bones while he stared at the place where the hand had appeared.

"Shitty old man," he cursed.