As Kratos, Atreus, and Zelos prepared to depart the highest peak in Jotunheim, Atreus noticed a crucial detail that had not been addressed earlier due to the heavy, emotional atmosphere.
It was something that Atreus decided he needed to address before they left this realm of myths.
"Where are the Giants?" Atreus suddenly asked, his voice echoing slightly in the vast, open space.
His question made both Kratos and Zelos stop and look at him at the same time. These simple words also made Kratos realize something profound.
He had spent the entire journey mentally preparing to fight against hordes of angry Giants to protect his sons.
He suddenly realized that for an ancient race that took a tremendous amount of effort to hide Jotunheim completely from outsiders, they were taking a very long time to respond to intruders such as them standing on their sacred peak. Kratos turned his gaze slowly towards Zelos.
He thought that Zelos might be the one who was responsible for this strange phenomenon, as the young sorcerer had done similar things before with concealment magic in the realm of Alfheim.
"Look at those mountains in the distance," Zelos then said. He turned back towards the grand valley where they had just spread the ashes of his mother. His tone was incredibly serious, a stark contrast to his usual demeanor.
Both Kratos and Atreus followed his gaze, looking out over the sprawling landscape.
Then, Zelos raised his hand, and a massive, complex magic circle suddenly appeared, glowing brightly within his palms.
He cast a dispel illusion, and the magic washed over the valley, revealing the true nature of the mountains below them.
When the true nature of the mountains was finally revealed, Atreus looked on in absolute, frozen horror.
What he thought were simply natural formations of stone and earth were actually the countless, massive bodies of numerous Giants.
They were lying dead on the ground, completely unmoving for who knows how long, long enough that actual mountains, forests, and rivers had grown over their colossal corpses.
"Are they dead? Are we truly the only Giants remaining in all of the Nine Realms?" Atreus asked Zelos in a tiny, heartbreakingly sad voice after recovering from the initial shock for a moment.
But Kratos, who possessed the special Dragon Eyes that Zelos had given him earlier, noticed something peculiar about the corpses.
He focused his vision and saw that there were no visible wounds, battle scars, or signs of struggle on their massive bodies. It looked exactly as if they had all just died an instant, synchronized death.
"Technically, they do not have souls remaining in those vessels, but yes, they are physically dead. I do not know where their souls went.
Perhaps they did this themselves using old magic, choosing to die peacefully on their own terms rather than being brutally hunted and killed by their Aesir enemies. A kind of tragic relief, perhaps?" Zelos then said.
He was lying smoothly, his voice back to its usual calm and analytical tone. He actually knew the true reason regarding the soul transfer to the marbles, but he firmly decided not to spoil anything yet, acting as if he had not been heavy with his own crushing emotions just moments earlier.
"Is that truly better? They are still dead," Atreus then said, still with a heavy tone of sadness in his voice.
Both Zelos and Kratos noticed the boy's despair, and they both shared a long, silent look.
Kratos then saw the specific expression that Zelos was wearing. It is the same blank look that Zelos would make if he genuinely did not know what to say to comfort someone.
It was a very rare emotion for Zelos, but one that Kratos is entirely too familiar with in himself. Deciding to finally step up and become the father he needed to be, Kratos kneeled heavily in front of Atreus and gently took his son's shoulder.
"Dying on their own terms is some kind of true mercy. For a proud group of warriors, dying on their own terms is a very rare and precious thing. This is the only sense of comfort I could provide in understanding their actions," Kratos then said softly.
He knew all too well that if he were ever to die, he also wanted to die on his own terms, perhaps sacrificing himself while protecting his children in harm's way, rather than being a pawn for the gods.
"Can we stay for a little bit longer? I want to explore some of their memories. Perhaps that cave over there would offer something we can learn from. I feel a strange thud of a magical pull coming from there," Atreus said towards Kratos as he pointed to a dark cave opening carved into the mountainside.
Kratos and Zelos looked at where he pointed. Zelos recognized this place from his past knowledge, and Kratos stood up and grunted for approval, allowing the detour.
The three walked slowly down the path towards the cave that Atreus had pointed out.
As they continued their descent, Zelos started to hear faint buzzing sounds in his ears, as if someone or something were trying to desperately communicate with him across a vast distance, but he could not understand the strange frequency.
The buzzing sound continued persistently as they drew closer to the entrance, and it grew clearer and clearer with every step.
When they finally entered the dark, cool cave, Zelos then heard the full, clear version of the buzzing sound inside his mind.
'You are not supposed to be here,' the ethereal voice entered Zelos's ears like a whisper.
Zelos immediately looked at the source of the magical voice. He saw a specific section of a mural that definitely did not exist in the original murals he remembered.
The original murals only depicted the specific adventure that Kratos and Atreus had gone through in the games.
Zelos then decided to ignore the voice for now, as he saw the main paintings alongside Kratos and Atreus. Atreus could not believe what he was seeing.
There was an entire wall of intricate markings and carvings of things that accurately depicted him and his father's journey. But curiously, Atreus noticed that it did not depict Zelos anywhere in the grand story.
"Huh? Those paintings seem to perfectly depict an adventure we had, but it seems that Zelos is completely missing from the story.
Look, that is Baldur, right when he first appeared at our home. But the mural says you and I fought against him,
Father. Why did the paintings only depict you and Baldur? It even depicted you killing Baldur at the end of a long battle, but that did not happen that way.
Look over there, that is Magni and Modi, but I cannot see Vidar and Vali anywhere. It is so strange that it seems to closely resemble our journey, but the specific events do not match our reality at all," Atreus then said towards Kratos, tracing the lines with his fingers.
Kratos also looked at the prophetic paintings with narrowed eyes, distrusting the magic.
"I believe I know the exact answer to that one," Zelos then said, stepping forward.
"Mother always said that I am very special, as in, as if I have absolutely no fate at all tying me down, making me completely invisible to any kinds of future sights or prophecies.
Perhaps this mural depicts the adventure that both you and Father would have had if I were not in the mix to change things.
Plus, I think the Giants fundamentally misconstrued future sight as the one inevitable path. But time does not exist like a single straight river.
Every action one takes creates another entirely new branch of reality. That is the true reason why the Yggdrasil has multiple, infinite branches. It is physically connected to every kind of reach of parallel reality.
There is a reality where I did not exist, and this exact mural happened, but we are currently standing in the reality where I existed and changed the path."
Zelos explained his complex temporal theories. It amazed Atreus once again, as he realized that Zelos contains secrets to the fundamental truth of the world that he could not even begin to comprehend fully.
"Cool. Does that mean that there is a parallel reality out there where the Giants actually won the war against the Aesir, or maybe one where Mother is not dead?" Atreus then asked with burning curiosity. Even Kratos seemed genuinely interested in what Zelos was supposed to say next regarding fate.
"Sadly, despite having multiple infinite branches of reality, there must always be a fixed point of origin holding it together. Despite my having no fate of my own, I was not able to change Mother's death.
This tells me that Mother's death is a fixed point of origin across timelines. Even the death of Baldur that coincided with the start of Fimbulwinter and Ragnarok seemed to be one of these fixed points of origin.
When I violently removed the divinity of Baldur earlier, I technically killed him in terms of the gods. I think this action would still kickstart the coming of Ragnarok, no matter how quickly I retained his godhood for myself.
There must be a specific point where the branches would originate from, which means that there is always something tragic that remains constant in every universe," Zelos explained somberly.
The three continued to explore the entire depth of the cave. But then, Zelos and Kratos both seemed to notice a final, hidden mural at the very end. It depicted the brutal death of Kratos lying in Atreus's arms.
When Zelos was about to say something to warn them, Kratos swiftly reached out and took his son's hand, squeezing tightly, and made Zelos stay completely silent.
This unexpected action made Zelos's eyes widen in shock, but there seemed to be a silent, pleading expression that Kratos was showing that made Zelos remain quiet, honoring his father's wish to keep the boy ignorant of this specific prophecy.
Zelos then remembered the strange, anomalous mural that was not supposed to exist in this cave from the beginning. He then walked back alone and looked closely at it. It depicts a group of incredibly angry Giants, seven of them in total.
It seemed that they were furiously chasing after some kind of magical squirrel. When Zelos reached out and touched the painted stone, his mind was instantly pulled in.
He was shown the vivid vision of the mural's history, much like the visions that would be seen in the Ragnarok shrines by Atreus later, but strangely, it only happened internally in his mind.
The vision depicted seven angry Giants that are relentlessly chasing towards one specific aspect of Ratatoskr, the messenger of the World Tree. But the color of the squirrel is not the same for the different kinds of aspects that were seen in the God of War Ragnarok lore. Its personality is not a match either.
It seemed this specific aspect of Ratatoskr is a rather malicious and playful one, acting much like the original Ratatoskr of the older Norse myths, deliberately sowing deep discords that slowly destroyed the peace of the World Tree. But it seemed that this time, he failed to sow discord among the Giants as he planned.
Instead, he became the sole target of the collective anger of the seven Giants instead of making them fight one another. The seven angry Giants then successfully captured the squirming Ratatoskr.
Then, in a terrible fit of rage, they imprisoned him using ancient magic and fundamentally changed his entire being into a dense, magical core. They then locked this core away securely in the hidden vaults of a Giant named Thrym.
The vision shifted. Thrym, the infamous Giant who had once successfully taken the hammer of Thor, seemed to take a great interest in the strange core.
He commissioned his absolute best Jotunn blacksmiths to create a flawless, magical copy of Thor's hammer, Mjolnir, specifically using the trapped core as the power source when he stole it from the vault.
However, before Thrym was able to even touch the finished weapon, the real Thor suddenly appeared in the stronghold and started violently killing everyone in sight, brutally slaughtering Thrym with his own hammer and leaving the copy hammer lying in the blood.
In the vision, Thor then tried to lift the copy hammer as a prize. But it seemed that the trapped aspect of Ratatoskr remained a playful and malicious entity.
It instantly froze Thor's fingers solid when he touched the handle. This deep humiliation made Thor incredibly angry.
He repeatedly and furiously struck his real Mjolnir into the copy hammer until Thor was finally satisfied and left the ruins. But the copy hammer did not suffer any catastrophic damage from the blows, except for a few glowing cracks along the head.
Zelos was then forcefully freed by the intense vision as the physical mural on the wall started to crumble and fall apart in front of him.
As the stone fell away, a hidden vault hidden by the false wall appeared in the darkness. The loud noise of the crumbling stone caught the attention of both Kratos and Atreus turn towards him rapidly.
They had still continued to observe the other murals peacefully, as there were only a few brief seconds that had passed for them in the real world while Zelos experienced the long vision.
"What?" Atreus just managed to say as he walked quickly towards Zelos with Kratos following closely behind with his axe drawn.
They looked past the falling dust and saw a massive, cracked warhammer resting on a stone pedestal in the newly revealed opening.
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A/N: SORRY HAHAHAHAHA