Reborn As The Barbarian God

He felt it the moment he was fully inside, a presence that wasn't quite consciousness but wasn't quite nothing. The valley had absorbed so much death, so much violence, so much concentrated betrayal that it had become aware in some limited, terrible way.

And it wanted to share what it knew.

The first vision hit him without warning.

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The valley was different this time, it was clean, the walls weren't scarred yet, the floor wasn't carpeted with dead. Two armies faced each other across the narrow space, weapons lowered, banners furled.

Galthor watched from nowhere and everywhere, seeing through eyes that didn't exist, understanding things he shouldn't have.

On one side stood the forces of a force, angels in golden armor, human warriors blessed with divine power, beings of pure light that hurt to look at directly. Their commander was a figure in white, radiant and terrible, whose face Galthor couldn't quite see.

On the other side stood another forces, demons in every shape imaginable, corrupted humans who had sold themselves for power, things that had crawled up from depths that shouldn't exist. Their commander was a thing of shadow and flame, massive and ancient and utterly inhuman.

They met in the center of the valley.

The white figure extended a hand. The shadow-thing reciprocated. They clasped hands or appendages that approximated hands and the armies on both sides lowered their weapons further.

"Seven days," the white figure said. Its voice was like bells, clear and pure. "Seven days of peace to tend our wounded and bury our dead. Then we return to war."

"Agreed," the shadow-thing replied. Its voice was grinding stone and burning oil. "Seven days. No ambushes and no attacks. On my word."

"And on mine."

They released each other. Both commanders turned back to their armies, began issuing orders. Soldiers on both sides relaxed, relief visible even through their exhaustion. Seven days of not dying. Seven days of rest.

Then the vision shifted.

Night. The third night of the truce. The armies were camped at opposite ends of the valley, separated by a neutral zone where neither side was permitted weapons.

A figure moved through the darkness.

A human, wearing the armor of the white forces but with the insignia carefully obscured. They carried a knife and a message, written on parchment that glowed with faint divine light.

The figure approached the Abyssal camp's perimeter. They whispered a password, how did they have a password?....and were allowed inside. Deeper they went, past sentries who didn't challenge them, until they reached the shadow-commander's tent.

Inside, the betrayer spoke with the demon lord. Galthor couldn't hear the words, but he understood the meaning from context, from the way the vision showed the exchange of the glowing message for a vial of something dark and viscous.

A deal. A betrayal.

In exchange for power, demon power, the kind that could elevate a mortal to godlike heights, the traitor would sabotage the truce. Would ensure that when the armies clashed again, the divine forces would be weakened, vulnerable, unprepared.

The vision showed the consequences.

Dawn of the fourth day. The neutral zone, where commanders from both sides met to discuss extending the truce. They were talking, negotiating in good faith, when the assassins struck.

They came from the divine's side. Elite warriors, blessed with divine speed and strength, falling upon the Abyssal commanders like wolves on sheep. The shadow-lord died first, its essence scattered across the valley floor. The other demon commanders fell seconds later.

But the assassins didn't stop there. They turned on their own commanders too, because the betrayal ran both ways. The traitor had arranged for the deaths of leaders on both sides, ensuring that when the armies inevitably clashed in the chaos, there would be no one with authority to restore order.

The valley became a slaughterhouse.

Both armies attacked each other in rage and confusion, thinking they'd been betrayed, not knowing that the betrayal ran deeper than either could imagine. The fighting lasted hours, days, until everyone was dead. Every single soldier, from both sides, lying broken on the valley floor.

The vision showed the traitor them leaving, walking away from the carnage, carrying the vial of demon essence that would eventually transform them into something new. Something powerful.

Something that still existed, somewhere in the world.

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Galthor gasped as the vision released him. He was on his knees, he realized, his hands pressed against the stone floor. His body was shaking.

"That's what happened here," he said to the empty air. "That's why it's called the Valley of Betrayal. Someone betrayed everyone."

The valley didn't answer and it didn't need to. The truth was written in blood and bones and the psychic echoes that still resonated through this place.

Galthor forced himself to stand. The vision had shaken him more than he wanted to admit, not just because of the violence but because of what it represented.

The Abyssal War hadn't been a clean fight between good and evil. It had been messy, complicated, full of people making terrible choices for complicated reasons.

And some of those people were still out there. Still pulling strings.

He continued deeper into the valley.

The visions came faster now, triggered by proximity to different sections of death. He saw a thousand small betrayals. soldiers turning on their comrades, commanders sacrificing their own troops for tactical advantage, wounded being left behind to save the healthy. The valley had accumulated them all, stored them like a library of treachery.

But one vision stood out.

It came when Galthor reached the valley's deepest point, where the walls pressed closest and the bodies were piled highest. This vision was different from the others because it felt sharper, more focused, as if the valley considered it particularly important.

He saw barbarians.

A group of them, twenty, led by someone who looked remarkably like Galthor himself, same build, same features, close enough to be family.

They were prisoners, hands bound, being marched through the valley by a mixed group of soldiers.

Not Abyssal forces. Not the divine's army either. Something else. A third faction that Galthor hadn't seen in the previous visions.

They reached a door.

Galthor hadn't noticed it before, but now he could see it clearly, a massive portal set into the valley wall, covered in runes and seals that pulsed with power. An entrance to something. Something sealed.

The leader of the soldiers, a figure in robes that might have been priestly or might have been military, began to speak.

Galthor couldn't hear the words, but he could read the intent in their gestures, in the way they pointed at the door and then at the barbarian prisoners.

They were going to open the door. And they needed the barbarians to do it.

The lead barbarian, the one who looked like Galthor, seemed to understand. They struggled against their bonds, shouting something that made the other prisoners resist as well. But it was futile.

The soldiers had essence masters among them, powerful enough to overwhelm even the strongest barbarian warrior.

One by one, the prisoners were dragged to the door.

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