Freya enters Helheim and quickly realizes the realm’s cold is killing her. The dead she follows through the tunnels cannot hear or see her until she finds Geir, her brother, among the slain Skalander warriors from the battle on the strait. She confesses that Hel’s magic in her blood sent him and the others there, then asks Geir to help her wake them so she can give them another chance to win Valhalla by fighting for Skaland. Drawing on her link to the souls she condemned, Freya commands the warriors to halt and rouses them from their deathlike march.

Hel senses the disturbance as Freya and Geir run for the golden gates with the newly awakened dead behind them. Freya opens the gates, but her mortal heart stops just before Geir can carry her through. She revives outside beside Garmr, only to learn the others cannot cross before the gates close. To save them, Freya calls on Hel’s blood, proclaims herself daughter of Hel and lady of death, and offers the warriors a bargain: fight with her against Harald, and after victory she will surrender their souls to the Allfather for a chance at Valhalla. The Skalanders accept at once and surge out of Helheim, provoking Hel’s furious pursuit.

Freya leads the dead across the bridge and up Yggdrasil’s roots while Hel attacks from below, ripping some warriors away and hurling them into the river. When Hel reaches for Freya, Freya uses Hlin’s shield-magic to blast her back, but Hel retaliates by summoning Nidhogg. The giant serpent coils through the roots, calls Freya a thief, and spits black venom that burns through Yggdrasil and sears Freya’s leg. While the warriors climb higher toward the mortal world, Freya stays behind long enough to keep Nidhogg focused on her.

Seeing that Nidhogg closes his eyes when he spits venom, Freya turns that weakness against him. She hides behind her shield, maneuvers into the roots, and drops onto the serpent as he attacks, driving her rune-lit sword through his eyelid and into his skull. Nidhogg thrashes and throws her free, but Geir catches her and urges her upward. Freya claws through the roots and then through packed earth toward the surface, nearly suffocating before a skeletal hand yanks her from the ground. She sees Saga’s burned face for an instant, then finds herself alive on Ylva’s island, no longer buried but still trapped there.

At first Freya thinks approaching ships mean Ylva has returned, but the figures coming from the sea are the Skalander dead reclaiming their bodies as draug. Hundreds surround her, including Geir, now visibly undead. He reminds Freya of the promise she made in Helheim and asks whether she will keep it; when she says yes, he declares that the dead will follow her. The warriors of many clans acclaim Freya for escaping Harald, outwitting Hel, and wounding Nidhogg, and she understands that she has forged this new fate for herself. Raising her glowing shield, Freya accepts their allegiance and calls the undead host to war for all Skaland.