That same day, Hárekr decided to approach the cavern. He had no other choice: he did not intend to come down the mountain defeated, so he had to face the beast directly.
With the axe firmly gripped, he advanced toward the threshold of the cave, where a dense and penetrating stench received him. Further in, among the scattered bone remains, he distinguished the scaly skin of the creature. It seemed to be guarding something deep within. Sensing the intruder’s presence, the animal began to unfold swiftly toward the exit in a defensive posture.
Hárekr jumped back at the agility of its movements and shouted at it:
"You or me! If you beat me, you can devour me; but if I defeat you, not only will I eat you, but you will become my trophy."
And he let out a defiant laugh.
The beast, feeling provoked, accelerated its movement. It did not seek to bite him immediately, but to corner him. Hárekr noticed the strategy and began to move in zig-zag to avoid being trapped.
Taking advantage of a lapse, he launched an axe blow against the reptile’s torso, but the blade bounced off without managing to pierce the hard armor of scales.
The serpent did not seem to feel the impact and closed in on him again. Hárekr murmured to himself:
"So you want to trap me..."
He kept his distance, analyzing the animal’s attack pattern while worry grew inside him: his axe did not penetrate the skin.
The beast charged once more. This time it gave a whiplash with its body that struck Hárekr’s arm squarely. The young man felt his bones rattle from the force of the blow; it did not fracture, but it nearly broke his limbs. He looked at it severely: the beast did not seek to poison him or bite him, but to crush him.
Noticing the boy’s weakness, the serpent prepared to charge again, this time raising its head to strike with its snout. Seeing the movement, Hárekr risked everything: he delivered a direct axe blow toward the reptile’s face and threw himself backward immediately.
The blade struck one of the creature’s eyes squarely. The serpent emitted a hiss of pain and began to recoil abruptly upon itself. It measured more than nine meters long.
Hárekr, impressed by the length and the exotic gleam of the scales, exclaimed:
"Truly... do creatures this extraordinary exist in this world?"
Thus several clashes followed, but neither of the two emerged victorious. The animal retreated deep into the cave, while Hárekr, exhausted, returned staggering to his bonfire. Three days of absolute attrition passed.
Hárekr felt finished inside: hunger, extreme cold, and effort were consuming him. He had tried to fight it repeatedly, but although he managed to strike it with the axe, he never managed to pierce its armor. The reptile always ended up retreating to the cavern, protecting something at the bottom. After observing its behavior, the young man arrived at a clear deduction: the beast was guarding its nests or its eggs.
Far from the mountain, in the Great Hall, Lagertha watched the chieftains. Seven days had already passed since her son’s departure.
One of the chieftains, the same one with whom Hárekr used to train, took the floor in the hall:
"Perhaps Valhalla is too great for that boy... But let us wait a little longer."
Another of the veterans nodded seriously. He had a long beard and a deep scar on his eye; he was the most faithful warrior and closest to Lagertha, one of the few who had fought alongside her when a Swedish king invaded Danish lands and the Jarl came to Ragnarr’s aid. The old chieftain cleared his throat and said:
"That boy carries the blood of the Ragnarssons... He will not fall so easily."
The spirits in the hall were sustained by that hope, while Lagertha, in silence, ruminated on her own thoughts:
’If my son falls... let him wait for me in Valhalla, if the gods permit it...’
She clung fiercely to that idea: if her son did not return, what was the point of living? She herself would take command of the fleet and set sail west in search of her own end.
That night, at the edge of midnight, Hárekr finally fell into a deep sleep from sheer exhaustion; he could not bear the weight of fatigue any longer. What he did not know was that, sliding along the ground with absolute stealth, the beast was advancing toward him.
Just a few centimeters from his body, the reptile began to coil slowly in circles, trapping him in the center to asphyxiate him with its weight.
In the midst of his lethargy, Hárekr dreamed that he was fighting the beast while the rolling of drums resonated in his mind. Suddenly, the voice of his vision was heard again in the darkness:
’Valhalla is not yet for you...’
He woke with a start. Opening his eyes, he saw the colossal head of the serpent looking at him from above while the coils of its body began to press upon him.
He reacted without hesitation: he reached his hand toward the bonfire, seized a red-hot ember ignoring the burns on his skin, and stamped it hard against the reptile’s surface. Feeling the fire, the serpent let out a hiss of pain and loosened the pressure. Hárekr did not waste the second: he seized the axe lying beside him and began to deliver relentless blows.
Moving into its guard, he delivered axe blow after axe blow exactly at the same point of the scaly skin. The animal, stunned by the direct impacts, reacted desperately and lunged with a blind bite.
The beast’s jaws clamped onto Hárekr’s shoulder, almost completely engulfing him. The sharp, instinctive pain unleashed a tide of adrenaline that made him lose reflective consciousness, surrendering control to a wild and uncontrollable fury.
Driven by the trance, he continued striking blindly against the wound he had opened in the armor. He let out a guttural roar:
"AAAAARRGH!"
He delivered a relentless barrage of blows without stopping. When he finally regained his senses and the fog of rage began to dissipate, he saw the axe stuck in the blood-soaked ground: to one side lay the severed head of the beast, while the rest of the body still twitched from mere muscle reflex.
And at that very instant, unable to hold himself up a second longer, he fell unconscious onto the cold ground. He was completely exhausted and gravely wounded.
The next day, well into the afternoon, he came to. His body burned with fever and cold sweat soaked his skin; the deep marks of the serpent’s jaws on his shoulder oozed blood, with the tears of the bite wide open. Leaning his back against the tree trunk, he contemplated the inert head of the beast and sighed with difficulty:
"I managed to defeat you... but I am going to die here. You were a hard battle and, at the same time, my greatest enemy..."
He stared fixedly at the colossal body, while the air began to grow heavy with the sweet smell of decomposition. His strength left him completely, and he fell unconscious again.