Ch.984The Knowledgeable Fairy

In an instant, a massacre unfolded. Tree roots shot up like stakes, forming a red forest without branches or leaves.

“Kee, keeeek…!”

“Kaak! Karaaak…!”

On each wooden stake that had sprung up, three or four homunculi were skewered like kebabs, thrashing about as they sprayed blood like falling leaves.

“Krup…”

The monsters went limp, gurgling their death rattles as if their strength had left them. The homunculus legion that had filled the streets was annihilated without even being able to resist.

An eerie silence descended over the entire capital.

“What… what is that…?”

Ophelia muttered in a trembling voice. Like all weaklings confronted with overwhelming power.

I couldn’t answer.

Why? Well, because I hadn’t anticipated that something like ‘that’ existed in Alvheim.

This gray-haired fairy who appeared in the most bizarre manner and displayed enough firepower to annihilate the homunculus legion in a single strike.

Even searching through my memories of the original work—now quite faded and inconsistent with reality in many ways—I had no recollection of such a being.

Originally, Alvheim wasn’t destroyed by humans but by monster invasions, so there wasn’t much information revealed about it.

Therefore, I could only predict their forces based on the limited original information and the level of forces they had deployed so far.

Until now, they seemed beatable, and in the original work they couldn’t stop the monsters and were destroyed, so I thought they were a race with clear limitations of power, but…

“…This is the worst.”

To think they were hiding such a monster.

Does this even make sense, original work? They had a monster like that but still got destroyed by magical beasts? What, did all the other fairies commit suicide in some Werther Syndrome epidemic?

That would be the only explanation that made sense.

“Are you the ones who caused this carnage?”

From the center of the thorny forest dripping with blood, he raised his head to look at us and spoke softly from amidst the undergrowth and wildflowers stained with red.

“The short-lived races have become more vicious than two thousand years ago. No, perhaps the entire world has become more tolerant of dark mana.”

A suffocating pressure weighed down the air. A distant presence that surpassed not just heroes and guardians, but even dragon lords and tree spirits.

The power emanating from him was so immense it exceeded not only Perneisia and Ophelia, but even Demian and Persiella.

An extraordinary transcendent being.

I could instinctively sense it. Like me, he was a monster among monsters who could claim to be one of the strongest in the current era.

A sense of crisis shot through me like lightning.

An unknown powerhouse I couldn’t even predict. An unforeseen variable and a fatal misjudgment.

If I had known that such a monster existed in Alvheim, I would never have considered a strategy to destroy their capital with just the four of us.

Perneisia probably didn’t know either. If she had known such a being existed, she wouldn’t have brought us here.

Unless she intended to backstab us and cause mutual destruction between us and the fairies of the capital.

“What are you, pointy-ears?”

I tightened my grip on Durandal and asked him in a sharp tone.

“I’ve never heard of someone like you in the Great Forest.”

As I spoke, I glanced at Perneisia, silently asking if she had any idea who this being was.

“Two thousand years ago…?”

Perneisia shook her head urgently. Even from her perspective, it was the distant past. Her expression said she couldn’t possibly know about things from that time.

“You ask my name?”

The giant flower bud enveloped the man’s entire body again, and in the next moment, the entire bud vanished.

– Whoosh!

And then, a third flower bud bloomed right next to us. He walked out of it calmly and revealed his name.

“My name is Varnir. The Great Guardian of glorious Alvheim, companion to our god the World Tree. The calamity of your short-lived races, Varnir Freyus.”

Great Guardian.

Varnir Freyus.

“G-Great Guardian Freyus?! Impossible. That person—no, that being couldn’t possibly still be alive…!”

Perneisia seemed to have heard of the name, as she stepped back in shock.

“Great Guardian? What’s that?”

“The fairy king who led Alvheim before the Council of Elders…! But, but that’s impossible! It can’t be…!”

Her fingertips trembled finely. Her eyes shook with shock. She seemed to have completely lost her fighting spirit just from hearing the enemy’s name.

“If the Great Guardian were truly alive until now, he would be at least four thousand years old…!”

A fairy estimated to be four thousand years old. In Earth terms, that would make him a contemporary of ancient civilizations. Literally a living fossil.

“That is correct. Four thousand and four hundred, to be precise. Even if I spent half of that time asleep, it remains a long time even by our standards.”

Varnir nodded. For someone who had just massacred the homunculi in one strike, his attitude was surprisingly mild. As if he had no intention of fighting us.

“You know quite a lot for an exile, a traitor, and a collaborator who joined hands with dwarves. You must have received sufficient benefits, a good education…”

Of course, that couldn’t be true.

The moment Varnir drew out his words, I leaped in front of Perneisia like lightning, pushing her aside and swinging Durandal.

– Kwaaaang!

A slash delivered with even Defying Fate activated. The blue-silver flash was blocked by a green blade, releasing an explosion and shockwaves in all directions.

The moisture on my body scattered like mist, and my hair and clothes fluttered wildly.

“…Yet you betrayed us. For that sin, you deserve death.”

“What bullshit!”

I gritted my teeth and used the strength in my waist and arms to push away his sword.

Being a fairy, he seemed light in weight, as I could push him back surprisingly easily, but his previous movement was so fast it sent chills down my spine.

Even Demian’s reaction had been a beat too slow for that surprise attack.

If I hadn’t thrown myself forward the moment that eerie chill shot up my spine, Perneisia would now be a corpse split in half.

“Who do you think you’re ambushing? Did I look that easy to you?”

After deflecting him, I returned my sword to a combat stance and summoned all the power within me.

His aura was at least equal to mine at full strength.

While battles aren’t decided by aura alone, it was clear he was dangerous enough that I couldn’t let my guard down for even a moment.

“…What a curious power.”

Varnir landed gracefully, regaining his posture, and muttered as he examined me with his single eye.

“The foundation is Ausrine’s power. On top of that, Elpinel’s blessing and… divine power similar to Astraea’s. You’ve even brought the new owner of Gram.”

A faint smile crossed his face.

“I see. They’re trying again. Those beings haven’t changed even after ascending to heaven. Still dreaming impossible dreams.”

“Ha, you seem to know a lot. But you know what…”

I bared my fangs with a raised corner of my mouth and charged toward him.

“I don’t understand a word you’re saying!”

My body, strengthened by divine power, melded with heroic might to become pure destructive force.

—-

“Haschal!”

Demian tried to charge after me.

“I’ll handle the attack! Demian, you protect Ophelia and Perneisia!”

I ordered him to focus on defense while recalling the enemy’s displayed capabilities in my mind.

Power enough to block my sword.

Speed that could only be countered with Defying Fate.

The wide-range slaughter ability he showed initially.

And the spatial transfer ability that allowed him to disappear and appear with the flower bud.

What’s the range of his transfer?

At minimum, two hundred meters. Maximum, I don’t know. Surely not the entire Great Forest? If so, I must kill him here… but is that possible?

I don’t know. Not yet.

Anyway, considering his speed and transfer ability, I needed to keep Demian beside Ophelia and Perneisia.

If both Demian and I charged at him and he teleported behind us to target Ophelia and Perneisia, they would have difficulty countering him.

So here, I needed to play the role of the spear, and Demian the shield.

The spear’s role is singular:

To pierce through and end the enemy’s life.

“Kyaaaah!”

Durandal, imbued with the principle of spatial cutting, swung down toward the self-proclaimed Great Guardian’s head.

And then.

“No, let me correct myself.”

– Kwaduk!

A wooden stake shot up from the ground at his feet like a spearhead.

A simple attack. But with the power and speed contained within it, that attack had already become the ultimate technique among techniques.

This would pierce through if it hit.

【 Defying Fate 】

I urgently deployed the colorless world while unleashing the blade of severance. Frosting, directed downward, collided with the now-gray wooden stake and was deflected.

My body flew backward from the remaining force. I parried the tree roots that curved and extended after me with my sword five times. Defying Fate, pushed to its limit, shattered.

“This much…!”

A blue slash tore through and crushed the brown tentacles. The moment sound and color returned, I once again manifested the power of severance and cut the tree roots in half.

Varnir smiled as he watched.

“It has indeed changed. Are they now placing their hopes in such beings? Their bodies have ascended to heaven, but their intellect has fallen to earth.”

“Keep flapping your gums. We haven’t even started yet!”

I twisted my body in mid-air to regain my posture, exhaled flames of Karma behind me, and charged again.

Varnir smiled as if amused and kicked off the ground to rush toward me. At a speed so fast that afterimages stretched behind him.

The blue-silver blade tore through space to draw a long arc in the air, and the green blade emitted a strange resonance as it met it head-on.

– Kwaaaang!

With the thunderous sound, our blades bounced off each other. Extending our swords while spinning in accordance with the recoil, they clashed again. Once more they were deflected.

Three times, four times. Ten exchanges like that.

As the air was crazily torn, broken, and burst, scattering explosions and sparks like rain, the two swords remained completely intact without even a scratch.

A situation where the spatial cutting power that could tear through space itself couldn’t break a single sword. His sword was easily blocking the power that could cut through space.

“Damn, nothing works against this bastard!”

Twelve tendrils of Karma of Murder that I extended in a sudden surge of frustration collided and shattered against the six tree root tentacles protruding from his back.

“Lethal abilities always come with countermeasures. Isn’t that natural?”

“Oh, really? Aren’t you special!”

My fist, enhanced with the power of collapse, was struck on the side of the wrist and deflected sideways, and my right foot that followed was bound and blocked by tree tentacles.

“Kuk, this!”

The tree tentacles tried to slam my body to the ground like a whip. I tore them away with Frosting and regained my posture with flames of Karma.

Instead of pursuing me, Varnir regenerated his torn tentacles and spoke to me again. It was closer to a monologue than a question seeking an answer.

“The flames of runes… and the power of the ‘wolf.’ You’ve gathered quite a variety of powers in one body. Is it to bypass the pressure of this ‘Wall’?”

“How rude. Trying to dig up a lady’s personal information like that.”

This was a probing battle to understand each other’s basic capabilities.

The only information I’d gained was that spatial cutting powers were useless, and that his capabilities and skills were at least on par with mine.

[ Lady? ]

“Should a married man be flirting with just anyone?”

[ You, a lady? Have I misunderstood the meaning of that word? ]

Ignoring Hersella’s mocking question, I filled my lungs to catch my breath and glared at Varnir, who had now distanced himself.

[ The shamelessness. Even if every woman in the world died leaving only you and your mage wench, you still couldn’t be called that. ]

…Ah, really. Shut up.

Is this the time for such jokes, you crazy woman?