Ch.993Heaven’s Constraint

After swinging Durandal three times to destroy the wooden prison that had confined me and Varnir.

“Ah, ahahahaha! Come on, let’s go again! Try to block this one too!”

I pressed forward, overwhelming Varnir while wielding my newly awakened power without restraint.

With each swing of my sword, waves of spatial cuts tore through the world, and my body freely danced through the air without even needing to breathe fire.

My punches carried enough force to crumble mountains, and the earth split apart with each step I took.

The power of the star that had begun to glow white-hot was mighty, transcendent, and destructive.

Beyond the metaphorical comparison to a natural disaster, it had become the disaster itself.

I didn’t even feel the slightest regret about not being able to handle the power of Karma of Murder.

Because an even greater power was burning within me.

“What’s wrong? Your expression has hardened like a rock. Getting tired in your old age?”

I taunted Varnir as I faced him, blood pouring from his deeply split side.

“…A mere half-baked demigod.”

Grinding his teeth and muttering, Varnir absorbed the life force of ten giant trees to repair his torn side.

That ability… was it called the power of absorption? It was more troublesome to deal with than I’d expected.

Six exchanges since my awakening as a demigod.

I had cut off three of Varnir’s tentacles and one of his legs, even shattering most of his bones and internal organs, and nearly severing his waist in half.

If he were human—no, even if he were a guardian of the fairies—he would have long since died from such grievous wounds.

Yet Varnir not only refused to die but was enduring all my attacks with astonishing tenacity.

He would somehow deflect or offset fatal blows to reduce their impact, take hits with his body while avoiding vital spots, and then recover from mortal wounds using his power.

So even if his internal organs burst, bones shattered, and limbs were severed, as long as he didn’t die instantly, there was no problem?

What kind of fairy or werebeast was he anyway?

Moreover, watching him perform these absurd feats so skillfully, it seemed that, befitting a fairy thousands of years old, he had abundant experience fighting powerful beings in such a manner.

“You still talk big. While struggling to defeat this one half-baked demigod.”

Of course, this was merely him barely hanging on.

His remaining lifespan might have been extended a bit, but that didn’t mean he could escape death.

“Look, look at this forest. You’ve killed more trees by draining them than I’ve destroyed. What do you think about that, ‘Great Guardian’?”

I sneered, pointing at the surrounding landscape that was turning into a wasteland as its life force was drained.

A mockery—for someone who called himself the Great Guardian, wasn’t he the one leading the destruction of the forest?

“How frivolous you sound. Frustrated and impatient, are you? Unable to kill me despite awakening your divine nature.”

Varnir’s response was to grow new trees.

As he stomped his foot, hundreds of sharp trees surged like a wave, rushing at me from all directions—front, sides, above, and even below the ground.

“I’ve seen that already! Don’t you have anything new?”

I swung both arms to counter.

– Crash!

Trees touched by Frosting froze and shattered, while the barrier created by Durandal erased the wave of vegetation along with space itself.

Wood fragments scattered like mist.

“Haah!”

“Too slow!”

Breaking through this, I blocked the green divine sword he swung with Durandal, and my right foot shot out in counterattack, blasting away his entire lower abdomen.

“Kuhak…!”

Varnir coughed up a large amount of blood, but immediately repaired his abdomen and swung his sword again. His recovery speed exceeded even Rurik’s.

“Kyaah!”

I swung my sword to meet his.

I didn’t use Defying Fate. Having just attained the status of a demigod, my soul felt somewhat unstable.

I could intuitively sense that I needed more time to use Tale of Heros. Though it would only be about ten minutes at most.

Well, not being able to use Defying Fate hardly mattered now.

The current me not only matched Varnir’s sword speed—which I couldn’t handle without Defying Fate before—but even surpassed it.

“Slow, so slow! Why have you gotten so slow?”

“Faster than I expected…! But, still…!”

Green light streams and golden flashes violently intermingled and shattered.

Two divine swords clashing endlessly, intertwining faster than sound. The shockwaves erupted into storms, scattering pulverized flesh mixed with sparks in all directions.

And then.

– Crack!

The victor of this clash was naturally me.

“Kugh…!”

Biting his lip, Varnir created a dozen wooden stakes beneath his feet and retreated far away using his teleportation ability.

I jumped backward to avoid the stakes, crushing and slicing through those that continued to approach.

Varnir reappeared about two hundred meters behind. He must have judged that continuing close combat offered no chance of victory.

A correct assessment. After all, I already held his right arm in my hand.

When I had suddenly extended Frosting to grab his arm, he immediately cut off his right arm with his left hand.

“What are you, some kind of lizard?”

I twirled his severed right arm, shrugging my shoulders in disbelief.

Even with regenerative abilities, to sever one’s own arm the moment it was caught—his fighting style truly resembled that of a werebeast.

No, honestly, he was more annoying than werebeasts.

At least with werebeasts, their regeneration could be blocked when cut with the True Silver Sword.

– Splash!

Just look at that.

Varnir, who had been staggering while clutching his blood-spurting shoulder, in the next moment grew a new right arm from the severed surface and regained his posture.

The green divine sword that had been in the hand of the arm I’d pulled off had somehow returned to his grasp.

“Ha… fine, let’s see how long you can keep regenerating like that.”

I clicked my tongue softly, shook my head, and then launched myself through the air toward him.

Confident that once all the surrounding vegetation withered, his pathetic regeneration ability would reach its limit.

—-

Eight minutes later.

“Kuh, uuuugh…!”

Varnir trembled weakly, coughing up blood that had turned purple.

All the tentacles on his back had been torn off, and with his right arm and lower body completely severed, only part of his upper body and left arm remained.

“Is this the end now?”

I exhaled softly and raised Durandal. He had endured longer than expected, but this was the end.

The surroundings had already transformed into a barren wasteland like a desert, with nothing left for him to absorb nutrients from.

Since I had persistently stayed close, he couldn’t escape the wasteland with his teleportation ability.

The result was what we saw now. Like a withering old tree dying from lack of nutrients. He seemed to have no strength left to stand.

“…Yes, this is the end.”

Varnir covered his face with his trembling left hand and answered.

“Indeed, it was impossible to face a demigod with this body… In that case…”

With his trembling voice, he roughly grabbed something hidden beneath the hair covering his left eye, or more precisely, something inside it…

“…Elpinel, may your four thousand years be cursed.”

Cursing Elpinel, he forcefully pulled it out—something like a fruit that had been embedded where his eyeball should have been.

Then,

– Whoosh!

A green pillar of light shot up from his body, which was more than half severed. A pillar of light similar to when I had manifested Ausrine’s power.

Within the light pillar, the prosthetic that had replaced his left arm made a cracking sound and created roots like a living tree, which burrowed into his heart.

The fairy’s body regenerated in an instant.

His exposed body had transformed—the entire left side had changed to resemble tree bark, and roots sprouting from it completely enveloped his right side.

The six tentacles I had torn off also regenerated, creating countless branches and leaves on their surface, transforming into something like wings.

Then, with the sound of bones shattering, antlers resembling those of a deer protruded from both sides of his head.

Antlers of branches with a faint aura of light. From them, I could sense power remarkably similar to the star in my chest.

And then.

– Whoosh!

A brilliant green light burst from behind him, rippling like mist before gathering to form a translucent silhouette.

The form of a woman with long hair and elegant features. This translucent green woman embraced Varnir’s back, wrapping her arms around him.

I instinctively understood her identity.

That was the inherent divinity the World Tree had gifted to her companion, and the very consciousness of the World Tree connected to him.

– Hiss…

When the pillar of light that had soared high into the sky completely disappeared,

Before me stood a fairy demigod.

The avatar of vegetation embraced by the World Tree.

======[ Varnir Freyus ]======

Thousands of years ago, when the world was still filled with myths,

Great Guardian Varnir was a demigod of Alvheim who had received divine essence from the World Tree.

He was the World Tree’s companion who had vowed to protect her and Alvheim in her stead, as she could not leave her domain.

Since receiving divinity, Varnir had fought countless bloody battles and achieved numerous feats to keep his oath.

He slaughtered Tugi Glakkar, one of the demigods of the orcs, a barbarian race that had conquered the central continent.

He destroyed one wing of Fafnir, the dragon of the dwarves who had attacked Alvheim, and drove it away.

The number of dragonborn and evil dragons he had killed was uncountable, and even the most ferocious kings of the werebeasts feared him.

That era was the golden age of both Alvheim and himself.

And two thousand years ago,

Varnir fought a bloody battle against the human demigod who wielded Gram and his six demigod companions, ultimately defeating Gram’s master.

This act thwarted Elpinel’s plan just as it was about to succeed, and afterward, Elpinel began to openly hate him, but…

Such matters were of no concern to Varnir. What he sought to protect was the World Tree and the fairies, not humans.

Had Elpinel’s plan succeeded, the world would have belonged to humans. Varnir could not allow this.

He had witnessed very clearly what happened when humans seized world hegemony, from the moment of his birth until he reached four hundred years of age.

Varnir remembered the golden age of the human empire Xanten, when all non-human races were mere second-class subjects.

The Empire of Runes and Gold, which perished due to divine betrayal when he was approaching four hundred years old.

Thanks to Xanten’s downfall, the Ein races, including fairies, were finally freed from their status as second-class subjects of the human empire.

Thus, at twenty-four hundred years old, Varnir killed Gram’s master.

To prevent the fallen Xanten Empire from being revived after two thousand years, for the freedom of the fairies.

That battle was intense, desperate, and terrible.

While he could ambush and ruin Elpinel’s plan from an overwhelmingly advantageous position, Varnir suffered such severe injuries that he had to sleep for two thousand years to recover.

And when he finally awoke, before his eyes stood a descendant of one of the demigods he had fought back then.

With a murderous aura, as if the time had come to avenge the two-thousand-year-old grudge.

Varnir fought as best he could despite his restricted body, but with his severely weakened physical form, he could not defeat even an incomplete demigod.

In just under ten minutes,

Varnir was overwhelmed by the star demigod and defeated, collapsing as a dying body.

In a situation where death was inevitable no matter what he did.

‘…Is this as far as I go?’

That situation signaled to him that the moment had come to make a decision.

The moment to choose how to die had arrived.

Varnir raised the prosthetic gifted by the World Tree to grasp his left eyelid, and pulled out the fruit that had taken the place of his eyeball.

The wedge that had been suppressing his power below the barrier’s restriction.

A vessel restored to its complete state, freed from the wedge. The divinity of the World Tree finally liberated through him.

Thus, he regained his status as a demigod.

By abandoning life and choosing death.

======[ Haschal ]======

Deification.

That was the trump card Varnir had been saving until the very end.

The tension that had disappeared returned.

The one who had been nearly dead moments ago was now exuding truly tremendous power. Just as I had become overwhelmingly stronger after awakening my status as a demigod.

“…If you had such means, shouldn’t you have used them earlier?”

I clicked my tongue and firmly gripped Durandal.

And then.

In the next moment, the reason why Varnir had saved deification as a last resort was revealed.

– Rumble!

Above my head. No, from somewhere much farther away, something looked down upon us.

Something strangely familiar.

Elpinel.

—-

At last.

Such meaning was contained in the massive resonance that burst from the heavens and pierced toward the ground. Though only Varnir and I could hear it.

Elpinel was rejoicing.

That Varnir had finally, unable to endure any longer, released his own status.

That he had chosen to directly confront the restriction of Heaven’s Wall.

– Flicker.

A flame.

A very small, candle-like slender flame bloomed. From the center of Varnir’s chest, who had restored his demigod power.

And then.

– Whoosh!

In the next moment, that flame violently expanded and engulfed his entire body.

“Kuh…uuugh…!”

It was clear that this was not his ability. As soon as his body caught fire, he contorted his face and groaned.

Even without that groan, I wouldn’t have mistaken that fire for his ability.

– Whoosh!

The flame that devoured Varnir and instantly transformed into a massive bonfire was burning as pure white flame, similar to Lacy’s holy fire.

I realized.

That this was the very embodiment of Heaven’s Wall’s restriction.

What I had known about Heaven’s Wall’s restriction was that it stopped the growth of those who reached the limit set by the barrier, and prevented such beings from descending to this world.

Then, what would happen to those who were already on earth but were more powerful than that limit?

Until now, I had thought that Heaven’s Wall simply forced such beings to remain deep underground.

However, the truth was hundreds of times more sinister.

The true power and role of Heaven’s Wall was precisely that—to detect beings with power beyond the limit and immediately incinerate them with Elpinel’s holy fire.

Until their lives turned to ashes and were extinguished.