Chapter 5
Frieren
She sensed it the moment the barrier around the city had fallen.
It was an odd occurrence, but not entirely uncommon. Barriers had a functionality to turn them off for a reason after all. Oftentimes, it was because someone had captured a live Monster in order to properly study it. Books on monsters and their strengths, weaknesses, behaviors, and such were rarely filled out by those adventuring in the wild, after all. They were more interested in killing the thing that wanted to kill them, rather than give a first hand account on its eating habits.
Other times, certain treasures, or magical devices, interacted oddly with the barrier in question and needed to be allowed inside “manually”, so to speak.
So while it was odd, the barrier’s sudden disappearance hadn’t been a cause for immediate concern. With the festivities occurring and the guards seemingly at ease, she didn’t let it bother her.
Then, halfway through an offering of frosted cakes, she’d sensed them approaching; Demons, eight of them.
Their presence was muted, suppressed, but not enough to hide from her. Fern too quickly sensed something amiss, but she wasn’t quite sure what yet.
They were drawing closer, almost directly toward them.
Such a thing was unusual. When Demons gained access to a city, they attacked immediately, usually destroying the entire town they had gained access to. When they couldn’t - such as now with Granat, given its sheer size - they typically attacked those they could reach, if not taking them off to be consumed later.
But almost instantly she recognized why..
Her eyes darted toward Atreus. The strange, foreign Mana- that’s what they were after.
As she summoned her staff into her hand, Kratos saw her, wielding a weapon, staring straight at his son.
He was fast, almost too fast for her to react, which was surprising really, but react she did, leaning back, avoiding the axe thrown directed at her outstretched arm with her staff in hand.
Someone screamed.
She sensed the magic coursing through the weapon, lingering in the air like winter's breath.
In that moment, the demons pounced.
The humans, caught up in their revelry, didn’t notice at first;
Only when the first throat had been slit, the horned monster standing in their midst, did they notice.
Immediately, two of the beasts, mages both, began casting. Three more rushed through the crowds, carving flesh with blades, straight towards Atreus, who was caught surprised and flat footed.
Even still, as Frieren regained her balance from her hasty dodge, she fired off a single, blinding white beam.
Zoltraak, was her whisper.
The magic she fired off was thin. Thin enough to slip through the crowd of tightly packed people like a serpent through blades of grass; offensive magecraft that could tear bodies apart barely ruffled the frills on women’s dresses before it found its target.
The Demon closest to Atreus, one quite literally lunging at the boy, never reached his target. The spell punched clean through his shoulder, exploding in a burst that blasted away his arm completely.
Fern fired off two lightning fast blasts of her own point blank in the next instant, aiming them at the floor past her target, not daring to risk her shots passing through the demon and into the crowd.
The two demon mages had no such restrictions.
They blasted into the crowd.
With barely a thought, Frieren cast her defensive magic, and Fern was even faster, the two of them shielding the crowd fully from the wave of fire and lightning that threatened to turn this festival into a massacre.
The axe whirled past her head, back towards Kratos’ hands as he realized his error, and the danger.
What a useful weapon for a warrior.
But even though the mages hadn’t managed to kill many humans, the momentary distraction was enough for the other two demons to slip past Fern and reach Atreus, who was pulling a knife from his belt.
They were met by Stark.
The red clad boy, already with axe in hand, was bringing it down on one Demon’s head. The beast tried to bring its own weapon to bear in a block, sure that his strength was greater.
It was the last mistake he made.
Stark’s axe shattered the metal blade under a titanic blow, with the Demon’s skull following right after, cleaved in two.
The third however, made it to Atreus.
To the boy’s credit, even without his bow, he still tried to defend himself, slashing at a Demon that looked like a young man with blonde hair; but the demon was faster than the others, slipping easily past his attack to coil one hand around his throat and get behind him, a knife now at Atreus’ back.
“Lord Lugnier, I have him!”
Frieren sensed the mana being manipulated at its source, and was already flying as a crimson shell of blood swallowed both Atreus and the Demon before they were pulled.
The crimson orb moved like lightning: in the blink of an eye, it had pulled away from the festival’s center, plowing through three buildings and rushing towards the edge of the city.
Kratos however… was faster.
The massive pale giant roared with a thunderous fury that seemed to swallow up all noise in the panicked courtyard, bellowing in rage as he charged full tilt after the crimson orb. Not even Eisen, nor Himmel, had moved quite that fast in any of her memories, as he chased after the orb that held his son, and then physically crashed into it.
The orb of hardened blood shattered.
Frieren saw the wide eyed Demon stare in shock through the shards of crystalline crimson before he snarled, baring teeth.
Atreus called to his father, either to warn him or for help, Frieren wasn’t sure.
The demon swiped his claws at seemingly empty air. The mana in his hands was controlled with precision, the wire like magecraft designed to slice unprotected flesh in a way no knife or sword could replicate.
And it did nothing.
Attuned to the mana as she was, she saw the moment the wires made contact with pale flesh-
And then dissolve like wisps of smoke, leaving the flesh completely unharmed.
No defensive magic. No protective wards or spells. No mana manipulation of any sort.
The Demon’s magic simply had no effect.
The Demon had just enough time to look surprised before a fist smashed into the beast’s face. Even from as high up as she was, she could hear every bone as it shattered. The body flopped back, its skull now a misshapen mess in a skin sack. The corpse was already dissolving into flakes of black even as it smashed through what was left of the broken the shell of blood, the street, and the wall of a nearby home.
Kratos grabbed hold of his son, and the blood kept pulling away, back towards its source.
She knew where that source was.
—
“Atreus!”
His father took him by the shoulders, half bent over infront of him, looking him over for any signs of injury.
“I’m alright,” he promised. “He didn’t have time to hurt me.”
His father’s features darkened, then cast his eyes upwards. Atreus followed his gaze towards the white spot of color in the night sky that was Frieren flying off.
He looked down to the shards of red at his feet, leaning down to pick one up. “I think… I think she’s on her way to find whoever did this-”
Atreus had seen his father happy, and angry, but the look that came over his face right that second was unfamiliar, and it promised a very, very gruesome end to the person that would find themselves at the other end of it.
“ATREUS!”
Both the boy and his father turned, finding Stark running up to catch them, weapon in hand, Fern following closely behind, her staff also in her own hands.
“Are you ok!?”
Atreus nodded, knowing what was being asked before he pointed skyward. “Frieren- there,” he answered.
“I sense another mage, and powerful Mana drawing close,” Fern said to Stark. “I’m going to help Mistress Frieren-” She flew off in the same direction, chasing after her mistress.
“Hey! Dont go alone!” And Stark chased right after her.
Atreus looked to his father. “We have to help.”
His father’s grip on his axe tightened.
—
As Lügner recalled the last of his blood back into his body, the Demon mage found himself frowning.
“Lord Lügner, where is Draht?” Linie asked. The two other Demons that had come to assist them from Lady Aura held their silence, but he could feel their questioning gaze boring into the back of his skull.
“Dead,” he answered easily.
“I see.”
No, you don't. He didn’t say.
His spell had been broken-
Not by another spell, but by raw, physical force.
He’d sensed no Mana, no magecraft working on the surface. Just a titanic impact that had been impossible to resist.
Whatever had done it, had also killed Draht a second later.
Just what in the world could have done that?
Linie cast her eyes up. “The mage is coming.”
He could sense them too. In comparison to himself, the Mage’s Mana was miniscule. Compared to Lady Aura, it was nothing.
But even so, the memory of that impact left him feeling shaken, half ready to call a retreat, even without their prize, if doing so wouldn’t mean his utter ruin.
Then, the mage in question descended from above and all of his concerns came rushing back.
He wasn’t the only one.
The last two mages with him and Linie conjured up their staves, tense, Mana ready. He could all but smell their fear.
He shared it.
“Frieren the Slayer,” he greeted his enemy.
The elven mage hovered in the air, her silver locks caught in the flow of her own magic as she stared them down; her steady Mana flow perfect in its control and precise in its application. A dread legend in the flesh.
She broke her gaze away from them, towards the three dozen or so dead guards littered at their feet. Killed by magic, blade, force, or any other means they had on hand. Linie was versatile like that.
But for an instant, he almost took the provided opening- but he hesitated, wondering if it was a trap of some kind.
Then the moment passed, and she turned those cold green eyes towards the three of them once again.
“You’re servants of Aura the Guilliotine,” the elf deduced. “And I take it these dead guards were the Graf’s protectors.”
“That is correct,” he answered. “We enjoyed the Graf’s hospitality, now he can enjoy ours.”
“Where is he?”
“If I tell you that-” He shook his head. “You’ll kill us and then try and rescue him.” Although, he could tell her, and let her fight lady Aura who held the Graf now. Given her miniscule Mana reserves, she would never be able to overcome the scales of obedience.
Before he could contemplate anything further however, another joined them.
“Mistress Frieren!”
The mage ‘apprentice’ arrived, flying, just like her master. She hung back, stoic and wary, keeping a distance that would let her aid her mistress and defend herself easily.
Then, a warrior boy, dressed in Red and wielding an axe arrived. Perhaps he’d been the one to kill Draht?
Bells began to ring, the town alarm rising in a cacophonous clamor of noise. Townsfolk screamed as a guard loudly announced that the Barrier had been breached, and for all citizens to retreat to the Keep immediately.
And just then, he sensed Lady Aura’s mana bloom, a new proverbial sun breaking over the horizon.
It seems she came to handle things herself.
“This town will soon be a cautionary memory, I suppose,” he mused, before looking to Frieren. “Unless of course, the great hero of Legend believes she can stop one of the last of the Sages alone.”
The Elf, whatever her thoughts, kept them to herself, hidden behind a mask of stoic calm that gave nothing away.
Then, he realized, that strange Mana, the one they’d gambled so much to acquire. It was here.
When he looked at the human boy, Lügner felt only the faintest traces of disappointment. Perhaps he’d been expecting too much, but the child looked plainly ordinary. He expected at least something distinctive; but that was clearly too much to hope for.
And then; the last one arrived.
The Human man was towering, a warrior straight out of human fables and myths. But his skin was so ghostly pale it almost made him seem like a monster himself, with only a bold striking red mark adding color to his pallid flesh.
At that moment, Frieren lowered her staff.
“Fern,” she said. “I’m going to go and deal with Aura. I trust you four to handle things here.”
Handle them? This slip of a girl, a boy, and two warriors?
Frieren the slayer had underestimated her opposition.
But he wouldn’t, as humans said, look a gift horse in the mouth.
He allowed his blood to flow, crimson liquid slipping free and beginning to coil around him.
With that, the elf flew off, towards where the Lady Aura was no doubt already enslaving and butchering the city’s defenders even now.
He watched her go, and turned his attention back towards the group in time for the pale man to step forward, axe in hand.
His voice was gravel grinding together, a thunderstorm over the mountains. His words were foreign and indecipherable, but he stared at Lügner with a grim look, a rage smouldering in his eyes.
“þú ægðir syni mínum.”
The man’s grip on his axe was tight, and he continued stalking forward, heedless of the danger the four of them presented, a promise of violence in his every step and movement.
Lügner’s blood trembled in his veins- and in that instant, he understood-
This had been the man that killed Draht.
“því mun ek drepa þik.”
(X)(X)(X)
Kratos, is a calm and reasonable person
BTW, on a completely unrelated note here are the translations for the two Norse lines, that were delivered in, again, a very calm and reasonable manner.
"You threatened my son."
"I'm going to kill you now."
Also, I apologize for the delay and that there is no second update this week, I got sick last week with the flu and that knocked me down for a few days, throwing everything out of whack.
But either way, next week the conclusion of the Aura arc, which as you can all see is shaping up a bit differently to the canon variant. Always a fun time to have butterflies flapping those wings :)