Gods, Wolves, and other very discrete Things

"Aye, this is not good", I spit two teeth along with a good chunk of blood, and something red and fleshy. Oh, I think that´s a piece of my liver.

How I ended up like this?. That´s a good question, one that had its answer several hours before, when I cut my call with the Guild back at Magnolia and proceed to carry on my plan. The first thing that I did was not knock out the two idiots inside of the building with the Phantom Lord banner hanging over the front door.

One of the things that called my attention was how the building was in for some serious maintenance. Several of the wooden beams had cracks and the floor was not any better. Mold and leaks were everywhere. The place also needed a serious spring cleaning. The smell hit me through the window as soon as I lowered my ice mirrors. Use the showers buffoons. There is more than enough water around to even walk to the nearest river and have a bloody bath.

Easily making a couple of ice boxing gloves, I focus on them making them float in mid-air, and with a thought, I sent them flying inside the building. Several muffled cries and punching sounds later, I was convinced that it was more than enough. I jumped into the building through the window and laughed at the battered and unconscious forms of the two mages. I draw some runes on them to keep them unconscious and proceed to inspect the building.

Considering the disastrous state of the building, I was not all that convinced that I was going to find clean records of what´s going on the mines. The building had two floors, the first one seemed to the living place of the four mages in the village. They were not precisely clean in their longings. On the second floor, upstairs, they had a small office with a lot of papers over the table and the floor. This was a bloody disaster.

Shuffling through the papers, I grumbled for the absolute lack of organization. For what I could gather, I was right about my hunch of this place being something akin to punishment. This branch was in the middle of the frozen forest, near the frontier and with nothing of interest. This was the place where Porla sent people that had displeased him but they were still useful enough. I don't know what are the magic of this mages, but they must have something interesting. Ah, shit, one of them was able to summon magical specters, as Porla does.

Anyhow, the outdated reports were the same week after week. I was convinced that with one communication lacryma would have been more than enough to prevent this avalanche of wasted paper. After digging for hours in the paperwork backlog, I finally found a report about a sudden earthquake and a fissure opening in the stone walls of the corners of the village.

Following that paper trail, I read about how the village called for the help of the local mages and went inside of the fissures. There, they founded an unexpected vein of lacryma of surprising quality. Immediately, I look out for any samples in the office, or in the nearby rooms; these assholes would keep some for them, I was sure of it; but much to my surprise, I found nothing.

That threw me for a loop.

Leaving apart the lack of self-profits present in the building, I found some of the reports about the lacryma and what´s more important, the presence of the magical beasts that were supposedly the origin of the job.

And then, I found the master plan that one of the mages has concocted.

The first step, call in for a magician of another Guild.

The second step, make him fight and defeat the magical beast that was preventing the miners to reach the mother vein.

The third step, kill the mage and blame the magical beasts.

Fourth step, profit.

For more than a minute, I stared at the bloody plan, drafted on a wrinkled paper and signed by a cretin called Fure Guillmore. That must be the leader of the mages, and I take that it was the one summoning the specters.

That was so stupid on so many levels that I understood why the assholes had ended up in this village. Hardly a surprise if all his plans are as harebrained as this. I will admit that it could have been a good plan in certain circumstances, but the consequences of a legal guild killing another legal guild mage; even if they tried to cover it with magical beasts; would be disastrous. Anyhow, I stored everything that could work as a clue into my [Re-equip] to present it to the Magical Council with a case so solid, that they could use to tear a new one to Phantom Lord.

Justice served in my opinion.

Now, I only need to take care of the other two mages, interrogate them; under a heavy [Illusion Magic], preferably under the banner of a known Dark Guild; and knock them out before delivering them to the nearest Rune Knights barracks. I will deliver a box to the Magic Council with all the proof and walk a couple of days later into the village to fill a job that was never there to be with. It would be a dark spot in my sheet, but I didn't care much about that.

It took me a lot to actually collect enough documents; the "master plan" with the sign of the leader of the Phantom Lord branch included; and by the time that I had already, it was way past midday. I took a seat on the window of the office, again with my [Ice Mirrors] up to prevent witnesses, and look out for the mages coming out of the mines for lunch.

Lacryma mines are different from other mines. Mining lacrymas is not as dangerous as coal or iron, the crystal-like material did not leave the same dangerous remnants like crystalline silica, coal dust or asbestos. On the other hand, Lacryma must be mined manually, as any magic applied to the crystal would activate it and made the lacryma absorb and turn into whatever magic has been applied to it.

The crystal substance was one of the biggest economic and vital assets of Earth Land and the presence of a mine in this village will surely put the village into the map.

Shuffling through the clothes that I kept stored into my [Re-equip]; a consequence of my stripping habits and the possible need of disguises during a job; I took out a red jacket with a red hood, green pants, and green boots. Quickly changing into my new appearance, I check myself into an ice mirror and double-check that nothing on my person spoke of Gray Fullbuster or Fairy Tail.

I kept the disguise at hand, but not on me, I didn't trust myself to do not toss the clothes around without me noticing. I trained myself to always kept my pants and boots on, but the rest was always ended flying around without me noticing. I was flashing my torso to everyone around 24/7 and that was something that annoyed me, especially when I lost a shirt or a jacket that I liked.

The sun over the village was warm but not enough to compensate for the coldness of the day. These places are always relatively cold, even in summer, fortunately, I had taken the job outside of the fall or winter seasons. The snow and the cold; even if it did nothing to hinder me in the least; would make any job a lot more difficult, but, now that I though about it, for certain individuals, like me, it would become an asset.

After a quick lunch; that I took out from my storage dimension, as I did not trust anything edible in this pigsty; I kept watching over the village and the cattle pens. At some point in the day, the cattle was taken outside and I saw a mixture of cows, sheep, horses, and goats. That was a lot of cattle for such a small village. Most assuredly, they will be selling the extra stock to all the surrounding garrisons and frontier settlements, it was a good business and a good form of keeping good relationships with the neighboring settlements.

The mining operation was recently new for the village, but thanks to it being lacryma, with only some pickaxes and shovels, they could start mining it, leaving the most complex and larger mining operations for later, when the profits will allow them to buy the equipment. With any luck, the mine would bring enough incoming for the village to grown into a town and had a train station built on it.

I have run all the way from the last train stop to the village, but the usual method of transportation would be a magic carriage that would have covered the distance in a day and a half.

It was a slow day, so I was a bit bored and entertained myself by looting the place. There was nothing of interest except a couple of magical weapons; low-level ones; and a grimoire about the different summoning magic known in Fiore. I have already read that book, it was one of the basics, but the book was pretty good for novice mages that wanted to have a clearer idea about how summoning works.

Quite the disappointing loot, but it was better than nothing.

Well entered into the afternoon, I saw the mages and the miners get out of the mine. The mages did look a bit ragged, but among the miners, I saw two improvised stretchers and a lot of bandages. The magical beasts inside of the mines must be something dangerous, but seeing that none of the tow mages look anything worse to wear, I started to suspect that they have used the miners as meat shields.

When the mages entered the building and closed the door behind them, I fell from the beams over the entrance and knocked them out before they could even say hello. I did not pull any punches and I covered my fists in enchanted ice, making my fists stronger than steel. It only took a couple of punches to the head to put them down. With some rune markings over their foreheads, they would be out until someone erased the rune.

Taking Fure into the office, I drew runes over his wrists and ankles and put a magic suppressing rune in the back of his neck. Now, unless his magic came from an outside source, he will be unable to cast any of it. Of course, someone powerful enough could shatter the restrictions by sheer magic power alone, but for this low mages, it would be an impossible task. Also, the runes on his limbs would make his limbs paralyzed.

Now that I have him in front of me, Fure was not a handsome fellow. He was a bit pudgy and in serious need of a shower, his nose was broken and badly fixed, along with a permanent left tired eye and a chewed ear. This guy has suffered a lot of physical punishment during his life, I am half inclined to recommend him a good surgeon.

Making some preparations; setting some noise-canceling runes, getting my disguise on, changing my voice, taking a magic pen out of my pocket, and in general, making me look like part of the Red Hood Dark Guild; I snapped and the rune of the forehead of Fure disappeared.

The man snapped awake and after seeing me, he screamed for the rest of the mages and try to summon one of his specters. Seeing that nothing happened, he tried to run, but he only managed to fall into the floor face first. With a nose like that, that must have hurt. Screeching curses, Fure tried to crawl for help, but I was tired of the noise and grabbed him by the collar of his robe, easily raising in the air and slamming him against the table of the office with enough force to shatter the furniture.

That shut him up quickly, but I still needed answers, dragging his bruised body I tossed him into the wall before taking the fallen pen from the desk and toss it with enough force to pierce his hand and nail it to the wall. That made him screech again. In a blink, I was in front of him, grabbing him by the throat and raising him into the air easily, but not too much or I will rip his hand from the wall.

"Shut up", my voice was completely distorted thanks to my magic, but it was intimidating enough. "I need answers and you are going to provide them to me".

Fure gurgled an answer and I ease a bit my grip over his throat. Fure gulped audibly, taking air into his lungs and started to talk.

"Why is Red Hood here?", he said first and earned a punch to the ribs for it.

"I made the questions", that cut short his questions. I was pleased that my disguise worked.

"What is Phantom Lord digging here?". I was really eager to know what were they digging up.

"Lacryma, high-class lacryma", Fure coughed and grimaced in pain for the beating and the stabbed hand. "An earthquake cracked a spot in a rock in the corners of the town and opened up forsaken corridors of some very old mine, we don't know where is the real entrance, those lazy bums of the miners had not mapped even one percent of the mine yet".

"There are magical beasts down there?", I continued with my questioning.

"Yes, two big ass wolves of some sort that attack anything that comes close enough to certain halls of the mines", snorted Fure, "those fur bags are relentless and they rip my specters apart as if they were made of paper, none of our magics worked on them, so we kept the miners busy in other galleries, there is a lot of lacryma around".

"What are the wolves protecting?", wolves, that was unusual.

Magical beasts are usually mutated versions of natural animals or chimeras of all sorts. Dire wolves in mines was not a common thing, it was not their natural habitat, so either magical guardians or something in down the mines summoned them to protect something.

"We suppose that they are protecting the mother vein", tried to shrug Fure. "All lacryma veins come out from the galleries that the wolves protect".

"Is Porla trying to hide this operation from the Council?". That could land Porla in hot waters with the Council.

"Master Porla ordered us to start a protection gig in the town and to force the silence of all the villagers". Fure´s hand twitched in pain and his grimace grown bigger. "We force the villagers to dig lacryma and kept the wolves at bay as much as we can, then we store the lacryma inside of the entrance until Master Porla could forge some paperwork with the flops at the Council to make it look as if Phantom Lord is the owner of the mines".

That was all that I needed, between the documents that I had already stolen, and the testimony of the villagers, the local branch of Phantom Lord had its days numbered.

Before Fure could even think about it, I twirled him in the air; ripping his hand out of the wall in the process, that´s gonna leave a mark for sure; and slammed his head against the floor, cracking it and rendering him completely unconscious in the process.

I dragged his body out of the hole in the floor and after resetting the rune in his forehead, I roped him along with the other three buffoons in the middle of the main hall. I nailed a post in front of the comatose bodies and wrote a set of instructions on a paper, before nailing the instructions on the post.

"Do not erase the rune in their foreheads. They will kept them unconscious until someone erases the rune on their foreheads. Please deliver them to the nearest Rune Knight garrison along the recording lacryma over this post".

I left a small recording lacryma over the post, the lacryma was the one that I used to record their morning entrance at the mines and the confession that Fure has made about what they were about to do with the village. Pretty sure that would make the villagers less than content with their local mages.

Another thorn at the side of Phantom Lord, I was really enjoying this job. Still, I kept the documents with me as I wanted to give them to Makarov and use his contacts in the Magic Council; namely old man Yajima; to deliver it to the Rune Knights and start a serious investigation over the actions of Phantom Lord.

With the level of corruption that plagued the Council, I was not entirely convinced that all of this is not going to be swept under the carpet, but it was the right thing to do. Worst come to pass, I will pull a Natsu and torn any substitute of Phantom Lord to shreds before someone with two brain cells to rub together settles in the place.

Finishing my work, I smiled at the picture and waited until the night was upon the village to sneak into the mine and look out for the lacryma, the wolves and whatever they are guarding. I was utterly curious about what was going on down there, I was really hoping that it was not a case of a Demon of Zeref stretching its legs, I really hate those blasted things with a passion.

Deliora, the origin of the tragedy of Gray was one of the demons of Zeref. Magical constructs based upon and object, dark emotions, and the nihilistic desire of their master, Zeref.

Supposedly, they are trying to revive the bastard, but I am not entirely convinced of it. I would have loved to have a look at the Alvarez Empire records about Zeref, where he is some kind of divine figure, but the place was locked as a nun´s britches and I was not eager to challenge any of the Spriggan 12 at the moment.

They would have ripped me to pieces without breaking a sweat.

Once the night was dense enough, I walked out of the building, still checking that I had my red hooded jacket on; I have discarded the blasted jacket like a dozen times before I realized that I was shirtless again, and run into the entrance of the mine.

The mine was pretty crude, it has been open for less than a month so it was something expected, but I could appreciate the effort that the villagers are putting into the mine, like the wooden beams and the supports are solid and well treated. For a village like this, this mine could potentially bring a lot of money and even the opportunity to grow into a proper town.

If one traced a line between here and the frontier, it would be clear that with a bit of effort, it could be possible to make a line to Seven, opening a commercial line between the northern corners of Seven and Fiore, something that until now was restricted to sea routes and perilous roads of the northern frontiers. Who knows? Perhaps once the Lacryma is taken, the mines could act a possible tunnel between the two countries, allowing for fast travel between the two.

Soon after I entered the mine, I found the storerooms where they have been depositing the lacryma. I did not expect massive amounts of mined lacryma. In a month and with bare tools, the villagers turned miners have mined up all they could, but it was just the tip of the Iceberg.

Raising one of the lacrymas, I walked up to one of the lacryma lanterns of the mines and lightening it up with a spark of magic energy, I started to analyze the lacryma that the villagers had mined out of this recently discovered underground mines. This was high quality, the crystal was crude, it was recently mine after all, but it already had the texture of polished glass and the transparent color of empty lacrymas. Any artisan could do wonders with such prime materials, heck, I am convinced that this lacrymas could even be used for lacryma implantation.

Implanting a lacryma was a dangerous business, only mages with a good affinity with the magic inside the lacryma had a chance to survive the process and even then, it was not uncommon to end up with a couple of flaws, be it mental or physical. I witnessed first hand what happened when a rogue mage tried to implant himself with Lava Dragon Slayer Lacryma. The results were a complete mess.

With such an exceptional lacryma as these, such an operation would have a higher rate of success. Not only that, but storing powerful magics would be easier. This place was a gold mine. It was not my problem though, I was not here to loot the mine, but that being said, I kindly took a couple of containers of such a wonderful lacryma as payment for services rendered and for cleaning up the house of them. Considering the amount that they could mine here, what I have taken its not even a bloody drop in the ocean.

Carrying the lantern with me, I was still unable to keep my night vision on when I channeled the most dangerous of my magics; at last not without starting to show the consequences; I walked into the mine's galleries. This place was huge, the mine was already here long before the earthquake, meaning that there was something buried here long before Fiore settled around.

Deep within the caves I still lacked any clue about the origins of the mines. It could be something that was there in the last centuries or it predates even the Dragon era. The cold atmosphere of the place was inviting, I felt right at home, an opinion that I am sure that not many people would have shared.

Tracking the wagon's tracks on the floor, something easier considering the weight that the wagons carried and the lack of rails on the floor; I reached deep into the halls and onto a big room of sorts. Thanks to the light of the lantern I was able to investigate the more visible marks of combat that marred the room. Broken beams, frozen blood, broken tools and burn marks all over ceilings, floor, and beams of the room. It was a good thing that the mine was incredible stable, such a battle could have provoked the collapse of the room and the nearby galleries.

Touching the lacryma, denser and wider here, I was surprised to detect a faint presence of magic; ice magic, I could recognize that everywhere and it surprised me a lot. Ice magic here? For what I take of the Phantom Lord mages, none of them were ice users of any sort. The wolves used ice magic? That would work in my favor.

Shrugging but thankful if that was the case, I continued tracking the battle marks all over the place, until I reached the entrance of a bigger gallery. Just at the entrance of the bigger gallery, an icy sensation washed over me, making me shiver.

That made me pause.

A cold, so deep that even I, an Ice mage, was entirely unable to shook it off. Now, this was interesting. A wide smile formed in my face and I started to walk deeper into the gallery where the frozen sensation came from. If that was not a challenge, I don't know what it was. Considering what I was feeling, my theory about the wolves using ice magic started to gain track, there was something ice-related down there, something very powerful.

I will lie if I don't say that I was incredibly excited to find out what it was. With any luck, it would be a powerful node of ice lacryma, lacryma that I could harvest and with an adequate amount of time and preparation, implant in myself. Fate was determined to see me as the master of all Ice magics and I will be dammed if I don't find it incredibly fitting.

The lantern didn't even endure much the cold treatment and in less than a minute since I entered, the cold aura all over the gallery snuffled out of the magic inside the lacryma just with its mere density. My smile grew wider and I felt the shift in my eyes. My eyes changed to the red that Jason managed to sneak peek in the bloody photo that made me famous overnight.

It was only the first change of the magic that I took during one of the worst moments of my life. Even after several years of secretly practicing it, it still rebels and defies my control and domain. This particular branch of magic was dangerous and terrifying but I was more than enough insane and headstrong to grab that magic by the throat and show who is the boss.

The cold that surrounded me and that would have been lethal for anyone to become a source of strength. Most mages had an Ethernano container in their bodies, an organ that acted as battery and filter, turning Ethernano into magic power. My entire body was a source of magic power, each one of my cells is capable of absorbing and create magic power, that´s why I had godly magical reserves. Right now, I was devouring the ice magic around me, strengthening my body, and already tuning my instincts and mind into what made me the strongest Campione of my era.

More than once, I had to remember myself to thanks Master Makarov for all the magic that he taught and show me when I was a child. Through those teachings and those of Ur, a person that I would have been more than honored to call mom even if we were not related by blood at all, I was creating my own and powerful magic, something that started to resembled the Authorities that I wielded in the past. Although, they were barely a shadow of a true Authority, but it was a dear memento if nothing else.

Tossing the lantern aside, the magic was already snuffed and my eyes granted me night vision, I stepped into a confluence of galleries. The ice covered the walls and good chunks of the floor, the beams of the supporting structures were encapsulated and preserved in a block of crystalline ice that protected them from the environment and the passage of time.

All in all, I could appreciate the aesthetics of the place, it was an ice gallery, something that could have fitted really well in an ice caste of Iceberg. The aesthetics of Iceberg were a lot of my liking, it reminded vaguely of home and the practicality and functionality of the environment resonated with my character.

Softly caressing the ice, I appreciated the texture of it. This ice was not ragged or spiked, it was soft and perfectly crystalline, if it wasn't for the freezing temperature, these could have passed perfectly as a piece of crystal. I will admit that I was impressed, I was capable of making something similar to my [Ice Make] but of such quality and to be maintained in such a good state was a bit above my skill.

The lacrymas all over the place, those are the answer; they were formed due to the constant filtering of such strong magical power inside of the earth, and in turn, the presence of the mineral attracts and adds Ethernano from the earth to the crystal-like ice all over the mines. It was beautifully symbiotic.

As much as I would have liked to analyze the ice and tried to replicate with my own ice magics, the presence inside of the old mines was practically calling to me in loud voice. The presence was all over me, like a suffocating mantle of coldness and darkness, unfortunately, it only strengthened me. It was bad luck for whatever is down there.

The lack of anything that could give me a clue about what were these mines was something that still unnerved me. So far I should have already found something, a clue, a mural, heck, even a post with a skull nailed to it, whatever, something that could give me an inkling of what the heck was going on here.

One of the things that I have kept doing is to always be knowledgeable of all magics that exists. I believe I have read the library of Fairy Tail a couple of times; [Gale-force reading glasses] for the win, mine was a 120x model that has come quite handy; and practically all books that had felt onto my hands.

Knowledge was power, I used it well.

That being said, this entire place had me curious. Nothing indicated any sort of civilization, except the fact that it was a frozen mine, and so far, it was a bit of wild side mine with wooden beams and thick ropes acting as bindings for the support structures. It was nothing like the mines of Desierto or Joya.

The sudden smell of fur put me into a combat stance, there was something bestial down the gallery that I was walking on, but I was unable to see it for the moment. I kept my stance for a bit, tense and ready to parry and counterattack, but nothing attacked me, without lowering my guard and sending small waves of magic as a radar of sorts, I continue my path into the frozen gallery.

After a minute of walking and keeping my guard up, I reached a small set of stairs that descend down to an illuminated room. The blue light that came from that room was obviously of magic nature and I had no doubts that I was about to found the beasts and whoever commanded them inside of the room.

I jumped down the stairs and walked right into the room, already smiling, once my eyes get accustomed to the light and I could see the room in its totality, my smile widened, then freeze, then my brain started to sound all the alarms.

The room was quite spacious, an empty hall that was covered in ice and snow and that only hold a throne of sorts made of ice. The throne was simple yet majestic, a chair that any middle-aged king would have taken as throne in a heartbeat.

At the feet of the throne, the magical beasts that I was supposed to slain observed me with intelligence in their canine eyes and power exuding from their gorgeous fur and frost-covered bodies. They were of gray-blue fur, with white underlining in their bellies and legs, their blue canine eyes were fixated on my like the eyes of a predator, from their maws, big enough to chomp an adult man in two, hoarfrost was exhaled in anticipation of the feast.

In the throne, a king was meditating.

The man; if it could be called like that; was blue and white, his skin was white blue, like ice that reflected clear skies, his hair was a mane of white-colored snow, his beard was like a blizzard cloud and his white eyes were the color of falling snow. Even at that distance, I could tell that the man was a giant, easily nine or ten feet and I knew that it was like that because he wanted to be that size.

For the first time since I reached this world, I was in the presence of something that could be called a deity, and that only made me even more eager for a confrontation.

Campione instincts are something fearful.

The man sitting on the throne raised his face and observed me, standing at the entrance of his throne room. A single glance and I knew that I was in for the battle of my life against a monster that was leagues above anything that I have faced before.

My blood boiled in anticipation, my teeth clenched in my smile, with a barely contained desire of laughing in eager defiance, whatever the fates hold I was content, and I now I had the chance to fight a god entity of this new world and felt like a Campione all over again.

So be it.

"Who are you, who have walked into my halls?", spoke the blue giant and the wolves agitated under him.

"I am Gray Fullbuster", I was already half-naked and proudly displaying the blue mark of my Guild. "Honored disciple of the Ice Mage Ur, Son of Silver and Mika Fullbuster, a proud member of Fairy Tail".

"A lot of titles little mortal", snickered the god in amusement, "are they of any real significance?".

"Only for the one that matters", I replied back.

"Oh, and who would that be?", the god was bored and wanted a bit of conversation, what was the last time that he played word games with anyone? ha, I missed that sensation.

"Myself".

The god laughed at my answer, but soon his presence covered the entire room and I flinched and felt to a knee for the sudden pressure of brutal magical power. I have never felt anything like that and yet I can feel my face twisting into a deranged expression of joy.

"Funny little mortal, but at the end...", now it was the moment on where the god really looked at me and all his levity vanished in a serious frown.

For the first time in years, I had released what I had inside, since one of the worst days of my life. The second, I believe I had it marked on my personal list. I let the Devil King inside me roam free and the god was right now feeling that sensation when another alpha predator steps in your small pond.

We stared at each in absolute silence, the air around us was already cold enough to freeze any normal person, or even mages, to death in a second; even the wolves had a tense gesture, knowing that another predator was in front of them and the new predator was stronger than them. However, only the loyalty of a pack to their alpha prevented them to run out of the confrontation between two forces of nature. A blizzard formed and covered the entire room when our magical power collided and none of the two conceded a single millimeter back.

Slowly, like the snowflakes of a snowy night, a hammer started to grow from the surrounding blizzard. It was a solid piece of ice, with a heavy head and a pike at the other side, it was as if he had taken an icicle, polish it in a hammer-like form and add a short handle to it. It could look crude, but it was polished and perfectly adequate to bash heads and pierce bodies left and right.

"Congratulations, you are the first one that will face [Icebreaker] in the last millennia", congratulated me the god.

"Thank you for your praise", I answered back, noticing that he no longer called me little mortal.

"Who are you?", asked the god again and I knew that he was not asking for my name.

"In other realms, they called me Campione, Rakshasa, God Slayer, Devil King", I answered back with complete honesty, one of us was about to die, there was no reason to be impolite.

"Devil King it is", the god smiled and it was a smile that mirrored the demented joyful smile that I had now. "A battle to the death it is then", there was acceptance in his tone, it was the law of the jungle, the strong survive, the weak perish and nourishes the strong.

"Tell me, Devil King, do the outside world still respect the gods?", that was not a question that I was expecting, but I answered truthfully.

"Some countries yes, others put their belief in magic and science, and other worships demons and dragons", well, it was more or less what I have seen in my travels all over Earth Land.

There are countries with very old and established churches, I even held an angel coin in my hand. I do believe that I have one somewhere in my [Re-equip]. Others worshiped dragons and others like Desierto had faith around sand demons and gods, it was a bit convoluted, I never understood it well.

"It is a sad truth but the mortals are fickle things" sighed the god, "thanks for your honest answer Devil King, my wolves will not interfere our duel", with a glance the two massive wolves retreated behind the throne but none of the two lost their alertness, "so we can have an honest fight".

"You honor me", I replied back with ice blades already forming in my hands, they are nothing like the hammer he carried but they will have to be enough.

"Have at thee!", shouted the god and in a blink jumped at me with the hammer ready to strike.

We collide in the middle of the room and the shock wave of our weapons clashing cracked the room all around us. The blizzard intensified all the more, when even our magic was trying to kill each other, the magical pressure was enough to turn the blizzard around us into a frozen trap that would freeze and tore anything on its wake into nothingness.

I was barely able to withstand the strength of the god, and it was just because I had blocked the attack by blocking the handle of the hammer instead of the flat surface of the icy hammer. That would have pancaked me for sure.

We exchange attacks for a while, for the moment we were just competing in with our weapons, his hammer was vastly superior to my ice blades and I was forced to change weapons constantly, but my skill with all sort of weapons was something that always kept him of his toes as he was unable to predict what kind of attack would come his way next.

A dagger to the ribs become a sudden ax to the head, a sword swing becomes a stabbing spear; that was a nightmare to defend against, however, the god had pure raw strength on his corner, I was forced to dodge and maneuver constantly or a single hit would have demolished me.

Creating two axes I went on the offensive and that's where I committed the mistake that almost cost me my life. My axes were sharp and left some deep slashes in the body of the god; his blood was actually white ichor of some sort, validating my theory that he was some kind of forgotten god of winter and ice.

Our weapons collide and the hammer shattered my axes. Before I could react, the hammer followed true and hit me directly in the sides. My left ribs cracked and some shattered under the flat head of the hammer, sending me flying to the wall. The crashing against the wall did nothing good for my battered body.

With only one strike and I am embedded into the freaking wall with half my ribs shattered and more than one internal organ turned to muss.

Hence, the original comment about who this was a bad thing. And, aye, that had all the traces to be part of my liver?. Stomach?. Hurt like hell anyway.

Barely conscious, I jumped to the side before the hammer came again and turned a meter of the wall into ice dust. The strength of this god is unbelievable, even with my magic increasing my physical strength I was not even close to that level. Adding to the equation that both of us are ice users, my options are starting to become a bit limited.

My wounds are slowing me, the pain and constant stabs of the fragments of bones inside my body was starting to get annoying and really painful, but if I slow down for a second, the hammer would turn me into a paste. I deflected the hammer with an ax and stabbed the side of the neck of the god, that made another mistake of his own; the god was convinced that the strike that he has managed to inflict had already put me down to the count.

The ice dagger made him bleed and force him to disengage and freeze the wound of his neck, preventing the ichor escaping, The lesser gashes all over his chest, arms and legs were not really damaging for him, a direct strike to the neck; I was aiming to rip his head off his shoulders; or to the heart is way more dangerous.

The blizzard covered us and we were unable to see each other, the god was about to heal himself by absorbing the ice around us, to heal and to reinforce his magical reserves. He will heal faster than me; I was way more damaged than him, but at the same time that was a mistake.

Looking at my blood on the floor and the ichor that was mixing with it, I smiled and traced some runes in the air, building up the trap that I was about to set for the god. It was something that I was not entirely sure that it was going to work, but I was at a point on where a slip would be the end on me and taking a high risk greater reward move was all that I had.

Using the blizzard as cover I set up several mannequins of ice with a bit of my blood on them; I was bleeding internally and I was puking gobs of blood and flesh from time to time; those will act as a decoys as I set up my runes.

The god recover first and jumped back to the fray, crushing one of my decoys into ice dust with a single strike. Using Ur´s [Ice Make] I made the next mannequin turn into a shrapnel explosion. The ice spikes didn't even singe the skin of the god. So I was right, ice was useless against him. It worked with me too, ice was not something that worried me.

Dozens upon dozens of spears rained inside of the room, stabbing and piercing through everything they found; I grab one of the spears and quickly tracing some runes over it with my blood, I tensed my muscles, reinforcing them all I could with [Giant magic] and tossing the spear like a missile against the god.

A bellow of pain was the reward I get, but my joy was cut short at the hammer was tossed in the same direction that the spear has come from and managed to hit my right arm, snapping it in several places with a disgusting and flesh-tearing sound. I managed to muffle my howl of agonizing pain by covering my mouth in ice.

Crippled, I run into the thicker part of the blizzard, confusing myself with the mannequins and taking cover behind one of them. One-handed [Ice make] is less stable and powerful, one of the first lessons of Ur, but right now beggars can't be choosers and I used my [Ice make] to form more duplicates of me, each one holding the spears that the good had rained upon us and covering the tips with any blood or ichor they could find.

The god recovered his hammer and spin it, creating a twister of snow and ice that expanded in all directions, shattering the majority of my duplicates and leaving only broken figures and myself. I raised my [Ice Mirrors] and a quick but powerful illusion, before I flared my magic one more time.

Like a bloodhound, the god reacted in a second at my presence, and funneling the tornado and the blizzard onto himself, he propelled himself with the hammer ready to strike me. The wind pressure fell upon me like god´s fist; pun totally intended, and I used all that I had to kept my position and my doppelganger steady.

The god´s hammer fell upon my decoy and it shattered into ice dust particles.

The baffled expression of the god was turned into surprise when his own spears floated upright and become the bars of a cage. The runes on the floor, traced with a mixture of my own blood and his ichor erupted in blue light before enveloping him in chains, binding and squeezing him with enough force to make him roar under the chain mantle.

The god bellowed and the blizzard shattered the cage that held him, the chains fail to the ground but it was already too late.

An executioners ax made of ice and whose edge was forged with a small puddle of my blood and his ichor; we have been bleeding all over the place and I knew that I had a minute before I fainted from blood loss, magic be dammed; went directly for the neck.

I was in front of him, a devilish figure that was carrying the strength of the blizzard and the tornado on my back, propelling my ax at impossible speed, and with a brutal swing, I beheaded the god before he could raise [IceBreaker] up.

In an explosion of ice, snow, wind and magical power the forces that both have been using during the battle finally were out of control, creating a raging maelstrom of freezing elements inside of the room where we had battled to the death.

The explosion sent me flying again; this was starting to become annoying; and by some whim of fate, I ended up landing, in a very undignified position, on the bloody throne. My wounds protested for the manhandling, they protested so loud that I blanked out for a bit. I was barely conscious, I just remembered vaguely to sit straight into the throne.

Covered in my blood for the impact against the hard surface, I lost consciousness with a burst of joyful laughter; mine; ringing in my ears.

The last sensation that I had is cold, nothing like I have ever felt before, settling inside of my heart as ice flowed through my veins, freezing my thoughts into one cold epiphany.

I faded into unconsciousness, but even if it was the last day of my life, the joy of victory was something that filled every single cell of my body. I was God-Slayer again, I tested my mettle against a god of this world and prove myself worthy.

It tasted like bloody victory.

A beverage that I have intoxicated myself with more than once, and that each time tasted even better than the previous.