Through Flesh, Blood, and Ice

The numbers on the newspapers spoke of two thousand Rune Knights and two hundred mages from Guilds all over Ishgar, to be the reinforcements that the Magic Council dispatched to the battles of Pergrande and Iceberg.

Four hundred and twelve Rune Knights and fifty eight mages returned home.

Much to my amazement, all Fiore´s mages returned home. Some better than others.

As soon as the mages reached the settlement where the Rune Knights were preparing to march, we were guided to a massive tent where the commander of the combined Rune Knights forces was waiting for us. There were about a hundred of us, mages, shuffling around the place, but I was already looking out for distinctive marks of the different Rune Knights battalions. I had experience with some of them, and a relatively cordial relationship, I preferred to be dispatched to a front line where I knew those that will bleed with me.

The Commander of the combined forces of the Rune Knights was a very tall woman with pink hair, and a sturdy frame that was called Mikazuchi. The pink-haired veteran warrior was a no-nonsense former mage. She soon dispatched us all over the front lines according to our talents. I nailed most of the destinations that Commander Mikazuchi had for us, except for two.

Mine and Ulric´s.

Ulric resulted to be a gunner, an individuals whose magic came from using magical guns, in his case, a massive gatling gun. Jura and Ulric were immediately sent to one of the main defensive castles that Iceberg has set up to barricade the major cities from the undead onslaught. With Ulric at the top of the walls and Jura turning the walls into unbreakable bulwarks, unless the undead mages had a shit-ton of magical firepower, they are screwed.

I became part of the hunter unit, mostly because my pack. When Mikazuchi saw the wolves, she smiled, and directly told me to hunt down any undead mages that I could found all over Iceberg. Of course, that means that I was going to be Solo for the vast majority of the war. It suited me just fine, I could go wild with my magic, without any fear of wounding my allies.

They delivered a small lacryma of communication, Hibiki set up a telepathic link with me for news and updates; the first one was a series of images of dead mages that may have become part of the undead army of Tombos; and I was tossed into the wilderness of Iceberg.

With Skoll and Hati with me, I ran along with the wolves, covering a big distance between me and the main encampment of the Rune Knights in an exhilarating run, letting the adrenaline rush of being with my pack, and into the hunt, flood my veins. Four hours later, traveling through a snowy forest; the usual picture of Iceberg; I found the first group of enemies.

Being a solo hunter added another benefit, I could totally loot these poor sods after I have dispatched them, that included any lacryma that they could have inside of their bodies. That was a fucking treasure, and it was heavily regulated by the Magical Council.

The first group of enemies that I dispatched during the war were incredibly disappointing, and at the same time, exactly the kind of horror that I was expecting and preparing myself for.

Skoll and Hati fall upon them, tearing the first four to pieces before their undead senses could felt them coming; meanwhile, I channeled my ice magics into my hands and send several flying saws at the biggest zombie that I could find. Once the disc found their objective, I jumped in the middle of them and with ice created weapons started to rain slashes all over the surroundings, like a demented berserker.

In six seconds, my pack and I was everything that was left.

Our butchered victims?.

Farmers, peasants, civilians assassinated and reanimated by necromancy. I could feel the dark magic, the [Curses], left their bodies when my stronger magical energy, and the divine touch that the [Ice God Slayer magic] imbued into my ice creations, destroyed the curse energies. Like any other God-slayer, my ice had a black tainting. It was a common thing on God Slayers, their element was tainted black, supposedly due to how a mortal was tainting divine magic, or something along those lines. In my case, it was true, due to the influence of my [Ice Devil Slayer Magic].

These bunch of undead were nothing but scouts, well, not even that, it was the kind of meat that would be sent to a minefield, to clean the place by sacrificing useless servants. That angered me, that was the kind of bullshit that I despised the most, and here, Tombos was tossing zombies around as it were confetti. Fucking bastard, now, more than ever, I was convinced that it was a demon of Zeref and not an idiot calling himself a demon. Already seen several of those, egocentric maniacs all of them.

The searching of the corpses did not revealed anything useful. I left Skoll and Hati chew on one, just to see if they liked the human flesh; much to my relief they spat the meat, and whined to me about some goof beef or pork, who would have thought, I pandered them so much during our time in Magnolia that they have become quite the meat connoisseurs.

The only thing that they have in common was that they were humans, the Curse of Tombos, or at last, its necromancy, only worked in being with intelligence beyond the basis of the animals. Still, I did not discard finding some nasty zombie berserker cows down the line. These poor sods were obviously from a small town, and a poor one, the only one with something remotely similar to good clothes was an old man with a nice red and black jacket.

Men, women, old, young; all felt under the curse of Tombos and become this walking zombies. I counted about three families among the deceased, and several extra teenagers among the corpses. I even took down a couple of children. This was just a small piece of the mass of undead troops sent to see what armies are being assembled against them and where are those armies.

That, and eating any magical trap on the way of the main force.

Whoever Tombos was, his reanimation was indiscriminate. I kind of see what kind of bullshit did he pulled to get so many undead troops up and ready in so little time. It was a clever strategy. Most surely, he walked into the village during the night, covered the village in the Curse and presto; all undead troops ready to march for him.

Calling for my pack, we resumed the march, deep into the lands of Iceberg. Tombos must have killed several small villages to form a powerful enough army to take down a city and with a bigger source of troops, threaten the nearby countries. But at the same time, his troops are nothing out of the ordinary; unless he reanimated S-class mages and the such; and with the number of casualties that people like me could inflict, the numbers were not on the side of Tombos. Setting up a good pace, I moved deep into Iceberg. I was more familiar with the upper north of the country, the Floating Ice Sea, where big icebergs floated around and whales sang their cries during the Aurora Borealis nights.

It was a spectacle to behold I swear.

Mental Note: If Erza and I are the item that I believe we are, bring her to see the Auroras. She would love it.

For hours, my pack and I tracked down the steps of the small horde that we have butchered. There were not discrete in their movements, and Skoll and Hati found almost insulting how easy it was for them to find and follow their tracks. We moved through the forest, ambushing any other undead that we found. We attacked with swiftness and without mercy. I cold my heart to anything, thinking of the people that I was killing for the second time was a sure method to lose focus and die. I had a redhead goddess to get back, or so I hope, women were utterly confusing like that.

The different small bands of undead that we found lollygagging through the forest, only had in common that they were moving in the same general direction, to the west. I could assume that Tombos was preparing a tentative strike against the reinforcements and was using local people to made the less determined of the combatants weaken their resolution. It was a good psychological warfare trick. Made the local Rune Knights face their own neighborhoods, and the newcomers to see first hand what is going to happen to them.

There were no mages among the small bands, they lacked magical power beyond the Curse. So all of these was nothing but meat shields. Gallivanting and cleaning around all the bands of undead that we found, the night fall upon us, and even if I could keep up with my red eyes, thanks to my [Ice Devil Slayer magic] mutations, I preferred to lookout for a good place to set up camp and rest for the night.

Skoll and Hati found a nice cave, over a small water pond. I took the chance to clean myself up from all the bloody chunks that covered me; cutting people into pieces is a very messy business; and when I was taking a bath, I left my pack to try to hunt us some dinner, but with the undead stumbling around, I feared that any game would have already left the premises.

Once cleaned up, clothes included, I freeze the water and take the ice out of them. It was faster than drying them at the non-existent morning sun. Taking a seat over the entrance of the cave. A five meters deep crevice in a big rock, I dug out of my [Re-equip] the small communication Lacryma that the Rune Knights had provided me.

"Hibiki, you there?", I called through the magical artifact.

"Yeah, I am here", not even ten hours later and Hibiki was already sound tired and ragged. They must be squeezing his magic; I would have done the same honestly. Hibiki is the perfect comm network that any army could have asked for.

"They are running you ragged, aye?", I chuckled. "I have dispatched several small hordes of undead, around three hundred in total, they are all moving west, directly at you".

"Understood", he mentally compiled the information. "It fits with what several scouts have reported this afternoon, there is a big army of undead marching to the main fortress of the Rune Knights".

"Tell the Commander that I suggested taking out from the main defenses any Rune Knight from Iceberg", I commented to Hibiki.

"That´s an unusual suggestion, what is the reason for such a suggestion?". It was a good question, also, if Hibiki passed my reasons to the commander, she may be more inclined to listen to me if I had solid and good reasons for it.

"All of the zombies that I have slaughtered looked like locals", my tone was cold, "people from Iceberg; there is a good chance that the Rune Knights of Iceberg personally knew of this people, that would make them doubt, and against this plague, doubting is more lethal than any spell or blade".

"I will pass the suggestion", judging from Hibiki´s tone, he understood what I was trying to say, "anything else?".

"Have you already memorized the map of the villages that Tombos has slaughtered so far?", I had an idea but I needed information.

"Yes, this is the latest information that we have", sighed Hibiki. "It is a bloody mess, more than a hundred settlements eradicated. There are still a lot of unknowns".

"Download that into my mind", I asked Hibiki, "I am going to try to trace back the steps of Tombos and with luck, find out his main lab, or, with a lot of luck, the place where he is storing his real aces".

A sudden influx of information flooded my mind. In front of my eyes, a yellow light was drawing a detailed map of Iceberg with several marking and all the reports possible about those locations. I had to confess that Hibiki´s magic is something freaking amazing, this is the absolute tool for any military operation.

"Thanks, Hibiki", I thanked the man for his professionalism and skill with his magic, "this is absolutely perfect".

"Good hunt out there", chuckled Hibiki and cut the connection.

Skoll and Hati managed to get back with a boar, that was enough for a good dinner. We devour the boar with gusto. Eating fresh and raw was not something that worried me, in fact, I was feeling that the supposed "Devil" that I had inside now, due to my devil slayer status, approved of my savagery. Well, I am to please. Sending back the pack to the rings, I covered the entrance of the cave with an ice wall to prevent any scares during the night, and I made myself a bed of ice where to rest my eyes and body for some hours. I was slowly feeling into a cold, methodical routine, acting like a predator in a cold land, ruthless, cunning, merciless and swift.

Before I closed my eyes, the blushing smile of a redhead goddess back at Fiore invaded my mind and I fell asleep with a smile.

Unfortunately, I awake covered in cold sweat and with half my body covered in the black taint of my devil slayer magic. That was not a good morning, heck, it was not even midnight. Unpleasant dreams were one thing, but this was a completely different thing. I knew that my magic was not entirely attuned. I mean, I was a God-slayer and a Devil-slayer, holy and unholy all in one. One of the things that I first learned as Campione was that Authorities, some of them, had a mind of their own, the more attuned you become to the idea that originated the Authority all for the better; unlocking more power and extra capacities. With my diverse magic, I was hoping for a similar result, and so far, I was right on the money. I have been Devil-Slayer for quite some time, and a God-slayer for three months, and it was the first time that they reacted like that.

My nightmare was me, killing myself in ice. A black version of me killed a pale version of me, and then the roles changed, and the pale executed the black. They mutilated each other, they hurt the other in ways that scared me, they had nothing but absolute despite for each other, and what was worst of it, they didn't care three fucks about how their battle is making my magic go out of whack.

Now that only my pack was with me, I let myself go a bit during my battles, unleashing spells of both sources. It does seem that I have given them a hand, and they have taken an arm. Something that I was not going to allow. Of all the things that I can endure, one of the things that have always made me angry has been the arrogance and entitlement that some people gave to themselves. These two believed that they had the upper ground, that they are the alpha. They could not be more mistaken.

This is going to hurt a lot.

I summoned a very special dagger, a dagger that it was forged with a mixture of my blood and pure gold, that I mined myself with a blessed pickaxe under the full moon. Aye, forging the dagger has been a chore, but the result was well worth it. The weapon was not designed to be used in battle, the gold, unless adequately mixed with a stronger alloy, is not a metal that could endure the rigors of the battlefield. On the other hand, gold is a powerful catalyst for ritual magic, especially [Futhark Magic].

If these fuckers wanted to play, I was more than ready to play.

Cutting my own hand with the edge of the dagger, I covered the edge and the flat of the blade with my blood as I chanted an old incantation. I was speaking in old Iceberg, an incantation that the forefathers of the mages of today used for blood magics and defying the gods of old.

Once I finished the incantation, I left my magic; both Slayer magics; to flow through my body and I started the carving.

The pain was atrocious and I shouted in agony, but my pulse stood firm and I continued engraving red runes; freezing my own blood inside of the scars; all over the black taint that invaded one of my arms. Once I reached the biceps, the black taint receded and stabilized itself in my forearm. My arm was completely useless by now, a scarred mess of red and black runes.

My smile was deranged and insane, a smile more proper of a demented slasher of a bad terror movie than a human.

Twirling the dagger, tainted with the black infection of a Devil-slayer, I held it in a reverse grip and stab myself in my lower abdomen. Just where the God-slayer lacryma has been inserted into me by the Throne of Ice.

If I believed carving my own arm with a dagger was painful, stabbing the lacryma inside of me directly, made me experience hell and then I blacked out. The lacryma was connected to my entire nervous system, reinforcing it by channeling the filtered Ethernano to it, in the form of magical power. I have, essentially, stab myself in the core of my nervous system.

There is little need to say that there are no words in any bloody idiom to describe the sensation that exploded through my body when the tip of the "poisoned", so to speak, dagger pierced through the flesh, bones; my floating ribs; and the solid ice-like substance of the lacryma.

Yin and yang. Balance.

Something that I was expecting to achieve through patience, meditation and a careful mixture of energies, trying to achieve the perfect mix. It was all for naught, as soon as the magic was giving an inch, they took a mile and tried to overload me.

If they believed that I was going to allow their fights, ignoring the damages and the risk that they are putting my body in, they were in for a rude awakening. I have demonstrated in a very direct and clear way, that I was the one in charge here, and if they are not going to understand that this is my freaking soul and magic, I will carve them out of my body like they are bloody tumors and destroy them for good.

Sure they are going to rebel, the powers that conformed my particular brand of slayer magic did not bow to anyone. Neither did I, and my willpower has already broken several gods and devils, these two shadows are going to learn their place or they will burn. Simply as that.

It was a battle that will take place in my subconscious, the place of my mind where I had zero control of what´s going on and that had its own ideas about to do things, but through the years, I kind of learned one thing about myself. Trying to impose me anything, be it by force or by some stupid and convoluted reason, was a sure way method to turn me into a killing machine over the ass who has been stupid enough tho poke the sleeping dragon.

These two magics had done just that. I almost felt pity for them.

The tongues of Skoll and Hati over my wounds and face woke me up several hours later; the sun was already up the sky so I must have been out for the rest of the night and a good chunk of the morning. I also felt like shit, my entire body was burning from the inside, and my brain was pounding from inside of my skull. Yet, I smiled, this was nothing but the tantrum of the defeated magics that denied the idea that they have lost.

Fuck them, they will see the reality of I will carve them out, and destroy them forever. I was not in the mood for fucking games, much less in the middle of a war zone. I came to this place to protect those I cherish with all my heart, not to subjugate myself to my own bloody magic.

It took me a while to tranquilize Skoll and Hati. As part of my pack, they understood what had happened and had recognized the dagger, the marks of the Devil-slayer, and the runes that I have used. They are from the mythology from where my [Futhark runes] comes from, so even if they are not experts, they are more than able to recognize them when they saw them.

By the time when my pack understood that I was not trying to commit suicide, and it was just another step in mastering my magic completely, it was already midday. Well, no one said that this one will be easy. With the mental map in my head, I traced some lines between the bands of the undead, the army sights, and the first undead attacks and formed a patron that spoke about the mountains in the northeast part of the country. Not precisely close to the part of the country that I knew best, but those mountains are something that I have already visited before.

Precisely because of that reason, I knew that the entire place was like Swiss cheese, full of holes, galleries caves, and crevices. People can hide there for years and no one will be ever the wiser about it. It was the perfect place for a hideout and storage of dangerous fuckers like Tombos. The problem was that it could take me years to comb out the entire thing, bloody hell, this was going to be far more complicated than I expected.

As it turned out, I was more or less right in my prediction. It took me months to comb the mountains, months of hunting alone in the middle of a frozen mountain, battling the undead abominations, and the, natural and magical, beasts of the lands, and facing the own natural dangers that high mountains, permanently covered in snow and ice, present to those that dared to defy their peaks.

However, not all this time was investing in the search for the bloody Tombos. The bastard was not waiting there for me to hunt it down, instead, he had his own plan, and a lot of those months were used in frustrating those same plans, or, at least, blocked them until a more permanent solution could be reached. For example, stopping one of his decoys to repeat the tragedy of the previous settlements, and turn an entire town; where the Rune Knights had established their base; into reinforcements for his undead army.

Of all the mages from Fiore, the ones that I interacted the most were Hibiki, Bacchus, Jura, and Araña. In the first month of the campaign, more than thirty mages died at the hands of Tombos decoys and they become zombies under their command, making the life of the rest of us more miserable.

Thanks to my pack, I was able to; guided by Hibiki; hunted down most of the reanimated mages and freeze their bodies. The Rune Knights dispelled the ice and cremated the body, sending the purified ashes back to Fiore. I have seen that way many times before, entire families broken for the sudden death of a loved one, or whose lives were destroyed because the one that provided for them was no longer alive. Hunting the reanimated mages was one of the most dangerous businesses of the war, as more often than not, the mage was used to create a decoy of Tombos. Meaning a puppet that Tombos could use to channel his own magic from afar, along with the magic of the puppet that he was using.

Araña and I hunted down a couple of those. For example, the one that wanted to poison a town.

The town was located near a river, a big river that provided a lot of good fish, and had about two thousand inhabitants. Araña and the Rune Knights were sailing up the river, searching for a particularly nasty band of undead that was created through the fusion of men and beasts. Aye, those undead half-men were a dangerous bunch, I personally ripped about a thousand of them through all the months that I had been seeking out the lair of Tombos in the northeast mountains.

I was resupplying myself in the town, helping the locals with my magic and setting up all the wards that I could. Those would only slow the undead if a Tombos decoy was nearby, but it will prevent the sudden demise of all the city in a burst of magic, and it would give them time to evacuate the place before they were overrun. A band of half-men undead surged from the forest, and I managed to stand my ground and hold the horde for enough time for the Rune Knights to set up a strong perimeter and take the civilians into safety.

Then, one of Tombos decoys made its appearance and everything went to hell.

This particular decoy had taken over the body of a former mage from Desierto, a dark-skinned young man that used [Poison Magic]. With Tombos empowering him, the corpse was a walking fountain of poisonous miasma.

Araña and I teamed up to deal with the mage. We combined our magic to create frozen threads that served as a trap for the corpse, freezing the miasma around him and imprisoning him into a frozen jail of his own design. Once the trap was set up, I created an ice guillotine and beheaded the poor sucker. Once the corpse was decapitated, my ice magic; tainted with the devil and divine magics; was more than enough to overpower the Curse inside of the body and free it from the devil´s magic.

That was Tuesday in the front lines.

Practically all day I was involved in a battle to the death with another of the undead experiments of Tombos, or defeating another of his decoys. Frankly, I am convinced that I was the only bastard that was 24/7 in service.

Another dangerous instance was when Bacchus, Jura, and I faced the broken remains of a mage that, in life, was an expert in alchemy. A fucker with the ability to transmute all inorganic substances. My ice included, into whatever the hell he wanted. Jura was completely screwed in that battle, his [Earth Magic] was useless against someone like that, and my ice-themed magic was not much better.

Bacchus face the broken abomination in close combat, and I supported Jura with my basic [Dispel Magic], making the creation of Jura endure enough to reach their objective and finally turn the poor thing to a bloody paste.

The Rune Knights had enough problems of their own, as each casualty on their side was another reinforcement for Tombos. During one of my worst moments, one of those times that my mind was not in a happy place but in a cold and dark corner, where even my nightmares tiptoed around, I was in the main bastion of the Rune Knights in Iceberg.

It was the third month of our presence here, and the war of attrition was weighing heavily in our side. We have barely managed to keep the constant incursion of undeads at bay. I was passing by, called by Hibiki to actualize in person the [Archive Magic] instead of miles away that only exhausted him more. When I saw the Rune Knights, and I had a meeting with Commander Mikazuchi, I was the very same image of a bloody devil from hell. I was shirtless and my pants were ragged as if a beast has used them for sharpening its claws. My arm was blackened and scarred with frozen runes; I had a nasty scar on my abs and my eyes were red pools of cold rage and fury. Not even Bacchus dared to mess with me when he saw me in that state, I was not in the mood.

So far, I was the only Solo mage that has survived the first three months of the war. There were others like me, that operate best alone, but they were either dead; a lot of them at my hands after Tombos turned them into corpse puppets, or so gravely wounded that they were sent back home. The commander was not happy with it, the solo hunters like me are the best scouts that she had, as none of the Rune Knights scouts could track down the undead bands, and exterminate them if they are big, or dangerous, enough for a nearby population.

The reports were as bad as I expected, but I kept my completely neutral expression. I was cold, I was ice, I was the Iceman of Fairy Tail, although, the nearby Rune Knights called me the ice devil when I was not around or they believed I did not ear them. Not that I cared much if they fear me, all the better, that would mean that in the future my infamy would precede me whenever a Rune Knight wanted to mess with me, or my Guild.

In cold and ruthless tone, I actualized the maps of the Commander and pointed out different spots that I founded with traces of dark magic. Some of the spots were already cleaned by me, but others will require the efforts of several mages to broke the wards and traps that Tombos had set up all over the place along with some kind of Necromancy based enchantment that acted as a beacon and empowered for any of the undead nearby.

After the end of my report, I delivered the heads of all the poor sods that I hunted; all were from the reinforcements or local mages that tried to make resistance against Tombos; and asked for permission to grab some grub, rest a bit, and be back on the hunt.

Commander Mikazuchi was a veteran of several battlefields, and even if she was bloody impressed with me, she knew that I was burning myself, that I was overstretching my magic and my body. That could have some nasty consequences, the worst of all, the Anti-Ethernano tumors. I was sure that I was one of the few individuals in all Fiore that will never suffer from that, but she did not know that. However, the commander was also pragmatic, and knew that I was the only hunter in the field, and that I was fucking invaluable.

So, she let me loose, even if she hated herself for it.

By the five months of the war, I was something akin to an urban legend. Among the Rune Knights, the Iceman moniker became something whispered in awe and subtle fear. I was the responsible for taking down all the corpses that Tombos has been using as decoys. Skoll and Hati were the ones responsible for that, as their hunting capabilities were something out of this word.

Thanks to the suggestions that Hibiki, and several other letter mages on-site made; in truth, they softened a lot my very crude and cruel remarks about wards and suicide runes tattooed on all the mages in the war; Tombos found himself unable to reanimate any Rune Knights or mages inside of certain areas around the main bastions of the defenders.

In the sixth month of the war, Tombos started a wild goose chase. His decoys; but this time with his appearance, the first time that anyone saw him directly, usually he voiced his thoughts from the corpses that he imposed his Curse on; appeared in a remote spot, trying to attract forces, especially mages, out of the warded zones.

Over the paper, it was a very clever strategy to face Tombos, the elite of the Rune Knights must come out to play, and once outside of the protection, they will become part of Tombos forces if they are defeated. Tombos didn't even need to reveal himself, as we discovered the worst way, when we lost about two hundred Rune Knights and seven good mages, only to discover that it was a decoy, altered to look like it was Tombos.

At this point, I knew that Tombos was a devil of Zeref, my Devil Slayer magic reacted to his curse with fury. My magical power was anathema for his Curse magic, it ate it away and froze it dispelling it whenever they collide. I was a Devil Slayer, after all, I inherited the magic that served to destroy demons and Zeref´s little playthings were my favorite prey. That´s it if I ever put my hands on him.

Leaving apart Tombos grandiloquence and monologues about his unlimited power and how he was death incarnated, yadda, yadda, yadda, he was actually a coward. Tombos never faced any big enough squad, or group of mages, or Rune Knights, unless he had an overwhelming advantage in magic or numbers. It was one of the worst possible traits for a monster like him, as it would make him even more difficult to track down and eliminate.

My pack became invaluable to determinate if it was a decoy or not. Skoll and Hati could feel the difference between a decoy and the original. It was a matter of a mixture of energies. Pure Curse, it was Tombos, anything else infected by the curse, it was a decoy. With me traveling all over the country and judging what was a trap, and what was Tombos trying to further his own plans, the devil had a couple of close calls. That turned him paranoid, never showing himself in battle and instead only sending decoys.

But seeing that his ruse has been called, Tombos fold back and re-started a battle of attrition, expanding his raids to even Seven and Bosco. We were stretched thin as we were, but when Tombos reached for the new countries, they were already on alert and prepared for his invasion. Essentially, we were at a null point. Without Tombos' death, the undead armies will continue raiding everything around, but Tombos was no longer safe and he has shared a brush with true death on several occasions.

Taking advantage of the relative respite, I found myself traveling to the north, to the northern peak of the country, where the undead forces of Tombos have been repelled by the local's mages with impressive success. During the war, we have been neck-deep in work. Especially, for the sixth month, when I was the only Solo mage that could track, hunt, and survive the traps and bullshit that Tombos had all over the country. I was not in a good mindset during that time but I managed to stay sharp and do my job.

Among all of those that have been called as reinforcements, I was the only one familiar with the upper coasts of Iceberg, but even I have never been that up north. For what I learn of the fishers and settlements all over the coast, all the way up north is a hostile frozen environment where only powerful shamans and ice mages dwelt in some remote village. I was interested, but the local informed me that they tended to react with extreme violence to anyone that was not one of them, or that was not from Iceberg.

With an excuse, thanks to the war going around, the Commander task me with the mission of go there and see if they could lend us a hand, or, if they need a hand, due the lack of communication with the north is was hard to tell, but what all reports said, was that they were fine on their own. Something that irked the Commander that wanted to know how they have managed to repel Tombos and why had they not intervened, saving nearby towns. It was their own bloody country after all.

Also, those that I kind of make friends during all this mess, recommended me to take a freaking break. I have been solo, and in the bloodiest, hardest, parts of the war for around six months and a half, and it was about bloody time that I took a bloody break before I shattered or snapped badly.

During our battles together, I learned to respect Jura´s opinions and decisions; the man was rock solid indeed; Hibiki was actually a good guy once you get past his flamboyant antics. Bacchus was a drunkard, but he kept saying that I was Wild, and I suppose that it was a compliment of a sort. Araña was scared of me since I tore several mages, powerful mages, apart with my bare hands in front of her, along hundreds of undead; from old to young, I made no distinction; they were in my way.

Araña respected me, and treated me with courtesy, but the fear in her eyes was always there. I can not blame her, usually I had the appearance of a murderhobo of hell, whenever I set foot on the bastions that the Rune Knights had all over the country.

Dobengal was still a mystery to me. I knew that he has been in several search and destroy missions along with me, but I have never met the fucker in the fields, and his exploits are always kept hush, hush among the Rune Knights. Not that I had high clearance access, beyond pointing me what they needed ripped and tore, but the tight lips around the ninja annoyed me. And Hibiki, who more than once has lost contact with the ninja, only to appear miles away from where he should be.

By the end of the final week of the sixth month, after I prepared myself to my expedition to the north and the Rune Knights prepared to comb Iceberg up and down, of the Fiore mages, only four remain on the field.

Thanks to my constant exploration and Hibiki´s [Archive Magic], it was a matter of time to found the hole where Tombos has hidden. I have searched up and down the mountains, but even my pack would have it difficult to find a magically hidden lair, especially one covered by [Dark Arts].

It was a job that I could not do alone, not even with Skoll and Hati; there was way too much terrain to cover, and I was not the best and fending off illusions, or [Cloaking Magic] that could hide entire buildings. I am a competent illusionist, but that did not make me the foremost expert on how to found dark hidden lairs. It hurt my pride a bit, but I had to take a back seat and see what´s up in the north.

Four of us, the mages of Fiore, remained in Iceberg. Jura, Bacchus, Hibiki and me. Boze was sent back to Fiore when he almost died at an ambush in a snowy peak, Araña suffered a very bad wound to her back, and was sent back to Fiore for healing, Dobengal was missing, and Ulrik supposedly died when his bastion was overrun by a Tombos decoy.

Traveling up north, to a place supposedly safe, was more than enough vacations to me, especially, if that means that I was going to meet up with some powerful mages. I never get close before due to the infamy that they had to shot first ask questions never, but this time, I had a solid excuse.

Hibiki linked me up with the HQ, just in case of something going fubar up there, but so far, any reports of that zone did not speak of anything that it was not the fierce resistance; and with a high degree of success; that the locals had put against Tombos and his undead armies.

The coast of the zone was a mixture of big floating icebergs and cold waters. It was very rich in fishes, making the locals exceptional fishers and navigators. I took in the past a couple of ships from the southern parts of that territory to Fiore, or to Pergrande, and the sailors did know their jobs. Do not get mistaken, the upper north part of Iceberg is a harsh land with harsh people living in it. In such an environment, and with the constant threat of the magical beasts that roam the place from time to time, the locals had grown up accustomed to battle and to hunt. I liked the place a lot, I will not lie.

Traveling through the country served me to see that the war has gone better than I believed, but it was also clear that we were in a stalemate. The only breaking point would be finding and eliminating Tombos, and I was determined to be the one that will take the head of the freaking devil.

Ironically enough, traveling north was precisely what I needed.

There, just in my fucking plain sight, was the very center of the worship of the god that I slain in the Lacryma mine.

His name was Ymir, God of Winter, and one of the supposed creators of the world.

That left me completely baffled.

The thing was that, when I got close, the shamans were already expecting me. Whenever I used my [Ice God Slayer magic] they knew, there was a lost relic of the god in their sanctum that reacted at my presence. They were about to send out a group to contact me, but then, the war started and they had their hands full with the undead bullshit that Tombos pulled on them.

Meeting with the shamans and the ice mages, was a revelation, they received me with open arms and explained to me who and what was the god that I slew.

It shared a lot of characteristics of the god that I knew in my original world, but this one had a trait that other gods of this world did not share. Ymir did not die, he left all his powers to the first Ice God Slayer, and the first to the second, so on, on so forth, until I came around.

I am the ninety Ice God Slayer.

According to their records, the previous God Slayer decided to use his powers for himself, and started a conquest of his own kingdom. That was about six hundred years ago, more or less, and since then, when he was kicked out by dragons, and other Slayers, before he was sealed inside a bloody mountain. Mountain that was open by an earthquake, and certain ice mage of Fairy Tail decided to enter the place just for the laughs. Well, everyone knew what happened from then on. I was the new Ice God Slayer and if I am not mistaken, at some point, I should become a demigod.

The lacryma that I had inside?. It was not a lacryma, it was a bloody Godseed, the source of divine power; and also the inspiration for the Dragon Slayers?. I really should talk with Natsu about that, scratch that, Natsu is an awesome little brother-like figure, but he is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. I had to look out about Dragon seeds, and what on blazes Slayer magic really is.

I had a tiny bit problem with all that. I was also a Devil Slayer, I was a fucking anomaly, my magic cancels and tried to set dominance over me. It was a nightmare. My actions at the cave, when I carved my flesh and body to let the magics know that I am in charge here, only slowed the process, not stopped it.

In the end, be a devil or god, one of my magic is going to establish itself as the dominant one, and then, the god seed, or the "devil form" that all Devil Slayers had, will take over and turn me into a devil or a demigod. Curiously enough, the Devil Slayer magic tended to erode the sanity of the users and the God Slayer tended to turn the users into detached people as they rise above the humans around them.

If it wasn't so sad, it would have made me laugh. I had eons of experience as Campione, as a mortal that plays with the powers of a god. Sanity?. I was not sane to begin with. Pride?. I have slain enough cretins that believed themselves above the rest that I knew inside out the dangers of pride and hubris. But I swallowed my pride, and asked for the guidance of the shamans and mages of the temple about my God Slayer status and how to perfect my ice magic to the fullest, along with the runes that once in a day, a god of winter used to created miracles.

"Please taught me the path".

Five words, like the five fingers of a hand that I will use to help or, clenching into a fist, crush anyone who threatens me, or those I care about.

Nine hellish weeks that followed those words.

One would believe that my personal, and quite hellish training on its own, would have prepared me for the surprises that the shamans and the ices mages had for me. I could not be more mistaken. I trained nineteen hours a day, physically and mentally, in the coldest corners of an abandoned temple, the original temple of Ymir. I studied grimoires that were older than Dragons; I was scared shitless about breaking the things by accident, Levy would have skinned me alive; I carved runes that spoke of marvels of ancient times, I was taught as much as it was possible about the fighting styles of the previous God-slayers, and mastered ice magic as I have never before.

My masters were taken aback with my determination and progress, technically, the next God Slayer would start training when they are nine and become a full-fledged God Slayer when they are eighteen. I was rushing my training from nine years to nine weeks. In other circumstances, I would have stayed for nine months or even an entire year, but right now, I was on a tight schedule.

Tombos was about to attack at any moment, or try to pull another deranged plan, and I will never forgive myself, if because of my training, the war reached Fiore. The frontlines looked good for the moment, but it was a matter of time before the shit hit the fan again. So I pushed myself to the limits and I ended up breaking, reforged, tempered, broken again, rinse and repeat for nine weeks.

My body was a sword and I was making sure that it was a sword that could cut down titans if it was necessary.

Unfortunately in the eight months of the war, Tombos made his play and shit hit the fan in spades.

Even to this day, I am convinced that Tombos fucked it up so royally because he was expecting the complete opposite effect of what he provoked.

It was a disaster that hit Iceberg entirely. Somehow, Tombos had set up a Necromancy array that surrounded the major part of the country, effectively creating a sudden void of Ethernano in the entire country for a day. During a day, all magic power in Iceberg disappeared, all magics failed, and all spells were dispelled instantly.

There is little need to say that it was a fucking disaster, but that was the screw up of Tombos.

He shut off All magics, meaning that his Curses were affected as well, meaning that his decoys and his entire armada of undead die for a second time when the magic power abandoned their bodies. During the entire day, I stood with the people of the temple, helping to keep the people safe and recovering all we could, and preserve what we had before we try to counteract the shit that Tombos has pulled.

During the night of that same day, the Ethernano was back, and the magical reserves of all the mages begun to recover. That was a relief, and a chance that I knew that I could not pass up. Tombos was as fucked up as us, well, he was even worse as he was a bloody demon of Zeref. Tombos was nothing but an enchantment made with the worst of the human emotions as basis, without Ethernano, his body will be forced to burn itself out to maintain the magic that reanimated him in the first place.

Grabbing a couple of the sharpest daggers I could find, I summoned Skoll and Hati; now able to be summoned back and worried sick about what happened, and jumped myself into a quick hunt. The remnants of the freaking bomb that had screwed up the country up, was a sure way to tell where Tombos will be.

The thing was a massive white statue with a face in the upper part, looking at the skies. After detonating, the surface of the pillar was cracked and the face cracked like a shattered mirror, but the fucking thing had done its work and really put things upside down.

During the aftermath, I managed to learn the name of the strange contraption. The weapon was called Face, and was essentially the Earth Land´s version of a country size EMP. It wiped out the Ethernano, and all the magical power, in a massive; country size; radius, crippling magical societies like Earth Land was. It was actually an exceptionally clever and powerful weapon, but thank the gods, only one of them, and a small one at that, was not enough to permanently wipe out the Ethernano of Iceberg.

The theories behind the weapon stated that the disappearance of the Ethernano would not be permanent, but no one was one hundred percent sure of that. Well, in the case of several of them being detonated in sequence. The thing is that one single Face lacked the power to produce such devastating effects for longer than a day.

We are all grateful for that, believe me.

The structure of the Face was big enough to serve as a topographic marker, so it was only a matter of running as fast as I could, and reach the base of the Face, where I was one hundred percent sure that I would found Tombos. If I had the luck of the devil, the fucker would be so shaken up that he would be in his object form, or hibernating from the sudden rip of her magical essence out of his body.

The luck was not on my side and when I reached Face, Skoll and Hati were already at their limits, unable to recharge their own forms with any fresh Ethernano, forcing me to summon them back to their rings until mine, and theirs, magic reserves were already up to snuff.

Climbing down the crevice where the entire thing has been hidden all this time; I cursed several times as I knew that I had been there more than once during my initial tracking of the area; I ran towards the base of the blasted thing. There, surrounded by hundreds of corpses, I found out Tombos and discovered what happened to Ulrik. The giant of a man was the last decoy of Tombos, the only reason why Tombos has not vanished due to his own stupidity was that he has jumped inside the decoy made with the body of Ulrik, and the magical reserves of the magical gunner were keeping him alive.

"You", my tone would have frozen the sun, "at last I found you, you nasty little bugger".

Tombos turned his body to me, all his gestures were clumsy, forced; his curse has not taken complete control of the corpse, but they have already altered the corpse of Ulrik to accommodate and appear as the real Tombos. I have seen the bastard for the first time when he started to use the decoy traps, decapitating so many that I lost count.

Tombos liked to appear as the stereotypical image of a death mage. Black flowing robes, skull head, staff, the whole nine yards. But with Ulrik, they have only managed to clean up the flesh his head, leaving the mass of muscle of the man intact; albeit of a ghastly gray color; and dressed in pants, boots and a hood.

"You, you disgusting human filth!", the rage and disgust in his voice was clear as day. "What have you lot done?. What kind of disgusting mockery of the royal and sacred curses is this?".

"Excuse me?", I raised an eyebrow. "You are the fool that detonated a magical weapon that wiped out all Ethernano in the country, what the heck are you talking about?".

Tombos composed himself, grabbing a big staff with the skull of a goat in the top, leaning on it as its legs were not still completely under his control.

"My Curses are sacred, bestowed upon myself by Zeref-sama", proudly declared the devil. "They are free of the weakness of your pathetic mortal magic!", shouted Tombos. "You will tell me this instant was kind of perversity is this".

Oooh...now I get it. Tombos was not only a coward but a delusional idiot as well. Please tell me that all devils are this deluded, if that´s the case, hunting them down is going be bloody fun.

"You delusional fool", I deadpanned at him, taking my daggers out their sheaths and taking a fighting stance as I got closer to him, my magical reserves were growing fast, but so are his and I lacked the power to fuel any of my most devastating spells.

"Your babbled curses needs Ethernano too, fool", I revealed to him, before charging ahead, ready to tear the wanker to pieces. "You are nothing but a complex enchantment made with negative emotions".

"Lies and slander!", screeched Tombos, clumsily but determined to meet my charge head-on with his staff, "Zeref-sama works are perfection!".

I parried his staff with my left dagger, but then I learned the hard way that Ulrik strength was still at the reach of Tombos, and his undead status only increased it. The staff followed its trajectory and smashed my chest, making me gasp in pain. Only due inertia, my right dagger followed its path and found its target in Tombos chest.

Like it was an annoyance, Tombos took out the dagger and tossed aside. Twirling his staff, I barely managed to deflect it before it hit my torso and broke out some ribs. Ducking under the swing, I slashed the forearm of Tombos. Taking advantage of how I was forced to dodge, he tried to kick me in the face, but I move my head to the side, grab his extended leg and cut a good portion of his calves.

Laughing Tombos grabbed me by the head, rose me up over his head and choke slammed me against the hard and cold surface of the crater where the Face weapon has been hiding. I managed to dig my dagger into his bicep, but I was still slammed against the floor with so much strength that I spat blood. Grabbing his head with legs, I managed to use the dagger as leverage to force him into the ground and into an arm breaking position.

The sickening crunch of his bones should have been enough to stop him, but he didn't ever slow down and crushed my sides with his staff. This time it was my ribs the ones that echoed broken, and the pain made me scream and release my hold.

Tombos recovered before, and punched me several times in the face and the torso. Those were as if I was hit by hammers, each punch rattled my head something fierce, but Tombos overextend himself, and in one brutal haymaker I dodged it and uppercut his skeletal face with enough force to crack his mandible and his cranium. Oh, my sore everything, my knuckles were bleeding, it was as if I had punched steel.

The uppercut shocked Tombos too, as it has managed to inflict more damage, to one of the few structural weakness of his body than Tombos has expected. I recovered my dagger from his arm and stab his sane arm, repeatedly. The devil ignored the stabbing and went after my neck, grabbing it with all his might and trying to strangle me.

At this point, it was clear that Tombos was physically stronger than me, and thanks to his undead body, he was beyond physical pain, however, that was precisely the weakness of his decoy.

Raising me over his head, Tombos increased the strength of his grip. I was already feeling my neck being crushed and my vertebrae protesting. I nailed my dagger into the elbow of the left arm and the sudden destruction of the cartilage forced Tombos to release me due to the lost of control of that arm. With that arm down I put my feet on the chest of Tombos and kicked hard, dragging his arm with me.

The sudden impulse made Tombos fall face first, and when he tried to get up, he realized that his arms were not responding all that well, neither his legs. I coughed in pain, my neck was black and blue due to the strangling attempt, but I swallowed the pain and jumped back at Tombos. Recovering my dagger again, I rolled over his bigger back, and landed between his legs, stabbing left and right, I rolled forward, just in time to dodge the reversal kick of Tombos.

Tombos tried to stand up and he fell face front into the floor. The guttural groan of disbelief echoed in the silent and cold crater of Face. For a few seconds, the only sounds in the place have been our attacks breaking each other bodies. But now, the screech of Tombos, as he tried to stood up and failed miserably was all that reverberated on the air.

"What trickery is this hu…!", were the last words of Tombos.

When he rolled in a very undignified manner, and tried to rose his torso into a seated position, Tombos eyes saw a massive claw right at him. My claw, reinforced with all the Slayer magic that I managed to recover so far, ripped the skeletal head out of his shoulders in a shower of black blood and curse particles.

"Your decoys are physical bodies", I smiled at the skull, feeling the decreasing essence of the terrified devil. He could no longer run to his original body, shattered by his own hand, so the corpse of Ulrik was his only remaining body able for a while.

"Even if you don't feel the pain of your tendons and ligaments being cut, that doesn't mean that you don't need them", I explained to the cracking skull as I increased the pressure and the ice filtering inside of the last container of the essence of Tombos.

Then Tombos committed the worst mistake he could have committed and tried to snatch a victory out of death´s grasp. Tombos skull shattered and his curse; the embodiment of what he was and what he was crafted for, fly straight at my face. A devil trying to possess a Devil and God Slayer.

That can only end well.