The Day of Wrath (3/4)
-The Present-
Das & Haalfrin can feel the spirit of the earth groaning in pain as it fights to keep itself together. 'Is she going to destroy the world?' Haalfrin wonders in horror. 'This wasn't part of the Ritual! How… are we going to stop her?'
Before Haalfrin can think on this further, he looks up, and his eyes go wide.
There, in the sky, is one of his world's moons. That celestial object suddenly starts to crumble at the sides, as if it were being gripped by a giant hand.
Then, Haalfrin's mana sensitive ears hears a loud boom echo across space as the moon is forcefully halted from its orbit and held in place with Freyya's will.
"HAALFRIN! GET OFF THIS PLANET NOW!" Das screamed at him so loudly that his voice goes hoarse.
Haalfrin doesn't have to be told the obvious. He knows that if he stays here, then Freyya might hurl this giant moon at him – wiping out all life on his planet.
Sure, the old warrior wants to die in battle, but he'd hate to snuff out countless, innocent lives in the process.
Das suddenly pulls out another teleportation token, and he says seriously, "This is my last token. Use it now!"
Haalfrin takes the talisman and tears it in two. The next moment, he and Das are both enveloped in green Yiir energy, and they're teleported off-world.
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Haalfrin and Das appear in black space – somewhere that Haalfrin doesn't recognize. The only thing he knows is that they're… really far away. How far? Who knows?
Haalfrin feels the absence of air pressure here start to boil his blood, and he feels all the air in his lungs be forcibly removed.
Before the warrior can panic too much, Das slips a talisman over Haalfrin's neck. When the enchantment's spell falls over Haalfrin, he feels his lungs fill with air again, and he feels his body become comfortably pressurized again.
After Haalfrin no longer feels like he's about to die, he looks around nervously. The sounds of explosions were so loud in his ears mere seconds ago, so suddenly being teleported into this dark, weightless, silent place is a little discombobulating.
"Where's Freyya?" Haalfrin asks after a long pause. "…Are we safe?"
Das looks around and replies, "…I don't know. We're still in the same solar system, so she might be able to find us if we don't hide."
Haalfrin frowns when he hears this, "We can't just hide forever, Das."
"Sure we can!" Das replies hurriedly. "All we have to do is stall long enough for the Death King to show up. No matter how strong Freyya has become with that weird scale, she's still not a match for HIM."
Das then looks around and finishes his thought, "Space is a big place; there's plenty of places for us to hide."
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After watching her prey teleport away, Freyya roars in rage. Impulsively, the goddess leaps up and immediately exits the atmosphere. However, she stops herself when she looks out over the endless expanse of space.
Randomly flying out there without a direction would be completely pointless. She doesn't even know where they are!
Not being able to find the target of her violence, Freyya feels her temper spiraling further and further out of control.
With nothing to aim her hunger and wrath at, she looks down at Haalfrin's world.
Some irrational part of her (or rather, the Will inside the black scale) is whispering in her mind, 'Eat it. Eat it. Eat it. Eat it. Eat it. Eat it. Eat it. Eat it. Eat it…'
"Ah! NO!" Freyya yells rebelliously at these thoughts.
With the last bit of her sanity, the Crow goddess looks up and sees the larger of the world's two moons. 'I have to destroy SOMETHING… so I'll destroy something with no lives on it!'
Desperately, Freyya reaches her hand out, and the black scale's Power takes a firm hold on the moon – instantly stopping the thing in place and halting its orbit.
Freyya then makes a crumpling motion with her hand, and the moon is crushed on all sides.
Normally, the atoms making up a material are actually quite far apart, with relatively huge distances between each particle. With so much space in between, the physical material is only held together by one of the 4 fundamental Forces of the world – electricity.
And the black scale around Freyya's neck has a unique authority over the natural forces.
So, without even having to use much mana, Freyya uses the Power of the black scale to temporarily eliminate the Electric (electro-magnetic) force holding the moon's particles together.
With the Electric force no longer holding the moon in its rigid shape, it's own gravity quickly makes it cave in on itself.
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If any onlookers on the planet's surface were to look up, they'd see a sight that they'd never forget.
At first, the moon only looks like it's shrinking without any other, visible change.
However, once the moon gets small and dense enough, the entire thing ignites on fire, and the night sky suddenly illuminates, as if it were noonday.
But the moon's death throes doesn't stop there. Only a few seconds after it ignites on fire, the fire suddenly winks out, and the night becomes dark again.
Nobody may be able to see it now, but the moon shrunk down so much that it became smaller than the head of a pin, which immediately turned it into a black hole.
Seeing her handiwork, Freyya reaches her hand towards the black hole.
If any normal person were to touch a black hole, a very long series of scientifically complicated events would happen…
… but short answer is… they'd die. No matter who touches the thing, the black hole's immense gravity would immediately rip them apart. Even if it were an powerful god with an invincible body, the thing's infinite density and impossible strong Forces inside the Event horizon would immediately devour anyone it touches.
Yet… the Forces of nature seem to recognize the power of their Ruler in that black scale, and they're unwilling to harm Freyya.
So, despite reaching over and holding the Black hole in the palm of her hand, the warping of space and powerful gravity in the black hole completely circumvents Freyya's skin – leaving her unharmed.
Acting purely off instinct now, Freyya opens her mouth and pops the "black bead" in her mouth. Without even chewing, the possessed goddess swallows it whole…
… And the moment the black hole slips down her throat, all of the pent up energy that had once belonged to the moon enters Freyya's mana pool, and her body bursts with power unbecoming of a goddess of her station.
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As Haalfrin is using his Telekinesis magic to push himself and Das through space, he's starting to get a little frustrated. "Das? Why does it feel like we're not going anywhere? I'm pushing myself as hard as I can…"
Das lets out a mirthful laugh at this, "What? You've never tried travelling through space? Haha. Well, I can't give you an astronomy lesson right now, but space is a lot bigger than you think it is. At the speed you're going, it'd take you several years just to reach the nearest planet."
"That's disgusting."
… There's a long silence…
"Haalfrin?" Das asks, "Why are you fighting so hard?"
"To win," Haalfrin replies without hesitation.
Das shakes his head, "No, I mean, I thought you were trying to get killed? Shouldn't you be heading back there, where Freyya can kill you? I'd think that you wouldn't run away."
Haalfrin takes a long pause as he thinks of his answer. "Well… I do want to fall in battle… but that doesn't mean that I'm just going to throw my life away. I know that the dead don't change, so when I die, I want to die as the kind of man who never gives up."
"Heh," Haalfrin chuckles, "Plus, it's all part of our Mantling Ritual, so I'm afraid I don't have a choice but to fight."
Das sighs heavily. He certainly has many thoughts about what Haalfrin just said, but he keeps all these thoughts in his head.
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The two of them only get to fly away for about half an hour. Just when they're starting to feel like they've gotten away safely, the pair of them suddenly gets an ominous feeling.
Haalfrin only gets a bad feeling, but Das sees a vague, eerie image in his mind of a giant pair of golden eyes starting at him. No matter where he turns his head, those two eyes are hovering in front of him, as if they were mere afterimages burnt into his eyes, rather than a physical sight.
"Haalfrin… She found us." Das says in a low, serious tone.
"What? How!?" Haalfrin can't help but laugh.
"I don't know how either," Das says as he shakes his head, "Death gods like us don't have very good senses in the Mortal Realm. She must be using the power of that scale to see where we are."
"What're we going to do about it?" Haalfrin asks as he draws his sword. "You can't exactly fight her in your condition, and I'm merely a god-candidate.
Das glances down in contemplation, and as he slowly says, "I'll be resuming my Reaper Divinity, but I don't know how long I'll be able to fight her."
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-The Far Future-
The moment after she successfully uprooted the world tree, the Archdemon of Destruction looks down at the crowd of gods and dead around it. Despite being heavily wounded, the only desire left in her heart is to kill, stomp, and burn.
Seeing the murderous madness in the Dragon's eyes, General Haalfrin can't help but remember a mission he'd been given several days ago.
Back then, he'd met with an Elder Goddess named "Felkala" – a grey feathered Felkin. Felkala had recently rescued two Fox girl and Wolf boy – the very children that Drakavar currently thinks is dead.
"If you can stall HER long enough and get her to waste enough of her remaining mana," the grey feathered phoenix had told him, "We can calm the dragon's anger."
In other words, things may look bleak, but Haalfrin knows that there's at least some hope. If he can stall for enough time and make Drakavar waste enough of her remaining strength, then the wrathful goddess may regain enough of her sanity to recognize her children when they're presented to her again by Felkala.
Realizing what must be done, General Haalfrin issues a command to all his armies, "Spread out NOW! Get away from the falling world tree!"