Despair and Hope (1/10)
-The Far Future-
Seeing the dire straights that their enemy is in, Grand General Haalfrin orders all his armies, "Grab your nearest god and leave the Realm of the World Tree! Go back to the Physical Plane!"
One of Emperor Imho'Reeth's surviving generals, who is standing next to him, protests, "But sir!? We'll end up in random points of space! We'll be completely stranded! We won't be able to fight together if we do this!"
This is a valid concern, since every inch of ground in the Realm of the World Tree is connected to a different point in space. Depending on when you exit this realm, you can emerge in any spot in the universe.
There's a reason why this place is called "The Realm of Everywhere".
"That's the point," General Haalfrin says grimly. "It's better to make Elshirothe chase us around the universe and waste her energy."
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Almost immediately, countless Immortals, Ascendants, and gods begin slipping out of Igdris's dimension and appearing in black space.
Some of the fleeing soldiers fear they that they might be dropped in a star or a black hole, but space is so large and empty that the odds of that actually happening is functionally non-existent.
The moment Haalfrin disappears from the World Tree's Realm and reappears in the wider universe, he only has to drift in space for a few moments before he feels Drakavar's golden gaze, which is looking over the universe and searching for more prey.
'She's the Goddess of Power, so it makes sense for her to be able to sense the mana in our bodies,' General Haalfrin realizes with a scowl.
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Meanwhile, we see Drakavar floating in space with 2 galaxies on either side of her. Even having lost her mind, she instinctually knows what to do.
Her eyes see countless bodies of mana flicker into existence all across empty space, and she howls in frustration. Even travelling at the speed of light, it would take her thousands of years just to reach the nearest prey.
If she'd had her Soul Stone still in her body, then she could just travel faster than light as freely as she'd like… but that's obviously no longer possible.
'If I can't travel through space so quickly, then I can just shorten the distance I'll have to travel…,' the Dragon Goddess thinks.
So, the dragoness crouches her legs, touches her ankles together, rotates her hip, and spreads her hands out wide towards the two galaxies beside her.
The Goddess of Power then makes a slow squeezing motion with her hands, and the space in front of her is forcibly compressed.
Like a wallpaper being crumpled, the galaxy to one side of her seems to grow thinner, as all the space inside it is pushed flat.
The black dragon then unsprings her legs like a lever, and she shoots far away into the distance – bypassing that galaxy, as well as a few more, in a single leap.
After she passes through the crumpled fabric of space, the space behind her seems to stretch back to its normal position in some places.
Of course, with space being crumpled and contorted so forcefully, when the galaxies in her path bounced back, most everything inside them is ripped apart. In some places, Drakavar's abuse has left giant tears in the fabric of space. Behind these tears is a bottomless Void that seems to swallow up anything that gets too close.
Drakavar is about to make another leap like this, but when she leaps forward again… she flies into some sort of invisible wall. The force of her head slamming into it gives her a concussion.
'What…?' Drakavar reels back in confusion. 'There's a barrier that can stop me!? Are they trying to trap me again!? How!? Who!? Is it Mora!?'
If Drakavar had known that this barrier is the result of General Haalfrin's Syl Name – a mere "lesser god", she'd spit out blood in anger and humiliation.
To make things more humiliating for Drakavar, Haalfrin's Syl Name power was made by Fate for one purpose, and that is to allow him to contain himself and his enemy together, in the same battlefield. His Syl Name was made so powerful solely because of his Destiny to fight this last battle.
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-The Present-
Haalfrin senses Freyya destroying Das's body in mere moments. It seems that even after becoming a mighty Reaper again, he was still no match for her.
Still, the old codger delayed Freyya long enough for Haalfrin to work out a few things in his head.
'How is Freyya able to sense our location? Space is so huge that she shouldn't be able to find us.'
'Hmm… I had learned a long time ago how to hide my presence from Freyya; she taught me herself during our many years together. I became good enough at restraining my Aura that I was even regularly able hide from her.'
'So… what changed? Why is she suddenly able to feel my presence?'
'The only thing that has changed is that she's been possessed by the fragment of Drakavar..., so she must be using some of Drakavar's abilities.'
'Drakavar is the goddess of Power, so that black scale must be sensing the Energy and Mana on my body and within my soul.'
'In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this omniscient mana-sense isn't even a spell. More than likely, this is just one of Drakavar's passive Name abilities.'
'With this in mind, how can I use this mana-sense against her?'
Suddenly, Haalfrin has a bright idea.
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Mere moments after Das is dismembered, Haalfrin is already stretching out his Death Aura in long tentacles that are hundreds of miles long. At the ends of each of these long, black arms, he summons about 1,000 Arkin from the Death Realm.
Of course, his Arkin are able to breath Death Aura alone, so they don't immediately suffocate in this vacuum. As for the zero-pressure threatening to explode their bodies, the Arkin are all smart enough and powerful enough mages to forcefully compress their bodies again.
With the Arkin scattering to the far reaches of space, Haalfrin is sure to use his Advanced Yiir Name to manipulate the Death Aura around him – evenly distributing the Aura between his soldiers and making the Aura around them as dense as his own.
With the Arkin (mostly) being safe in this deadly vacuum, Haalfrin gives them their first order.
The General knows that Freyya's attacks hit large areas, and her strikes are so hard that it's a waste of energy to even bother trying to block them.
With that it mind, the first thing he does is order them all to scatter in every direction.
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Freyya, in her crazed, berserk state, breathes out white-hot arcs of fire in wide plumes. Even being several thousand miles away from the planet's surface, the humans down below can see white flashes – especially the half of the planet that has a night sky right now.
It only takes a few breathes, and half of Haalfrin's current army is already decimated.
It's a good thing he only summoned a thousand Arkin; otherwise, he'd just be wasting them.
'Wait… she's just destroying the Arkins' bodies,' Haalfrin realizes, 'Has she gone so crazy that she's forgetting to use the lantern? If that's the case…, won't I be able to summon them again in about half an hour? Wait, Freyya's true body is here, and her Death Aura is making them come back even faster.'
'If things keep up like this, won't I win the battle? That's not how the script goes…'
Wanting to test it out, Haalfrin reaches out with his spirit and tries contacting the Arkin who just perished.
However… when he reaches out, he suddenly gets a painful sensation in his chest. Touching another's spirit will often make you experience their feelings to a certain extent, so Haalfrin momentarily reels back in pain from the backlash.
Other than nearly knocking himself out by recklessly touching their Spirits after they JUST injured themselves, Haalfrin does learn a few things.
First, there seems to be a Spiritual property to Freyya's flames, which is injuring his soldiers in a way that the Ant Queen never could.
The Ant could only eat their bodies, but Freyya is injuring their Spirits.
In fact, the Arkin who perished to her white flames are probably not going to regenerate for a few centuries; that's how bad the damage is.
'Well, there goes that idea. I guess that fighting with an infinite army was too much to hope for.'
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While Haalfrin thinks of his next move, he stalls for time by summoning more and more Arkin in small batches. With the crazed Freyya being unable to tell who is who, she's forced to cut down any and all Arkin in the area as she searches for him.
After the 3rd batch is exterminated, Haalfrin suddenly has an idea.
Hastily, the Arkin general summons Mrs. Laura's Arkin form, and before waiting for her to say anything, he immediately gives an order:
"I want you to stretch out the metal on the armor of some of the soldiers so that it can cover their entire bodies. Then, I need you to Time Lock their armor."
"That's not a good idea," Laura protests. "You need extremely mana conductive material to even think of making a Time Lock."
"I remember you mentioned before, that you usually use Mana Conductive ore for this spell so that the enchantment doesn't lose any mana over the years," Haalfrin quickly runs his mouth off. "Mana conductive material is only important when you want the enchantment to last for a long time. That's not important here. I just need my men to be able to withstand her attacks."
Laura nods her head and sighs, "Very well. Just so you know, if you try to Time Lock regular steel or iron, the thing will blow up after a few minutes."
"That's good enough. Get to it."