Despair and Hope (2/10)
For the next round of distracting Arkin, they're summoned (as usual), and they scatter (as usual).
However, something is a little different this time; this time, they fly off into space in pairs – one soldier, and one Time Lock Enchanter. Laura DOES have a large team of mages trained to do use this top-secret spell.
When Freyya sees the Arkin behaving a little differently… Well…, she sees them acting different, but she doesn't care; she just unleashes her white flame breath just the same.
However, the moment before Freyya attacks them, all the Enchanters suddenly inscribe the Time Lock spell onto the armor of the soldier in front of them.
Back when these enchanters were alive, it used to take them hours just to Time Lock a single stone. However, after practicing their craft for 10s of thousands of years, they've learned to do the same task in only a few seconds.
The Time Lock spell itself is quite simple, but it requires an insane amount of precision and carefulness. Naturally, after so long doing the same spell over and over again and with them being High Humans, their skill has reached far beyond what a normal human is capable of.
To rub salt in Freyya's wounds, the Enchanters all immediately unsummon themselves and retreat to the Death Realm the moment they finish laying their enchantment.
And the fruits of the Enchanters' efforts are immediately on display; the moment Freyya's white fire connects with the protected soldiers, all of them are held still in space, and their armor remains unmarred and whole. Even the soldiers themselves are perfectly fine.
Haalfrin squints his eyes and looks on at what Freyya is doing; he's curious about how she'll handle the strange turn of events.
… He looks from afar, and he sees the Crow goddess futilely stabbing one of the soldiers, and her spear bouncing off every time. She beats and claws at the armor, yet the only thing she manages to break is one of her fingernails.
'Huh? This is working better than I thought,' Haalfrin thinks. 'That armor seems to be a good distraction. I'd unsummon the soldiers inside and let her attack the armor, but she'd notice the moment the source of mana disappears from inside.'
'…Wait… That gives me an idea…'
Haalfrin flies off into the distance – observing Freyya while thinking of a plan.
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-The Far Future-
With all the gods Drakavar has stomped to death already, the size of Haalfrin's army is only growing larger; after all, he leads an army of the dead.
It's also a well known fact that the dead slowly reconstitute their bodies and spirits after being destroyed. It normally takes a dead person several thousand years to come back, but due to General Haalfrin's special status as a Death god, the soldiers who fight under him come back after a few seconds.
Drakavar spends several days stretching countless miles of space and destroying huge swathes of the universe at once. With how much wanton destruction she's caused so far, she'd think that the enemy armies would've run dry by now.
It's only after several days that the Goddess realizes the enemy army is coming back, over and over again.
Despite being driven mad, she has incredibly sharp battle instincts. Thus, she knows deep down that she needs to eat her prey to stop them from coming back; merely smashing apart their bodies won't do anything.
So, after wasting a lot of her remaining strength and overextending her power, she finally starts to calm down a little. Well, she's just barely calm enough to slow down her attacks – appearing right in front on top of the fleeing gods and devouring them personally.
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Using his Spiritual connection with all his soldiers, Haalfrin listens to some of his soldiers panicking,
"Ahh! She found us! Sh-"
The voice transmission suddenly goes quiet, and the General feels his Spirit Thread to them snap entirely.
It's like those soldiers just… disappeared from existence.
Drakavar must have personally eaten them – devoured their souls entirely and eliminated them permanently from this war.
And this isn't the last time General Haalfrin receives concerning notifications like this. In fact, frantic, frenzied reports start streaming into Haalfrin's mind – all mostly soldiers bidding their farewells before they're destroyed forever.
Soon after Drakavar starts devouring his armies in larger numbers, Haalfrin receives a quick voice from Mrs. Laura.
"GENERAL!" her calm voice yells into Haalfrin's mind, "Drakavar's here!"
"Laura!" Haalfrin shouts over to her, "Just go with what we practiced! Time Lock all your armor."
"I know!"
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-The Present-
Haalfrin continues to watch as Freyya tries blasting the armor clad soldiers away, but they still don't move at all.
The Time Lock enchantments Laura and her team had placed still hold true!
Everything looks like it's going well, until…
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-The Far Future-
It's said that a Time Locked item is physically unable to move at all. Because it can't move in time, it can't change, and because it can't change, then theoretically, not even an infinite amount of force can move them.
Under that assumption, Laura and her enchanters, of all people, should've been safe from Drakavar's wrath. All they'd have to do is Time Lock the mana conductive armor they're wearing, and they could outlast the angry dragon forever.
Yet, this isn't what happens.
The moment the Black Dragoness leaps forward and runs into the first Time Locked soldier, she physically... rips the enchanted armor off – forcefully dispelling the enchantment with the strength of her arms alone.
Laura is so engrossed in the battle that she forgets to shut off her communication link with her General.
So, Haalfrin hears his chief Enchantress shout her determination, "Die!"
In the same moment Drakavar breaks Time Lock enchantments on the armor, the armor suddenly explodes with a force so violent that the Goddess of Power actually feels pain from this one blow. Her left arm is broken in several places, and 3 of her fingers are severed completely – all from her own power backfiring on her.
All this happened because the Time Lock Enchantment had soaked up all the energy that Drakavar had used to crack it in the first place. When the Enchantment was forcefully broken, Drakavar's own power was reflected back at her.
In a way, it's fitting. The first time the invincible Goddess had ever suffered a serious injury was because she carved out her own Soul Stone. The second time was when she tried growing infinitely large, despite not having a Soul Stone. The third time is when her own attack was absorbed by the enchantment and sent back to her.
So… yes. It's fitting that the Goddess of Power has ever really taken a direct injury from herself and her own recklessness.
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-The Present-
Completely shocking everyone present, the power of the Black Scale suddenly grows stronger, and Freyya suddenly has the power to punch straight through one of the Time Locked enchantments.
Of course, the enchanted armor had a lot of kinetic energy pent up inside, due to her merciless beating just moments ago.
The blow from the exploding armor is so great that Freyya is launched into the far reaches of space, and she leaves a long trail of blood behind her.
After that, Freyya seems to have learned from her mistake.
The next time she kills a Time Locked soldier, she holds out her hand sand starts crumpling their suits of armor from afar.
What's worse is that Freyya's wings seem to have gained the strange property of scattering Power like it would air when it flaps.
Since she's destroying the enchanted armor from a safe distance, none of the explosive heat reaches her; she just flaps her wings, and the wave of white fire is knocked away and scattered harmlessly.
(Of course, this special property in her wings isn't natural to her; it's just a result of merging further with Drakavar's scale.)
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-The Far Future-
One after another, Laura's bodyguards and fellow Enchanters are popped like grapes from a distance.
"General!" Laura's voice calls over to Haalfrin, "I think she figured out how to deal with us! Should we run away now!?"
Haalfrin doesn't even get to answer before the Black Dragon comes for Laura.
Fortunately for Laura, she'd grown far more proficient in her Enchanting arts over the eons. By now, she's able to instantaneously set up Time Locks – even without using any material as a medium.
So, after Laura feels Drakavar's gaze fall on her, Laura sets up another Time Locked layer right beneath her armor. This way, when the angry Goddess destroys her armor, Laura herself is protected from the explosion.
As Laura sees Drakavar flying towards her lightning quick, she holds her sword in front of her and Time Locks it. She's hoping that the reckless Dragoness would run herself through on the blade with her own momentum.
Instead, Drakavar's jagged and slanted scales deflect the blow, though she sends herself careening into space with her own momentum – spinning and toppling around.
Still, Drakavar's tail is so long, and her reflexes so fast, that as she passes Laura by, she whips her tail and smacks Laura in her own Time Locked skin.
Laura still has that second Time locking layer, so the tail strike doesn't hurt her.
Seeing this didn't work, Drakavar grips Laura with her talons so tightly that the Arkin woman can't move at all without letting down her shield and instantly dying.
Feeling frustrated and a little vengeful, the Dragoness reaches out and clamps her talons on Laura's side. That way, the Enchantress would be instantly crushed to death if she ever dropped her Time Lock spell.
The dragon doesn't want her prey to escape, after all.
Ever so slowly, the Goddess's neck starts elongating, and her head morphs into a dragon's skull. With everything below her neck still being human, while her head is long and snake-like, she looks like a genuine monster that a child would dream up.
When the Demon opens her mouth wide, there is only a black, empty void deep in her mouth…, though as the open maw comes closer to Laura's face, she swears she can see illusory images of stars and galaxies deeper inside that long, dark throat.
Instead of struggling or showing fear, Laura's face relaxes, and she closes her eyes – accepting her fate.
She then sends one last message to Haalfrin:
"It was fun serving you, boss."
Just as Drakavar shoves her prey down her throat whole, Laura undoes her Time Lock enchantment, and she blows herself up in the dragon's mouth.
Laura had already absorbed several blows from Drakavar, so when all that energy explodes in her mouth, the Dragoness curls in on herself in pain, and she cries in agony at the feeling of her insides rupturing.
…
And the Goddess just floats there in silence, unwilling or unable to move. Blood oozes painfully out of her eyes, ears, and nose.
Mad as she is, even she knows that she almost died there.
For several minutes, Drakavar looks all around her – frothing at the mouth and panting in rage.