Despair and Hope (8/10)

'How long is Freyya going to take getting here?' Haalfrin wonders. 'Well, it might be a while, so mind as well treat my injuries.'

With that thought in mind, Haalfrin sits down and crosses his legs.

The first thing he examines is the bleeding stump on his left arm. When Freyya had grabbed his black necro-arms, she'd grabbed a little too far up, and she grazed the stump of his arms – gouging out a huge chunk of his flesh and crushing the tip of his bone.

'Crap. Now that my adrenaline is wearing off, that stump is starting to hurt. Better get it treated right now before I get an infection.'

'Wait, an infection?' Haalfrin chuckles. 'Why care about an infection? I'm about to die today!'

While Haalfrin is busy closing the wound on his stump and disinfecting it anyway, the ground beneath him suddenly shakes, and he hears an eerie murmuring in the air.

'What's that?' Haalfrin shoots to his feet and thinks in alarm. 'Did Freyya get here already… or is this Planet's Elemental waking up?'

Haalfrin's second guess is correct. Right now, the planet is slightly shuddering in response to its mothers instructions.

When the planet quakes again, the Elemental is sighing in relief, knowing that she doesn't have to obey Freyya and let herself be destroyed.

After the ground goes still again, Haalfrin's heartbeat slows down again, and he thinks, 'Very well. My wounds are basically healed anyway, so mind as well prepare for her arrival.'

Almost ceremoniously, Haalfrin summons the rest of his Arkin army, and he has them spread out with the orders to set traps and prepare for her arrival.

Most importantly, Haalfrin gives them all the order to specifically aim their attacks at the Black Scale lodged in her chest.

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Maybe it's because of the long flight toward Haalfrin's location, but the long silence gives Freyya plenty of time to cool her head and wake up a little.

With her head a little more clear, the first thing she becomes aware of his how gravely injured she is. More importantly, she sees that most of the damage to her body has been done by the scale itself – not the battle.

'Huh? It seems that despite being a high ranked goddess, I can't even channel the pent up powers inside a single Scale from Drakavar's hide? That's embarrassing.'

'Well, if Haalfrin, or some other lower-class being were to do what I'm doing, they'd have long been destroyed by now, so kudos to me!'

'Wait… What'll happen once my connection to this Scale is cut off? I'm already this injured, and without the Scale's power pushing me forward… Well, I'm a Death goddess, so I won't die. At the very least, I'll be put in critical condition, and I won't be able to do anything for a few hundred years.'

Freyya looks down and coughs some blood – leaving a small red trail in the vacuum of space.

'Why… I mean, HOW did this happen? I brought this Scale along just to further tie my Fate to Drakavar's! I've never heard of a Mantling Item literally granting powers and possessing people!

If Freyya hadn't lost her memories of her adventures with Nomad in Drakavar's timeline, she'd actually know the answer to this question.

…

You see, Freyya had made the mistake of putting the black scale on a necklace over her heart…

During the last battle in the far future, Drakavar was missing her Soul Stone. Coincidentally, that Soul Stone was right above her heart, where Freyya hung the scale.

In the far future, Drakavar was in critical condition because her Soul Stone was missing, and she was losing her powers.

In the present, Freyya is also on the verge of destroying her own body, and her powers are steadily dropping.

By placing the Black Scale over her heart, Freyya effectively tied the Fate of that Scale to Drakavar's missing Soul Stone.

"When one touches the Future, the Future touches back," is what they often say about Mantling Rituals.

Mantling Rituals work because of this principle; by touching a larger Fate and walking alongside it, that other Fate will reach back across time and affect your life.

It's just… The end of the Universe and a battle with the great Goddess of Power… That's such an impossibly heavy fate…

By reaching forward in time and touching that Fate, the echoes of Drakavar's soul reached back in time and imbued Freyya with powers more befitting the great Goddess.

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Freyya can sense where Haalfrin is through their Spiritual link, and she knows that it'll be about a 2 hour flight over there. That leaves her plenty of time to think.

'Will I be able to actually defeat Haalfrin at this rate?' Freyya thinks as she feels the painful Scale digging into her flesh. 'I feel myself growing weaker by the second…'

'You know what? I probably have nothing to worry about. I can sense the Mantling working perfectly. So… Unless future-Haalfrin actually defeats Drakavar, then I don't have to worry about how this battle ends. Yup. Nothing to worry about.'

Suddenly thinking about the Death King, Freyya winces, 'Eh…Well…, I'm pretty sure is Majesty is going to want to kill me when he catches me again…, but let's worry about that later.

…

After another half hour of flying through space, Freyya starts stroking the Black Scale, and she enters a sort of meditation.

Closing her eyes, she feels Scales energy swirling through her body.

'I'm probably the only person in the universe who's ever felt the Archdemon's power so intimately…'

'Huh? People's Auras are usually quite complex and layered, but now that I look at it, Drakavar's Aura is the most simple Aura I've ever felt before. It's not even hard to understand…'

Without even realizing it, Freyya starts to slip into a state of Comprehension, and the Truth of Drakavar's Names and her deeper nature starts revealing itself to her…

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Most mages can attest that Comprehending your own Name is a pleasant experience. The feeling of expanding your soul and feeling your mind growing larger is actually quite euphoric.

However, Comprehending someone else's Name is… a lot more tricky. Depending on how incompatible your Souls are, the process can actually be quite painful or even fatal.

Names reflect WHO you are, so if you have a similar personality to another person, that's usually a sign that your Names are compatible enough to share without driving each other insane.

With this in mind, Freyya was expecting herself to be driven insane as soon as the essence of Drakavar's Names started running through her head…

… Yet…, the whole process is actually quite soothing to Freyya. In fact, Freyya's soul seems to sing in joy during the whole process.

'That's a little scary,' Freyya thinks. 'realizing that me and Drakavar are actually quite similar.'

It's always an unpleasant feeling, to realize that you're not much different than the monster you hate.

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During the whole process of Freyya learning Drakavar's Names, she feels her own soul becoming more robust. Even now, her soul's maximum size is doubling and tripling several times over.

It seems that the mere act of Comprehending the Goddess of Power's Names gives you a permanent increase to your power.

Before, Freyya was the 3rd Strongest Death god – only falling short before Das and the Death King.

Now, her strength will be able to easily rival the Death King's.

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Freyya doesn't finish Comprehending Drakavar's Names for an entire hour. When she's done, she opens her eyes and gazes down in melancholy.

Other than the mad Goddess crashing a few palaces casually ignoring any attacks thrown at her, no god has ever seen Drakavar's full strength before.

Freyya knows very well that Drakavar will face off against all the gods at some point in the future. Some small part of her was hoping that the demon would fall to the gods and fail.

…But after fully understanding the Truth behind Drakavar's abilities, Freyya just shakes her head, 'How does future-Haalfrin even manage to stall that woman for more than a second? She's completely unstoppable.'

Most gods have nicknames for titles in order to hide the true nature of their powers, like how Felkawyn is called "the God of Transformation". This is a cute little nickname, but it hardly describes the full breadth of its abilities, which means that there's little risk in strangers randomly Comprehending its Names.

But… Drakavar's title as the "Goddess of Power" is quite literal.

"Power" is the ability to do things. That makes Drakavar the "Goddess of being able to do things". Do what things? Anything she wants, as much as she wants. She's omnipotent.

'Power doesn't just BELONG to Drakavar. Power IS Drakavar; it's a part of her, and it comes from her. Every scrap of usable mana in the universe is simply residue from her breath.'

'Ah! That's the reason why some worlds have more mana than others! The worlds with thick, ambient mana are the places Drakavar has visited before! The mere act of a mage casting a spell requires them to touch her Soul.'

'Wait, if every scrap of energy in the Universe is a part of her body, then so long as Haalfrin has a body and has the slightest whiff of mana in him, won't I be able to sense where he is, like feeling a tick crawling on my skin?'

Before, when Freyya was sensing mana with her eyes, she was acting purely off instinct – charging towards the largest and nearest source of mana. That's why Haalfrin's tactic of summoning his Arkin soldiers worked as a distraction.

However, now that Freyya has Comprehended Drakavar's Name, she can now differentiate which source of mana is what.

The energy inside a planet might be her left foot, and the moon in the sky might be her right. Using that analogy, Haalfrin's mana might be one of her fingers.

Since everyone else's magic is just a part of her, she can wiggle them about and use their abilities as she pleases, in the same way a person can wiggle their own fingers.

'Let's try it out…'