Goddess Descent (9): The Queen of Niflheim
With a strangled scream of “Gack!!”, Diabolo clutched his chest and staggered backward. It felt as stiff as plunging a bayonet into an old tree trunk, but I definitely sensed the bones cracking. Given where I’d stabbed him, it was undoubtedly fatal. If his lungs filled with fluid and started gurgling, he’d probably feel like he was on a fucking beach vacation, right?
“Even a flat chest has the right to live!!”
The downside of my battle cry coming out as nonsense was something I could overlook since it gave me the upper hand in combat. As his wound deepened, Diabolo had to focus more on the sharpness of his technique. Otherwise he’d be helplessly overwhelmed, and he couldn’t let that happen. But that very effort was what was tightening the noose around his own neck. In front of these cheating eyes, the more masterful the technique, the more its brilliance faded.
—Swish!
Diabolo’s thrust twisted in an instant with shoulder and waist movements, creating a feint. Radiating aura, he manipulated his mana as if he had become one with his sword. He and his blade were two yet one, one yet two. There was no boundary of “other self” between Diabolo and his one-handed sword, as if nerve bundles had sprouted along the steel itself.
—Ziiiing!
It engraved some kind of realization into my mind, but I didn’t dwell on that sensation. Instead I deflected his attack. Driving Diabolo back now was only as difficult as spotting the next Tetris block and stacking it perfectly. The nonsense quiz that once demanded lightning reflexes had turned into simple two-digit arithmetic. From my spear, techniques flowed out in a state of no-self.
“Kyaaaaaaaah—!!”
Diabolo poured even more mana into his aura with a look that screamed a man still had his pride. When you remember that aura doesn’t grow stronger just by dumping more mana into it, that had to be a realm beyond ordinary aura. If I’d been in Yesugei mode, I might have called it Sword Flame.
Facing that arrogant supreme technique, I simply enlarged the mana coating on my spear like crazy. My weapon thickened until it looked like a pillar.
"Finis Ortus!!"
⟨ Finis Ortus ⟩
The master-class swordsman and the quack druid smashed their massively enlarged weapons together with zero finesse.
—Kwaaaaaaaaaaaaang!!
The brute-force collision produced a brute-force result. When the cutting power of aura met my mana coating, the contest simply became an arm-wrestling match between me and Diabolo. The buffs had evened the playing field so perfectly that it came down to raw physical strength.
—Boom!!
In that instant of clashing power, I used the repulsive force of a steam explosion to redirect his swollen aura blade. By the time Diabolo, now without any anchor, looked on in horror and tried to brake, my spear was already swinging.
Counter Skill 4th Form linked to Attack Skill 1st Form
Clang—!!
Diabolo’s fingers flew off, and the sword that had been in perfect harmony with him clattered to the floor. I flashed my spear and erupted steam from my entire body once more. My torso spun past ninety degrees, then one-eighty, and finally a full three-sixty, building centrifugal acceleration.
—Crackle!!
Lightning flames erupted from my fist. Unlike Beast Regression, these spells grew stronger the more mana you dumped into them, making the power increase easy to understand. After all, isn’t it common sense in fantasy that mages are glass cannons compared to warriors?
I invested a full Nord’s worth of mana and produced an ultra-high-output spell that would rank in the top five of my entire blade-swinging career.
Steam explosion acceleration + full mana dump. Everything except the emergency reserve in my core was poured into this punch.
“Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaah——!!”
The absolute power lived up to its reputation. It cooked half of Diabolo’s face like a rib-eye steak Dana had taken to well-done—fucking well-done.
—Twitch, twitch.
I staggered backward, watching the bastard convulse like a lab rat whose spine had been crushed in a trap.
“Sorry. My fist ate your face.”
But maybe I’d used too much mana. I felt like I was about to die too. Had I burned over one hundred percent of my maximum mana pool in a single burst? Strength drained from my body like after a full sprint. Even Odin’s Eye had loosened; the words that left my mouth were actual human speech.
“Verororong……”
While I moaned like a stray dog that hadn’t eaten for three days and did the moonwalk on exhausted legs, a soft chest caught me. I thought it was Dana’s and relaxed, leaning into it. About half a second later I realized that for Dana, the chest meat was a little too plump. If our Dana had only possessed Lotteria Hot Crispy Burger patty-sized breasts, she wouldn’t have been so jealous of other women’s sizes. Still, they weren’t as bountiful as my other wives’, so I awkwardly turned my head.
The person whose chest I had rubbed the back of my head against was none other than Primor.
“…Are you all right?”
“Yep!!”
—Whoosh!!
I shot upright, forgetting the pain. Then, like a middle-schooler who had skipped hagwon and run into his mother at the PC bang, I forced on a serious expression and roared at Diabolo.
“Hey, you son of a bitch! How does a Kitai spicy fist taste?!”
“Ack, kack, hack…!”
The fucking black-knight bastard just bubbled incoherently instead of answering. What an ill-mannered prick. He definitely wouldn’t reply even if his own mother called him.
—Gurgle, gurgle!
Black darkness surged around Diabolo like copper liquid. The moment I saw it I realized it was Teleport magic. His head had been turned into an iPhone logo, yet he was still trying to cast. His obsession and magical skill were every bit as dangerous as his swordsmanship.
But when Veronica, who had drawn the magic circle and risen, waved her burning staff, that darkness ignited like tar.
—Plop, plop.
Books, swords, and other items poured from the burning tar. It looked like Diabolo’s inventory had broken and was spilling its contents.
I sneered at the sight.
“Where do you think you’re running, you bastard? You die right here.”
Even while saying that and staggering, two white-haired figures burst up through the dirt floor. One was Signatio; the other was a middle-aged man hanging from her shoulder. He was probably the lord of Renapolis. The place where the golem and he had been trapped must have been the basement.
“Cough, cough.”
Signatio’s condition was clearly poor. Having lost her weapon to Tirsi and then faced Diabolo, her body was covered in wounds and the sharp spirit she had shown earlier was gone. Yet her eyes remained coldly sharp. With a gaze that would make a tiger flinch, she glared at Diabolo, who now looked like a crushed Hoppang Man.
“…It seems everything ended while I was busy swallowing dust.”
Expressionless, she set the lord down and joined our ranks bare-handed. Despite her sullen look, the aura around her was extremely menacing. If Diabolo moved even a fingertip, she looked ready to crush his skull with her fist like popping a Kukudas cookie into her pocket.
‘We won.’
After weighing the variables on the field, I reached that conclusion. She was injured but far better off than Diabolo, and now she had joined us. A wounded bastard whose Teleport had been sealed had no escape even if the sky itself collapsed.
──But to state the result first, that was a hasty judgment. Perhaps the sudden and excessive use of mana had exhausted me so much that I couldn’t think straight.
…Creep.
Like ink sprayed into the atmosphere, a presence suddenly appeared behind the half-dead Diabolo. A deep-purple hand over two meters long seized him. The hideous palm looked like the hand of a demon.
“──The bastard is escaping!! Don’t let him get away!!”
Minerva hurled her sword at the hand and issued the order. But the only ones who could imitate that noble, valiant figure were Primor’s party and our wives. Everyone else was too busy trembling and holding their breath at the evil energy pouring from the demon hand.
—Whoosh!
In the blink of an eye the hand snatched Diabolo and submerged into the shadow spread across the sky. From within that darkness, ominous yellow eyes gleamed.
…My disciple has caused you trouble. As his master, I apologize.
However, vacancies on our side have been increasing lately… In the past year alone, more than seven comrades have departed to the abyss. That is our current reality.
Therefore, we can no longer tolerate the death of any comrade or disciple of Immortalis.
I am Equinox.
Thud….
An old tome popped out of the shadow as if thrown and bumped against the toe of my shoe.
The author’s name was written in ancient Romanian that even my knowledge could recognize.
Queen of the Underworld (Imperatrix Niflheim)
—That is a humble gift of apology from me to you. I hope it pleases you.
The shadow shrank, rounding in on itself. The yellow eyes stared only at me until the very end.
—Then, farewell. If we meet again, let us speak more at that time.
Just like that, the shadow portal closed. The oppressive spirit that had dominated the area vanished at the same time.
………….
Even though we had let the loser escape with our own eyes in a battle we had won, no one dared open their mouth hastily. It was as if they feared that if they spoke carelessly, the unidentified black mage who had just left might say “Oh, right” and reappear.
In the suffocating silence I picked up the book at my feet and gazed at its strangely textured cover. The title itself could not be deciphered by my ability. Only the author’s arrogantly grand name below it was written in ancient Romanian that my knowledge could read.
The name of the one who had compiled the book was recorded as:
—‘Queen of the Underworld (Imperatrix Niflheim).’