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chapter 93




Snow was shell-shocked.
The scene she’d just witnessed was too unbelievable.
Half of the forest, which had completely filled her sight just moments ago, had become ash in the blink of an eye.
She didn’t even see them burn.
Her gaze then turned to Frey.
Even when the Demigod had been killed in an instant and most of the surrounding forest had been turned to ash, he hadn’t even broken a sweat.
‘Doesn’t that mean that he can cast more spells like that?”
When she heard Syax’s explanation, she’d thought he was amazing. However, the prowess he was displaying now far exceeded her expectations.
He was like a natural disaster that a human would be powerless against.
Shuk.
Riki appeared beside her.
It was obvious that he’d hurried over as his clothes were messy, and sweat was dripping down his face.
Riki’s expression stiffened as he looked around.
He clearly saw the ashes on the ground and felt the traces of Hydra’s aura lingering in the air. The result of their battle was already clear for him to see.
His gaze also turned to Frey.
“Did you kill Hydra?”
“I did.”
“…”
After hearing Frey’s response, Riki’s expression became strange.
He paused for a moment before speaking in a weak voice.
“…I see. So my worry was unnecessary in the first place.”
He then raised his head, and Frey felt his gaze had become more serious.
“First, let’s return to the hut.”
Frey and Snow nodded.
The middle of the burnt scene, where ash was blowing constantly, was not a suitable place to have a conversation.
“Is Hydra completely dead now?”
“That’s right.”
Riki nodded, but his expression didn’t improve.
Although it was an unexpected situation, since they’d managed to deal with one Demigod, didn’t that mean they turned a crisis into an opportunity?
Snow wanted to ask this question, but his expression made it hard for her to say anything.
Soon after, they arrived at the hut.
Perhaps it was because he returned to his own territory, but Riki’s expression relaxed a little.
Frey observed him for a moment before asking.
“Why did a Demigod come to you?”
“There wasn’t a specific reason. Hydra stops by from time to time.”
They had arrived at the worst possible time. Had it been earlier or later, he could have prepared properly.
Riki let out a heavy sigh.
“The fact that Hydra died won’t be hidden for long. Ananta will soon learn of it.”
“Ananta?”
“He is one of the Apocalypses. He uses the power of poison.”
“…”
So that old man’s name was Ananta.
He had met him a few times when he was Lukas, but he hadn’t known his name.
Snow asked with a strange voice.
“Then what do we do now?”
“If Hydra told Ananta that she was coming to visit me… then her death would make him suspicious.”
“…”
“This would make attending the meeting an act of suicide. I’ll have to investigate some things.”
Riki’s expression became even more serious.
“Time is running out. Frey, have you made up your mind?”
There was no need to say anything since he was already determined.
Frey simply took out the vial of the elixir containing Indra’s lightning and put it on the table.
“I’ll do it.”
Divine power.
The transcendent power used by Demigods.
To learn more about it, he decided to learn how to control this energy.
It was an old saying, but if he knew his enemies and he knew himself, wouldn’t victory be assured?
‘The harmony of mana and divine power.’
The words that Riki said resounded in his head.
Maybe he would be able to find a clue to defeat Lord.
It was impossible for him to defeat him. This was something that Frey had realised 4,000 years ago.
Because of that, he had tried to learn as much as he could in this life, after he’d gained Frey’s body.
Warrior King’s Fist, Spiritism, Alchemy and even making contracts with Devils.
He learned everything regardless of the type.
And now, for Frey, the divine power would just be another way to increase his own power.
He had no intention of rejecting a method to become stronger because the power of the Demigods had always made him uncomfortable.
“Good. Then absorb the energy in that lightning elixir right away.”
Frey stared at the lightning elixir in his hand.
“Can I really drink this?”
“You can.”
Pijik.
The pale lightning swirling within the bottle made him think the elixir wasn’t edible.
Perhaps he would just be electrocuted.
Riki spoke to the suspicious Frey.
“It will probably sting a bit.”
“…”
…The worst case scenario would be it colliding with his mana, which was something that Frey believed he could handle.
Frey opened the bottle and took a deep breath before putting the vial to his lips.
Gulp.
“…!”
Krrrng!
He immediately felt dizzy.
The shock of the lightning racing down his spine made his mind completely blank, and he almost lost consciousness.
“Kuk…”
“Because it is divine power, it might collide with your mana at first. It would be best to not forcefully separate them. Just let it run its course.”
He heard Riki’s cold voice.
Frey desperately controlled his roaring mana.
‘So this is divine power…’
He had a rough idea of how the energy felt.
However, feeling it running through his veins allowed him to realise just how explosively powerful this energy really was.
Before, he had only seen it from afar, but now, it was like he was touching, tasting and smelling it.
At that moment, Frey truly began to understand just what ‘divine power’ truly was.
“Gather the power into your heart. It’s more efficient to store it there.”
After a while, the divine energy, which had been running around like a mad bull, slowly began changing direction, following Frey’s guidance.
Snow, who was watching from the side, couldn’t help but make a shocked expression.
Frey’s body had only just received divine power for the first time. More importantly, he had to control his mana to stop it from reacting.
Nevertheless, the skill with which Frey was handling the divine power was completely incomparable to her when she took it in for the first time.
Riki’s eyes shined brightly.
‘…a natural talent.’
No.
Divine power was not something that could be controlled with just talent.
This was only possible because Frey’s body had the Blake family’s blood in its veins.
His body had been optimised to handle divine power.
‘Isn’t this creating a being that can’t be contained?’
A thought suddenly occurred to Riki.
He didn’t know much about the inner details of the experiment being conducted in the Blake family. He only knew that it was possible for mana and divine power to coexist in their bodies.
However, Leyrin had said that the current rate of synchronisation was not too good.
[It will get higher and higher in the future generations! If we wait a few hundred years, we’ll get a race better than any other mortal!]
Leyrin had laughed loudly at the time.
Riki looked at Frey.
Divine power and mana, two energies that could not coexist naturally, were now gently embracing each other as though they were lovers.
It could even be called fusion.
The vortex that had silently formed around Frey slowly subsided, and Frey’s body, which had seemed on the verge of collapse, stabilised.
When he saw this, Riki laughed in a way that he hadn’t for decades.
‘…hundreds of years?’
How long had he been waiting?
Frey slowly opened his eyes.
Pijiik.
Lightning wriggled around his head.
Riki observed this calmly for a moment before speaking.
“It seems it was successful.”
Of course, this was only the beginning.
It was natural for him to be able to use divine power since he was a descendant of the Blake family.
His synchronisation rate was much higher than Riki had expected, but what really mattered was what would happen from that point on.
There were three months left until the meeting. During that time, Frey would need to learn how to use his divine power to some extent.
At least to a level where no one would be suspicious of his disguise as an Apostle.
“You’ll be really busy starting today. It’ll be difficult, and you will feel that time is passing quickly.”
Riki looked at Frey before saying.
“Are you still going with me?”
Frey nodded.
Although Riki had asked him something, he couldn’t even open his mouth.
…His tongue was paralysed, and he couldn’t speak.
* * *
‘Time will pass quickly.’
Riki was right.
Time flew by in the blink of an eye.
A bolt of lightning from Frey’s hand upturned the ground.
He was running, his robe flapping wildly in the wind.
His sharp gaze turned towards Riki, who was standing there with his hands at his sides.
Pijiik
Once again, lightning shot out from his fingertips.
Riki had just one thought as he looked at the bolt of lightning that twisted like a spiderweb.
‘Isn’t his power higher than a normal Apostle?’
He gently swung his sheath.
Chain Lightning.
This was the name that Frey had given to the fierce bolt of lightning that looked like a spiderweb.
At the same time, Frey jumped into the air.
When he stretched his arms up to the sky, Indra’s divine power, which filled his body, shot into the sky.
Dark clouds formed instantly.
Boom!
Then, without warning, a lightning bolt struck down towards Riki.
Shik.
However, Riki’s sword cut through the lighting at an even greater speed.
“…”
“…”
Silence fell upon the clearing.
At first glance, it would appear that Riki had cut Frey’s momentum, but instead, a deep smile blossomed on Frey’s face instead.
“You drew your sword.”
“…right.”
On the other hand, Riki’s expression was not happy.
He’d drawn his sword, so he had to admit it.
The man before him had been learning to control divine power for about two months.
‘It’s not perfect. There are still a few shortcomings.’
However, that wasn’t very important.
What was truly important was the fact that it had only been two months since Frey had accepted divine power into his body.
He’d learned how to utilise his new power at a tremendous speed.
Snow was a true genius who only needed to be instructed once to learn something.
But Frey’s talent was much more than that.
‘No.’
It could no longer be considered as just talent.
Frey’s power was already close to exceeding that of an Apostle.
Riki could only guess the reason.
‘Maybe it’s because Indra’s dead.’
In essence, Apostles borrowed divine power from the Demigods and utilised that power.
However, Indra, who was the owner of the divine power of lightning, was already dead.
That was the reason why Frey’s lightning power was uninhibited and was able to grow to such an extent with training.
At that point, it might be an advantage or a disadvantage.
What would happen if they created fake Apostles using the energy extracted from dead Demigods?
This was something that not even the research fanatic, Leyrin, would have been able to research.
In the first place, the death of a Demigod was something that would only happen once every few hundred years or so.
Riki concealed his thoughts and said.
“I drew my sword today, so as promised, it will be the last day of training.”
To reach the level where he would be forced to draw his sword. That had been the minimum requirement.
Even if Riki hadn’t been serious, this was still an incredibly hard thing to do.
At least, it was not something that most Apostles would be able to accomplish.
“What about the situation with Hydra?”
“It seems no one has noticed anything yet. We’ll attend the meeting as planned.”
“Where is it being held?”
“The Luanoble Kingdom.”
“Hmmm.”
It was the country of Knights and Sonia Aquarid’s homeland.
It was quite far from the Great Reynols Forest.
“Did you think of a means of transportation?”
“I’m thinking about using Warp Stones.”
“…I didn’t think Demigods would use Warp Stones as well.”
He knew that Riki had a different way of getting from one location to another.
When he killed Indra, he’d suddenly appeared and disappeared. However, Riki shook his head as he realised Frey’s thoughts.
“Space-time movement is not an option. There are many conditions to using it, and the human body wouldn’t be able to withstand it. There’s a high probability that at the end of the movement, you would become a pool of blood.”
Over the past two months, Frey had become accustomed to Riki’s way of speaking, which often included harsh words.
Thanks to this, Frey’s expression didn’t change much as he heard that.
“There’s a Warp Stone in Pillat. If we use it, we’ll be able to arrive in Luanoble in no time. But we have a lot more time than I expected.”
It wouldn’t even take them a week to get to Pillat. And even if they were late, they could just use the Warp spell to arrive nearby.
As though he suddenly remembered something, Riki turned and said.
“You shouldn’t use mana from now on.”
“Why?”
“Because you have to completely erase the reverberation that mana gives off.”
The mana reverberation.
At 8 stars, it was possible for him to appear no different from the general public, but it wasn’t perfect.
The possibility of Lord sensing his mana was very high.
And if he didn’t use mana for a month, the reverberation would fade by a large amount, if not completely.
“If you use your divine power, you should be able to trick Lord’s senses.”
This meant that he had to use divine power as much as possible.
Frey nodded.
“Understood.”
“Shall we go then?”
“…right now?”
“Why? Is there a reason not to?”
When he heard Riki’s words, Frey pondered for a moment before shaking his head.
“No.”
He felt a little bad for not saying goodbye to Snow, Camille and Syax, but they were all busy anyway.
Snow helped Frey learn to control his divine power for the first month before she had to return to deal with her overdue work, and Syax was busy helping rebuild the village.
Camille also had her hands full with the Dark Elf youths she was leading.
‘It’s fine. I’ll meet them again soon anyway.’
He felt that it wouldn’t be long before he met Syax, as well as Snow and Camille, who were a part of the Circle, again.
“Then let’s go.”
Riki only carried his sword as he turned and began walking away.
Frey also followed him since most of his belongings were in the Subspace bag.
‘I never would have imagined that I’d go on a trip with a Demigod.’
If he told the Lukas from 4,000 years ago that this would happen, he would have laughed in his own face.
Frey gave a wry smile as he followed Riki.
There was very little conversation as they walked through the woods.
Frey didn’t have much of a chatty personality, nor did he really want to have any real conversation with Riki.
Riki was also the type who only spoke when absolutely necessary.
However, their comfortable silence was soon destroyed.
“Halt!”
“Kuhuhu!”
A group of men stepped out from behind the trees.
There were about twenty armed men, and greed was clearly visible on their faces.
Thanks to that, it was easy to identify them.
‘Bandits.’
They were dressed in shabby clothes and didn’t appear to be very strong.
From what Frey could see, even the most common mercenaries would be able to defeat them easily.
They were probably a group of bandits who specialised in terrorising the merchants who traded with the elves.
Frey’s expression became strange.
Riki also looked at them with slight confusion.
“Can we help you with something?”
“Of course you can. That’s why we stopped you.”
“Boss! Doesn’t the silver-haired one look pretty good for a man?”
“Kukuku! If we sell him to a male brothel after we’re done playing with him, we’d probably make a lot of money!” (TL: *gag*)
“That one has a nice sword. I call dibs.”
“…”
Frey was dumbfounded.
This couldn’t even be called a comedy.
These poor men couldn’t even dream of the fact that the silver-haired man in front of them was one of the strongest beings in the world.
A hairy man standing at the front let out a cruel laugh, not even imagining the terror he was about to face.
“If you do everything I say, this old man will allow you to keep your puny lives.”
“…you mean my life?”
Riki tilted his head as if he didn’t understand.
“Do you really mean that?”
“Does our boss look like someone who would mess around?”
Shwing.
One of the bandits drew his sword with a twisted expression on his face.
Riki’s expression became more suspicious.
The hairy man laughed loudly.
“Be careful. The silver-haired one is mine. I don’t care if you kill the other one.” (TL: poor Frey)
“Yeah!”
“You heard that, didn’t you? Don’t resist too much. We wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”
Frey looked at Riki and folded his arms.
“You get a penalty for killing humans, right? Should I take care of this?”
But Riki shook his head expressionlessly.
“No.”
He drew his sword quietly.
Chuk.
“I just have to not kill them.”