Frondier looked back at Hella again.
It really rubbed him the wrong way, but if Belphegor was by Selena’s side, he could feel relieved. Frondier knew very well how strong he was.
Even if he didn’t like it.
“Hella, are you going to keep going?”
At Frondier’s question, Hella’s face twisted.
“What do you mean?”
“At this rate, you’re at a disadvantage.”
Frondier was specialized in fighting multiple enemies. His Black Heaven guarded every direction, he could deploy weapons in numbers greater than an army, and a single arrow became tens of thousands of arrows that pierced through the enemy.
Not one of those things possessed absolute destructive power. However, they were more than enough to kill enemies weaker than that.
However, Hella did not hesitate.
“Frondier, do you resign from a game of janggi because you’re short on pawns?”
“......Indeed. You’re right.”
Frondier understood Hella’s intention and opened his hand. Mjolnir was gripped in that hand.
“So what matters is the general, is that it.”
“Come at me, Frondier. You said you were curious about the power of a god.”
Hella’s eyes shone. The space around her was dyed black. It was the influence of mana.
Hella stretched one hand forward, and mana gathered into that hand, forming a shape.
'......A lantern?'
Just as Frondier saw, what Hella held in her hand was a lantern. Only, the light inside shook with a purple color, nothing short of ominous.
Hella brought her face close to that lantern.
She lightly drew in a breath,
Fwoosh─
and when she blew, Frondier’s surroundings plunged into darkness.
'......That’s ridic—'
Swiish!
KRAAAANG─!
Before Frondier could finish his thought, something flew at him from the left and struck Black Heaven.
Judging from the sound and the sensation, it was an arrow.
Frondier heightened his tension.
'Just because she blew out that lantern, the entire world is swallowed by darkness?'
As expected of the ruler of Hel. The master of this world really was different.
On top of that, as he had just experienced, Frondier’s sixth sense was dull in this place. A situation where his vision was completely blocked was dangerous.
'But Hella, you haven’t forgotten this, have you.'
Frondier took out a mana crystal.
If there was no light, then he just had to create it.
Paaat─!
He floated the crystal up into the sky and created a wisp. The amount of light instantly swelled as if it were exploding.
When the surroundings began to come into view again,
“......!”
Frondier locked eyes with the empty eye sockets of a skull.
“Ugh......!”
He barely managed to twist his body and pull back from his spot, and skulls slammed into the space in between.
BOOOOM!!
The skulls exploded one after another, and Frondier retreated while blocking with Black Heaven. No, it would be more accurate to say he was inevitably pushed back by the force of the explosions.
'They really don’t make a single sound!'
They were things that were dead to begin with, and on top of that, they were skulls with only their heads floating around. There was not even a trace of breathing, let alone any presence to be felt.
Frondier checked his surroundings. Hella was still standing in her original position.
'My wisp has excellent brightness, but its duration isn’t that long. I have to finish this in the meantime.'
Hella would know that as well.
If she kept stalling, he would only keep wasting mana crystals.
The time it took to create a crystal itself wasn’t that long, but he knew how much mana he consumed for a single one, so he couldn’t use them carelessly.
'Before this light goes out!'
Frondier tightened his grip on Mjolnir in his right hand.
KWA-ROOOM!
Lightning struck, and a web of sparks bloomed, piercing through all the remaining skulls and miscellaneous wraiths in the vicinity.
He drew his arm far back, and even as the hammer was pulled behind him, it crackled through the air, generating heat.
And then he ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) threw it; the hammer flew in a straight line toward Hella.
Until it reached Hella, there was no way this hammer would be stopped mid-flight.
'It’ll miss anyway.'
Frondier thought.
'But I can control Mjolnir. If I make it keep chasing Hella,'
By the time Frondier’s thoughts had reached that point,
Hella was standing in that exact same spot. She had no intention of moving.
“......Huh?”
As if in answer to Frondier’s doubt, Hella raised one hand.
Tonk!
She caught Mjolnir with that hand.
“......What?”
Mjolnir’s power went completely dormant. It was blocked by Hella’s single hand.
Frondier stared blankly, dumbfounded.
A voice flew toward him.
“Frondier! Did you already forget!”
It was Belphegor’s voice.
“Don’t use the weapons of the gods! There’s resistance to divine power!”
“......Even so.”
Frondier was at a loss for words.
Belphegor had certainly said that. Before he struck his blow on the ground, telling him to use something other than a god’s weapon.
In the world of the gods, there was resistance to divine power. Thus the power of the weapons of the gods was halved.
However, even so,
'You’re telling me Mjolnir would fall this helplessly asleep like that?'
Just because he knew that didn’t mean he could accept this situation.
When he heard Belphegor’s words, he had taken it as, weapons of heroes were more effective than weapons of gods. He had not thought that the weapons of the gods would become completely useless.
But when Mjolnir and Hella clashed just now,
In Frondier’s eyes, it looked less like Hella had blocked it with some terrifying power, and more like Mjolnir’s power had vanished.
'And more than anything.'
What Frondier felt most unpleasant right now.
That was déjà vu.
He had seen it somewhere.
The sight of the power of a god disappearing so helplessly.
When had that been?
Pat─
While Frondier was lost in thought, the light of the mana crystal vanished.
The world was once again swallowed in pitch-black darkness.
When Hella waved her hand again this time, cavalry appeared.
Ghost knights whose horses and riders were all made of souls. The cavalry that had taken formation charged at full speed toward Frondier.
The cavalry racing through the sky made no sound of hooves, and the horses did not neigh either.
A fierce yet utterly silent charge.
'This time it’ll be faster than before, Frondier.'
Just now, Frondier had barely dodged the explosions of the skulls.
So this charge, faster than that, would reach Frondier. In the pitch-black darkness, the cavalry came at him, cutting off his retreat from all directions.
“......Right.”
KWAANG!
Immediately afterward, two horses were flung into the air.
Slash!
All the legs of the remaining horses were severed,
Thud! Thunk! Thud!
And the knights falling from above were all smashed against Black Heaven.
“......!”
Hella opened her mouth in surprise.
His reaction speed was overwhelmingly faster than before.
More than anything, he was moving in this pitch-blackness as if he could see ahead.
No, that wasn’t him being able to see ahead.
'......They say that a warrior who has reached a certain realm can draw the exact shape of the enemy’s killing intent even with their eyes closed.'
But that was literally a realm that ordinary people could never reach in their entire lives.
All the more so for Frondier, who had simply pushed forward with the destructive power of skills and magic.
Among Frondier’s acquaintances, the only one who could do something like that would be Atjie. Don’t tell me Frondier has grown that far as a warrior?
Cutting off Hella’s train of thought,
“I remembered.”
Frondier’s voice rang out coldly.
Right. He remembered.
There had been a time when the power of a god had been rendered helpless.
It was a sight Frondier had seen over and over.
─O Baldur. Lend me your strength.
It was a scene from the game.
Back when he had challenged it countless times as Aster Evans.
Baldur’s power, which had been powerless before the Minotaur.
In the game, he had thought it was because the strength of the divine power was lacking.
When he fell into this world, he had assumed Baldur was being capricious and hadn’t given his strength properly.
And now.
A single hypothesis flashed through Frondier’s mind.
“Hella. Let me ask one thing.”
Frondier spoke in a low voice.
When Hella saw his eyes, she immediately raised her hand and pointed at Frondier.
The meaning was simple.
Full assault.
At that, the ships and wraiths, soldiers and archers, numbering in several dozens of vessels, all at once,
Frondier de Roach
Ecleksis
scattered.
Everything that had taken shape collapsed like ashes and scattered away.
Every last one of the countless troops.
“......!”
Hella took a step back.
Frondier had not used Ecleksis until now, saying he was curious about the power of a god.
But in this moment, such things no longer mattered to Frondier.
'What is this? How did he lock onto all of this?'
It was a situation Hella could not understand.
In this pitch-black darkness, the only one who could see ahead was Hella.
Or so it should have been.
'Frondier’s Ecleksis is dangerous. That’s why I brought out the lantern from the start!'
Frondier’s Ecleksis was the strongest among those that had been revealed so far.
Of all the gods he had faced until now, nearly none had been able to cope and had been struck.
Because of that, Hella knew its danger and had used the darkness to block his aim.
However, if that didn’t work—
“Hella. I’m not saying we should fight. There’s something I want to ask.”
Frondier’s voice was filled with anger.
Hella knew the reason.
And that was precisely why she absolutely must not let Frondier catch her.
'Even if he can see me, the master of this world is me!'
Hella poured out wraiths one after another. She didn’t choose types. As long as they blocked the line of sight between Frondier and herself, it was enough.
With this, she would block his vision and, for now, use Yggdrasil to escape—
“Menosorpo.”
At that moment, Hella saw it.
The cylinder of mana that appeared small in Frondier’s hand instantaneously spread out, becoming gigantic.
Menosorpo
Workshop
Ripple
Along with that, a Workshop formed as if to swallow Hella.
'With something like this!'
Hella began a chant.
It wasn’t her specialty field, but she was still properly a goddess of death. She could manage a light “Blink.”
She would use this to leap beyond the range of the Workshop.
Tap!
And the place where Hella landed was,
“Huh?”
still inside the Workshop.
Thoom!
Before long, the Workshop closed completely.
'Just how enormous a thing did he make?'
A Workshop that included the entirety of the space Hella had leapt through. Surely he had used almost the full range of Menosorpo.
As Elodie had said, the Workshop was a type of grand magic.
Was it something permitted to a human, to use such a grand magic on this scale?
'......Right.'
No, it wasn’t.
Frondier was not human.
“Hella.”
Frondier approached.
From the moment she was swallowed by the Workshop, the match had been decided.
Niflheim might belong to Hella, but the master of this Workshop was Frondier.
The situation was reversed. Now it was Hella’s vision that was blocked.
“Answer me properly.”
“......Frondier.”
Hella let out a crooked laugh.
“I’m going to give you exactly the answer you’re thinking of anyway.”
“......The Minotaur that Aster met.”
Frondier ignored Hella’s words and continued speaking.
“Does that thing have resistance to divine power?”
“.......”
Hella’s tongue stopped for a moment, but she soon answered.
Just as she had said a moment ago.
“That’s right. It’s got resistance. So divine power doesn’t work on it. Well, even without the resistance, it’s plenty tough.”
“Why does that thing have resistance?”
“Why do you think?”
Hella’s eyes flashed wide. She was filled with a kind of exhilaration.
That Frondier was angry. That in itself seemed to give her a certain sense of satisfaction.
“Because a god made it, obviously. That’s what you wanted to hear—”
KRAAK!
“Kh!”
Frondier grabbed Hella by the neck and lifted her up.
“Quit acting arrogant and answer properly.”
Frondier’s gaze bore into Hella.
“This is the last question.”
“.......”
Hella only contorted her face in pain.
Frondier asked.
“......Are all the monsters outside like that?”
“.......”
Hella stayed silent.
However, her eyes stared straight at Frondier.
Their eyes were almost the same.
Locking onto each other like that, Frondier asked again.
“From the very beginning, to kill humans, did the gods create monsters and send them?”
