Chapter 446: Star, Jotunheim (6)
Paaah―!
After telling his subordinates that he would be going ahead and ordering them to catch up to him later, Chang-Sun made his way to a castle on a high mountain, which was where Bergelmir probably was. If Odin truly came here for Bergelmir, every second mattered.
“Arrrrghhh! Please! Let’s! Go! Together! Why! Are! You! In! A hurry!”
Herald hurriedly hopped behind Chang-Sun, feeling hellish for running when he was already tired.
“I told you to go back.”
“I’m! Doing this! Because I can’t!”
He would have already gone back to the <Management Bureau> if he could. Having been sent on a business trip after months of hard work, all he wanted now was to request a day off, go back home, and throw himself on his bed. However, <Deus Ex Machina> didn’t just send him down to deliver a message. Otherwise, he would have just sent System Messages.
“Mr. Machina! Told Me! To detect Rollback! Because! Something is! Definitely going on! Around you! What else am I supposed to do?!”
Through constant monitoring, the <Management Bureau> had detected a minuscule amount of <Darkness> in Chang-Sun’s Rollbacks, so they assigned Herald to observe it in person. Since <Deus Ex Machina> could see through all of the Administrators’ eyes, Heral didn’t have to capture <Darkness>. He just had to watch when it would activate so <Deus Ex Machina> could track it himself. In other words...
[<Deus Ex Machina> is watching the Administrator ‘Herald’!]
‘Nothing can be worse than this!!!’ Herald yelled internally.
Herald wanted to cry. This was no different from the president of a big company standing beside a low-level employee to watch them work. Well aware that <Deus Ex Machina> was doing this not only to detect Rollback but also out of worry for Chang-Sun, Herald felt even more insanely suffocated for being an innocent rabbit bystander stuck in between two monsters.
[<Deus Ex Machina> stares at the Administrator ‘Herald’ and asks if he just called him the worst possible monster!]
‘My apologies, sir!’ Herald bowed deeply, recalling the fact that <Deus Ex Machina> could read his mind through the Terminal installed in his head.
Even kings were badmouthed when he wasn’t around. Unfortunately, Herald couldn’t even do that.
Chang-Sun soon reached Bergelmir’s ‘Lonely Fortress,’ a small castle on top of a mountain so tall that it pierced through the clouds.
Tap!
Chang-Sun frowned. The ‘Lonely Fortress’ was half-shattered, seemingly by a series of battles. ‘It reeks of blood.’
The cold gusts carried the thick scent of blood with them, something that more often than not came from the aftermath of a massacre, not just any battle.
Paaah!
Chang-Sun quietly unsealed [Tiamat’s Snaggletooth] as he entered the fortress. Walking downstairs, he found nearly pulverized Yeti corpses all over the place, proving him right. A one-sided massacre had indeed taken place here.
He quickly studied the traces left on the Yetis’ corpses to find out how the invader killed them. ‘They know how to deal with Anomalies.’
Woosh, woosh, woosh...!
He reached the first floor’s central hall not long after, finding Bergelmir covered in blood.
『Shit! Shit! Shit!!!! I’ll kill you!』 Bergelmir yelled.
The enormous giant stood over ten meters tall, and the fog covering him made it hard to see him. Nevertheless, with the way he kept summoning blizzards, the word ‘monster’ still described him most accurately. His Divine Class had to have been outstandingly high before his death.
Unfortunately, he was losing one-sidedly right now.
Slash, slash, slash―!
A wind blade cut through Bergelmir’s blizzards and fog and proceeded to inflict multiple wounds on him. The attack was so fast and sharp that not even Chang-Sun could follow it with his eyes.
Splaaash!
Blood fountained out of every wound Bergelmir sustained, creating a big puddle around him.
Rummble, rumble!
Bergelmir tried to grab an annoyingly nimble wind blade but missed it. Icicles dropped down from the ceiling, and ice thorns rose from the ground. He even conjured hails and blizzards. However, he still couldn’t stop the attacks.
If this went on, he would eventually die from excessive bleeding just like the more than a hundred Yetis around him. As the king’s guards, they were supposed to protect him. However, they had all been brutally annihilated.
“H-huh?!” Herald’s jaw dropped to the floor, surprised that someone could corner and beat up Bergelmir so one-sidedly. “How can a plummeted False Celestial be here? There is no record of this in the law of causality! Did someone manipulate the System? We haven’t found any trace of hacking, though... There is no error with the soul either...”
Herald's incomprehensible muttering to himself made Chang-Sun instinctively realize that the person shouldn’t exist under the law of causality.
“Do you know who that is?” Chang-Sun asked.
Finally coming to his senses, Herald pondered for a moment if he could share this information. He soon nodded, remembering that his employer had told him to help Chang-Sun out as much as possible. “According to the Data I can access... she must be ‘Black Forest Hunter’.
Chang-Sun tilted his head. “Skathi?”
“Yes.”
Chang-Sun remembered Skathi being mentioned in the Dungeon description along with Angrboda. She used to be a respected Frost Giant Celestial with a close relationship with Loki. However, she severed her ties with the Giants when she joined <Asgard> to follow Odin. Although Chang-Sun didn’t know much about her, he knew that Skathi’s <Myths> were strong enough for many <Societies> to attempt to recruit her. However...
“Didn’t she die with <Asgard>?”
“That’s why I find all of this so strange. Low-level Celestials like Magni and Modi should be the only survivors of <Asgard>, but...”
Skathi was back with her full Divine Class.
Roaaaaar―!
Having lost [Fimbulvetr], Bergelmir couldn’t exert all of his power. Moreover, his Divine Class was unstable, and he couldn’t travel far from his habitat. He was essentially only a fragment of himself right now.
On the other hand, Skathi’s existence was stable, allowing her to subconsciously emit <Myths> to murder her old king. Although it seemed impossible, Chang-Sun himself had done it. When he lost his Divine Class, he worked hard to regain his Divine Name. There was no reason Skathi couldn’t do the same.
However, the <Management Bureau> wouldn’t have missed it then. If Herald couldn’t find her story from the Log he had found, then Skathi had to have used an expedient.
Chang-Sun expected—no, instinctively knew that this was Odin’s doing. Not only was Skathi from <Asgard> but the first trace he had found of her was a rune magic spell that was similar to Odin’s. Considering Odin dreamed about reviving his <Society>, it wouldn’t be odd for him to resurrect his old subjects in some way. Chang-Sun already even had an idea of where he got the materials from—the same place where they first met.
‘<Star Grave>.’
He learned about gnosis when he sunk in the Spiritual Lake under the Star Auction House. In the Anomaly that had been created through the mass of divine power that remained when <Asgard> fell, Odin regained his identity from the depths of Chang-Sun’s subconscious realm. It wouldn’t be odd for him to awaken the remaining traces of old Celestials in the <Star Grave> and resurrect himself and his people.
‘Odin’s magic is... a miracle itself.’
On top of that, Odin had accumulated gnosis in the Changgong Library through Chang-Sun and obtained even more through the Rollback loop. Chang-Sun couldn’t even begin to fathom how much Odin’s rune magic had advanced by now.
‘I’ll capture Skathi first,’ Chang-Sun decided, putting aside finding Odin for now. After all, he couldn’t just let Bergelmir die like this.
[Firing flaming lightning bolts!]
Pzz, pzzzz―!
Rumble!
Sunset-colored lightning bolts repeatedly fell from the fog-covered ceiling, each one targeting Skathi. The wind blade flying at Bergelmir changed course and soared into the sky. Narrowly missing it, the lightning bolts struck where it had been instead, spreading lightning energy on the ground and overturning every bit of the ice layer.
Rumble, rummmble.
Blizzards dissipated and the castle threatened to crumble with each earsplitting lightning that clawed on the ground Small pieces of ice were sent scattering like glass shards as well. Eventually, the thickest and biggest lightning bolt shot down the wind blade.
Thuuuud!
A thick burning scent permeated in the air as a Frost Giant was catapulted away. Although smaller than Bergelmir, they were still several meters tall, befitting their race. Compared to the noble and sharp wind blade, the Giant was surprisingly huge.
The Frost Giant clicked her tongue. “Tsk!”
[The Celestial ‘Black Forest Hunter’ has appeared!]
[The Celestial ‘Black Forest Hunter’ expresses her hostility toward the disruptor!]
“You’re as troublesome as I heard, Twilight!” Skathi exclaimed, seemingly aware of who Chang-Sun was.
Dumbstruck, Chang-Sun replied, “You must have heard about me from Odin. Did he also tell you...”
Pzzzzzz!
His lightning energy burned stronger as it filled the hall, dyeing it with the color of sunset. The air warmed up enough to melt all the ice around them.
“... that you should watch your mouth around me?”
Chang-Sun leaped in the air.
Paah―!
Skathi unsheathed her two daggers, which were still a lot longer than ordinary people’s longswords. With a swing, she sent forth gusts of bone-chillingly cold wind to shred Chang-Sun to death.
Rumble―!
However, all the wind gusts dissipated before Chang-Sun’s lightning bolts. Skathi soon found herself blocking [Tiamat’s Snaggletooth] from beheading her.
Boooom!
Pzzzzz―!
A lightning-energy explosion engulfed Skathi and continued to expand, becoming even stronger as it melted one ice crystal after another. She screamed in pain, but the claps of thunder muffled her.
Refusing to let her rest, Chang-Sun started an Anomaly and quickly cornered her.
Rumble, rumble, rumble!
Sparks flew up from the sharp blade of [Tiamat’s Snaggletooth] every time Chang-Sun swung it, eventually gathering enough to turn the hall into an inferno. The pools of blood on the floor evaporated, replaced with flames.
Rummmble!
Slash―!
One of Chang-Sun’s fierce attacks successfully cut off Skathi’s arm, sending it flying in the air.
“Fuuuck!” Skathi cursed through gritted teeth, finding the situation ridiculous.
Sensing that she would eventually find herself in deep trouble if she let this keep up, she attempted to flee.
Odin had repeatedly told her that she should be careful if she ever ran into Chang-Sun, his reincarnation. She merely scoffed at the time, refusing to give the warning much thought. After all, from her perspective, there had to be a limit to how strong a human-born Celestial could be. Much to her shock, however, Chang-Sun was comparable to Odin! Considering Odin was almost done recovering all of his power, she had an even harder time believing it.
Nevertheless, despite regretting her decision to engage Chang-Sun in combat out of her desire to win, she couldn’t do anything but face reality now. Her gut feeling telling her that she would die at this rate triggered a siren in her head.
After going through so many difficulties, Skathi had finally received a new shot at life. She didn’t want to die again. Having to give up on Bergelmir despite already being so close to killing him was unfair, but now wasn’t the time to complain.
Skathi used the teleportation scroll that Odin had given her to escape. With it, not even the inhumanely strong Chang-Sun shouldn’t be able to follow her!
Paah!
[The teleportation activation has been canceled!]
[The teleportation scroll is disintegrating.]
‘... What?’ Skathi gaped.
She had surely torn up the scroll. A pool of light even started forming below her feet, a clear sign of the teleportation spell’s activation. More importantly, the scroll contained Odin’s rune magic. It made no sense for it to be canceled, let alone fail.
Seeing Chang-Sun amid the fog, Skathi stumbled backward. A shiver ran down her spine.
“What’s wrong?” Chang-Sun smiled coldly, terrifying Skathi. “Is something not working?”
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