To reach the scene as quickly as possible, Frieren had pushed her speed to its absolute limit — leaving both Fern and Stark far behind in her wake.
The enemy was a warrior, so tracking by mana alone wouldn't work. But that was no real obstacle. All she needed was to lock onto the other mages and the chaotic surge of mana rippling across the battlefield, and she could pinpoint her target.
When she finally arrived, she took in the surrounding walls and structures — battered and broken beyond recognition — and couldn't help but furrow her brow.
What a mess... But what are the casualties like?
A strange sense of wrongness welled up inside her.
She caught it in an instant.
The buildings, the walls, the distant treeline — all of it had been reduced to rubble. And yet... something was missing.
The smell of blood.
Right. There were none of the gruesome casualties she'd been bracing herself for.
People lay scattered everywhere in all directions — but even from a distance, Frieren could tell clearly: they'd simply been knocked unconscious. Their lives were in no danger.
The enemy was that considerate?
She set the question aside for now. Frieren fixed her gaze on a distant silhouette and, without hesitation, launched several Ordinary Attack Magic spells toward it.
The figure — draped head-to-toe in black robes — whipped around in an instant, then cleaved through every incoming spell with a single sweep of their blade.
"Just who is...?"
Frieren stared at the sight, genuinely baffled.
Ordinary Attack Magic was the fastest-casting magic there was. At this range, to react instantaneously — and not just react, but turn around first and then split the spells apart with a sword — the level of skill that required... she genuinely couldn't think of anyone who could match it.
Unless...
The thought surfaced, and Frieren unconsciously bit down on her lip. She narrowed her eyes, searching the figure's body for any clue she could find.
But the entire body was wrapped in black robes, and a visor concealed the face entirely.
Can't identify them by build or appearance, then...
Frieren immediately shifted her gaze elsewhere.
...Right. Isn't it already obvious? Or have I just been lying to myself all along — refusing to face it?
She let out a quiet sigh, because she could no longer ignore the sky-blue strands of hair spilling down from the edge of that visor.
"Him... mel?"
Her mind still refused to accept it — but Frieren called out the name anyway, her voice tentative.
The answer she received was a slash of terrifying speed.
Fast...
Frieren hastily threw up a defensive magic barrier — but it only held for a moment before the strike tore clean through it.
She replenished and reinforced her Defensive Magic in the same breath and struck back.
After that brief exchange...
"Strange..."
Frieren murmured to herself.
Because she felt nothing — no sense whatsoever that she was fighting something alive.
The figure on the other end had absolutely zero emotional response. It was like... a golem executing a fixed set of commands.
Tch...
Frieren clicked her tongue in frustration.
The warrior across from her was relentlessly precise, and to make matters worse — every clever trick in her magical arsenal had always worked poorly against this particular opponent, even back in the day.
As she probed further, Frieren gradually noticed something off.
Specifically — the enemy's strikes looked aimed for vital points, but in reality, every single blow was subtly pulling its punch.
She hadn't believed it at first, but on the last exchange she'd deliberately left an opening wide enough for the warrior to capitalize on — and the warrior hadn't drawn so much as a scratch on her.
That confirmed it.
"Who are you? What is the meaning of this... If you're not here to kill, then turn around and leave. Now."
Frieren called out to the figure ahead, brow furrowed, voice sharp with anger.
The visored man heard her voice — and the sword in his hand slowly lowered. He seemed to be thinking. Or perhaps hesitating. But the visor made it impossible for Frieren to read anything from his expression.
Just as Frieren thought she might be able to open a line of dialogue — the enemy had already snapped his sword back into an attacking stance.
Tch...
Frieren was no stranger to battle, and she matched his movement immediately.
But it didn't take long before she realized things were turning bad.
She was being pushed into a losing position far too quickly — and that was with the enemy deliberately holding back.
Right... how had it taken her this long to see it?
The reason she'd ever managed to go thirty-seventy, or even forty-sixty against Himmel back in the day was simply because Himmel could never bring himself to fight her at full strength.
But the moment Himmel became a weapon stripped of all emotion... the gap between them collapsed into exactly what it was now.
Another flash of steel — it punched through her Defensive Magic and sheared off several strands of Frieren's hair.
This can't go on...
Tension gripped her. Himmel's movements were too fast — so fast that she couldn't carve out even a sliver of breathing room to draw on her trump card.
Tch... So this is what it means to be cornered by a warrior — and not just any warrior, but one at Himmel's level. Frieren had to admit: she'd made a mistake.
That one split-second lapse in focus had cost her any chance of putting distance between them, and what had been a close fight collapsed into something that was looking very much like a rout.
But Frieren was nowhere near despair — because this fight had never been a one-on-one to begin with.
A thunderous crack rang out.
A concentrated, severalfold-amplified Ordinary Attack Magic shot right past Frieren's ear and drove straight for the enemy's face.
Well done... Fern.
Frieren's instinct was to cheer for her apprentice — but as she tracked the path of that attack, her chest clenched.
Because that ambush, launched from Fern's hidden position at full force, had been aimed to shatter the enemy's skull outright.
But of course — as a hero returned from the underworld, Himmel's battle instincts had already sensed the girl's approach. With a single, casual tilt of his head, he sidestepped the ambush Fern had spent so long building up, as though it were nothing at all.
That said, calling Fern's attack entirely worthless would be inaccurate — because at the very least... Fern had succeeded in knocking the visor clean off the enemy's face.
And that familiar face was finally exposed before Frieren's eyes.
The upturned corners of eyes so accustomed to smiling. The fine, delicate brows. The teardrop mole at the corner of his eye.
She'd had a feeling. She'd known. And yet — the moment she actually saw it confirmed, Frieren still couldn't help losing herself for just an instant.
There was no mistaking it. The person before her was unmistakably Himmel... So why were his eyes so utterly hollow?
Fíliya's doing, obviously — but what method had she used?
Frieren's mind raced in that instant, turning over several possibilities — only to dismiss each one herself.
Because Himmel's magic resistance was even greater than her own. Back in the illusion of Miracle Grahte, she had nearly given up fighting back entirely — and yet this man had managed to strike at his enemies while trapped in a hallucination, guided by nothing more than the rustle of fabric and a formless instinct.
How on earth had Fíliya resurrected a Himmel like that... and then brought him under her control?
It was beyond comprehension.
But none of that mattered right now. In this moment, Frieren felt the weight of something she simply had to do.
For now... I'll deal with getting Himmel back first.
____
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