Frieren the Slayer

"Heh..."

Glenn tried to stand up several times, but failed without exception, and in the end lay flat on the ground with his limbs spread out, his face filled with a smile full of disdain.

"Incomprehensible."

Flag hesitated no longer, and swung the sword in his hand.

Silver light flashed and sparks flew.

At the moment the blade was about to sever Glenn's head, he suddenly interrupted his movement and dodged to the side.

A waning moon tore through the air.

The Alchemy Longsword was swung in a full arc by Galan toward Flag, colliding solidly with the sword in his hand.

"How is that possible? That priest should have already been out of mana, so why are you still able to fight..."

Seeing Galan before him, covered in blood and a complete mess yet still brimming with fighting spirit.

Flag could not figure it out, could not figure out how this human recovered in such a short time after being heavily wounded by him.

He had held nothing back with that kick, and an ordinary person would even have been broken in half at the waist.

Seeing that Glenn was about to be beheaded, Galan, who had taken the potion not long ago, darted over like an arrow.

In reality, however, the surging medicinal power was still frantically repairing his destroyed internal organs and nerves inside his body.

Newly generated cells squeezed out the stagnant blood within his body, and this metamorphosis-like recovery process caused his body to twitch involuntarily.

He should have given himself another dose of [Pain Block] potion if he had known.

Galan gritted his teeth, trying his best not to let a ferocious expression show on his face.

"You guess."

"Boring."

Flag was not in the mood to play guessing games with him any longer.

The two of them taking turns one after another had worn away his patience.

The heart that had been pierced through by the short sword earlier had still not completely healed even now.

Even if it would not kill him as a result, for a demon, this was still a quite severe injury.

That he could still stand here properly was merely out of his own strength.

"What did you smear on the short sword? It actually managed to prevent my body from repairing..."

He glided forward, his treasured sword swinging flat, his swordsmanship not fancy.

Galan leaned backward, the blade passing by him like a shooting star with a harsh whistle.

"Toad tail, scorpion venom, snake frost leaf, and it seems there's also blood paint..."

"Well, are you going to say thanks for the treat?"

"These are all my precious medicinal ingredients, even though they're all poisons."

Galan twisted his body, lowered his posture, and struck Flag's left arm with an elbow blow.

Flag did not just stand there either, using his knee to shove away the Alchemy Longsword stabbing upward toward his abdomen, and the hilt of the sword in his right hand smashed fiercely into Galan's forearm.

The heavy elbow strike caused him to involuntarily retreat a few steps, and the wound on his heart, which had not even been repaired properly, split open once more, with black blood gushing out.

Galan had it no better, letting out a muffled groan and retreating repeatedly.

Neither spoke again, their feet moving with light steps, their eyes filled with killing intent locked dead onto each other.

Almost at the exact same instant, they both suddenly surged upward, waving the weapons in their hands and slaughtering each other.

Thanks to the blessing of the potent recovery potion, Galan could ignore some non-fatal attacks.

Allowing the blood plasma on his shoulders and thighs to bloom like flowers, he could also attack Flag wildly with a desperate attitude.

Even wounds deep enough to reveal bone would be filled with the vacancy by frantically dividing cells and new flesh after a few breaths.

Yet Flag, who was already nursing injuries, slowly had his combat style figured out by Galan after a brief display of fierceness, gradually falling into a disadvantageous position.

The phantoms of saber and sword intertwined, weaving mournful flowers of blood.

The clothes on their bodies were also shredded to pieces by the sword edges, and the flying strips of fabric floated in the air like dandelion's small umbrellas.

The wind was mixed with the bloody stench of the two people.

Flag seized an opening and kicked out with another leg, wanting to repeat the earlier scene.

Yet this time Galan was prepared long ago, or rather was simply waiting for this moment.

He used his arm to clamp down on Flag's leg in one go, and then pulled backward with force.

Flag lost his balance and fell down, too late to have a follow-up reaction before the Alchemy Longsword stabbed into his neck.

Galan mercilessly twisted the hilt, and the splashing black blood coated his face.

In the end, under the gaze of Flag's dim pupils, his head was completely cut off by Galan.

"...So I'm saying, don't look down on humans..."

Mana factors rose steadily from Flag's corpse, dissipating into the air together with his gradually shattering body.

Lying in the distance and seeing this scene, Glenn also revealed a smile on his face, and then completely passed out.

Flag's head was the last to disappear.

He just kept watching Galan like that.

His faint pupils were filled with a dazed expression, seemingly still not understanding how he could die at the hands of a human.

"You talked so much earlier, yet when it really comes to dying, you can't speak after all?"

After the medicinal effect faded, Flag had still left many wounds of varying depths on Galan's body.

Having lost his powerful self-healing ability, those newly born wounds failed to recover as they had before.

At this moment, Galan knelt halfway on the ground, breathing heavily, feeling the pain transmitted from the burning wounds, and feeling as though he were being roasted over a fire.

"Has he finally improved a bit..."

He collapsed limply, hunching his body like a newborn infant, and fell into his own pool of blood.

Continuous beams of light swept past Merle's ears, bombarding the land behind her.

And the only thing she could do was continuously deploy Defensive Magic, not even finding a shred of opportunity to counterattack.

Because her proud total amount of mana and the [Corruption Curse] she had researched could do nothing against Frieren at all.

At this moment, Merle no longer possessed the confident composure she had at the start.

"Why... why has your mana hardly decreased at all? Clearly from just now until now, you've been constantly releasing magic."

Blood seeped from the corners of her mouth beneath the sound of the explosions.

Reflected in her pupils was only Frieren's cold and stern face without a trace of emotional fluctuation.

It was as if at this moment, she was the demon, and Merle was the prey struggling in the palm of her hand.

"...You... could it be that you suppressed your own mana?"

"How is this possible... why would you do such a thing?"

Seeming to have noticed something, when Merle looked at the stable mana displayed on Frieren's body, she suddenly began to shout crazily as if losing her mind.

"It seems you aren't completely stupid after all."

Rarely, Frieren revealed a smile during battle--a mocking smile.

"Your companion doesn't seem nearly as impressive as you said."

Tangibly sensing Flag's presence disappear from the village below, a shock rippled through Merle's heart.

How could that be?

No one had killed Flag in these past hundred years.

He was a demon warrior who was once able to be recognized by the [Bloodstained War God] Rivale...

Silver-white beams of light plummeted from the sky, piercing through Merle's chest.

When she looked down again, a regular circle penetrating from front to back had appeared on her chest.

Dazed for a moment, Merle finally reacted.

[High-Compression Ordinary Offensive Magic]

Even though she had been on guard, she had been entirely unable to react to that attack just now.

She had actually been holding back such a powerful move all along...

No...

It was that I simply couldn't force out her true strength.

"...Is this death..."

She raised her head and looked toward Frieren, who was flying high into the sky.

At this moment, her two white ponytails floated wantonly in the wind, and her mage robes drifted gently around her body.

She looked so much like a goddess from ancient scriptures.

So noble, sacred, and inviolable.

Merle remembered; she seemed to have seen a statue of this elf long ago, and had also heard tales of her deeds.

The time was so distant that it had caused her to forget that kind of fear.

"So it was you... [Frieren the Slayer]..."

Yet another beam of light as white as moon-radiance fell.

Merle's crumbling figure was also completely annihilated amidst the bright light.