Fragments

Frieren closed her eyes and slowly channeled mana into the Memory Chip.

As a pale blue light appeared, the Windwing Dragon's field of vision flooded directly into her consciousness.

Howling winds rushed past, and a vast forest swept rapidly backward below. It was a visual and auditory experience entirely unlike a human's: beasts running through the wilderness, schools of fish swimming in rivers, even leaves falling several kilometers away were as clear as if they were right in front of her.

Several other Windwing Dragons soared through the sky alongside it, and a feeling of being free to roam the boundless world welled up of its own accord.

No wonder most of these dragons had such arrogant personalities. If that was the sight they woke up to every day, it would be hard not to develop the illusion that they stood above every living thing on the earth.

But immediately afterward, a powerful surge of mana suddenly struck from the ground, shooting down two or three young Windwing Dragons before they could dodge.

Looking toward the source of the mana, the dragon saw a clearing in the dense forest that had just been leveled by magic.

Two young men stood there. One of them still held his posture after casting a spell. Facing the Windwing Dragons diving from the sky for revenge, he showed no trace of tension and remained perfectly composed.

The other young man stood beside him, a sword in his hand. He tilted his head slightly, looking at the Windwing Dragons that had been brought down in a single strike.

"Kleis, this is the power of magic. It's powerful, but it can plunge the whole world into suffering..."

"Lord Levi, I understand."

The young man named Kleis lowered his head and answered earnestly.

The scene shifted, suddenly becoming a snow-covered mountain peak. Heavy clouds hung over the summit, and the icy wind swept up great swathes of snow.

It seemed the flock of Windwing Dragons was struggling to cross the snowy mountains of the Northern Plateau and had stopped to rest on a ridge along the way.

The other Windwing Dragons gradually relaxed as well. One buried most of its body in the soft snow and rolled back and forth a few times, while another opened its mouth and tore into prey it had caught at the foot of the mountain.

It seemed that even fierce monsters like these were not much different from ordinary beasts when they rested.

The Wind Demon Dragon, through whose point of view Frieren was seeing, also lowered its head, using its beak to clean the ice from the edges of its wings.

Although a Windwing Dragon's body could withstand the bitter cold, ice on its wings would still affect its flight. If it continued deeper into the plateau with the frost on its wings, it would very likely crash straight into a mountainside if it encountered a storm.

But just then, besides a stone stele that had been left there who knew how long ago, a small black silhouette suddenly appeared indistinctly through the heavy snow at the edge of its vision.

The Windwing Dragon stopped what it was doing and raised its head to look down the mountain. A trail of footprints had appeared on the nearly deserted snowy slope.

The owner of the memory let out a low growl.

The other Windwing Dragons immediately raised their heads and followed its gaze toward the snowy slope. Before long, a figure slowly emerged from the curtain of snow, and the scene in the memory suddenly began to shake violently.

After that, it became somewhat intermittent: one moment it showed the hunting and killing of prey, and the next, flying through the sky...

The towering, precipitous mountains gradually gave way to low hills, coniferous forests were replaced by denser broadleaf forests, and fields cultivated by humans began to appear along both banks of the rivers. There was no doubt that the flock of Windwing Dragons was getting farther and farther south.

But among those broken fragments, Frieren really did find a clue.

The Windwing Dragons had once gone to a place filled with flames. Unlike the other indistinct scenes, the fear lingering in this memory was especially intense.

Clearly, that was not the reaction one should have to ordinary flames.

After all, with its ability to fly, it could easily have escaped even if there had been a forest fire all around it. Yet in this memory, it did not even dare raise its head, much less think of spreading its wings.

A shadow seemed to be moving amid the flames filling the sky.

Just as Frieren was trying to keep her mana stable and make out the shadow, an intense mental shock struck without warning.

The flames, the ruins, and even the Windwing Dragon's field of vision all shattered like a mirror in an instant. Countless chaotic colors and sounds flooded into her mind at once.

Numerous cracks suddenly appeared on the surface of the Memory Chip as well.

At that same moment, the mental protection Heiter had placed on Frieren beforehand as a precaution lit up, forcibly blocking the power surging toward her through the Memory Chip.

Without the slightest hesitation, Frieren immediately cut off the supply of mana.

The Memory Chip broke down the middle, and the patterns inside it went dark. Both it and the Windwing Dragon's eyeball shattered into pieces.

After Frieren opened her eyes, her body swayed backward involuntarily.

"Lady Frieren!"

Fern immediately caught her.

"I'm fine."

Frieren raised a hand to her forehead.

Despite what she said, her face was noticeably paler than before, and her forehead was covered in sweat. Her previously steady mana had even fallen into disarray for a moment. Clearly, she was not as completely fine as she claimed.

"Didn't you say earlier that there wouldn't be any serious side effects for you?"

Heiter immediately stepped forward and examined Frieren with Goddess True Magic as he asked the question.

"I was careless. Someone had tampered with the Memory Chip itself."

"Do you mean there was something wrong with that stallholder, Lady Frieren? Could he be a Demon too?"

Fern asked in surprise. When they had gone there that day, security in the Holy City had seemed quite strict, especially during such a major festival. How could a Demon have suddenly slipped in?

"No, that stallholder was just an ordinary person. I'm still certain of that."

Frieren frowned and shook her head. Although she had misjudged the magic tool, she was still very confident in her ability to detect Demons.

"Then could Breda have controlled the stallholder without him even knowing?"

Fern thought of another possibility. After all, if it could manipulate a monster as powerful in mana as a Windwing Dragon, controlling an ordinary person should not be difficult.

The room fell quiet for a moment.

"It's not impossible."

Zanze was the first to speak.

"But the requirements for controlling an ordinary person and manipulating a monster are clearly on completely different levels."

After all, even the famous Aura the Guillotine needed to use the magic tool called the "Scales of Obedience" to compare her amount of mana with someone else's, and could only control them after winning.

If Breda could control others so easily, Aura might as well stop being one of the Seven Sages of Destruction and step aside for someone more worthy.