194. Midgard’s Ascent (3)
[I don’t know why I have to go through this!]
A loud sound echoed from beneath the wings. Even in the rough wind, the man’s voice rang out clearly. Hearing this, Loft chuckled.
“Brother! You should’ve lost some weight over the past thousand years! Your body’s too big to ride Hresvelg’s back!”
[It’s not fat, it’s muscle. Shut up!]
“Wow, telling me to shut up just for talking? Can’t even get a word in!”
Loft giggled as he tapped the hawk’s neck. The hawk let out a sharp cry and changed direction, shaking its body.
[I’m getting motion sick!!]
“An Asir-class being getting motion sick? Should I brew some ash root for you? Huh?”
At Loft’s words, a rumbling sound was heard. A bolt of lightning shot through the clouds and struck Loft’s back. Loft shouted in panic.
“Brother! If Hresvelg drops you, you’re dead!”
[Then I’ll kill this damn beast too!]
Their conversation continued like this throughout the flight. Fernandez shook his head and sighed. The hawk was big enough, but Loft insisted that there was no room on its back for a giant, so the man had to be carried by the hawk’s talons.
The man dangled from the hawk’s claws, occasionally shouting when Loft or the hawk playfully shook their bodies.
Listening to their banter, Kirhas chuckled softly. That was a relief. It meant her soul hadn’t been corrupted by hellish magic.
“Kirhas, are you okay?”
“Yes, this is nothing.”
She’s a tough one. Fernandez reached out to pat Kirhas’ hair but stopped. It was inappropriate, and knowing her feelings, he might end up taking advantage of her.
-What a fool.
‘Isn’t this the age to be foolish?’
Faijashi chuckled. Soon, the hawk soared above the clouds. Thick clouds spread below, looking like a vast plain or ocean bathed in red sunset.
Mid-flight, Loft shouted.
“Get ready!”
“We’re still far, aren’t we?”
“Near Yggdrasil, monsters fly around, making the skies dangerous! Hresvelg and I might survive, but you guys can’t fly!”
Loft said this while patting the hawk’s neck. The hawk let out a long cry and began descending below the clouds.
The speed was dizzying. Fernandez wiped the mist clinging to his cheeks and hair, staring ahead. Rain was falling below the clouds.
-Kurururung!
Lightning scattered everywhere, and a storm raged. Below the clouds, darkness enveloped everything. Not just the night’s darkness, but also the massive shadow cast by Yggdrasil’s towering branches.
And below, in the distance, a shattered plain with flowing lava and countless tents lined up came into view.
The lava flowed like a torch, and the tents gathered around the light source. It wasn’t a style common in the Material World, but it was familiar to Fernandez.
Those were Demidrako’s combat tents. Below them, Demidrako’s military encampment stretched out. The demon legion was preparing for war.
‘It’s the gateway.’
-Not a gateway to the Material World.
‘Probably… a gateway to other demon territories.’
Loft had said that the Bifrost Gateway had the ability to cross dimensions. It wasn’t a one-way gate to a specific dimension but rather a fixed tear in the dimensional wall.
If the target dimension wasn’t just the Material World, the Bifrost Gateway could become the primary means to wage war against other demon territories.
And the Great Demons were never allies. Hell was divided into four major factions, constantly at war, an absolute conflict that remained unchanged even during the apocalypse when demons swept through the Material World.
Across Hell, a war called the Blood War had been raging since creation. An eternal war where different factions of demons fought each other.
And here, Asgard served as Sadarkelisa’s forward base.
‘How is Kaladpelin still keeping Sadarkelisa sealed?’
-Sadarkelisa’s seal is the work of the Temple of the Gods. It’s not something low-level demons can handle.
‘In my past life, the moment Sadarkelisa broke the seal was…’
-Only when Kaladpelin died. Yes, perhaps the life of the Celestial Dragon was the condition for the seal.
As the hawk flew lower, commotion was heard from the ground. Even flying under the thick darkness, they couldn’t escape the demons’ eyes. Horns and trumpets began to sound, following their flight.
“Isn’t this too noisy?”
“Botan’s Castle isn’t far! We’ll be spotted anyway, so let’s break through as fast as possible!”
The hawk increased its speed. Spears and arrows shot from the ground were deflected by the flapping wings or flew off into the night sky.
-Piiiiik!
The hawk let out a sharp cry. Its rough wingbeats shattered the clouds, revealing the sunset. A beam of light stretched across the dark plain, like carving a long path or a meteor skimming the ground.
In the distance, a massive fortress came into view. A towering fortress of stone and steel stood near the base of Yggdrasil. It wasn’t close yet, but at this speed, they would arrive soon.
“Hresvelg! Above!”
-Piiiiik!!
Suddenly, the hawk cried out. A scaled foot burst through the clouds directly above their path. As the hawk twisted sharply to avoid it, the foot swiftly grabbed its neck.
“Nidhogg!! Why is it at this altitude!”
-Kwaaaang!
The sudden stop nearly threw everyone off the hawk’s back. Fernandez gripped the hawk’s feathers tightly with one hand and quickly reached out with his left arm, grabbing Abel behind him. He looked back, his vision shaking from the darkness, rain, and chaos.
‘Damn it.’
It was hard to fully grasp the situation. The hawk’s neck was gripped by…
He struggled to break free from the grip, but being in the air made it hard to gauge his position or direction from the perspective of the person behind him.
[Ahhh!!]
The man caught in the eagle’s talons let out a rough scream. Fernandez held onto Abel tightly and put all his strength into his legs. He quickly shouted.
“Abel, do you trust me?”
“O-of course!”
“Stay still!”
There was no time for further words. He lifted Abel into the air with one hand. Kirhas was barely hanging onto her back, panting heavily. The feathers, slippery from the rain, were gradually slipping from her grasp.
“Grab her!”
“I-I can’t let go!”
-Screech!
The eagle’s cry, rough wingbeats, spears and arrows flying from all directions, and a violently shaking field of vision that made him want to vomit… Fernandez clenched his teeth and swung his arm with all his might.
“Kyaaak!”
He placed Abel, who was hanging from his arm, back onto the eagle’s back and used the recoil to leap into the air. At the same time, as he let go of Abel and tried to grab Kirhas—
“Kyaaaak!”
The eagle twisted its body violently, and Kirhas fell into the air. Time seemed to slow down as everything moved in slow motion. Just before her fingertips could be grasped, she slipped through the air and brushed past him.
Her terrified eyes and desperate hands were visible. Fernandez quickly assessed the distance from his own hand, which was clutching at the air, to the ground below.
It was a height that would surely kill him if he fell. Could he do it? There was no time to think. He couldn’t lose Kirhas here.
-No.
‘I have to save Kirhas.’
-She’s just a tool. Risking your life for a tool is what fools do. The only reason we need her is as a shield to stop Karadskar’s northern war. That’s not a reason worth risking our lives for.
Purpose is more important than reason. Those were the words he had said to her last year in the sewers, back when he first saved her. But the Fernandez and Kirhas of that time were completely different from the Fernandez and Kirhas of now.
In the seemingly frozen, slow-flowing time, Fernandez let out a short sigh. He whispered to Abel.
“Let’s meet below. Get down safely.”
“…Fe-Fernandez? Fernandez!!”
He kicked off the eagle’s back and leaped toward the ground. Stupid, foolish, blind. Faijashi kept grumbling beside him. But there was no time to argue. Nor were there words to argue with.
“Kirhas!!”
So he shouted. Look here. As they got closer to the ground, his survival instincts screamed, sending shivers down his spine. Kirhas was screaming as she fell.
That idiot. At least she should have prepared for the fall with some kind of landing technique. Not that it would have made much difference.
“Grab her!”
“Your Excellency!!”
At his shout, Kirhas’s eyes widened. There was no time to think. First, grab her hand, and pull her up with all your might!
“Your Excellency! Why!”
“You said you were fine being used as a tool!”
“Huh, huh?”
The ground was right in front of them. Fernandez wrapped one arm around Kirhas and twisted his body. Blood rushed through his muscles, survival instincts hammering his heart, increasing the pressure in his veins. Adrenaline pumped, and time slowed even more intensely.
Can I do it? No, I have to. Minimize sacrifices, maximize purpose. That was the spirit of the mage he had always carried, and it also meant being prepared to make necessary sacrifices without hesitation.
“I’m trading a useless tool for one that’s more needed!”
That was a remark directed at Faijashi, not Kirhas. Faijashi grumbled softly upon hearing it.
-It’s me. Fernandez. So, that’s just self-justification.
Holding Kirhas tightly in his arms, he twisted his body with all his might. Strong core, solid muscles, blood pumping furiously. Perfect momentum and timing! The most perfect single-point strike he had ever made in his life landed on his right arm—
-Crash!
He slammed into the ground! The ground crumbled, and his body bounced off from the recoil. Trying to disperse the impact as much as possible, Fernandez crashed roughly onto the ground. In the process, Kirhas’s body slipped from his left hand and rolled across the ground.
For a brief moment, the shock disrupted his nerves, blurring his vision. His internal organs were damaged, and blood gurgled up, refluxing. His right arm had no feeling. A quick glance showed it was completely shattered.
He couldn’t get up. The shock of the fall swept through his entire body, and even the limbs still attached occasionally twitched.
‘Damn, it hurts.’
He slowly clenched and unclenched his fingers, one by one, trying to regain sensation. Thankfully, they moved. For a fall from that height without any protection, the damage was surprisingly minimal. He realized just how incredible Diemonica’s strength was. He had absorbed the impact of that fall with a single punch from his right hand.
Thanks to that, his right arm… was effectively out of commission. Fernandez decided to think of it that way. Every tool has its limits, and his right arm had simply reached its limit.
From a distance, Kirhas staggered toward him. Looking at Fernandez, who was slumped and bleeding, Kirhas began to sob.
“Your Excellency, why… why…”
With trembling hands, she caressed Fernandez’s slumped shoulder and shattered right arm. Fernandez couldn’t help but smile at the sight.
“My sword.”
“Huh, huh?”
“Get my sword, Kirhas. We’re in the middle of enemy territory.”
He said this while struggling to lift his upper body. His muscles weren’t functioning properly, and his body had no strength. Blood refluxed from his damaged organs, making it hard to breathe.
But he couldn’t stop. He had never lived a life of complacency. Fernandez looked at Kirhas’s face, a mix of confusion and sorrow, and smiled.
“Now you’ll be my right arm.”
“Gladly. Yes, gladly…”
Kirhas nodded, sniffling, and picked up Fernandez’s weapons from the ground. Her face, filled with self-blame, looked so pitiful that he instinctively reached out.
As she began to equip the weapons onto his body, he reached out to stroke her hair but suddenly stopped. Was this another way of leaving a ‘mark’? Or was it just another attempt to manipulate her affection?
Then, a cold, slender hand covered his. Kirhas looked at him with an expression that was hard to read—whether she was smiling or crying. She naturally placed Fernandez’s hand on her head and stroked it herself.
“Throwing yourself to save me, and now acting like this… it’s cowardly, Your Excellency.”
“Kirhas.”
“Since I’m now your right arm, I’ll live and die by your side, on the same day, in the same place. Get up. I’ll be with you.”
Kirhas held Fernandez’s hand and helped him up. Botan’s fortress wasn’t far away.
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