The Great Mage Returns after 4000 Years – Chapter 216 – Individual Schemes (4)
Translator: Seven
Editors: Ana_Banana, Yahiko
“…”
Barbatos was speechless.
He was looking at the scene below him with a stiff expression.
It wasn’t just him.
The other four Rulers also had similar expressions on their faces. Including Beelzebub, who had some idea about Frey’s power.
“…are we going to just watch Asura…”
“Barbatos, are you trying to insult him?”
“No. I said something stupid.”
Barbatos rarely admitted his faults, but it couldn’t be helped in this situation. He looked at Frey with a complicated expression on his face.
At first, he thought that the game had already ended when Asura slammed Frey’s face into the ground. But it wasn’t.
He hadn’t even received a scratch, and he was later able to easily break free of Asura’s grip.
Then, they went out to fight an even battle.
This was an unbelievable and unrealistic sight.
A human fighting evenly against a Ruler of Hell?
If someone had told him this, he would have laughed loudly in their face. However, as he was seeing this sight with his own eyes, he had no choice but to believe it.
‘Asura… is stronger than me.’
Barbatos admitted this fact.
Of course, this didn’t mean those words would ever come out of his lips. But he said it to himself.
If he were to fight Asura right at that moment, he would have been defeated.
‘The other Rulers should be having the same thought.’
But his thoughts were completely wrong.
Beelzebub was instead paying attention to the sky, not the ground.
In the skies of Hell, so high up that it was a place he would never be able to reach, someone was watching the fight on the ground.
And it seemed that Beelzebub was the only one who noticed his presence.
‘Lucifer.’
It wasn’t just one. There was also a black-haired man whose appearance was similar to Lucifer’s.
“…?”
Beelzebub tilted his head to the side, feeling that something was wrong.
The man had black wings on his back that were similar to Lucifer’s.
‘No.’
They weren’t similar. They were exactly the same.
Only then did Beelzebub realise where this strange feeling was coming from.
The man only had three wings on his back. They were all on his left side, and his right side had nothing.
Lucifer originally had 6 pairs of wings.
The other three wings were on the back of the other man.
‘Who the hell is he?’
The moment this question popped into Beelzebub’s head.
Juk.
Lucifer turned to look at him.
* * *
Boom! Boom!
Huge explosions occurred one after the other.
No one would have believed it if they were told that these were actually caused by the collision of weapons and a body. Moreover, it was not the body of a Magic Warrior but one of a Wizard.
A black mountain collapsed, causing a massive landslide.
Frey gestured towards the rocks, soil, and trees falling towards him, and the collapsed mountain immediately regained its original shape.
It was a transcendent feat that was similar to reversing time, but no one was surprised by this ability at this point.
The surrounding area had already been destroyed to the extent that the original shape could not be found at all.
“Hmm.”
Asura laughed loudly despite the pain he felt in his wrist, revealing his sharp teeth.
He didn’t have the tendency to enjoy pain, but it was an entirely different story when he was locked in a close-combat battle like this one, where he was unable to guess the outcome.
The tension and joy of fighting turned his pain into pleasure.
Asura lifted his arms. He had six arms, and in each hand was a different weapon.
Saber, axe, spear, hammer, club, and staff.
They were all treasures of the Demon World that had existed for thousands of years, and at the same time, they were the trophies that Asura had risked his life to obtain.
Asura was able to perfectly control each one of these six weapons. It had been hundreds of years since he’d acquired the ‘staff’, which was the last of the group. And since then, he’d practiced with them constantly.
These weapons could already have been considered a part of his body.
‘…as I thought.’
Something wasn’t right.
Asura bent his knees slightly. Then, his body shot forwards like a cannonball.
Frey did not back down, and he instead took a stance.
Asura laughed inwardly.
‘He is mimicking a warrior. Every move he makes is clumsy. This shows that his body can’t keep up with the movements he learned just by watching… However…’
There was that strange power that was neither divine power nor mana. And it covered all of the flaws in his natural fighting sense.
In Asura’s eyes, this made Frey more suited to be a Knight or a Magic Warrior than a Wizard.
Boom!
Asura’s blade was drawn diagonally. Frey paused while trying to block the attack. Then he felt the presence of that axe coming from his right.
But that wasn’t all.
The hammer and club were aimed at his skull. And if he stepped back, his heart would be pierced by the spear and staff.
‘There’re no gaps between the attacks.’
This was an attack that was close to perfection.
It wasn’t just stabbing or cutting. Depending on Frey’s subsequent movements, the directions of the attacks would also be changed to follow him accordingly.
It was one attack that contained a hundred different changes.
And it wasn’t just one. There were six such attacks.
A hint of the practice that was put in could be felt in the diversity of the attacks. He even saw the years of experience that had accumulated over countless battles.
‘It’s like a Golem.’
Frey felt like there was a calculation apparatus in his mind that calculated thousands and tens of thousands of possible outcomes and selected the most favourable conclusion.
But what Asura had was something closer to instinct than logical thinking.
Frey’s eyes shook slightly.
Paht.
Asura clicked his tongue.
He missed again.
He thought he’d finally managed to trap him in a net, but when he came to his senses, he’d already escaped.
‘It’s not teleportation.’
This was a battle that required their focus to be honed to the limit. Even if he were to use a skill like teleportation, he would only be able to move a short distance away, and he would still be within Asura’s range.
But Asura could clearly see Frey’s graceful movements. He tried to predict his movement and change the direction of his attack, but he still missed.
‘This means I’ve lost this fight.’
Asura didn’t understand.
He had an overwhelming advantage. Wasn’t it normal for the side on the defensive to be in the most disadvantageous position?
Ninety-nine paths were blocked. If he took even one incorrect step, his entire body would be destroyed in an instant. Yet Frey still managed to find a way to escape.
One time could be called a coincidence. And two times could be called luck. But if it happened three times, four times, or five times, then it was intentional.
This meant that Frey could easily see and take advantage of Asura’s flaws.
“…”
The hands holding his weapons up drooped.
This was the first time in thousands of years that he’d felt that his weapons were a hindrance.
‘That doesn’t mean anything.’
As he thought this, Asura did something that was completely unexpected.
Boom!
Frey’s expression changed.
This was because he saw Asura throw away his weapons. They were so heavy that even though he had only thrown them lightly, they cracked the ground as they landed.
At the same time, Asura’s aura, which was like a mountain before, suddenly dropped to half of its former strength.
But Frey didn’t let his guard down. Instead, he felt an unfamiliar tension that was different from before.
Asura spread his legs. His knees were bent, and his waist was also tilted slightly. His six clenched fists were pointed at Frey, and his eyes burned as though they contained the fires of hell.
‘He changed his stance.’
He hadn’t weakened. He’d adapted.
Frey immediately realised this fact.
In general, abandoning your weapons meant a reduction in your overall strength, but this didn’t seem to be the case for Asura.
His intuition was proven by Asura’s next movements.
Asura’s figure disappeared, leaving behind only an afterimage.
He moved so fast that Frey was temporarily unable to see him. Even Milled’s clairvoyance was unable to keep up with the movement.
Crack.
“…!”
Then he felt a sharp pain in his side.
This was the first time that he’d actually been hit since becoming a transcendent being. The unfamiliar sensation of pain in his body caused his thoughts to pause momentarily.
Without properly dispersing the shock, Frey’s figure was sent flying. His body skipped off the ground like a rock on a lake.
While the sky and ground were spinning around fiercely in front of him, Frey desperately tried to focus on recovering from the unexpected attack.
‘This isn’t the end.’
He was right.
Asura appeared and struck Frey again.
Bang, bang, bang!
Six arms battered Frey’s body like a storm. Although he protected himself with divine magic power, the shock of each attack sent him reeling.
It wasn’t just the punches.
Currently, Frey was a soul body. This meant that normal physical attacks wouldn’t be able to even leave a scratch on him. But each explosive punch that Asura hit him with, which happened over a dozen times in the blink of an eye, contained demonic energy, which was able to reach his core.
‘He is equal to or stronger than Agni.’
One might have thought that Asura was stronger, but Frey thought differently. Unlike Asura, who grew up with continuous struggles, Agni’s life had been mostly peaceful.
After all, the Demigods rarely had to engage in life-or-death battles. They didn’t know how hard it could be to take down just one opponent. They couldn’t understand the misery of the weak.
Nevertheless, the similarity of their powers was a clear indication of just how overwhelming the Demigods’ inherent strength was.
‘However.’
It didn’t matter if Asura was stronger than Agni.
‘Push.’
Paht!
A dazzling glow erupted from Frey’s body. And Asura, who was constantly attacking him, was flung away, crashing heavily into Beelzebub’s castle.
“…”
Asura slowly stood up within the cloud of dust, his eyes narrowed as he looked at Frey.
Divine magic power was wrapped around Frey’s body like invisible armor. It even made him look like a saviour bathed in holy light.
The fact that he was currently standing in Hell made the scene even more dramatic.
Of course, Asura didn’t pay any attention to things like this.
“A body made for battle. No. It should be more than that. It’s a power that has a ridiculous practical ability.”
“You seem surprised. Have you never seen something like this before?”
“That’s right.”
Asura nodded.
Frey glanced at the weapons he threw aside and said.
“Your speed has increased by several times. I don’t think you’d become so fast just by throwing your weapons aside…”
“It’s true.
“What?”
Asura smiled and pointed at his weapons.
“Even my lightest weapon weighs hundreds of tons. I’ve made them smaller, but their weights remain the same.”
“…”
Frey became speechless.
When he threw the weapons aside and they cracked the ground, Frey didn’t think they were that heavy…
That was no different from fighting while carrying a castle on your shoulders. It was no wonder his movement speed increased so explosively.
“Then let’s get started again.”
Asura laughed.
Frey’s heart became heavy when he saw this.
‘This may not go as I expected.’
Asura was much stronger than he expected. He was not an opponent whom he could handle as he pleased.
It was possible that Frey would end up killing him.
There was only one reason why he thought so. He could feel his own patience reaching its limits.
And seeing that Asura continued to be disobedient, his irritation was beginning to increase.
‘This lowly demon dares to defy me/you.’
Voices sounded in his head.
It sounded like Lukas and Frey’s voices had been mixed together. Even though they were his own voices, hearing them still made him uncomfortable.
‘They’ laughed and mocked Frey.
‘You’re pathetic. You’re really pathetic. Do you really need the help of these weaklings?’
‘Why are you underestimating yourself?’
‘You can do it on your own. Lord and Lucifer are afraid of you!’
‘Just kill him! Swallow the power of this insolent demon!’
“…”
Frey forcibly suppressed his irritation.
He also tried to ignore the voices in his head. He cleared his mind.
Perhaps Frey’s greatest enemy at this moment was neither the Rulers of Hell, Lord, nor Lucifer.
‘Hold on.’
He had to control it.
It wasn’t time.
Not yet.