Chapter 392: Buying Time
Since the moment the Divine Strike had been unleashed, the ambient mana in the region had been utterly hollowed out. Even if it hadn't been, it would have mattered little; Frieren was in no state to harness it. She lacked the knowledge of Holy Magic, and consequently, possessed no means to mend her own wounds. She could only lean against Aura, the two of them limping toward the edge of the plains.
Behind them lay the scar of the earth—a perfect, hemispherical depression where reality had simply been erased. The edges were smooth as glass, sterile of life, and the air still carried the acrid, scorched scent of ozone.
Aura's left shoulder was still weeping blood, and her snapped horn made her look like a creature of wretched misfortune. Yet, she dared not complain. When Frieren had hauled her up by that very horn earlier, Aura had been certain her final pride would be torn away along with it.
"It hurts…" Aura whimpered, pressing her right hand against the base of the broken horn. "It's going to take ages to grow back."
"So long as it grows back, it's fine," Frieren replied, her tone as flat and detached as a winter wind.
"It will take three hundred years!"
"Better that than never having the chance to grow at all."
Aura was silenced, stifled by the cold logic. Frieren was right; if not for the catastrophic spell the mage had unleashed, Aura would have been nothing more than meat for these hunters by now. Seen in that light, her current suffering was almost… acceptable.
They walked on in silence, seeking the depth of the forest. If they could reach the thickets, the complex terrain might offer a chance to break the pursuit—or so Frieren's plan went.
They did not reach the treeline. Frieren stopped dead.
"What is it?" Aura asked, her voice tight.
Frieren didn't answer. The figures emerging from the mist around them rendered words unnecessary.
One, two, three… dozens of figures manifested, closing the net. The aura radiating from each of them was substantial. Several wore the sigils of various magical guilds—not the badges of the Continental Magic Association, perhaps, but the intent behind them was identical.
But it was the man leading them who made Frieren's fingers white-knuckle her staff.
He was unassuming—dressed in plain, soot-gray robes without a single crest. His hair was wispy and white, his face a map of deep-set wrinkles, his eyes sunken into his skull. He looked like a man whose candle was nearing its final flicker.
Yet, Frieren could feel it: the mana hidden beneath that mundane surface was breathtaking. To a demon like Aura, who could perceive the flow of mana in living beings as clearly as breath, the man was a monolith. The density of his mana was, if anything, slightly more solidified than Frieren's own.
This was no mere First-Class Mage. This was a human who had reached the absolute, jagged peak of what a mortal soul could achieve in the arcane arts. A testament to human potential pushed to its final, desperate limit.
Even in her prime, he would have been a formidable opponent. In her current state?
Frieren checked her internal mana pool. It was a shallow, stagnant puddle, barely enough for a few cantrips.
She looked at Aura.
Better not to look, she decided.
"Frieren-sama…" Aura's voice trembled. "Should I… should I hold them off? You run."
"You think you can hold them off?"
"I have to try, don't I!"
Frieren didn't blink. She simply stood her staff upright, raised both hands, and laced her fingers behind her head in a gesture of absolute surrender—a posture so practiced it might have been choreographed a thousand times over.
"I surrender," Frieren said.
Aura blinked. What?
The mages in the circle were equally stunned. They had prepared for a dozen contingencies—a desperate breakout, a second Divine Strike, or even a suicide pact. But surrender? Was the grand-apprentice of Rhodes really this… flexible with her principles?
The old man at the head of the group paused, then let out a dry, rasping laugh. "Fitting for a disciple of Flamme. Pragmatic, just like a human."
"I shall take that as a compliment," Frieren replied neutrally.
"That spell," the man asked, his eyes narrow. "What was its name?"
Even from miles away, he had felt the sheer terror of that magic. He suspected the truth, but he needed to hear it from her lips.
"Divine Strike."
A collective intake of breath swept through the circle, sharp and cold. The man's pupils dilated. He stared at Frieren, searching for a lie. Long moments passed before he finally spoke.
"The legendary ultimate offensive magic of the Sky-Winged. They say it was lost to history, reduced to nothing but fragmented whispers in crumbling texts." He paused, his expression curdling into something complex—envy, perhaps, or awe. "To think you could wield it… No, Rhodes-sama must have taught you. How extraordinary."
Frieren remained silent. The man stood still for a long time.
Had he been thirty years younger, he would have paid any price, sacrificed any soul, to claim that magic for his own. It was the Divine Strike—a force capable of wiping nations from the map. The power he could command, the things he could possess…
But he was old.
Not merely tired, but a man whose fire was drowning in the encroaching dark. He had less than two years left. Even if the secrets of the Divine Strike were laid at his feet, he lacked the time to master it.
At this moment, he wanted only one thing: Eternity. If he could achieve immortality, he could learn the Divine Strike at his leisure.
"Bind her."
Four mages stepped forward, brandishing specialized artifacts—restraints designed specifically for mages, crafted to choke off the flow of mana the moment they touched the skin. To be safe, they wove binding magic around her, pinning her posture.
Frieren offered no resistance. She held out her wrists, allowing them to clamp the anti-magic shackles onto her.
The cold, biting touch of the metal hit her skin, and she felt her internal mana stream grind to a halt. It was sealed.
Yet, she felt no panic. An elite mage knows that when one's own spring runs dry, one must learn to pull from the reservoir of the world itself.
Frieren began to reach out, coaxing the ambient mana. She wasn't preparing a counter-attack—her body was too hollowed out to win a confrontation against this many foes—but she had a simpler task.
She began to activate the small magical relic embedded in her clothing. It was a teleportation token given to her by Rhodes. All it needed was a spark to send her back to the sanctuary of the Magic Association.
Five centuries of neglect, however, had clogged the internal mana-circuitry of the device. Frieren began the slow, grueling work of clearing the blockage, buying time with every quiet breath.
But she couldn't be sure how many it could carry. If it could only move her, Aura would be left behind.
"What are you planning to do with Aura?" Frieren asked the old man.
He frowned. "Who?"
"Aura," Frieren repeated. "The demon with one horn."
The man looked at Aura, then back at Frieren, his eyes flickering with blatant disdain. Weak, missing a horn, covered in blood—she was a creature he could crush under his heel at his leisure.
Aura felt the weight of that disgust. She wanted to say something, to reclaim a shred of her demonic pride, but looking at her own mangled state, she realized there was nothing left to defend.
"Kill her," the man said dismissively.
Demons were meant to die. It was a truth etched into his bones.
Aura's face went white as a sheet.
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