But Ash didn't even have time to feel relieved for himself when Basalt on the other side was also wearing a face full of shock.
Even though he had no idea why his own sword had suddenly become much heavier, to the point where it was hard to control for a moment, he was certain of one thing. This "human" had done it.
"I don't care if you're a mage or a warrior! Today you're dead either way!"
After another failed strike, Basalt, his eyes flashing with cruelty and arrogance, decided to go all out. He slammed his foot into the ground and charged straight into the zone of abnormal gravity, advancing like a heavily armored tank amid deep, thunderous tremors. Swinging his greatsword like a whirlwind, he slashed diagonally toward Ash.
But just as he closed in, the gravity on his body and on the blade suddenly vanished. The sword screamed through the air, passing right over Ash's head as Ash lowered his body and charged straight in.
Ash slipped directly under the blade. Before Basalt could even react, Ash darted past his feet in an instant, a streak of fresh blood spraying up as he went.
Only a moment later did Basalt feel the pain in his heel, his eyes flying wide open.
But he barely had time to ignore that tiny wound and turn around when the blood seeping from it, insignificant as it was, suddenly sprayed out like water from an opened tap under the returning gravity.
The heavy armor on his body pressed down on the wound, sending waves of searing pain through him and making him lose his balance and drop to one knee.
This situation left Basalt's mind filled with nothing but shock.
Because no matter how he thought about it, he could not imagine a mage who could display competent close combat and such bizarre magic at the same time. Enough to force him to kneel.
Even if it was a surprise attack, was it really possible for a mage to reach this level?
Before he could figure it out, Ash charged again with his blade held sideways, and halfway through, the gravity vanished once more.
It was precisely this constant shifting that made Basalt realize that switching between those two states seemed to take a bit of time. His eyes narrowed slightly.
In the next instant, he swung his greatsword, smashing it across the ground with a thunderous roar and kicking up a thick cloud of sand and dust, completely swallowing Ash and blocking his vision.
Then the massive blade broke through the dust in the very next moment, sweeping horizontally toward its target.
The speed of his response caught Ash off guard. Having gained the upper hand earlier, Ash had been a bit smug and assumed his opponent would retreat rather than attack. He reacted too slowly, instinctively swinging his blade back in a hasty attempt to block.
But this rushed defensive slash was clearly no match for the giant's fully charged strike.
With a heavy, muffled boom, Ash was sent flying. A fierce wind screamed past his ears as his body traced an arc through the air, slamming into the wall of a nearby building.
He even punched straight through the wall of the crumbling stone house, vanishing from everyone's sight.
Ash seemed finished, but no one at the scene was paying attention to his condition anymore. Or rather, no one had the spare capacity to.
The battlefield was filled with shouts and killing cries, yet in reality the fight between the demons and the elves, aside from Frieren and Millie, was almost completely one-sided. The air was filled not only with roars but also with the dying screams of people on the brink of death.
The elves had no room to spare, and Basalt couldn't be bothered with them for the moment. He strode over and, right in front of the stone house, swung his sword in a brutal sweep.
In an instant, the entire wall of the stone house shattered. Already in ruins, the building collapsed completely as it lost one side.
Amid the billowing dust, Basalt was about to rely on the loss of visibility to wildly hack and slash, cutting Ash down within the cloud.
But before he could bring down another strike, the dust and flying rubble suddenly seemed to be seized by some unknown force, hanging motionless in the air for a brief moment, and then—
BOOM!
A powerful repulsive force blasted the sand and stones like buckshot straight toward him, hitting him head-on before he could react.
Sand and rubble clattered uselessly against his armor, but the gaps in his visor were struck squarely.
"Always playing these cheap tricks!", Basalt cried out in pain, unable to open his eyes for the moment. Still, out of caution, he didn't move from his spot, instead wildly swung his greatsword to keep Ash from getting close.
But Ash had no intention of approaching anyway. With a flick of his hand, he hurled his saber high into the sky. Then purple lightning gathered in his palm, and he slammed it into the ground with a single strike.
The lightning writhed like a python, racing across the ground as it "crawled" toward the unmoving giant.
Where the violet electricity passed, the ground cracked and shattered, leaving scorched marks everywhere. In the blink of an eye, it coiled around the giant's body.
Maximum gravity was applied in that instant.
The earth let out a strained groan. Within a three-meter radius, the ground automatically sank, and the giant at the center, his legs already injured, couldn't withstand this gravity, far more concentrated and intense than before. Blood sprayed from his legs as he was forced down to one knee.
The moment his knee hit the ground, the abnormal gravity combined with his massive size and heavy armor caused the ground itself to give way, collapsing more than a meter deep beneath him.
Injured body. Abnormal gravity. The ground beneath his feet compressed and hardened.
Basalt was almost facing the same predicament Ash had been in earlier, unable to pull his legs free. He couldn't even stand up, only barely holding himself up to keep from collapsing completely.
When Ash had been unable to pull his legs from the ground earlier, he had only felt frustrated. But Basalt, by contrast, reacted as if he had suffered the greatest humiliation of his life.
"I'll kill you… I'll definitely KILL YOU! HUMAN!"
"Ah! Wait a second," Looking up at the position of the blade, Ash brushed the dust off himself and smiled as he shook his head, "You seem to have a bit of a misunderstanding."
"What?"
"Actually, I'm a demon."
"What?"
With no one else around, Ash calmly revealed the truth with a smile. Basalt froze instinctively, even suspecting that Ash was tricking him.
But before he could voice his doubt, Ash raised a hand and pointed to the sky.
"Take a look?"
"Hm?"
Basalt subconsciously looked up and saw a silver object in the sky, plummeting straight down toward him at incredible speed.
It was fast enough to be frightening. It must have been launched quite high by the repulsive force before being pulled back down by gravity.
But faced with this blade falling from the heavens, Basalt had no way to dodge. A sensation like his heart being seized by an invisible hand surged up, his pupils shrinking sharply.
Yet just as he recognized what it was, before he could even lower his head, the falling blade, trailing dazzling sparks, pierced straight through his helmet and stabbed into his forehead.
Blood poured instantly from every gap in the helmet. The massive body swayed once, then crashed to the ground in the next moment.
Watching this, Ash's face broke into a satisfied smile, "I was originally thinking that if this didn't work, I'd just have to drag things out into a battle of attrition. But this turned out to be unexpectedly effective."
If the blade had gone in even a little less, the two of them probably would have ended up locked in a stalemate.
That thought made him decide, right then and there, that he absolutely had to buy a greatsword in the future.
As Basalt fell, his consciousness melted away like ice and snow. Sadly, even at the very end, he never did figure out whether Ash was human or demon.
Ash didn't look at him again. After making up his mind to buy a greatsword, he shifted his magic and charged off to cut down the demons still remaining in the area.
Even though they were of the same race, just as humans kill humans, demons slaughter one another just as casually. No demon would feel any psychological burden over it. And at least, these elves were people he knew.
In the end, not all demons were loyal to the Demon King. And those who were forced into loyalty, most of them had no choice, acting under fear. Because demons, by nature, were loyal only to themselves.
Many powerful demons didn't care at all about the Demon King or even the survival of their race. The very structure of demon society meant that racial identity was extremely weak among them.
When the sounds of killing in the village finally faded, the demons' night raid came to an end. Yet fires and smoke burned everywhere throughout the settlement.
Because nothing remained after demons died, the ground was basically littered with elf corpses lying every which way.
The surviving villagers all wore grim expressions, but unexpectedly, no one broke down crying. They were calm to a degree that exceeded Ash's expectations.
"Feels like everyone's as cold as demons. Peaceful version demons, maybe?"
Ash, who still felt some sadness over the deaths of people he knew, walked among the bodies. Seeing Frieren silently staring at her companions' corpses with a blank expression, he couldn't help but mutter that small remark.
Frieren looked up at him, shooting him an annoyed glare.
"Saying that at a time like this. Are you prepared to get hit?"
"Don't get me wrong. I was just stating my thoughts. I didn't expect you to hear me when I said it that quietly. Normally I wouldn't say something like that in front of people."
"Saying it behind their backs is even worse."
"Alright then. Do you want to commit violence against the benefactor who just helped you? If you can really do that, I'd actually admire you. Go ahead."
"Useless."
"I'm the one who helped you, though?"
"Thank you, you useless bastard. But I'm not in the mood to chat right now," Frieren lowered her tired eyes as she looked at the remains of her companions around her.
Millie, her arm still bleeding and only temporarily wrapped in gauze for emergency treatment, walked over at this moment and asked with a sigh, "This village is finished too, huh. We should probably move somewhere else soon. What are you two planning to do?"
"That's what you're thinking about right now? You're even more useless than me," Ash stared at Millie in disbelief, but she just shrugged.
"Can't be helped. Everyone's so cold. The only person I actually know well is Frieren."
"I see."
'Peaceful version demons, huh?', This time, he kept the thought to himself, only sighing inwardly at the elves' indifference.
After calming himself a bit, and thinking of Serie, who cared just as little about her own kind, he stopped worrying about it. He glanced at the corpses around them and suggested, "Anyway, before moving somewhere else, we should deal with these bodies first."
"For now, that's all we can do."
Frieren sighed softly. She didn't say anything more to him and silently joined her people in cleaning up the remains scattered everywhere.
But before they could even finish dealing with the bodies, a stranger arrived late, stepping into the village that had suffered such devastation.
By coincidence, it was Ash's not-so-familiar senior sister, Flamme.
———
Noticing the signs of battle in the distance, as well as the beam of light that had shot into the sky, Flamme rushed over in a hurry. In the end, she was still a step too late.
By the time she arrived, the battle was already over. What shocked her was that there were still quite a few survivors in the village.
The demon general's armor and weapons lay empty on the ground, making it clear that the villagers had actually defeated him. And even—
"What? Ash?"
"Oh, isn't this my dear senior sister? How have you been lately?"
"No, this is only our second time meeting, right? And you're saying 'dear' with that blank face," Flamme looked at Ash speechlessly, suspicion creeping in, "Is this some kind of mockery?"
"You've misunderstood. I was just trying to improve our relationship as fellow disciples. A little icebreaker, you know."
"Putting that aside, did you deal with this guy?", Flamme glanced at Basalt's armor.
Ash pointed toward Frieren, "Not really. You could say this one cut in."
"This one…", That strange way of introducing her made Frieren, who was still dragging bodies, turn around and glare at him unhappily.
Flamme looked at him in confusion, "Why are you here?"
"Obviously to study. But honestly, I have no idea why I ran into this kind of disaster," He shook his head and sighed repeatedly.
Before Flamme could respond, he asked curiously, "By the way, you went back, right? How's Serie doing lately? I mean, her mood."
"Strangely good. Seems to be because you're not around."
"That's really unfortunate. I've been trying hard to fulfill my responsibilities as a disciple, you know?"
"I heard it was mostly Master taking care of you. What kind of disciple's responsibility is that?"
"You wouldn't understand. Your lifespan is so short, and I'm so weak. I might die anytime. Leaving an old lady alone like that, I have to find ways to make her learn to take care of herself, right?"
"That sounds reasonable, but in reality you're just too lazy to do things yourself, aren't you?"
"Yeah, that's exactly it."
"...."
Ash admitted it without hesitation. Even Frieren nearby looked at a loss for words, while Flamme rubbed her forehead with one hand, already feeling a headache and a bit of pity for the teacher who had raised her.
Still, she decided not to worry about it for now. This guy was just as strange as her master, strange in a different way.
She turned her gaze to the crowd, to Frieren, who was clearly the strongest there, and began talking with her while watching her move the bodies.
They seemed to talk about something, but Ash didn't really know what, nor was he interested.
He simply dug a pit, buried everyone together, then sat down nearby and drank the alcohol Millie handed him.
"What are you planning to do next, Millie?", he asked, taking a sip and turning to the elf beside him.
"Live aimlessly, I guess. Moderately."
"Is that really fine?"
"Come on. I don't want to end up like you."
"You should still be careful. Demons are slaughtering elves right now. Why not try learning some magic too?"
"Well… yeah, I guess I should pay more attention from now on," Millie, lively by elf standards but still a bit odd, smiled as she stood up. Walking toward Frieren, she waved at him without even turning her head, "I'm heading off. Hopefully we'll have a chance to meet again someday~"
"Yeah, see you."
They both knew that without making any promises, meeting again would likely be a luxury. The world was just too big.
Neither of them brought it up. Smiling, Millie went to say goodbye to Frieren.
After burying their companions, the other villagers also prepared
to leave one by one. But before that—
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