236 CHAPTER 235(Making A Statement)

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CHAPTER START---

When the bits and pieces of Heith fell to the floor most viewers looked away in horror, many even lost their breakfast and appetites.

Hedin could only stare at Thalie with a morbid acceptance, unsure of what he was supposed to do, assuming he could even do anything.

"Scatter!" he commands while swinging his weapon, a wooden casting staff with the bottom half replaced with a blade.

Thalie doesn't respond and simply parries his attack with her armored hand, the sound of metal clashing with metal is heard as she swats away all his rapid strikes easily with one hand, then raises her spear with the other.

CRACK!

She catches his blade between her fingers and raises her spear, swinging it in a wide arc behind her a sudden wall of wind forms around the entire fort, trapping everyone in a cage with her.

"No..." Hedin mutters as he leaps away, raising both hands and hurriedly chanting his lightning spell.

As he's in mid-air Hogni dashes forward, swinging his blade with the invisible length of it out toward Thalie, she turns her full body toward him and stakes her spear into the stone ground, a thin veil of green wind swirling around it, keeping the barrier active as she steps away.

Hogni's charge is met with an impossibly fast punch to the chest.

A sickening squelch can't even reach their ears before she throws Hedin's weapon toward its owner. Too fast for the level-6 to react it slams into the eye slit of his visor and instantly kills him, the blade piercing the back of his head and splitting his headgear.

A moment later he's on the floor, twitching as his body gives its final desperate death throws. As she looks at him, devoid of any mercy or kindness in her heart, a gleeful look appears in Thalie's eyes.

Hidden well beneath her helmet, the Champion of War felt her blood rush at the carnage and excitement, taking a step away from Hogni. The man was being held up by her fist, up to her forearm was buried into his chest, crushing his heart and gently tapping his spine.

She removes her hand and his body crumples to the floor as everyone watches, frozen in astonishment and fear. She flexes her bloody right hand, carefully inspecting her armored fingers as the useless pinging of arrows and spears bouncing off her armor rings out.

'It's really not the same when you can't feel their blood,' she muses to herself. Shaking her head at how removed she suddenly feels in this armor, her enemies can't even see her face in their last moments, something she always took joy in.

As she's enjoying their futile attempts, she senses four people that need to be made examples of, Freya's final first-class adventurers, at least the ones on this battlefield. But she'd judge the others after.

Taking a step back she avoids the first attack she sensed.

Primal Awareness allows her to effortlessly evade the large Great-Axe, it digs into the stone just an inch from her toes.

Glancing to her left she sees the attacker, one of the Gullivar brothers, the quartet turned trio after Kulve Tarorth.

"Pathetic," she says in a bored tone.

"Hngh!" the Pallum plants his feet on the ground and transitions into a horizontal swing.

Stepping forward she quickly appears just inches away from his body, perfectly safe and away from the blade of his weapon.

Placing both her hands on the sides of his head she casually twists his head. With a 'pop' and a 'crack', he's suddenly looking at his back.

"Ach," his body coughs up a mouthful of blood before she pushes him over with one gentle finger.

"NO!" Another identical Pallum yells out and attacks with his spear, his final brother flanks her with a sword.

"The full set," Thalie jokes and begins evading their attacks. She gracefully dances around their strikes, the lower level fighters had no chance of keeping up and simply had to sit back and prepare Magic Swords, ready to take advantage of any opening they see.

Standing at 6ft 2inches it would have been quite an amusing sight to see her gracefully avoid their strikes, the 4ft tall Pallum brothers constantly accelerating as they push themselves further and further.

All the while Thalie has her senses focused elsewhere, 'why haven't you showed yourself?' she wonders.

A few seconds later as she senses magic, a high concentration in one point, 'ahh, that's why...'

Finding her answer she ends the dance.

Kicking the Gullivar with the sword she literally takes off his right leg with the force and speed of her strike, armor and all.

"AHH---" his scream is cut short, as he was about to be ragdolled across the fort she reached out and held his arm, the sudden conflicting forces tear his shoulder out of the socket. Only being held together by muscle and torn skin.

CRACK!

The floor beneath him breaks as she slams him into it, all while casually batting away the spear thrusts from his worried brother.

Feeling him desperately trying to hit her ankles Thalie rests her large boot on his helmet, ignoring his desperate attempts to move her foot as she reaches out and grabs his brother.

"No no no no!" he cries as he hears Adamantite cracking, looking down to see his brother's helmet slowly breaking apart beneath her boot.

"Yes," she says in a strangely satisfied voice, all across the world pores raise and cold chills pass down many spines as people realize something horrific, she was enjoying this.

The Pallum under her boot desperately struggles, already bleeding out from his missing leg he breaks his fingers against her armor, up until his helmet shatters and she slowly crushes his skull.

Even more of the audience turns away as her boot meets the stone floor, pieces of skull and brain surrounding the metal.

'Really not liking these filters right now,' Thalie mentally groans. Her helmet filters out the scent of iron and blood before it reaches her, depriving her of something she's learned to enjoy.

"Fire!" The final Pallum yells out, desperately trying to get out of her grasp. She held him off the floor by his neck, all his limbs were kicking and punching to no effect. "Fire! Fire!" he desperately cries out, but nothing happens. They weren't ready yet.

"Shhh!" Thalie shushes him and places one hand on his hip.

"Wha---" his confusion becomes horror as she turns him sideways and places her other hand on his hip as well. "NO!" he cries out, before the pain sets in.

The tearing and breaking of armor, flesh, and bones are heard moments after the plates fall apart. His agonizing desperate wailing echoes across the world through Divine Mirrors as the onlookers see his skin tear apart, guts and organs dropping to the floor as the pain and shock overwhelm his brain and heart, killing him before he's properly torn apart.

"Hmm, now where is the last one?" Thalie asks aloud, looking up from her handiwork she sees the legion of lower-level adventures in formation, neatly lined up with different coloured Magic Swords in their hands, "ahh, I see..." she mutters as a wall of fire and lightning from almost a hundred Magic Swords descends upon her.

As the magic washes over Thalie's unmoving form, the onlookers are mesmerized and terrified.

Finn is among those having a partly unique reaction, while most are scared of their power, he silently mourns the Gullivar brothers.

Along his quest to be a great adventurer, someone the Pallum race could look up to as a beacon of hope, they were the only first-class Pallum adventurers he met. Even if they were from his rival familia, there was a sense of relief in knowing he wasn't in this quest entirely alone.

But now it was just him, one Pallum trying to uplift the entire race, just as it had been so many years ago when he began.

"I don't have the stomach for this," Yang abruptly breaks the breathless silence in the viewing room.

"You're leaving?" Hermes asks, certainly not expecting Yang of all people to walk out.

"Yeah, I can't watch this anymore, this is Thalie's forte," he gets up and begins slowly trudging out of the room, the effort of each step plain for everyone to see.

As Yang leaves everyone shifts back to the Divine Mirror, and as the flames and lightning begin fading away. Magic Sword after Magic Sword shattering in the hands of Freya's adventurers, Finn says what the entire world is thinking. "Really glad Yang is such a softie," he confesses, earning silent nods from most of the room.

As the orange flames cleared away Thalie's Primal Awareness alerted her of a new threat...no, a new annoyance.

Keeping her vision locked on the legion of adventurers trying to reorganize themselves she swings her right hand to the side to deliver a harsh punch.

BOOM!

Two fists collide, Thalie's coated in golden glowing magic and armor.

And Allen's coated in purple Destruction Magic.

"RAARGHH!" he bellows out, putting more and more of his magic into this attack, the only thing they had that was able to hurt Yang when they fought him, but even then, he had help.

"Finally," Thalie chuckles as his magic fades away, in a flicker of gold her fist bats his arm aside and grabs him by the side of his head, bringing him in front of her where she holds him with both her hands, feet hanging above the ground and desperately kicking as both her hands tighten around his skull like a vice.

"Ngh! Ugh! Argh!" he groans in pain, kicking and punching desperately, his blows doing nothing but breaking his fingers and cracking his own Adamantite.

"Please," she scoffs. "This armor was made to fight beside Yang, you can't even scratch it..."

CRACK!

His metal visor cracks apart and falls between them, clattering to the ground.

The fear and anger in Allen's eyes are drowned out as blood begins rushing out in any way it can. Streaming down from his eyes and nose, leaking out of his ears, his teeth shatter with how hard he's biting down on nothing.

Jaw cracking and dislocating, and Thalie drinks in all the misery and fear, she's wanted this for a long time and it's finally here. The person who has to most malice toward Yang is literally in her grasp.

POP!

His skull shatters and Thalie's hands meet in the middle. Clad in armor, a wet clap ripples out as his corpse crumples at her feet.

"Well," she steps over him and looks toward the legion of remaining adventurers. "All your strong people are dead, so let's finish this..."

The Divine Mirrors shift back to Hermes.

The god looks green in the face, a sour expression for all to see. "Well, um," he squeezes his eyes shut and takes a breath to focus himself. "As the referee, I believe it would be fair to declare the Hephaestus familia as the winners of this War game. Any objections?" he asks Hephaestus and Freya.

Hephaestus shakes her head to indicate 'no,' Freya silently gets up and begins walking out of the room. All eyes shift to her, trying to glean anything from her stone-cold facade. Both her sisters can easily see past it, but Hephaestus is still hurt, she doesn't want to comfort Freya right now, at least not yet.

And Loki can only sit and watch, stuck between both sides and hating every minute of it.

"I'll take that as a 'no' then," Hermes says. "I hereby declare Hephaestus familia as the winners of this War Game," he says in a sickened tone, abruptly shutting off the Divine Mirrors.

In every other case, resounding cheers would be heard across the city, but not even those who won their bets cheered, all sickening and disgusted to their core at the massacre they just witnessed.

"Tsubaki," Hephaestus commands, rising from her seat and moving toward the door. "Let's go, we need to figure out how to use Freya's assets..."

---10 Minutes Later...

Standing in the rubble of Freya's fort, Thalie and Welf are speaking plainly with their helmets off, already receiving word from Hephaestus that the war game was over.

"Looks like we're done here," Welf says. "Think anyone survived?"

Thalie focuses for a moment, trying to stretch her new sense much further. "Mmm, I don't sense any threats so I got them all, but I need to check the other place."

"Right," Welf sighs and puts his helmet back on. "I'll meet you back at Babel, need to check if any of their equipment survived."

"You mean our equipment," Thalie corrects him.

"Yeah, that..."

Putting on her helmet Thalie leaps into the air, a thin veil of green wind surrounds her as she stands on the shaft of her spear, surfing through the air toward Orario.

Soaring high above the ground she allows the wind to strip the blood and gore away, but the scent remains, it would take a bit more effort to get the reek of their fear and desperation out of her armor.

Looking down at the city she can see people still crowded in the streets, loudly chattering and trying to collect their bets. The thousands of gods that had gone to public places to better show the War Game were still talking to the masses. She could even hear chanting, likely denouncing her methods, but words can't do anything against her, against them.

'I wonder if Mikoto watched the whole thing?'

She couldn't decide if it was good or bad either way. On one hand, she rarely got to show off how powerful and skilled she is for her daughter, but on the other...she knows Mikoto was a softie, sometimes even worse than Yang.

Something she's been unsuccessful in 'training' out of the girl. "Of course my daughter would be some bleeding heart maiden," she scoffs while dropping out of the air, landing in Folkvangrs' courtyard and making a small crater.

Walking toward the steps she only senses two people within, one on the top floor, and another underground.

"Should be quick," she says to herself. Walking up to the door and found it unlocked. "Makes sense this wouldn't be locked, that's convenient..."

Exploring the mansion for a bit she finally found what she was looking for, a reinforced metal door.

"Dungeon?" she reaches out and tries to open it, only to find it locked. "Yeah, probably a dungeon...probably a sex dungeon---" she stops herself, realizing her error. "No that would be at Yang's place knowing her, she wouldn't have use for it here."

With ease Thalie tears the adamantite door and hinges out of the stone wall, dropping it unceremoniously in the hallway as she walks down the stone stairs.

Making her way to the bottom her heavy footfalls cause the one resident to perk up, already alert from the noise earlier, now not recognizing the footsteps.

"Lady Freya?" a quiet and gentle voice asks.

Thalie follows her instincts to a small cell, no, a cage. Barely large enough to comfortably fit a big dog. A four-foot metal cube made entirely of smooth bars and a gate.

"What the hell are you?" Thalie asks.

"Hm? Who are you?" The woman asks, panic creeping into her voice. She strains her neck to look up at Thalie, only two empty and sunken eye sockets are there, sewn shut. Her plane bald head matches the rest of her naked body. Clearly torn apart and burnt, a patchwork of tortured skin on her shriveled and starved body, hunched over in a cage with no hope of escape.

"Thalie," she admits quietly, not sure what she was looking at.

"Thalie?" the woman muses. "Thalie... you're that bitch helping him steal my goddess!" Horn spits with shocking venom. "You aren't welcomed here! You and him should go die! We were happy before you! I had my G---" she freezes as the rear blade of Thalie's spear pierces her heart.

With a wet sloshing noise she removes the spear and Horn falls onto her back, tortured and burnt body naked and bare as Freya left her.

"G-godess...Fr-eya..." her final breath barely escapes, the name of her true love still on her lips to the very end.

Thalie simply shakes her head and begins making her way to the other presence.

Marching toward Freya's room Thalie doesn't even bother knocking, barging in to find the goddess in shambles, no more tears left to flow down her face. Just sitting on the floor, back against her bed as she wallows in misery

One empty wine bottle is already beside Freya with a fresh one in her grasp as she stares at the wall. The furniture flipped and the mirror shattered, as if a tornado hit the room.

"You look pathetic," Thalie says as she approaches the goddess.

Freya glances up at her before she takes a swig of wine.

Thalie releases her spear, the weapon floats in mid-air where she set it. Removing her helmet she sets it on the point of the spear and approaches the bed.

"I lost everything, I just...lost," Freya mutters, voice cracking and shaking.

"Well," Thalie sits on the bed. "Not everything, you would have if I had absolute control but Hephaestus and Yang were whining like babies, they still love you."

Freya smiles bitterly, " Is that why you're suddenly being nice to me?"

"Shut up," Thalie groans. "I'm not doing this for you, ok. Just, give them some time and go talk to them. We'll be stuck in Orario for at least a month before Yang is healed."

"You think he'd ever speak to me?" Freya asks, desperate for the answer she wants.

"He thinks the world of you Freya, and always will. When Mia told us you were trying to recruit people he agreed with Mia that her little pub would be untouched, in exchange for her information, nothing we didn't know already but, he's a softie."

"So you'll be taking her into Hephaestus familia?"

"No, she's a rat covering her own ass, you keep her, that keeps your seat in the Denatus at least, that's partly why he did it. And Hephaestus is angry, and hurt, but she won't leave you bankrupt and homeless, she loves you, for the life of me I can't understand why."

Freya chuckles darkly, "they really do love me if you're taking the time to be nice to someone..."

"I'm doing this for them not you," Thalie grumbles. "You'd be starving and homeless if it were up to me, but two of the few people I care about really care about you, so this is all you get, and I won't mention that thing in the basement."

"Thank you, that may be a bit much for Yang..."

Thalie gets up and walks toward her equipment, "a bit much for any sane person at least, oh...Welf and I did decide to take the top ten floors of Babel from you..." Thalie puts on her helmet and begins walking away.

Freya smiles, "I partly expected you to come here to kill me, this is much more preferable."

Thalie shakes her head and waves back at her, "I brought the wrong spear for that," she jokes, slightly confusing Freya. Not many people knew that her Divine Champion Spear could withstand the Arcanum backlash from killing a god after all.

Leaning back Freya takes a large mouthful of wine and runs a hand through her hair, turning her head to look at Babel, focusing on the shattered planet-like soul, carefully studying all the pieces. Some drift closer together, others trying to run away from the core, never in harmony, always conflicted.

"So...what happens now?"

END CHAPTER---

Fried my brain to write this, almost 200 chapters of Yang X Freya to get us here.