Aurafall: Fragments Of Power-Chapter 47: Death Of Hafgrim

Humans were dying left and right. Vikings were also dying, but that didn’t matter much to Hafgrim. As long as humans kept dying, especially the Aura Farmers, things were seen as going smoothly.

Hafgrim himself had killed a lot of them in the battle, except for that sneaky young boy with wooden limbs. He was just too elusive to be caught, hiding somewhere in the tall trees and frequently sending green blasts at Hafgrim and his soldiers.

Hafgrim was fed up with the game of hide-and-seek, so he continued battling the other Aura Farmers while hoping to kill the young man eventually.

Hafgrim’s long spear, a terrifying length of blackened iron that looked more like a portable mast than a weapon, swept through the air with a low, predatory whistle. He used the sheer leverage of the shaft to crush ribs and snap necks before the spearhead even reached his targets.

He stood in a clearing of churned mud and frozen blood, his eyes fixed on a trio of Aura Farmers who had managed to corner themselves against a rock face.

"Show me," Hafgrim grunted, the wind whipping his furs. "Show me what you’ve got."

The first Farmer, a woman with silver-trimmed robes, stepped forward. She slammed her palms together, and the air around her changed.

"Solar Flare! Blinding Prisms!"

A dozen crystalline mirrors erupted from the ground, catching the dim light of the Crimson Orb and magnifying it into searing, concentrated beams. The light struck Hafgrim’s chest, the heat intense enough to char the leather of his armor. He didn’t flinch. He let the heat wash over him, watching with cold interest as she strained to maintain her focus.

"There was no need to yell like that."

Then, he moved. He simply extended his lead arm and thrust the massive spear. The weapon was so long he didn’t even need to close the distance. The iron tip punched straight through the center of a prism, shattering the light-construct into glass shards, and continued forward until it buried itself in the woman’s throat.

She fell without a sound, the prisms dissolving into sparks.

The second Farmer didn’t wait. He roared, his hands glowing with a muddy brown aura. Hafgrim felt his boots sink three inches into the frozen mud. The gravity around his body multiplied—a crushing force that tried to pull his shoulders to his knees. His armor groaned, the metal plates snapping against each other under the artificial weight.

"Heavy," Hafgrim muttered, his face turning a dark, bruised red from the pressure.

He planted the butt of his long spear into the ground, using it as a crutch to keep himself upright. The Farmer pushed harder, sweat pouring down his face as he tried to flatten the Viking Warlord into the dirt.

Hafgrim shifted his grip. With a sudden, explosive burst of raw physical power, he wrenched the spear upward, using the length of the shaft to pole-vault through the gravity field. He soared ten feet into the air, the anchor snapping as he left its range.

He descended like a falling star, the butt of the spear crushing the Farmer’s skull into the very earth he had tried to manipulate.

The third Farmer, a young man barely out of the Academy, scrambled backward, his hands trembling as he conjured a glowing blue shield of static.

Hafgrim didn’t even look at him. His head snapped upward, his gaze locking onto a thick branch fifty feet above.

A bolt of green energy hissed through the mist, striking Hafgrim’s shoulder. Thorny vines erupted from the impact site, wrapping around his arm and chest, trying to fuse his limbs to his torso.

"Found you," Hafgrim hissed.

High in the canopy, Taren’s porcelain limbs caught the light. The young man looked down with that same honest, sheepish smile, already preparing another green blast from his wooden palm.

Hafgrim ignored the vines. He ignored the terrified Farmer in front of him. He gripped the center of his long spear, his muscles bulging until the leather straps on his forearms burst. He thrust it upward with the force of a siege engine.

The spearhead tore through the canopy, the iron tip shearing through branches the size of a man’s waist. Taren dived from his perch, his porcelain wood limbs clicking as he tumbled through the air to a lower branch.

"Stop jumping, boy!" Hafgrim roared.

He wrenched the spear back down, the weapon’s incredible length allowing him to swat at the high branches as if he were clearing cobwebs.

"You’re making me bored," Hafgrim growled, stepping over the last remaining Aura Farmer—who was now paralyzed with fear—and heading toward the tree where Taren was hiding. "And bored Vikings tend to start fires."

"How about I pick on someone your own size? Trust me, I’m not boring."

Hafgrim paused in fear. Did that voice just echo in his head? Was he just hearing things?

"I can assure you, you aren’t hearing things."

"Who are you?! Get out of my head, right now!" he yelled in a rage.

"Your head? I’m to your left."

Hafgrim turned to his left and suddenly sidestepped a blurred darkness that was charging at him. He immediately turned and tried to punch the darkness before it could attack him from behind.

The darkness staggered backward. It was, in fact, just a human in torn dark robes with long black hair and porcelain skin, wielding an odachi.

Fang Rui’s gaze was expressionless.

"What do you think you’re doing?! How dare you?!" Hafgrim yelled in anger.

Fang Rui didn’t reply and only charged at Hafgrim again. Hafgrim gritted his teeth and tried to block the attacks, but Fang Rui was just too fast and precise to be caught.

Fang Rui moved to his front, making eye contact with him, and stopped. Hafgrim’s spear had already pierced Fang Rui’s stomach, but just as a dark smile was about to appear on the Viking’s face, a vertical crimson line appeared on his neck, spraying blood.

Hafgrim’s eyes widened in horror.

"When... did... you... do that?"

Slowly, Hafgrim’s head fell from his body, but Fang Rui caught it in his hand, letting the body fall lifelessly to the ground as the spear slowly slid out of his stomach during the fall.

[You’ve slain a Gemini, Frost-Bite Marauder]

Fang Rui held the head up so everyone in the battle could see it and also sent a mental message. Slowly, everyone stopped to look at the head of their warlord. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

Hafgrim was dead.