# The Aurora Stops
The aurora stops. The undulating red lights split cleanly. Following that line downward, the split Queen came into view.
Just one offensive move. That alone made everyone forget to breathe.
Ivan looked straight ahead while lifting his tingling arm. Taking a deep breath, he briefly composed himself.
He had reached it. A fragment of Maximillian from that time.
"That power."
The bisected Queen growled ominously.
"It belongs to me."
Her body reattached with viscous fluid. The frozen sky began to flow again, and a more vivid crimson aurora distorted in the atmosphere.
"Elfihera. Do it."
"Ah, yes!!"
Elfihera rushed frantically toward the milestone. Oswald, Lundis, and Lucia followed behind her.
Even amid this chaos, the Queen was looking only at Ivan.
Doubt about him using her divine power. Or perhaps rage at him stealing what was hers...
No.
"It's fear."
At Ivan's words, the Queen's demeanor changed. Her burning emotions were so blatant they pierced his skin like arrows. That level of killing intent had enough substance to harm even a superhuman.
"You. How dare you... You should be more careful with your tongue."
"Will you commit suicide if I'm polite?"
"...What?"
"Would you kill yourself if I showed respect? If so, it's worth considering."
If this situation could end without fighting, that would be more efficient.
Ivan was a person of such self-control. But all the "strong ones" in this world were beings without reason or rationality.
Taking his words as provocation, the Queen gasped and stretched out her hand.
"I will not kill you—!!"
*BOOM—!!*
Magic exploded as she raised her hand. An aerial explosion with such powerful magic that, despite being a low-level spell, it already possessed impact comparable to dwarven explosive weapons.
Though he sensed the attack from its precursors, Ivan chose to redirect the impact rather than dodge.
*WHOOSH—!*
He deflected the shock with his well-guarded arm. Still, his body was inevitably thrown back. As he managed the remaining force, the surrounding terrain changed rapidly.
Dozens of meters passed in an instant. He quickly checked his landing spot with a sidelong glance and swiftly turned his body.
*THUD.*
His coat fluttered from the impact. Ivan rose from his crouched position and watched the approaching Queen.
Good. He'd lured her away. Now he just needed to buy time until the milestone was neutralized.
Even his best attack couldn't finish her off. Her life force was beyond comprehension. As long as the milestone functioned, that being would endlessly revive.
A vessel made of clay formed from grinding the flesh and souls of countless deep-sea monsters, with elven racial potential. That totality kneaded together.
And into that, divine spirituality was poured and sealed with the Queen's consciousness. A manufactured god. Not something that could be killed by conventional means.
But that's fine.
I, too, cannot be killed by conventional means.
I do not engage in battle through conventional methods.
That's how he had been trained. Ivan watched the charging Queen with cold, settled eyes.
"I will not kill you. You will have eternal life. Trapped in permafrost, watching the end of your kind while being devoured by maggots every moment...!!"
*BOOM—!!*
Numerous spells detonated in succession. Currents racing across his skin created long burns, and fireballs tore through his abdomen, burning pieces of his intestines.
Telekinesis twisted his nerves and muscles, and terrible freezing caused his flesh to freeze before frostbite could set in.
But.
Gripping the axe, regulating his breath.
Once more.
*SLASH—!!*
The aurora splits. The vortex scatters. The Queen's body is halved and shattered.
Between the broken fragments, the scattered divine power briefly dissolved back into Ivan's bloodstream with his breath.
Thump, thump.
No matter what injuries he sustained, the pulsation never stopped. Despite enduring terrible curses, violence, magic, and destruction that would have killed an ordinary person dozens of times over. Endlessly.
Indeed, divine power, regardless of its direction, always carries one fundamental principle.
Creation.
That's why even priests of evil gods can use basic healing spells. After all, divine power was originally a fragment of the power that created life.
So, it's natural that any god's divine power can grow new flesh in a mere mortal and restore strength to creaking joints.
Therefore. Pain is an illusion.
"Cough!!"
He spat out dead blood. Even as terrible pain like showering in potion liquid tore through his entire body, he still opened his eyes wide and stood up.
Pain is a crisis detection signal felt by living beings. It can be considered an early warning system to recognize abnormalities in the body.
Therefore, in a situation where all current injuries cannot be true "crises"...
Pain is an illusion. It's phantom pain that a mortal body feels when handling the alien power of divinity.
Call it forced if you like. Call it self-hypnosis. But if he could just swing the axe one more time.
*SLASH—!!*
"It's useless!! I know your pathetic plan. While you buy time, those incompetent fools intend to tamper with my filter!!"
So this fight between them could no longer be called a struggle.
It was like they were tearing at each other's flesh to fill their own bellies.
Ivan, who filled his flesh with divine power that emerged every time he tore the Queen's body.
And the Queen, who ultimately recovered, tore Ivan's body, and replenished divine power again.
"Do you think it will work? Do you think those worms can succeed? My years have been ten thousand, and my season is eternal!"
"Is it because you're afraid that you can't turn your back on me?"
"What?!"
Ivan struck down with his axe again as he spoke.
"You want to interfere right now, you want to stop my companions, but. Aren't you afraid to turn your back on me?"
"How dare you!!"
"Yes. Try it. If you can, turn around and go to my companions. If you're not afraid, do it."
The Queen, however, couldn't turn around. She just stared at Ivan with an empty face, growling.
That's right.
The 30 winters Ivan Petrovich Yeremov had experienced. During that time, what he did best was ambush, tracking, and hunting.
He had lived by devouring opponents who turned their backs. The Annihilation Squad. The lives of all those men outside who had crumbled were just like his.
So, don't turn around. Don't take your eyes off me.
Repeating that to himself. Ivan raised his axe.
*SLASH—!!*
Divine power bursts forth. Tearing at the fear mixed between intense anger and killing intent.
Dozens of attacks go back and forth like that. Breaking down each other's bodies, devouring, refilling, and again eternally. Like the cycle of seasons, as if they had become each other's mirror images.
And at some point.
*HALT.*
"Ha!!"
When Ivan's body stopped, the Queen shouted loudly. While the flesh could handle divine power, weapons could not.
Axe, dagger, pistol. Without exception. They had all crumbled from exposure to excessive divine power.
The Queen shouted with laughter.
"Now what trick will you perform? Will you charge like a beast with your bare hands? Look. What can you do alone? You now stand before the eternal winter!!"
The victor's laughter echoed. Close-quarters combat with flesh against flesh would be difficult. In this situation of filling flesh with divine power, he instinctively knew what would happen if skin overlapped.
They would mix.
Flesh would mix. From a technical perspective, Ivan was not much different from the Queen now. In this situation where they both drew on the same divine power to recover, grow flesh, and deliver blows.
If there was one thing different, it was will. That alone.
"Come. Fall into my embrace. I'll let you live forever."
Despite her taunting words, Ivan just stood still, glaring, not approaching.
The Queen also didn't approach Ivan. It could be due to instinctive fear, or perhaps because there was a way to achieve a more perfect victory.
It must be the latter. The Queen thought proudly.
Anyway, like this, since he has no way to resist, bombarding him with magic alone will deplete him. Once he's completely depleted and neutralized, then methodically. Starting from this island.
Covering this world with eternal winter, endlessly feasting on the flesh of the living.
To be reborn as the true god of this mortal world, and once again ascend to the heavens.
"If you reject my favor, fine. You. Beast standing alone. Beast who will die alone. Fulfill your wish."
The Queen stretched out her hand. The aurora flowed, and magic began to concentrate.
Ivan looked at the broken axe handle with a bitter smile.
Have I bought enough time? It's hard to gauge how long we've been fighting.
But well, if Beolgrin has a plan, he'll help those kids. Everyone has their designated role, and I might as well think this was my final role.
With that thought, he watched the gathering magic.
In the segmented time, slowly curved space, under the undulating red aurora. In this still life where seconds and seconds are illustrated.
*PING—.*
Line-of-fire detection flashed.
*PIIIIING—!!*
Ivan quickly turned his head and reached out toward the trajectory caught by the line-of-fire detection. With a heavy sensation, something landed in his hand.
A Krasilov military longsword.
"Dmitri..."
With a small insignia engraved on it. Major Dmitri Cherkatov. The last rank part of the insignia had been scratched out with a knife. A dot representing lieutenant colonel had been forcibly drawn.
From far below, based on the spire he was standing on, beyond this frozen time, laughter was heard. A familiar voice.
"The Annihilation Squad is a legion even when standing alone!!"
Since each person's training represents everyone.
Ivan looked up.
Dozens of line-of-fire detections pierced his body. Ping, piiiing, some too big, too small, too fast, too slow. But all in one direction.
Dozens of weapons plunging toward his body. He could read the meaning and will contained in them.
Battle axes, longswords, rapiers, daggers, and short spears.
*THUD—!!*
Numerous weapons stuck in a circle around him. Snow rose with a soft sound. Dust scattered from the broken spire.
Ivan, standing in the center, slowly raised his head.
"There was a time when I called this scenery home. Do you remember, Yon?"
A low voice penetrated his ears.
The voice of a swordsman who still claimed to be the strongest elf despite losing one eye and one arm to the Seven-Dragon General.
"Back then, I told you I would name this concept 'memories.'"
In the winter of a snowy coniferous forest, on a battlefield filled with countless weapons, utilizing everything within reach, replicating every technique remembered—that concept from those days was the memory that permeated his entire life.
So.
"No mortal can live forever. But memories. All those you mourn will accompany you eternally. Therefore—."
Cut through eternity.
The swordsman threw his longsword with those final words.
Ping, the line-of-fire detection warned more fiercely than ever before.
However, with developed line-of-fire detection, all projectile weapons are useless against a superhuman. No matter how intense the premonition, one can always dodge, deflect, or catch it.
*CRACK—!!*
The flying longsword appeared to move slowly. Ivan's left hand swept along the long blade of the sword, finally stopping at the guard, and gripped it firmly.
And letting that momentum flow through, continuing in the same direction, he poured in divine power.
Adding his own strength to Edelplat's strike, just as martial arts are passed down through generations.
*SLASH—!!*
In the frozen time, Ivan swung the sword, brought down the axe, thrust the spear, and stabbed with the dagger as he charged.
"Move 1.2mm to the right from there. Then 3mm in the 75-degree direction. Move like that."
Elfihera channeled magic while sweating coldly. Her father's voice was in her ear.
Kuuung.... The milestone vibrated, shaking the earth. Beyond that, faintly, she could hear the shouts of her companions fighting.
While blocking the numerous monsters rushing from all directions, ensuring that not even one reached Elfihera.
Oswald's scream was heard. A monster seemed to have pounced on him. Above that, tang, a sharp gunshot rang out. Lundis had rushed over, fired his gun, and was pushing the monster away with his shoulder.
Lucia was running around, stabbing daggers into the monsters' necks and pulling them out again. Her eyes glowed red as she drank the monsters' blood.
And she, Elfihera, was still watching them all from above with her eyes closed.
Her vision expanded. She could see Ivan's back as he fought while his body was breaking apart.
Her vision expanded again. Numerous elves were blankly looking up at the aurora, or at the giant tree that had grown.
Her vision expanded further. She could see all of Kalion at a glance.
The flow of magic—no, heavenly energy—connected like a spider web to the twelve milestones was visible.
Her vision expanded once more.
She could see the sunken land beneath the sea. Traces of the old Kalion continent...
The black universe and the blue ocean created a contrast, and the sun was rising again after circling the hemisphere.
And on her hand, her father's warm hand overlapped.
"I'm sorry, Elfihera."
"What...?"
"You were my final puzzle. My last piece. To finally be worthy of grasping the hand in this game board. I was using you."
The humor faded from her father's voice. So unlike him that Elfihera suddenly felt sad.
"Don't forgive me. Live your life now. Whatever you achieve, you're a child who can do it. And with a little lingering attachment, let me say..."
Her father muttered in an almost inaudible voice.
"I loved you. My daughter."
The warmth enveloping her hand disappeared. Finally, a gentle breeze scattered her hair. Like a caress.
Elfihera hastily raised her head.
"Fa-father...! No... Dad...!"
"Winter has continued for ten thousand years."
Now Beolgrin's voice was no longer directed at Elfihera. He was declaring to somewhere in the sky.
"The sun rises and sets. The moon rises and sets, rain and wind, clouds form and scatter. This world orbits the distant sun for a year. And another year."
So no season can last forever.
"If the ten thousand years of winter have passed, then spring arrives."
If the duration of the new season were to be set, it would again be ten thousand years.
And if we were to name that season.
"It is the spring of humanity."
The winter of the gods ends. All game boards have fallen. The god absorbs the fragments scattered on the ground, stirs them in one hand. Now distinguishing this world from the world of gods.
Only one.
To kill winter.
*Click.*
As Elfihera's hand touched the final circuit—
In snowy Idranhill, an elf suddenly shifted his gaze to the sky.
A snow flake fell onto his fingertip with a soft tap.
Looking at the snow that didn't melt even after a moment, the elf pressed his misty eyes and looked at it again.
The snowflake, neither cold nor melting, had somehow become a flower petal fluttering on the back of his hand.
"A flower petal...?"
In the distance, the east began to dawn.
The elf knelt and wept as he blankly watched the eastern sky of Idranhill where flower petals were falling.
EP30. To Kill Winter.