Dungeon of Niflheim

“The world of Nova wasn’t created solely by Dark God-sama, it was a joint effort with Light God-sama. The two of them combined their powers to create the world and fill it with life since it was too difficult for a single God.” Maya fiddled with her empty glass.

“Before you and your siblings Dark God-sama created thousands if not tens of thousands of different species for Nova as did Light God-sama.” Frost was taken aback by the numbers and felt the greatness of his father.

“For example, Dark God-sama created black dragons whereas Light God-sama created white dragons each having dominion over their respective dark and light magic. As Nova became more and more diverse in its inhabitants more effort was put into creating the next species. Eventually Light-God sama created a species known as humans.” Maya’s voice suddenly dropped an octave revealing her anger.

“At first and in general humans are just like dwarves or beastmen, not leaning to any one side and being adapt in many elements.” Killing intent started to leak from Maya once again so she drank 3 glasses in quick succession.

“Several hundred years ago a church called the Church of Light was founded, no one’s really sure how or why it started but they began to besmirch Dark God-sama. Which wasn’t really a big deal as there were many in the past who had a vendetta against the Gods however, they quickly became incredibly radical and dangerous. They preached human supremacy in the name of the Light God, aiming to reduce any creations of Dark God-sama to slaves or outright killing them.” The glass in her hand shattered from her squeezing too hard.

“They established a human supremacist country known as the Holy White empire on the central continent and shortly after its creation it began expanding its borders through force, subduing and enslaving races such as beastmen which they abhorred most of all. Massive wars spread throughout Nova because of them resulting in an uncountable number of deaths, scarring the world forever.” Maya could barely restrain herself; her eyes were ablaze, and veins bulged on her forehead.

.....

“With the combined effort of many countries and powerful people the Holy White empire was eventually restricted to the central continent unable expand any further. But they are constantly eyeing for weaknesses among the entities that fought against them, aiming to exploit them so as to achieve their goals.” Cold sweat covered Frost’s body and fear filled his heart.

‘How could one church cause such horror?’ The more Maya talked the more fearful he became, the only solace being that he was on the Northern Yangmir continent, far away from them.

“Unfortunately for the vast majority of non-human species in the central continent they live in constant fear and oppression.” Maya felt powerless at this thought tears threatening to spill from her eyes. She was a fenrir, not unlike a beastmen, her own kind were suffering such hardship.

“Why didn’t father or even the Light God do anything?” Frost couldn’t understand, from his short interaction with Dark he felt that he couldn’t be someone who’d just stand by and watch this happen.

“Because they couldn’t.” Maya looked downward in pain.

“Huh why?” If they created the world and all its inhabitants, then why couldn’t they simply erase a little church.

“Dark God-sama and Light god-sama cannot interfere with the world on an individual level, they made this agreement right at the beginning of time so as to impart fairness. They can only erase entire species if they are deemed a threat to Nova and since not all humans were involved, they couldn’t bring themselves to do it, leaving them powerless to act.” Frost could feel the pain in her voice.

“But that’s.”

“Infuriating right,” Frost couldn’t help but agree, all that power but unable to do anything with it. He now understood his father’s reaction at the mention of the Holy White empire.

“How did they even manage to gain so much power?” This was what shocked Frost most, how did this church manage to become so dangerous.

“Haaaaaaa” Maya released a deep sigh.

“Originally they were just strong masters of light magic making them adept at fighting those with the dark element but that wouldn’t be enough to fight so much opposition. Apparently, they managed to gain a divine artefact drastically increasing their firepower.”

‘Divine artefact?’ Another new term.

“What’s that?”

“No one’s really sure but it was related to the Light God, luckily during the grand war it was destroyed playing a major part in the empire retreating.” Maya held up her hands and shook her head, she knew nothing more than that about it.

Frost took a deep breath strengthening his resolve.

“Tell me everything you can think of.” Maya looked him directly in the eyes before nodding and downing the rest of the sake.

For the next 2 hours Maya spoke of all the Holy White empire and the Church of Light’s transgressions as well as the progression of the grand war step by step.

According to Maya the Church of Light still had hidden enclaves dotted around the other four continents so it’s still possible to run into them.

“Well... shit,” was all Frost could say, his earlier assumption about being safe on the Yangmir continent was narrow minded. Now he needed to be wary of a hidden enemy.

“That’s an understatement but yeah shit.” Maya cleared up the broken glass with a dustpan while replying.

“I can’t say it was the kind of break I was looking for but hopefully that was what you wanted.” She scraped the shards into a bucket in the kitchen along with the leftover sake bottle.

“Oh, and you owe me a bottle of premium sake, this shit was expensive.”

“Ugh,” Frost wasn’t expecting that, but he understood her reasoning.

‘Oh well I guess I could get her a bottle when we visit Furano.’ He planned to visit the nearest town shortly after stabilising the rate of adventurers.

“Yeah, I got what I wanted; shall we head back to the training room now?” Performing some exercise would help relieve the built-up tension.

“Exactly what I was thinking young master, I really need to let loose.” She whispered the last part while slamming her fists together.

A shiver ran down Frost’s back.

‘Shit what’s she thinking now.’

The two of them teleported back to the now spotless training room to carry out the next step, weapon training.

“Hard to believe I bled here.” There wasn’t a spot of red left, it was back to a pristine white.

“Don’t worry we can always make you bleed again.” An evil smile returned to Maya’s face.

“Demon,” Frost muttered quietly under his breath.

“Hmm what was that?” Maya’s head swivelled round like a doll looking incredibly frightening.

“N...nothing”

“That’s what I thought.” She happily smiled sending shivers down his back.

“Alright weapon training let’s get started.” She loudly clapped to start the lesson.

“Earlier when you were using chakra you created many different weapons such as staffs, daggers, swords and stuff right?”

“Yeah, I didn’t know which one fit me right or was best for the situation, so I tried lots.” He even tried a massive hammer like Maya’s, but it was far too heavy for him to use causing an embarrassing situation.

“Your status didn’t reveal any latent skills in regard to weapon types so it’s natural to feel that way.” She touched the silver bracelet on her wrist once again, summoning what appeared to be a lump of soft metal.

“A metal slime?” It looked just like the frost slimes he summoned only grey in colour and motionless.

“Not exactly but I see the resemblance.” Maya lightly laughed at his comment.

“This is known as morphing metal; it can alter its shape with the injection of mana.” Maya injected a little of her mana into the metal lump causing its shape to drastically change.

Maya now held a massive metal hammer in her hands.

“Here you try,” She tossed the metal hammer towards Frost without hesitation causing him to panic and flail his hands and brace himself for its weight.

However, the instant the hammer left Maya’s hands it returned to the form of a metal lump making it easy to catch.

“Without mana it can’t retain its shape and even when in its weapon form it’s no better than simple iron.” She shook her head in disappointment. If the morphing metal was incredibly strong it’d likely put blacksmiths out of business.

“Then what’s the point of it?” He fiddled around with metal lump, it was lighter than he expected, soft too.

Suddenly a massive amount of killing intent rammed into Frost tensing his entire body. He instinctively raised his hands along with morphing metal in defence. He released his mana to create chakra armour, but it inadvertently flowed into the morphing metal lump causing its shape to quickly change.

The killing intent receded once the metal took shape.

A 2.5-metre-long glaive was now held in Frost’s hands in a defensive posture, he was still in shock from the killing intent, so he didn’t realise the change.

“W...what was that for!” He yelled in anger, they were having a friendly and educational conversation when out of the blue Maya sent an unbelievable amount of blood lust his way almost making him crap himself.

“Take a look genius.” Maya nodded towards the large glaive now in his hands with an evil smile on her face.

“Look at wha...” his angry reply was cut short as he noticed the weapon in his hand.

“This is a... glaive right?” He closely examined it getting a feel for its weight.

“Yeah, looks like that’s your most compatible weapon type, rather unusual but a strong weapon.” Frost continued to swing the weapon, sometimes with a single hand or both. It felt right in his hands as if it were an extension of himself.

“Since you don’t have any weapon talent skills yet and you don’t have too much experience the morphing metal is the perfect option. When you’re subjected to enough force that you feel your life is in danger the morphing metal will take the form of the weapon most suited for you to defend yourself with. You can certainly use and even master other weapons like swords and even hammers like mine, but you’ll progress much faster and easier with the glaive.”

Frost clenched tightly onto the glaive’s handle with both his hands before ferociously swinging with his entire weight, releasing a blast of wind.

“Awesome,” it felt nothing like this when he swung the chakra dagger or staffs he made. Unfortunately creating a chakra glaive would probably be beyond his capabilities at least in the short term.

‘Maybe I should see how much one would be in the dungeon menu.’ He still had 220Dp actually probably 250Dp now since another day had passed.

“Unfortunately, this time your training won’t really involve me personally getting involved as it’s more about improving weapon handling than simply fighting.” Maya waved her hand building up mana.

“[Ice form: golem]” an advanced magic crest formed in the middle of the room summoning what appeared to be an ice version of Maya although much rougher in appearance. It was armed with a glaive similar to the one Frost wielded.

“This golem will be your sparring partner. It’ll only use glaive-based attacks and your job is to learn from it as you fight. You’re forbidden in using any magic or chakra, utilising only your glaive for attacking and defending. Unless you’re able to attain the glaive mastery skill you won’t be able to win.” Maya had set the golem to have a specific level of strength as well as skill with the glaive, unless Frost matched that skill level or surpassed it he’d be unable to win without the aid of magic or chakra.

Frost looked at the golem, its expressionless face giving him goose bumps.

‘Why’d she have to give it her face?’

Maya moved away from the two of them summoning a comfortable sofa from the training menu to sit on. All she needed now was a tub of popcorn and a drink and she’d be set.

“Begin!” At the sound of her voice the golem entered a battle-ready stance, holding its glaive high in the air before charging at Frost without warning.

“Ah shit!” He quickly blocked the golem’s strike with the blade end, narrowly avoiding being sliced in half. He obviously didn’t defend very well considering the impact violently vibrated the handle hurting his hands.

The golem didn’t let up, pulling back for another strike.

This time he chose to dodge by rolling out of the way resulting in the golem’s weapon striking the ground with a loud bang.

‘Fuck, a single hit from that and I’ll die regardless of her healing magic.’ Frost frowned in distress, his heart beating rapidly from his near-death encounter. His lips however were upturned in a mad smile, his hands trembling due to excitement, the thrill of battle.

.....