After watching Fern and Stark against Lugner and Linie, now it is finally time to watch the higher ups going at each other. Frieren and Aura meets once again on the battlefield.

However, Aura is much more confident now. Frieren is all alone, Fern and Stark is busy with her confidants and her old comrades are no more, with only Eisen who is too old for action.

Being a strong demon that she is, she boasts on how long she has lived. Five hundred years she says, and it proves how much mana she must have had. After all, she is one of the Seven Sages of Destruction, serving directly under the command of the demon king.

Frieren’s Backstory

The highlight of this episode is the confrontation between Aura and Frieren. However, it also showcases Frieren’s backstory. How she became the mage that she is, and how much dangerous she actually is for demons.

As previous episodes tell, Frieren is a student of the Great Mage Flamme, a legendary mage of the past. She lived about a thousand years ago. For context, it is almost as how we perceive William the Conqueror who invaded England in 1066.

Meeting The Great Mage Flamme

Flamme was just a human, she was nothing like Aura or her demon underlings or Frieren who is an elf. She possessed no extraordinary ability, other than she was extremely suited for the magical study.

The magical barrier around Graf Granat’s city is the work of Flamme. The long lasting magic is a monument on how capable Flamme was as a mage. However, the demons almost never recognized her because of one secret, a secret that she taught Frieren.

Frieren first met Flamme after her village got pillaged. She sat just beside a burning house when Flamme approached her. The elven mage at first was reluctant to Flamme rescuing her. However, when some demons suddenly attacked them, Flamme revealed her true nature to Frieren.

It seems like the demon king recognized how dangerous elves can be if they were alive. So, the demon king ordered a massive genocide, killing almost all elves. Frieren herself was the only survivor of her village. This is the reason why she will always finish off any demon she meets.

A Lifetime Edurance Of Hiding Mana

Frieren lived with the Great Mage Flamme for fifty years. As a human, Flamme grew old quickly compared to her apprentice who showed not even the slightest change in her appearance.

One lesson that has been the core of Flamme’s teaching is mana restriction. She taught Frieren how to conceal her presence by holding her mana to one-tenth of how it should seem. However, there is a caveat. Frieren has to hold this state for lifetime, just like how Flamme did.

Flamme explained that demon’s hierarchy is dependent on their mana and magic capabilities. So, whenever a strong demon appears, the others would know. By doing this, humans can deceive demons just like demons deceive humans with words.

Similar to how humans use clothes and material things to conjure a sense of “above all else”. There is a reason why flexing culture has become an epidemic in social media.

Flamme also said to Frieren that it is important to make her name famous only by defeating the demon king, and only that. After her passing, Frieren seems to hold this promise since there is barely any account of her being a mage before joining Himmel and the rest.

Smurfing The Demons

This mana restriction allows the mage to conceal their real strength while still keeping a clear idea on how strong their enemy is. Essentially, it baits the weaker enemy to downplay the mage, and then they will arrogantly strike first.

Hiding your true strength is called smurfing in video games terms. A high ranked players would make a new alternate account to enter matches against newbies. This practice is generally frowned upon and seen as unsportsmanlike, since it ruins the gaming experience for newer players.

Players in various games have complained about. In game forums like CS:GO and Starcraft 2, it is common for players who have absolutely lost it to vent their rage over smurfing. Other games like Dota 2 even took the matter into their own hands, permanently banning thousands of smurf accounts.

When Lugner discovers that Fern has been doing the same thing as Frieren, he gets into an angry fit. This practice is seen as preposterous in Lugner’s words. A despicable approach for a fight between mages. But, this is also a proof how his arrogance led him to think there is no way Fern will overpower him.

“Frieren, just as demons deceive humankind with words, you must use your mana to deceive demons.”

Great Mage Flamme to Frieren

Hiding mana is an effective method to defeat demon. That’s why the Great Mage Flamme adopted it and Frieren keeps using it in the first place.

Meeting Himmel And The Hero’s Party

After the death of the Great Mage Flamme, Frieren kept living a quiet life in the forest nearby a town. She witnessed the town slowly became a full-fledged walled city with guards and more people in it.

Throughout this period, Frieren kept her promise to Flamme by not doing anything that might draw the demon’s attention. Remember, the demon king launched a genocide against the elves to eradicate all the potentially powerful mages.

However, with Himmel’s arrival, Frieren’s life changed. Himmel, Heiter, and Eisen only got wind of Frieren existence as a mage that lives an awfully long life, and only as that. Even Heiter misjudged Frieren’s mana to be weaker than his.

But, as everyone knows, Himmel decided to still pick up Frieren to his party. They went into another decade of adventure, and eventually defeated the demon king.

See, Demon’s Arrogance Is Their Achilles’ Heel

It seems like all the demons have remained unaware of this smurfing mana method. Even after decades of knowing Frieren’s existence, they don’t have the slightest idea of her underhanded method.

The only explanation would be every single demon that Frieren has encountered in the past is now nothing but magic ashes. That’s why Frieren has earned the nickname Frieren The Slayer among demons.

Aura Has Only Known Frieren For Eighty Years

In this episode, Frieren finally confronts Aura in one-on-one battle for real. However, there is one detail that Aura drops here. This detail makes any one who pay attention to want to slap their forehead as hard as they can.

Aura knows Frieren only from their confrontation eighty years ago. That’s right, one of the strongest demons under the direct command of the demon king doesn’t do her due diligence to learn more about her enemy.

“If you know your enemy and yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.”

Sun Tzu in The Art of War

Clearly, Frieren has Aura dancing on her hands. Aura completely dismisses the fact that Frieren has been known as The Slayer. And to add more to the spectacle, she downplays Frieren mana as weak.

Even Lugner notices how Fern is hiding her mana. It is either Frieren does this with an impeccable perfection or Aura has already succumbed to her hubris, or both.

The Scale Of Obedience And The Unique Demon Magic

Deceived by Frieren’s mana, Aura pulls out the scale of obedience. A scale that puts two souls against each other, and the one with stronger mana wins.

Aura used this scale to dominate Graf Granat’s son and bend him to her will. However, the only ones who are able to resist its power are the ones with a pure heart, and that is also for a short time only.

This scale is a magical tools only possessed by demons. As the anime and manga explains, demons are more advanced in terms of magic compared to humans. Their magic is mostly incomprehensible to humans.

To put it into better perspective, all the humans’ magic that has been revealed are Zoltraak or ordinary attack magic, an adaptation of Qual’s Zoltraak, the defensive spell and flying, as demonstrated by Frieren and Fern, and the magical barrier made by the Great Mage Flamme.

Most of the human’s magic are either an adaptation or a counter to demon magic that has been developed through research. However, all of the magic demonstrated by demons so far are nothing alike human’s magic.

The string magic by Draht, Linie’s weapon conjuring and fighting style mimicry, Lugner blood magic, and Aura’s necromancy. All of these are unique to demons so far. Who knows what kind of demon magic that are still mysterious to humans.

What A Savage End!

When Aura confidently puts her soul and Frieren’s on the scale, her fate is set in stone right then and there. To quote Frieren herself, it would be too much trouble for Frieren if Aura sent her zombie army instead.

This way, Frieren has no need to attack Aura, all she has to do is just standing there and see the scale tips to her favor.

“The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.”

Sun Tzu in The Art of War

Aura, as cocky as she is, is still in disbelief on what is happening. The scale has always been in her favor for at least the last five hundred years. However, she finally realizes what she is up against when Frieren reveals her true mana.

Frieren’s mana engulfs both of them while Aura’s body finally under her control. Shortly after the scale tips overwhelmingly to Frieren, she commands Aura to take her own life.

“Aura, kill yourself.”

Frieren to Aura