Chapter 146: Chapter 146: Glacier of Blood
Chapter 146: Glacier of Blood
The kinetic sphere surrounding Reina hummed with deep, protective power as she plummeted from the artificial sky.
Beside her, Lucien fell in perfect synchronization. The executioner’s eyes were narrowed, his hands resting casually on the hilt of his Thunder Rapier.
The wind roared past them, but Reina did not blink. She gripped the heavy, frost-covered handle of her High-density Ice Core Axe. She was ready.
Sector Four was meant to be a safe zone. A massive Vanguard field hospital had been erected in the center of the district, filled with hundreds of wounded citizens and low-ranking guards.
Now, it was a slaughterhouse.
A terrifying horde of Null-Fiends swarmed the medical tents. The four-armed shadow beasts tore through the barricades with sickening ease. The remaining Vanguard Knights stationed at the hospital were desperately fighting a losing battle.
They were a specialized squad of Water and Wind Mages, unleashing torrential waves and cutting gales to push the monsters back.
It was entirely useless.
The Null-Fiends simply waded through the water and the wind. Their jagged obsidian scales eagerly drank the elemental magic, swelling their liquid shadow muscles.
The beasts shrieked with delight, growing faster and stronger with every single spell the Knights cast.
"Stop using magic!" a wounded Vanguard Lieutenant screamed from the ground, clutching a severed arm.
"They are eating it! Fall back and use your blades!"
But it was too late. The Null-Fiends leaped into the air, their razor-sharp bone claws extended, ready to tear the helpless medics to pieces.
CRASH!
Reina and Lucien slammed into the concrete courtyard directly in front of the field hospital. The kinetic Warlord spheres shattered, releasing a massive shockwave that threw the leaping Null-Fiends backward.
The dust plumed into the air. The temperature in the courtyard instantly plummeted.
Reina stepped forward. Her breath formed thick white clouds in the humid air.
She remembered the Draven’s words clearly. Null-Fiends absorbed loose elemental energy. But they could not absorb hyper-dense, physical matter.
If she cast a standard freezing wind, they would simply eat the cold. She had to give them something solid.
"Do not step in my way, Lucien," Reina ordered coldly.
"I am just waiting for the stage to be set, Winter Valkyrie," Lucien smirked, taking a step back as blue lightning began to spark violently across his knuckles.
Reina raised her massive axe high above her head. She ignited her mana core, flooding the weapon with terrifying amounts of freezing energy. The heavy ice core embedded in the axe head glowed with blinding blue light.
Reina swung the heavy weapon downward, burying the blade deep into the cracked concrete.
The effect was instantaneous.
A colossal, jagged physical glacier erupted from the point of impact. It did not move like a gentle frost. It exploded outward like a tidal wave of solid, hyper-compressed diamond.
The massive spikes of ice tore through the courtyard, rushing directly toward the recovering Null-Fiends.
The beasts shrieked and tried to absorb the magic. But it was not loose mana. It was solid, physical mass.
The glacier slammed into the horde. The sheer density of the ice shattered their bone armor and encased their lower halves completely.
Dozens of Level 150 monsters were instantly pinned to the ground, their four arms thrashing wildly as they tried to break free from the unbreakable physical frost.
The Vanguard Knights watched in complete awe. The unstoppable monsters were frozen solid in a matter of seconds.
"Target practice," Lucien chuckled, preparing to draw his rapier.
"Wait," Reina commanded, her eyes locking onto the shadows near the edge of the courtyard.
"Someone is coming."
From the dark alleyway behind the frozen beasts, a single figure stepped into the light. It was not a monster. It was a human wearing heavy crimson robes. A jagged black tattoo of a dying sun crawled up his neck.
He was a Level 140 Cult Fire Mage.
"How pathetic," the Cult Mage sneered, looking at the trapped Null-Fiends.
"To be halted by a mere child playing with frozen water. The Fifth Elder will not tolerate this delay."
The Cult Mage raised his hands. His corrupted mana core flared violently.
"Burn," the Mage commanded.
A torrent of terrifying, pitch-black fire erupted from his palms. It was the Abyssal Flame. The dark fire smelled of rotting flesh and sulfur, carrying a highly toxic miasma within its heat.
The Cult Mage swept his hands across the courtyard. The Abyssal Flame washed over the massive glacier.
Reina gritted her teeth. The black heat was unimaginable. The Abyssal Flame did not just melt the ice; it actively corrupted the mana inside it.
Thick, toxic black steam hissed into the air as Reina’s hyper-dense glacier began to rapidly dissolve into nothingness.
The Null-Fiends roared in triumph as the ice around their legs began to crack and melt.
The heat wave pushed Reina backward. Her boots skidded across the concrete. She gripped her axe, feeling the intense thermal pressure burning her skin. Her normal ice was not cold enough to fight off a corrupted flame of this magnitude.
She felt her mana reserves draining rapidly. The Cult Mage laughed, stepping forward as his black fire consumed the courtyard.
In that moment of suffocating heat, Draven’s cold voice echoed in her mind.
"Magic is a mirror. It reflects the limits of the mind that wields it."
During every brutal training session in the Wildlands, Draven had hammered this specific lesson into her skull.
He constantly reminded them that the greatest prison a mage could ever build was believing magic had rules that could never be broken.
"Magic obeys conviction before calculation," Draven had told her. The world called certain feats impossible simply because no one possessed the imagination to attempt them.
"Think beyond the spell."
"Think beyond the element."
"Think beyond yourself."
Because no matter how carefully someone planned, life would always create a problem they had never anticipated.
"The future cannot be predicted," Draven had said, looking down at her exhausted form in the training yard.
"But strength allows you to face a future you never saw coming."
Reina opened her eyes. The blue irises burned with sheer, unyielding determination.
She refused to be the weak link of the Eclipse Hunters. She refused to let a Cultist burn her World to the ground.
Reina pushed her mana core far past its natural breaking point. The intense pressure inside her chest was agonizing.
A single drop of dark red blood fell from her nose, landing directly onto the glowing blue core of her heavy axe.
She did not wipe it away. She grabbed her own physical vitality and forcefully dragged it into her mana pathways. She merged the heat of her own blood with the freezing depths of her ice magic.
The heavy axe eagerly drank the blood. The blinding blue light radiating from the weapon instantly turned a deep, terrifying crimson.
[System Alert: Mortal Limit Surpassed.]
[True Frost: Blood Avalanche.]
"What is that?" the Cult Mage gasped, feeling the sudden, unnatural drop in temperature. His Abyssal Flame actually flickered and shrank back.
"I am the Winter Valkyrie ," Reina declared, her voice echoing with chilling authority.
Reina swung the crimson-glowing axe in a massive, horizontal arc.
A blinding flash of red light consumed the courtyard. A brand new, horrifyingly cold glacier erupted from her weapon. The ice was tinted the color of fresh blood.
The cold was so extreme that it completely defied the laws of thermodynamics. The crimson wave slammed into the Cult Mage’s black fire.
The Abyssal Flame did not melt the ice. The ice froze the fire.
The Cult Mage watched in total, paralyzing horror as his pitch-black flames were literally frozen mid-air, encased entirely within jagged spikes of red diamond.
The crimson glacier swept over the courtyard, instantly refreezing the Null-Fiends into solid, unbreakable statues of bloody ice.
The wave hit the Cult Mage. He did not even have time to scream. The Blood Avalanche encased him entirely, freezing the blood in his veins and turning him into a perfect, horrific ice sculpture.
The courtyard fell dead silent. The black fire was gone. The toxic steam vanished.
The entire hospital zone was transformed into a breathtaking, terrifying forest of crimson ice. Every single enemy was perfectly trapped, completely unable to move a single muscle.
Reina stood up straight, breathing heavily. She wiped the blood from her nose with the back of her glove.
She looked at her custom axe, feeling the terrifying new power settling into her core. She was dangerously close to Level 100.
She turned her head slightly, looking over her shoulder at Lucien.
The executioner was staring at the massive, interconnected network of crimson ice spanning the entire courtyard. Blue lightning arched violently across his entire body. The stage was perfectly set.
"The conductors are ready," Reina said coldly.
Lucien drew his Thunder Rapier. A manic, bloodthirsty grin spread across his face.
"Thank you, Valkyrie," Lucien whispered.
"I will take it from here."
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