Chapter Five Hundred And Fifty Four – 554
Felix ripped through the cloud layer atop a bolt of lightning, and found chaos.
The storm that had quietened raged anew, and gale force winds ripped at him while snow and hail tried to blind him. He cast his senses out, Perception and Affinity both, and found that the storm was not the same as when hed fought the Ice Drakes. The sky itself was dark, purpled by the bruised underbelly of clouds the size of cities.
A shadow gathered there, just beyond the storm. Within it.
You dare challenge me, monster?
The voice was literal thunder, flashing with strange lightning that leaped from cloud to cloud. The sound cracked as sheets of ice formed on the winds, smashing into him with abandon. Felix struck them, obliterated them with fists swollen by Sovereign of Flesh, and all ten feet of him hovered in the depths of fury.
Yeah.
Thunder roared, and in a flash, pillars of stone and metal hurled toward him from above. Felix reared back, more than fast enough to meet their assault, but found he didnt need to.
Dawns Advent!
Crescents of brilliant light sizzled through the blizzard, snapping the pillars in two and deflecting them entirely. At the same time, Pit materialized next to Felixand immediately began to fall.
Cloudstep! Cloudstep! Cloudstep! Felix shouted, and platforms of Mana manifested below his tumbling Companion. Bud. You gotta warn me, next time!
Pit warbled at him. Focus on that!
Above them the clouds shifted and swirled, forming into a miles-wide bearded face. Its eyes flashed with lightning and its mouth was filled with a shadow so deep it could have been the Void. Specks emerged from that dark mouth, but soon resolved themselves into huge, car-sized pillars.
Fall! the thunder commanded.
NO! Pit screeched.
Cloudstep!
Felix conjured step after step as they ran upward, against the wind and into the downpour of elemental pillars.
Dawns Advent! Pit cried. The crescents slashed into the frozen projectiles hard enough to slice them into pieces, and Pit ran through the lesser debris.
Felix, meanwhile, found the Mana too potent to take control of completely and resorted to his fall back option.
He punched them apart.
Pillar after pillar. Ice, stone, or steel. He met them all with his enlarged fists and diamond hard scales. Ice splintered, stone shattered, and steel was sent flying as the impact deformed it into meaningless scrap.
Yet the deluge did not stop, and their ascent, while rapid, was nowhere near the gargantuan cloud-face. Pit! We need to get closer! I need to!
Emerging sideways from the clouds, a building-sized boulder of stone and steel hurtled into them. Felix jabbed his fist forward into it, pouring all he had into Stone Shaping at the same time. They connected, and the boulder deformed before his titanic Strength and potent Skill, but it drove him back hard. He split his attention, Multi-Casting a dozen more Cloudsteps behind him to stop his fall, shattering one after the other as the boulder drove him back and down. He stopped it eventually, leaving Felix hip deep in the splitting rock, trapped between its weight and his reinforced platforms.
Which was when he spotted the other boulder. Headed straight for Pit.
Pit!
His Companion spun just in time to take the full brunt of the projectile to his chest, before stone and tenku plummeted below.
PIT!
Laughter shook the heavens, and the cloud face split into a triumphant sneer. One Challenger remains!
Chthonic Tribute! Felix drove the force of his rage into the boulder around him, absorbing all of it into his channels with a mighty inhale, as well as the Cloudsteps beneath him. Adamant Discord!
Felix blasted downward, riding the powerful connection between him and Pit, until he could see the building-sized pillarand the Chimera that strode atop of it.
Pit ran, shards of ice formed around his body as a deep darkness filled the spaces between them. The ice congealed, forming into a brutal set of armor twice the size of his normal body, until he resembled nothing so much as a nightmare of cold shadow. He got the end just as Felix landed beside him, and opened his ice-jaws wide, screeching a call like thunder itself.
The sky answered in kind.
Pit Has Digested His Opponents Mana!
Pit Has Gained A Skill!
Dark Glacial Guard (Epic), Level 1!
Compel both shadow and ice to do your bidding! Forge armor made from dark ice around you to protect your Health from harm, directing all damage to your Mana pool.
Felix laughed, looking at his friend as they rode the boulder down. Hell yeah, dude! Lets kick this guys ass!
Yes!
Shadow Whip!
Adamant Discord!
Felix shot back up, heart fluttering with a wild glee, and pulled hard on his shadowy tendril with his free hand. From below, Pit shrieked and catapulted forward, held tight by the Shadow Whip. At the apex, Felix let go and Pit soared upward, twisting between falling chunks of ice and stone before his armored claws sank into them. Pillars cascaded down onto them and Pit leaped between them as he ascended, running almost vertically up their plunging sides.
Felix followed behind, tanking hits from the endless debris even as he smashed his free fist into stone, ice, and steel. Sheer Strength, Endurance, Vitality, and the raw power of his Adamant Discord tore them to pieces.
Dark Glacial Guard is level 2!
Dark Glacial Guard is level 22!
Each bit of debris that hit his Companion chipped a piece of dark ice from around him, yet it only bolstered the Skill. Luckily, Pits regeneration was very good.
They did not stop. The rain of elements continued while the spiritual pressure mounted, heavier than ever before. The voice in the clouds roared in frustration, but another shadow flitted behind it, a thing of dark wings, keen eyes, and an eager joyful laugh.
Endless Raven
The Urge was gone in an instant and perhaps Felix could have convinced himself that it had never been there, save for the scream of rage that echoed through the storm.
BEGONE GODLING! THIS IS MY DOMAIN!
A wave of concussive force ripped outward with the Frostfathers shout, blasting back clouds and pillars alike. Felix and Pit fell back, hurled along with them. He caught them both atop more conjured Cloudsteps.
A cacophony of stone and metal and splintering ice filled the air, chased by the thunder of unnatural lightning. The clouds and debris, once blasted back, rushed forward toward a single point until it all glowed so fiercely Felix had to avert his eyes.
The Ravens laugh faded.
Felix looked back up, and beheld the truth. They stood above the clouds, or perhaps beyond them, level with what appeared to be its highest peak.
Holy crap, Pit chirruped softly.
Exploration is level 72!
The Frostfather was the peak. A body of stone and steel and ice, a living glacier attached to the top of the hulking mountain like a gargoyle lurking on a ledge. It bore the roughest sort of head, no more than a series of triangular lumps atop monstrously large shoulders, while innumerable arms were folded across its craggy body. Eyes the size of semi-trailers bore into them with the purple-white light of ice Mana, swirled with silver and dusty-brown.
Voracious Eye!
Name: Frostfather
Type: Supreme Elemental (Ice/Stone/Metal)
The rest was all question marks, but the ineffable sense of its advancement was clear. A Tier VIII monster.
A High Grandmaster. Felix shifted his stance, unsure what might come next. This is gonna be rough.
From a series of enormous caverns, a voice like thunder and landslides cracked the air. You dare to assault me in my own Domain, monster? In the kingdom I have wrought? I have given you accolades enough to ensure your rule over my Cold Children. That should be enough!
The mountain cracked, and those arms of corded steel and stone lifted, their hands grasping onto the empty sky. But no. Not for you, creature. You and your Chimera. I should never have allowed either of you on the Path of Rule. You do not appreciate its weight.
Spiritual pressure poured onto Felix, a hammer atop his head and shoulders that would either break him or send him plummeting below. Pit whimpered.
Your childrenYoure not a god, Felix said. If he had been, Felix would have found opposing the Supreme Elementals Will to be far easier, thanks to his Call of Defiance Title. Instead, it was taking all he had to push up against the spiritual pressure. Beneath Felixs feet, his Cloudstep splintered, forcing him to divert his Will to casting another. The pressure redoubled. And even if you were, I dont particularly like them.
And yet you will bow to me, little king, the Frostfather growled. Those monumental arms moved outward, surrounding them above and below as the pressure fell upon them like a rockslide, and the air itself froze. Felixs thighs burned with the strain of remaining standing, and Pits icy armor burst to pieces.
Dark Glacial Guard is level 24!
Imnotaking! Felix pushed himself to the limit and hurled the pressure away, blasting it into pieces. The Frostfathers eyes of gleaming steel widened. Im the Autarch, Frosty. And I didnt come all this way just for accolades.
He needed more than Essence, more than Mana. He needed significance.
A High Grandmaster monster should have plenty. Hold on Pit. Felix let his Skill hum to life, and the never ending abyss within him roared. Chthonic Trib!
The very air around Felix froze, turned kaleidoscopic as it crystallized into chains around Felixs limbs and neck. The Frostfather loomed, its spiritual pressure pressed with greater urgency as an utter, absolute cold crashed into them.
Rime Shaping!
Felix tried to seize and shatter the bands of ice across his body, but it was like emptying a sinking ship with a bucket. Every piece of ice he overpowered was replaced by more elsewhere.
Cease your struggle! Succumb! The Frostfather moved, faster than Felix would have ever expected. An explosion ripped through the air, so loud it broke some of his icy bondsthe mountain itself disintegrated around the Supreme Elemental as dozens of truck-sized fists surged forward.
There was no escape.
FELIX.
RELEASE.
Within him, Felixs Hunger roared, and something familiar unfurled in his chest. A danger he had been suppressing all this time, that clawed at his channels like a caged animal. Felix let it go.
Power rippled through Felixs core space, power that shook him to experience. As if all of him were bundled together, woven into a greater wholeand then was shoved through every single Mana Gate he possessed.
Felix howled.
A dark fist, clawed and scaled as his own, manifested in the air around him. It was more than three times the size of the Frostfathers hands, and it sizzled with red-gold flame and blue-white lightning, wreathed in both even as it was dominated by a vivid, dark purple glow.Hed been afraid to unleash such a thing against his allies, but here he had no such compunctions.
He struck.
The phantom fist moved faster than Felix ever had, all but teleporting into the oncoming offensive and obliterating the Supreme Elementals hands. Stone and steel and ice fell to dust, and the Frostfather raged.
Impossible! You are too weak for Core Manifestation! The mountain rumbled and the Frostfather stood on enormous, rough-hewn legs. Kneel! Accept your weakness!
You first! Dawns Advent! Crescents of brilliant light crashed into the Frostfathers bulk, comically small but potent. Explosions rained down on the Supreme Elemental as Pit surged forward, leaping through the air to land atop the mountain itself.
Chimera! Thunder crashed, and more hands appeared to smash against the Frostfathers craggy form. Pit dodged the blows, speeding across his surface as surefooted as any goat. A mistake of Creation! You!
FROSTFATHER! Felix roared. His knees shook and blood ran from his nose and eyes, but he streamed power from every inch of his body. Dont touch Pit!
The dark fist unfurled, and an eye was revealed in the palm of its handan eye that screamed with a riotous noise that shook everything. Dissonance and Harmony both, chords of power. The Frostfather fell back, very nearly knocked from his mountain as he was blasted by waves of cataclysmic light and sound.Stone, steel, and ice was rendered into dust, split and sloughed into the abyss below as it revealed a gleaming, jagged core. Pit leaped atop it, claws of his Dark Glacial Guard stabbing at its surface as Felix fell to his knees.
The fist flickered out.
Felix opened his fanged jaws and blood poured from between them. He coughed and something warm and wet tore loose in his chest. ChChthonic Trib!
I surrender! the Frostfather bellowed. Fear hung thick in its Spirit, and the brutal cold retreated. I surrender, creature!
Felix blinked and even Pit stopped his assault. There was silenceand then a harsh, cawing laughter.
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