Chapter 338
Chapter 338
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 338
Chapter Title: The Wave of Yul (3)
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“Why don’t you get a grip? Do you not see the situation you’re in? You might be top dog at school, but do you really think your name means anything in a place like this?”
Shirone didn’t hear a word Jocre said.
If this dragged on, people would die. But if that was the inevitable outcome, there was a much simpler solution.
Like a sniper, Shirone narrowed his focus. The Ice Queen’s face came into sharp view.
*I have to end this in one blow.*
Eliminate the Ice Queen in the shortest time possible.
If he could do that, the strange ability governing this space would disappear as well.
As Shirone maintained his poker face, Jocre felt a surge of psychological pressure.
It felt like being in a poker game where someone, certain they held a worthless hand, had just watched their opponent go all-in with their entire fortune.
*Just what kind of people are they?*
To act so bold when hundreds of lives were on the line. In his world, such a thing was utterly inconceivable.
It was because they were looking down on him. The thought sparked an uncontrollable rage that boiled up from within.
“How dare you look down on me!”
The moment Jocre shouted, Shirone’s Arman shot out of its sheath like a flash of light.
Arman’s target wasn’t Jocre, but the Ice Queen.
The Ice Queen activated a Law and quickly distanced herself. When she still found herself outpaced, she flew straight up into the sky.
*Law of Destruction.*
The Ice Queen’s Law was cast upon Arman. But the magic sword merely shuddered, refusing to be destroyed.
*Why?*
This was a new experience for the Ice Queen.
*An Incarnation Body?*
An object that had achieved a perfect trinity could not be altered by the Law; in Heaven, such things were called Incarnation Bodies.
The Ice Queen activated the Law of Freezing. Frost formed on Arman’s blade, and ice began to crystallize around it.
As its speed decreased, the Ice Queen regained her composure. But suddenly, she felt an impact on her back as if she had run into something.
*What was that?*
With no time to find an answer, she amplified the Law of Freezing. Trapped in a massive block of ice, Arman couldn’t bear the weight and plummeted to the ground.
The Ice Queen immediately turned and cast a Wave of Yul at the point she had collided with. With a loud pop, a translucent, dome-shaped barrier spread across the sky.
*Something is blocking the space.*
Jocre wore a dazed expression. Dante, who had spent all night setting up the sealing formation, spoke triumphantly.
Dante, who had spent all night setting up the sealing formation, spoke triumphantly.
“How do you like my little surprise? This area is already sealed off. I spent the whole night planting totems to cast a sealing formation. The Ice Queen can’t ever leave this place.”
Jocre slowly turned his head to look at Dante. The Ice Queen was trapped. It was the worst possible scenario imaginable.
“You think you can rule the world by clinging to a monster like that? Do you think the world you live in is such a pushover? The army will be here soon. Even if we die here, the Ice Queen will eventually be annihilated. End this peacefully now. Do that, and they might show you some leniency.”
Jocre’s jaw trembled. His breathing grew ragged. If the army arrived, the Ice Queen would be destroyed. And of course, he and his friends would pay the price for their grave crimes.
“So, you’ve trapped me.”
The Ice Queen landed. The chill she brought with her spread across the ground, seeping into people’s bones.
Shirone did not shy away from the Ice Queen’s killing intent. Instead, he met her gaze as if to say, “Bring it on,” and snatched the hilt of Arman as it broke free from the ice and returned to him. The gem embedded in the crossguard was emitting an intense red light. It knew that the opponent it had just crossed swords with was no pushover.
“Your Majesty, are you alright?”
The Ice Queen looked back at a worried Jocre, then gave him a warm smile and gently stroked his hair.
But when she turned back to Shirone, her eyes were completely different. Her cold gaze was like a spear of ice, threatening to pierce his heart.
“Why do you interfere with me?”
“You see what you’ve done and you still don’t know? Besides, weren’t you the one who treated other people’s lives so carelessly first?”
“Foolish. The strong rule. Is that not the rule of the world you live in? I am merely trying to reign over you as your new ruler.”
A frigid aura rose from above the Ice Queen’s head.
“Mist of Freezing.”
The chill spread rapidly outward from the Ice Queen. Shirone’s coat froze solid and then shattered with a crackle. The cooling rate was too fast. In just a few more seconds, the hearts of everyone nearby would freeze solid.
“Look out!”
Lilia cast a Localized Sealing Formation at the Ice Queen’s feet. A circular sigil glowed as it was drawn, and a pillar of reddish light shot high into the air.
“Kugh!”
The Ice Queen’s face contorted. It felt as if a fundamental part of her very being was being drained away downward, just as an object cannot defy the law of gravity.
As the Ice Queen drew on her Law and shot up into the sky, Lilia looked up with a frustrated expression.
“It’s no use. She’s too mobile to be trapped with a Localized Sealing Formation. We have to find a way to pin her down.”
The Ice Queen’s face, unable to mask her expression, was grotesque. The power of the sealing formation was that immense. Even when her brain was on fire, she had not felt such a fear of annihilation.
“I will not forgive you!”
The Ice Queen cast a Wave of Yul, and the Law placed on the people’s necks vanished, replaced by a new one.
“Graaaaaah!”
The people’s mouths jutted out like dogs, their teeth sharpening. Their muscles swelled, tearing their clothes, and their fingernails grew long like a wolf’s. Hardened skin protruded like armor.
“She’s evolving them into a state suitable for combat!”
At Lilia’s words, Dante shouted.
“Let’s finish this before they can join forces. We can win if we concentrate our firepower. Lilia, you focus on defending against the Law.”
Just as Shirone’s party was about to fly toward the Ice Queen, Vivian placed both hands on the ground and muttered.
“Radius of Spirit.”
Vivian’s body petrified as the ground shook. Circular barriers rose in succession around her, spreading outward.
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
The walls spread out in a radial pattern, with ten meters of space between each. And this entire radius constituted her mind.
“Damn it! What is this?!”
Shirone’s party hastily retreated, but before they could take more than a few steps, a wall shot up behind them. A thirty-meter-high barrier.
As they stood in shock, the wall in front of them melted like wax, and Vivian’s face protruded from it in relief. Her upper body emerged, her lower half stretching out like a snake, connected to the wall.
“Hee hee. What do you think? Of my ability, Radius of Spirit.”
Vivian raised her hands, and Jocre and Ludvance leaped down, landing gracefully on her palms like cranes.
“Haha! Serves you right. All that talk, and this is all you’ve got?”
Radius of Spirit erected barriers that shared the caster’s consciousness, expanding at a rate of ten meters per second. However, it had a drawback: the wider the radius, the more diluted her consciousness became, and if the walls were too far away, their reaction time would drop to the level of an inanimate object. But Vivian was satisfied with her ability. The Ice Queen had perfectly manifested her desire to be the center of attention.
“This is a perfect labyrinth. If you can catch me at the center, the Radius of Spirit will be dispelled. But I wonder, can you find your way?”
“We don’t need to scurry around like mice.”
Dante attempted to teleport. A thirty-meter wall was nothing to leap over. But as he did, countless Vivians emerged from the top of the wall, swinging their petrified hands.
“Tch! This is tricky.”
A direct teleport into the petrified Vivians would be a fatal mistake. As Dante landed with an irritated look, Shirone held Arman vertically.
“I’ll take the Ice Queen.”
As everyone turned to look at Shirone, he whispered.
“Vajra Armament.”
The blade split apart, and slender, insect-leg-like frames engulfed Shirone’s face. In an instant, he transformed into a deeply hooded mage, causing Jocre and his friends’ faces to stiffen.
Dante asked.
“Is that the Vajra Armament? What are you planning?”
“Arman withstood the Law. The Vajra Armament might be able to block the Ice Queen’s Law.”
Lilia nodded.
“It’s possible. The principle is the same as the totems. But the Ice Queen is in the sky. Finding a way out of here comes first.”
Shirone lifted his face, hidden by the hood. The Radius of Spirit, which created clones at the speed of thought, was certainly a difficult obstacle. But it wasn’t entirely without a way out.
*Function follows form.*
Shirone maximized his Photon Sculpting. A brilliant light erupted from his body, and massive wings of light unfurled.
He had sculpted light.
That fact astonished the mages. To shape light, which is inherently emissive, required an incredible amount of photon compression.
Jocre and his friends also swallowed nervously. By sculpting a form that served the single function of flight, everyone knew what Shirone intended to do.
“I’m counting on you here.”
Photon Sculpting—Light Wings.
Shirone bent his legs and, with a powerful downstroke of his light wings, shot upward at an incredible speed. Though it wasn’t teleportation, it looked as if a flash of light was streaking toward the sky.
*As if I’d let you!*
Even so, Vivian reacted. Dozens of Vivians burst from the wall and bit down on Shirone like a set of teeth.
*Got him!*
The impact was solid. But a moment later, Vivian’s brow furrowed in confusion. The tentacles of the Vajra Armament were blocking the attacks of the petrified clones at point-blank range.
“What is this…?!”
Vivian poured all her strength into the attack. The sound of grinding stone came from Shirone’s position. The raw strength derived from the durability of stone was immense, but the tentacles of the indestructible armament were powerful enough to shatter ordinary rock.
-External pressure: 1.7 tons. Muscular strength maintenance limit reached.
Shirone gritted his teeth and pushed the tentacles downward. Squeezing through a narrow gap, the tentacles flung Shirone upward, causing Vivian’s clones to crash into each other and shatter.
*Eliminate the Ice Queen.*
The speed generated by the Light Wings was terrifying. Shirone pursued the Ice Queen at a velocity approaching the speed of sound. As his vision narrowed, Arman recalibrated his physical abilities.
-Target not recognized. Increasing photoreceptor cells. Augmenting macular function.
His vision opened up, and the Ice Queen came into clear view. The artificial external brain adjusted his flight balance. As the distance closed, the Ice Queen turned and cast her Law.
“Blizzard of Freezing.”
As snowflakes sharper than razor blades swirled around him, Shirone shielded his face. The cloak covering his entire body hardened into a metallic substance, and thousands of ice fragments scraped against its surface like shattering glass.
“Kuuugh!”
The Ice Queen’s Law wasn’t as sharply focused as magic, but its scale was on another level. Her rule was vaster than the rules of this place. That was the difference in scale.
Shirone changed the hardened cloak back to an organic material and glared forward. The atmosphere was frozen, with massive ice tendrils spreading out in a complex pattern like a human nervous system. He felt like a microorganism on a microscopic scale.
*This means it’s cryogenic.*
The reason he didn’t feel the cold was that Arman was regulating his nervous system. But when he took a breath, the frigid air immediately began to freeze his lungs.
“Hhup!”
Shirone quickly clamped his mouth shut.
-Respiratory blockage detected. Switching to artificial oxygen. Remaining oxygen consumption time: 1 minute 27 seconds. 2 minutes 32 seconds. 4 minutes 49 seconds.
Arman began storing air and injecting oxygen directly into Shirone’s bloodstream. His combat abilities restored, Shirone flew between the ice tendrils, engaging the Ice Queen in an aerial battle.
Like a hawk hunting its prey, Shirone folded his Light Wings and dove, grabbing his wrist and firing a hundred and twenty rounds of Photon Cannon per minute from the magic crystal sphere embedded in his gauntlet.