Chapter 153: The Tyrant of Winter’s Wrath (2)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 153: The Tyrant of Winter’s Wrath (2)
Piiing!
A small point of light condensed around Azyeth.
A frosty light flashed for an instant, then erupted, engulfing the fortress.
Soon, as the light faded, the transformed battlefield revealed itself.
An unrestrained chill had frozen the entire fortress. Save for a few powerful orcs, the rest had become ice statues without a chance to resist.
The dark orc colony was now stained with the wintry light of ice.
This was no rampage.
The threatened slaves were safe, and Karami remained untouched by the cold. Azyeth clearly understood who needed protection, and from whom.
“Haa…”
And in the center of the ice fortress, Azyeth exhaled, her breath turning to mist.
Shards of ice orbited around her, and the hem of her dress was elongated by a thin film of ice.
At a glance, she seemed little changed aside from her appearance, but an undeniable, resolute will was embedded in her blue pupils.
It was the very fighting spirit Balkrash had tried to excavate from her. Things had certainly gone as he’d wished, yet Balkrash couldn't bring himself to laugh heartily.
An alarm was blaring in his mind.
What had changed?
He couldn't tell just by looking.
But she was clearly different from before.
Far from a soulless doll.
Balkrash gripped his axe and took a combat stance.
Azyeth stared intently at Balkrash.
After a slight tilt of her head, she lowered her stance and kicked off, sliding across the ice as if skating.
Balkrash swung his axe high in an overhead strike. Azyeth met it by holding her blade horizontally.
The clash of the ice sword and the two-handed axe rang out, its metallic sound announcing the resumption of battle in the frozen world.
Balkrash's muscles bulged. He put his weight into it, pressing down with all his might as if to drive Azyeth into the ground.
Kugung.
The ground sank under his monstrous strength, and cracks spiderwebbed across the ice. Though she was about to be driven into the floor like a nail, Azyeth did not yield.
The ice sword, now in its true form, was the same. As if responding to its master's firm will, the slender blade did not back down against the two-handed axe.
Instead, it released a wave of cold that seeped into the axe. Frost began to form on the axe's blade, as if eating away at it.
“Hmph?!”
Balkrash's pupils dilated. The bewilderment on his face was plain to see.
The two-handed axe was enhanced with Balkrash's mana, glowing red. And yet, it was freezing over from Azyeth's magic.
Azyeth didn't miss the opening created by his surprise. The axe seemed to give way slightly, and in an instant, she swung her sword and knocked it aside.
It was the first time this had happened since their battle began. Like the first sign of a changing ending.
Azyeth’s gaze sharpened.
“Brace yourself.”
She erased everything from her vision but the enemy before her, her expression becoming a blank mask.
“Insolence!”
Balkrash swung his axe diagonally. Azyeth ducked low, and the axe cut uselessly through the air above her head.
She extended her arm and thrust her sword into the center of Balkrash's now exposed chest.
Shunk.
The sword pierced through skin that had been nearly impossible to scratch until now—a demonic beast's hide, tougher than any human could ever train theirs to be.
This confirmed it.
Azyeth had grown stronger.
The chalice had responded to her desire.
“Ugh…” Balkrash groaned, his face twisting into a frown.
It wasn't a fatal wound. To Balkrash, it was merely a scratch.
But it was not a good sign.
To prevent it from going any deeper, he grabbed the blade with his hand. He couldn't break it, so he pulled the sword out and threw Azyeth away with it.
Sent flying, Azyeth spun in mid-air. Beneath her feet, as if to ensure the Ice Princess would not falter, a path of ice formed in the air.
Sliding along the ice, Azyeth charged forward once more.
“You flit about like a rabbit!”
Balkrash swung his axe parallel to the ground. A heavy, ear-splitting whoosh echoed out. Azyeth leaped lightly, landing on the axe and jumping off it.
Tumbling in a fluid motion over Balkrash's head, she landed on another foothold that appeared without fail and instantly took up a position behind him.
An absurdity no ordinary person could replicate. A series of movements only Azyeth, who commanded ice as if it were her own limbs, could perform.
Having swiftly taken his back, Azyeth unleashed a merciless barrage of attacks. The torrent of sword strikes from behind forced Balkrash's balance to tip forward.
“Kugh! Stop with the cheap tricks!”
Balkrash ferociously erupted with mana. A savage red energy burst forth, creating a whirlwind.
A split-second decision.
Azyeth kicked off Balkrash's back, using him as a springboard to leap away and land gracefully.
“Krrrrgh…”
Balkrash heaved, his shoulders rising and falling with each breath.
His body trembled.
A red haze shimmered around him, and steam rose from his skin.
His aura grew even stronger.
The Orc King had gone berserk.
Azyeth didn't rush in recklessly, instead looking for an opening. Balkrash's body was a weapon from head to toe. A direct hit would mean the end of the fight.
Avoid a head-on clash.
Aim for an opening.
Force a blind spot.
The magic activated.
Spikes of ice shot out from Azyeth, rushing toward Balkrash at a ferocious speed.
“Useless tricks!”
Balkrash clenched his fist and swung his arm. The spikes shattered, sending fragments flying in all directions. Balkrash's form was reflected countless times in the ice shards.
From the broken fragments, new ice spikes sprouted.
About ten of them.
The ten spikes shot forward, aiming to riddle Balkrash's body with holes. But once again, they were helplessly shattered by his fists.
And then again.
The ten fragments became a hundred, and from those hundred fragments, new spikes grew. Spikes grew from spikes, and from those spikes, more spikes grew.
Balkrash could not bat away the near-infinite number of spikes.
The ground beneath him was already a sheet of ice, making it difficult to take even a single step. When he tried to swing his arms, ice shot up from the ground, pulling at them.
Obstructions from all sides.
It was as if the very element of ice had a will of its own, actively assisting Azyeth. By the time he realized it, the entire battlefield was filled with ice spikes.
The spikes hemmed him in from all sides, tracing the outline of his body with terrifying precision.
Trapped in a space so tight he could barely move a finger, Balkrash was completely immobilized.
And before him, from an artificial blind spot created by the spikes, Azyeth charged. The very spikes that had refused to let Balkrash budge now parted to form a path for her.
Thrust.
The ice sword, imbued with frosty mana, plunged into Balkrash's chest once more. It struck the previous wound, driving even deeper.
“Kugh…!”
He felt a searing pain, but an even colder chill spread through him from the wound.
Balkrash grabbed the sword to hold it in place and brought his axe down with his other hand. Without hesitation, Azyeth abandoned the sword and retreated.
If he had taken a wound to steal her sword, it might have been a worthy exchange.
Crack.
The embedded sword vanished, only to reappear in Azyeth's left hand. All Balkrash was left with was the wound. It was an absurd outcome, enough to draw a hollow sigh.
The battle, as tense as walking on thin ice, continued.
Azyeth narrowly dodged the red flashes of his attacks, unleashing a torrent of her own.
Her speed, her magic, even her swordplay—everything had improved by leaps and bounds. She left countless wounds on Balkrash's body, and fresh blood spurted from all over him.
But none of the blood ever touched her. The hot, fresh blood froze into icy tendrils before it could reach her.
A symphony sung by ice and sword. Balkrash's roars added a magnificent accompaniment.
Balkrash's body was covered in blood and stab wounds. The giant, who had seemed impossible to fell, finally staggered.
“Hah… hah…”
Having pushed the Orc King to the brink, Azyeth steadied her breathing.
Azyeth's magic was incomprehensible, enough to defy the very foundations of magical systems, but it wasn't completely omnipotent.
It was a law of nature that casting magic consumed mana. And for Azyeth, whose transformations of magic defied all standards, the cost was even greater.
She had relentlessly spammed her magic.
The backlash was steadily accumulating.
The next attack would decide it all.
They exchanged this silent understanding.
And then.
Kugugung—!
It was Balkrash who moved first.
He gathered every last bit of power in his body.
The red mana characteristic of a berserker.
But the Orc King's was far from ordinary.
It was mixed with a black hue, filled with an ominous energy.
The mana whipped around him like a lash. The ice floor cracked and crumbled where it touched.
Bending his knees to lower his center of gravity and gather power, Balkrash shot into the sky. It was a leap so high it was almost like flight, unimaginable for his massive frame.
“Let's see you dodge this!”
High in the air, Balkrash pulled his axe back as far as it would go.
His full power.
Power Stomp.
The Orc King's ultimate move, an attack that had turned countless cities to dust, was about to explode above Azyeth's head.
Azyeth knew instinctively.
She couldn't block it.
She shouldn't block it.
She couldn't dodge it, either. The aftershock would cover the entire fortress. If she dodged, the slaves, and even Karami, would be swept away.
What should I do?
While Azyeth hesitated, Balkrash began to fall. A strike like a guillotine, meant to cleave the world in two.
Azyeth, still pondering, launched herself into the air.
The air froze, creating footholds in the sky, and Azyeth leaped from one to the next, ascending.
‘Higher. Higher.’
Before Balkrash fell.
In the brief moment she crossed paths with the falling Balkrash, Azyeth sidestepped and landed on top of him.
“What?!”
A wingless creature cannot move freely in the air. Not unless they could wield magic as freely as Azyeth.
Balkrash had no way to shake her off. He continued to fall with Azyeth on his back.
The part of Balkrash's back touching Azyeth began to freeze. A look of bewilderment washed over his face at the chilling sensation.
“Get off! You damn leech!!!”
Balkrash's mana exploded, creating a tempest. Small cuts appeared on Azyeth's face, and her pale blue hair whipped about wildly.
But Azyeth did not fall. Silently, she gathered her remaining mana. A faint, frosty blue mana, like winter itself, overlaid Balkrash's dark red energy.
On Balkrash's frozen back, she aimed the tip of her sword at the spot where his heart would be.
Calmly.
Yet firmly.
“This is… punishment for tormenting people.”
She conveyed her will.
“Stop! Stooooooop—!”
Balkrash's scream could not reach Azyeth's frozen heart.
Without stopping, the meteor of red and blue finally struck the ground. A cloud of snow dust exploded, and just as the fortress was about to be annihilated by the impact—
Crack!
Ice shot up from the ground.
Like a flower greeting the winter.
It formed a closed bud, enveloping the two and absorbing the shock of the explosion. At the center of the flower bud stood an ice statue of Balkrash, his heart pierced through.
He was frozen solid, his mouth and eyes wide in a look of utter shock.
“Haa…”
Azyeth took a deep breath and let out a weary sigh. As if her power was spent, her tiara glittered, then shattered into a shower of light.
Azyeth stood and looked around. The prisoners were gaping, but thankfully, the ice had absorbed the impact, and no one was harmed.
Azyeth turned her gaze from them and met Karami's eyes. Karami, who had been watching the whole time, smiled and waved gently.
Staring at him intently, Azyeth cautiously raised her hand and moved it with a very slight motion.
A gentle wave.
Like a petal fluttering.
Slowly.