The Rise of the Winter Wolf - Book 3 - Chapter 67 - Cocytus (Patreon)

                                                                                 Arcadian Live

A strange silence fills the stadium as everyone ignores the events occurring on all of the screens except for the forerunner screen, which has been amplified to a much larger size, allowing everyone to see it with ease.

Amongst the commentators, besides Mikaela, not a one is looking at their own screen, meanwhile, the audience almost completely ignores the bet that had just been finished to watch as Wolf continues fleeing from the event boss with a System Forums screen open in front of him.

The event boss has the appearance of an enormous, black cephalopod, with over a dozen tentacles, and two large ruby-red eyes that are locked on Wolf as it chases him. It has black scales despite having the appearance of a cephalopod, with locations on each of its tentacles where the scales appear backwards, along with a strange crimson glow coming from the center of its main body.

“This…” Mikaela begins before pausing with a frown and continuing again a few seconds later, “could be bad.”

Whispers begin to run through the audience, as if set off by the host’s words. At the same time, Mikaela waves his hand whilst still frowning, causing a description of the event boss’s species to appear next to him.

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Deepsea Kraken

A deepsea kraken is a subspecies of kraken that lives on ocean worlds.

They are stronger than a normal kraken, but with a lower level of intelligence. This is due to the increased need for strength in an ocean world, along with a decrease in need for intelligence thanks to the lack of sapient creatures.

Deepsea krakens lack any magical ability, and focus entirely on their physical prowess, along with their size to overwhelm any opponent. They have powerful scales that are strong enough to stop an attack from a creature nearly one hundred levels above them anywhere but their reverse scales, where a creature nearly one hundred levels below it can break through with ease.

They also have a high regenerative ability, and can regenerate whole limbs in minutes, with their only true weaknesses being either losing their heart or running out of stamina to regenerate.

Level of intelligence: D – Above the level of intelligence of a primitive primate, but below the intelligence of a dominant species.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

“How is Wolf going to manage to get close enough to it without being squashed like a bug when he’s in a damn ocean?!” Niklai exclaims with a dark look on his face, expressing his emotions a lot more clearly than normal.

The dwarf’s outburst sends murmurs of surprise throughout the stadium, both from those who weren’t expecting him to lose his cool, and those too focused on what he said to care.

“Calm down, Niklai,” Mikaela says while focusing on the screen as the kraken gets closer and closer to Wolf, “The Winter Wolf absolutely has some skills that he’s kept to himself. And that’s not even focusing solely on his sponsorship items from the fiftieth floor.”

The dwarf looks at him before calming down and nodding his head. However, his attention jerks over to the screen again as Wolf can be seen closing out of the System Forums and actually stopping in his retreat right as the kraken makes it about fifty meters away from him.

“Wait…” Niklai mutters while the audience begins to go silent, “what’s he doing?”

Suddenly, Wolf spreads his arms out and opens his eyes wide, shifting into his hunter form in the process before letting out a loud howl as the eerie light being released from his eyes into the heavy rain increases in radiance.

Anyone within the audience that wasn’t already silent goes absolutely still as everyone watches with shock as Wolf uses a skill he had never used before.

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                                                                                         Wolf
                                                                   Several seconds earlier

Well, shit. Guess I have no choice but to fight it.

These thoughts go through my mind as I close out of the System Forums before turning around to face the beast while also shifting to my hunter form. I would have shifted earlier, but it would have clouded my thoughts, and I needed to think at the time.

But now?

Now it’s time to see what Cocytus can do and fight.

I freeze a little platform around me out of the water before taking a deep breath, opening my eyes wide, spreading my hands outwards, and activating the skill.

As soon as I activate the skill, I begin to feel an enormous stamina drain from everywhere in my body with a large wave of exhaustion. But along with this, I also feel any and all of the ice element within my body and the air and water around me begin to flow in circles around me as if waiting for something. Then, the stamina drain worsens drastically as my heart and bone marrow all begin to work overtime to generate ice element that then begins to constantly flow out of my body in the form of an icy mist, freezing all of the drops of rain that get anywhere near me.

Meanwhile, the kraken continues to get closer to me, to the point that it actually reaches my life sense skill’s range.

The skill continues draining me more and more of my stamina until suddenly, it stops. Following this, I find myself falling to one knee on the ice beneath me as the ice element swirling around me begins to speed up more and more, freezing absolutely everything in a ten meter radius around me. After that, the circle the element makes begins to spread outwards more and more until it reaches the kraken, causing it to make another whining-shriek as it’s completely frozen over.

However, right as I’m expecting this to be all, the ice element spinning in the air around us suddenly freezes in place before bursting outwards, passing straight through everything within the 100 meter radius around us, forcing me to close my eyes in the process – or at least I’m assuming it’s 100 meters, since that’s what the skill said, and I can’t see for myself considering that it’s out of my manipulation range.

Once I open my eyes again, I find myself standing on what – at first glance – appears to be a moving frozen wasteland, with rain still falling down around me, and a lot of frozen raindrops shattered across the ice. But when I pay more attention, I can tell that, after quite a ways down into the ice, the enormous chunk of ice I’m standing on is still floating in the water.

My attention is forced away again as I begin to hear creaking sounds, as if the ice were being under enormous strain. What I find myself looking at is a completely frozen monster the size of a few houses. And not one story houses either.

The kraken is nearing the size of the archthrons from the desert themed floors, with over a dozen enormous tentacles – about sixteen to be specific – and a coating of thick black scales over its entire body.

Although what makes me really nervous is the beady red eyes staring directly at me with hatred clear as day in them from within the ice as it parts of the ice encasing the majority of its body begins to chip and slowly crack, starting with the top of it which has a few unfrozen tentacles slamming against the top of the ice.

“Shit,” I swear before downing one of my few Tier 6 stamina potions and rushing across the twenty or so meters between me and the enormous beast.

Damn it! Wish I could just run away right now, but it would catch up to me long before I got far enough away; considering how it crossed two kilometers just to attack me.

So my only chance against this beast is now. While it’s immobilized.

Just please let it stay frozen for long enough that I can do some actual damage!

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