Chapter 359 - Icy Abomination (Patreon)

“Run!” Zeke roared, wheeling around to face his stunned companions. Their surprised inaction didn’t last long before each of them turned and obeyed his command. Jasper was the fastest, his feet spurred along by some skill that only affected his personal agility, but Silik and the kobold centurions weren’t far behind. Pudge came next. Even with his injuries, his stats were high enough to put on him on a different level.

Notably, he’d slung Sasha over his shoulder. It was probably a smart move. With her stat allocation being skewed toward intelligence and wisdom, there was no way she could keep up. But as appropriate as Pudge’s actions were, she clearly wasn’t happy with it because even as he sprinted back toward the stairs, she pummeled his broad back with her comparatively tiny fists while berating him with all sorts of creative insults.

“Oh, I’m going to remember those,” Eveline said with a barely audible giggle. “I don’t know what they mean, but I’m definitely going to use them sometime in the future.”

Zeke ignored her as he brought up the rear. Instead, he demanded to know what was going on.

“I’m honestly not sure,” she said. “But I think this castle is part of the treasure, like I said. So, when that spell started absorbing all the mana, it ruined the castle’s integrity. Plus, there’s a good chance that we’re creating a false elemental. Did I mention that before? I could have sworn I did.”

“You definitely didn’t,” Zeke said. The entirety of the conversation happened between one step and the next, which was one of the advantages of purely mental conversation. “So, what should I expect?”

“Depends on how it was created,” she explained. “In this case…well, I hope you’re ready for a fight, because it’s going to be pretty strong.”

“Great,” Zeke muttered. “And I’m guessing its core is the treasure we need.”

Eveline responded, “Yes. Exciting, isn’t it?”

“Would have loved to know all of this much sooner,” he said. Indeed, if he’d known he might have to fight a powerful ice elemental, he never would have brought the wounded Pudge along.

“If it makes you feel better, I didn’t exactly know before it started happening,” she said. “I lost a good portion of my memories back in Hell, and what I didn’t lose was fractured. I don’t always remember things until its too late to warn you.”

Zeke knew that was the case, and he didn’t really blame Eveline for her deficiencies. However, just because he didn’t blame her didn’t mean he wasn’t annoyed by it. “We really need to find a way to fix all of that,” he said, still sprinting from the impending formation of the ice elemental. The walls had continued to crumble, with bits and pieces flying through the air to join the swirling storm of ice where Sasha’s spell had been cast.

“Believe me, I’d love nothing more than to reacquire my memories, but I don’t really think it’s possible,” she admitted. “Think of it like mental scar tissue. In any case, I don’t think this is the time or the place to discuss this.”

At that moment, the castle’s crumbling walls exploded, sending Zeke and his companions flying through the air only to land a hundred yards outside the walls. Or where the walls had once stood. Even as he picked himself up off the snowy ground, he saw that the castle was no more. In its place was a veritable mountain of jagged ice.

It trembled.

Then, it groaned.

Zeke yelled, “Everyone get ready!”

He needn’t have bothered. The others had already begun to rise, and to his surprise, none seemed injured. The kobolds and Pudge were sturdy and durable enough to withstand all sorts of damage, and Sasha had surrounded herself with some sort of protective bubble. Jasper, meanwhile, was encased in a dark halo that pulsed with the rhythm of his raised voice. It was a good reminder that others were equipped with their own advantages, just like him.

As that thought crossed his mind, the mound of ice quivered, then started to move. First came an arm. Then, a second. A head. The torso was next, followed by a pair of legs. Soon enough, a humanoid golem of ice loomed hundreds of feet above them. Zeke used [Inspection] on it:

False Ice Elemental – Level 64

“False?” he mumbled.

“Fake. Manufactured. The Framework doesn’t like it when people create monsters,” Eveline stated. “Especially elementals.”

“What can I expect?”

“Aside from a creature that’s far more powerful than its level would suggest?” Eveline answered. “Volatility. Instability. And…it’ll probably be really angry.”

“Why?”

“Because its entire existence is pain,” she said. “That creature isn’t natural, and things don’t fit together quite right. As a result, it’s…well, it won’t be happy about being alive. So, if you’re beset by one of your moral quandaries, just think that you’ll be doing the thing a favor by killing it.”

“And you think I can?”

“Of course. Just do your thing, and you’ll be fine.”

“My thing?”

“You know – just whack it with your hammer. Use that delightful path of yours,” she said. “But don’t use the Worldbreaker technique. If you do, there won’t be enough left to use.”

Zeke sighed, saying, “Fantastic.”

Then, knowing that there was no point in delaying the inevitable, he glanced at his companions. They all looked back at him, waiting for some sort of direction. So, before the ice elemental noticed them, Zeke said, “Everyone do your thing. Pudge, you’re a skirmisher like always. Sasha, hang back and if you have any juice left, hit it hard the moment you can gather enough power for a spell. Silik, you and your Centurions are ranged attackers. Just keep hitting it with those light spears of yours.”

“And me?” asked Jasper.

“Your whole class is about making others better, right? Well, do that. I don’t know enough about your skills to be any more specific,” Zeke said. That was enough for Jasper, who nodded, then immediately started to sing. His song was different from the one he’d sung in the previous battle, and the effect was subtly different. The moment the melody hit Zeke’s ears, he felt energized and stronger than ever.

Hopefully, the others would feel a similar boost, because he expected that they would need it if they were going to emerge from this latest fight victorious.

For his part, Zeke’s preparations were predictable. He embraced [Triune Colossus], fueling it with earthen energy he dragged from the ground. At the same time, he used [Colossal Legion], summoning his golems to the fight. And finally, Zeke flooded [Weight of Two Worlds] with mana, keeping it on the brink of activation.

With his preparations complete, Zeke strode forward. Not for the first time, he wished he had some sort of movement skill. He’d seen a few in action, and he could think of a hundred ways such mobility could affect his battle tactics. However, for now, he only had his own two legs to see him through, so he used them to turn his stride into a jog. That jog soon became a sprint that took him to the base of the mountainous ice elemental.

With a bounding attack, Zeke swept his hammer forward. He didn’t hold back; instead, he used every point of strength he possessed. And when Voromir’s head collided with the solid wall of jagged ice, it did so with a sound like a detonating bomb. Cracks spread from the point of impact, and shards of ice flew in every direction. But when the proverbial dust settled, Zeke found that his efforts had not been nearly as effective as he’d expected them to be. There was a small crater in the thing’s foot, but it was otherwise unaffected.

That was enough to get its attention, though.

With speed that shouldn’t have been possible for such a large monster, it lashed out with a wild kick that clipped Zeke’s diving form, sending him cartwheeling across the snow. Then, just as he rolled to a stop, he was pelted by a barrage of jagged icicles that were hard enough to pierce his rocky skin.

Barely.

Roaring with annoyance, Zeke threw himself to his feet, but he soon found himself being pushed backward by an icy wall of wind that nearly threw him on his back. Bracing himself, he leaned against the powerful force, grunting in frustration as shards of rock were ripped from his earthen body by the onslaught of icicles.  Still, he pushed forward one step at a time.

Meanwhile, Zeke saw flashes of light that told him the kobolds had joined the battle. More, he could feel Pudge creeping around to attack the ice elemental from the back. And finally, Jasper’s song filled him with the energy necessary to fight back against the inevitable cold, wind, and ice that would have otherwise ended his efforts before they even began.

Zeke pulled more earthen energy from the ground, fueling [Cambion’s Awakening] and imbuing himself with indomitable strength and unwavering endurance. It wasn’t the explosive healing or volatile strength that came with the demonic version of the skill, but it was powerful in its own right. And more importantly, it was perfectly suited to enduring the onslaught of ice that barred his way.

Step by step, Zeke pushed forward, and his progress seemed to infuriate the enormous ice elemental. That meant he garnered the bulk of the monster’s attention. Even as the kobolds chipped away at it with their light spears, it only had eyes – metaphorically speaking – for Zeke.

When it struck, it did so with the inevitability of a glacier, lifting its foot and stomping down. Zeke dove to his right, but the blow descended with such force that it created a localized earthquake that kept him from dodging the next attack. It hit with all the force a thousand-ton creature composed of ice could bring to bear, and Zeke broke beneath it.

His body shattered and cracked, with great slabs of rock cleaving from his sides. But Zeke countered it by pulling even more earthen mana from the ground, fueling his recovery. Or at least his ability to endure.

And when the monster retracted its foot, it found that Zeke was still alive and intact, albeit with a thousand cracks in his earthen form. That infuriated the elemental, and it tried to repeat the attack. However, by that point, Zeke had had enough of that, so he finally let [Weight of Two Worlds] loose.

The effect was predictable. The elemental was already a creature of great weight, so when Zeke brought his skill to bear, it threw his foe off balance. More, with its weight suddenly increasing a hundredfold, the leg that remained on the ground cracked and crumbled. Even as it fell, Zeke pounced, throwing himself forward and bringing his hammer down in a thunderous blow that tore a crater in the icy monster’s chest.

However, his attack was just as effective as his last, which was to say not at all. The crater looked impressive enough, but it would take at least a hundred more such blows to really affect the elemental. Zeke was prepared to do just that, but fortunately, Pudge beat him to it.

Suddenly, a huge, black claw materialized in thin air before descending onto the elemental’s stubby head. When it hit, it did so with explosive force that shattered it into a million shards of ice. But Pudge wasn’t done. Still unseen, he launched an enormous ball of black-and-red fire at the wound he’d just inflicted.

And as would always be the case, when fire and ice met, fire – even corrupted by demonic mana – won. The ball of [Hellfire] bored a hole into the monster’s head, and if it had been a creature of flesh, the battle might have been won then and there. However, it was a being of pure ice, and as such, it wasn’t subject to the same vulnerabilities that afflicted biological creatures. There was no brain to destroy. No organs to assail. It was all just ice. And so, the attack that should have ended the fight then and there only served to further anger the already-furious creature.

In an instant, the temperature dropped, and the tundra was beset by a hellish cold that threatened to down even Zeke. Without Jasper’s unwavering song, it would have.

Pudge, though, wasn’t equipped with Zeke’s endurance, and so, the wave of cold hit him hard enough that he lost his grip on his concealment skill. And the second he was visible, the ice elemental wasted no time before swatting him aside like an annoying insect. Pudge went flying, and when he hit the ground hundreds of feet away, he kicked up a rooster tail of snow and earth.

Zeke saw red.

He didn’t consciously embrace the demonic portion of [Cambion’s Awakening] or [Triune Colossus]. Instead, it came upon him on a wave of protective instinct. In the space of an instant, his body transformed from the ponderous and enduring earthen colossus to the corrupted predator that came with flooding the skill with demonic mana. In addition, his mind went white with rage as explosive strength suffused his limbs.

He sprang forward with a bestial roar, plummeting into the hole Pudge had created. With fury, he set upon the inside of the monster’s head, tearing great chunks of ice away with every swing.

But even in the midst of his berserker rage, Zeke knew it was no use. He needed a point of vulnerability.

Perhaps it was Eveline screaming at him to go for the core that set him on his path. Or maybe he arrived at that conclusion all on his own – unlikely, given the unthinking state of his fury. But either way, he soon altered his course and began digging his way through the elemental’s neck.

Vaguely, he was aware of his companions’ efforts. Sasha enacted some spell to bind the creature while the kobolds continued to assail it with spears of light. Jasper kept singing as well, though the tenor of his song had changed to something far less rousing. It almost felt soothing. But Zeke couldn’t be bothered to ponder the change for very long because, in the midst of his assault, his store of demonic mana began to run dry.

In the demon realm, there was plenty of corrupted energy to go around. However, in the Eternal Realm, all he had was what his body natural produced – which wasn’t much. And worse, he couldn’t simply switch to the unattuned or earthen versions of his skills. No – the demonic mana coursing through his veins was a double-edged sword. It gave him plenty of power, but it also extracted a heavy toll by burning its way through him and inflicting serious damage along the way.

With the explosive healing of demon-fueled [Cambion’s Awakening], it wasn’t a problem. He healed as quickly as he was torn apart. However, the moment he let it go – or had it ripped from him via a lack of demonic fuel – he would be forced to endure the consequences of the corruption.

Likely, unless he managed to finish the ice elemental off before his reserves of corrupted energy petered out, he would die.

And so would everyone else he cared about.

Zeke didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. So, he prepared his Worldbreaker technique, braiding his various affinities – earth, corruption, and unattuned – around one another and holding them in place with an application of his Will. They tried to tear free of one another – their incompatibility was a source of the technique’s strength, after all – but he clamped down on them with every ounce of Will he could muster. It was just enough.

However, just before he let loose, he was reminded of Eveline’s warning.

If he destroyed everything, the entire exercise would have been for naught. On top of that, he had no idea if his allies would survive. In fact, he couldn’t be sure if he would make it through.

No – he couldn’t use the Worldbreaker technique.

So, he let it go. The various energies dissipated, and his demonic mana started to sputter. He tore through another chunk of the ice elemental, but he knew in his heart that it wouldn’t be enough.

That’s when his allies came through.

A combination of light and Pudge’s [Netherclaw] tore a hole through the ice elemental’s chest, revealing its core. Zeke had been so close, but at some point, he’d gotten turned around. If he’d kept going, he never would have found it. Or at least not before his energy dissipated.

But now that it was exposed, he used the last of his demonic energy to spring forward and tear the crystalline boulder free. His arms went numb the moment he touched it, but he didn’t care. Instead, he ripped it from the ice elemental’s chest and, using all the explosive strength he could muster, sprang from its chest. A moment later, he landed on the snowy ground a hundred feet away.

Before the last of his demonic mana ran out, he stored the core away.

That was the last thing he remembered before losing consciousness.