The Gamer Chapter 1428 – Thorough Grinding 19 – Advancing Through the Glacial Front (Patreon)

The Ambassador Double, Aclysia, Beatrice, Nia, Sylph, Siena, Salamander, Undine, Lydia and Momo, that was their configuration as they advanced through the ice area of Astria.

As could be expected of an area of that element, the floor was generally frozen and slippery. Targeting footing was one of the few ways that scaled up the combat ladder. Whether one had the capacity to run at supersonic or average human speed didn’t matter if there was no traction for the acceleration. This wasn’t totally true from a pure physical perspective, but the passive effects of magic generally made it so.

A slippery floor could be dealt with in two ways. Either one stomped down on the ice so hard it ceased being a smooth surface or they had such balance that it did not matter. Well, that and the option of being able to avoid walking on it altogether. For the spirit of this tactical exercise, John ignored that option.

Stomping down on it was not an option here. Where the conjured ice of an elementalist could be overcome if the physical force exceeded the magically reinforced surface strength, Gaia’s environment provided no such option. That made it difficult for Metra and Gnome to participate. For all her experience, the First of Wrath had difficulty handling slippery surfaces. Even controlled rage did not lend itself to the kind of balance required to navigate ice, and Gnome was just a bit clumsy in general. If they couldn’t break the ice, they were bound to fall. Metra could cheat a bit through teleportation, but her particular kind required jumping through the portal. After face-planting through one instead, she decided to sit this area out.

While Aclysia similarly was one who would rather brute force her advance, she had no issue manoeuvring on the frozen ground. It was quite literally her element. Everyone else either had the kind of Agility specialization that let them retain their balance at a loss of speed or alternative modes of movement. In Lydia’s case, it was a little bit of column A and a little bit of column B.

The queen of steel skated on thin blades of metal. A cloud of blades surrounded her, most of the prismatic colour of her rapier, others mithril or other comparatively rare metals. Flat pieces pressed into her back, pushing her along faster than the scooting alone would have allowed her.

With the grace of an Olympic ice skater, she twirled. Neither the high velocity nor the pelt of the Polar Hound hindered her. The prismatic blade attached to her military boot sliced through fur and into the fat underneath, leaving a long, shallow wound. Several blades behind her attempted to mimic the attack, but they lacked her force and only cut into the fur.

The Polar Hound was too distracted with its enemy to truly notice. Nia calmly side-stepped a descending swing of the monster’s giant paw. Its maw opened wide. Hot breath created a steaming cloud in the air. Again, Nia only took a single step, the lunge passing past her midriff. No emotion showed on her face. The raised arm did not quiver a single time. She was flawlessly efficient. As fluid as a torrent that travelled invisible through a glass tube. She brought the pitch-black sword up and down in one single motion. It travelled through the neck of the monster.

Eyes rolled up. Foam bubbled from the loose lips. Its entire body was overcome by intense shivers. The cutting of magical pathways for a being made of magic was akin to overloading and shutting down the entire nervous system simultaneously. Under the effects of the seizure, the large creature collapsed. Nia parted her large sword into two daggers and drove them into the creature’s brain. Through skin and skull they sunk, never splitting anything physically.

While the pariah neutralized the magic and life of the Raid enemy, Beatrice danced around another. Bursts of speed kept her out of the range of the ice pick of the duo of attackers. They were the typical Eskimo depiction: people in such thick furs that their gender was impossible to make out. Faces may have alleviated that issue, but there was only a black void under the hood. It was equal parts imposing and a show of the modellers being too lazy to finish the job.

The Tundra Scouts forced Beatrice to constantly back away. Crackling claws clenched composedly around the shaft of her spear. She took a lounging step forwards – a miss. A flare of annoyance flickered in her eyes for one moment, immediately extinguished by her calculating nature. With the Crescendo streak broken, her manoeuvres were visibly slowed.

One of the Ice Scouts managed to move behind her. That opening, at least, appeared intended. Unsteady Limb allowed Beatrice’s tail to move at near untraceable speed. The two-pronged stinger sunk into the fur coat (which might as well have been the body). Liquid electricity pumped through the thin points as a rattling sound filled the air. Discharges and poison filled the enemy.

Anything else would have been completely incapacitated, but Raid enemies were made from sterner stuff. Moving through the paralysis, the Ice Scout grabbed Beatrice’s tail, while its comrade brought down the ice pick.

Beatrice’s body froze, then shattered, where the tool hit her. Left with half her tail, she tried to get away. Lunging forward, she used the slippery floor to slide away. The Ice Scouts set after her, unbothered by the ice. Beatrice made it back onto her feet, then suddenly re-appeared where she had started the slide.

A surge of tactical data filled John’s mind. Intel Beatrice had gathered while time was frozen for her. Three seconds to herself. A long time in a battle like this.

‘Salamander,’ John grabbed the attention of the apocalypse elemental with the single word before sending her a detailed plan through relayed imagination. Immediately, the fire spirit got into motion, dashing away from where Siena and Aclysia were engaged with another Ice Scout riding a Polar Hound.

The pair Beatrice had been engaged with immediately turned around and returned their charge with the simple-minded determination of an NPC. While they bridged the distance, the passive maid took a deep breath. Lightning cascaded past the sharp teeth of the white-scaled woman, enveloping the enemies in a torrent of blue and yellow. It was a short-lived offensive, ending with Beatrice herself turning into a cascade of electricity that arched away from the enemies.

A meteor slammed down on their location a split second later. Even the loud explosion of fire and stone did not put a dent into the ice. It did sear much of the enemy’s clothing, though, revealing humanoid bodies under crumbled fur and leather.

John followed the entire battle from several metres above. Constantly, the icy mist rubbed against the protective layer of arcane magic. The occasional spark of silver reminded John that he was expending mana just hovering this high. The steady, mild expenditure was better than putting his body in harm’s way though. The constant back and forth of the blows below, he could not match in this form.

Beatrice reformed from the lightning in the shadow of a building. A hand of dark slime reached upwards, the rest of the abysstide elemental soon following. The part of Undine wrapped itself around the regrowing tail. As ooze turned into lifeforce, the tail regrew rapidly, until the two points once again wiggled in the air. What remained of the body collapsed to the ground, dissolving into nothing.

“[Obliteration].”

The absence of that word carved itself into John’s mind, like light into a retina. A wave of neutralizing energies sliced across the battlefield, hitting Polar Hound and rider just as the steed reared up to deliver a crushing blow to Siena.

“Thanks,” the midnight elemental purred and raised her foot in a straight kick.

John was entirely awestruck by the sight. On impact, the heel of his shadow spirit punctured the throat. If the force wasn’t sexy enough, her shadow-clad, curvaceous form standing with her legs describing one practically vertical line definitely was.

And just as John was done marvelling at the pose, Siena pulled her leg back to the floor, cutting open its throat in the process. Then she laid into the still stunned enemy. She repeatedly had to step forwards, the flurry of claw swipes pushing her back on the frozen ground. One more swing and the defensive energies of the Polar Hound were extinguished – broken by the tail that skewered through its entire neck.

The Ice Scout leapt off, one of its arms hanging numbly from the elbow. One arm was all it needed to hold the ice pick though. Siena had anticipated the strike. Anticipating a strike and reacting correctly were not always the same thing. She tried to smack the weapon aside with her backhand and underestimated the sheer weight behind it. The attempt to derail failed and the weapon sunk into her neck to such a depth that it must have tickled her arteries.

Siena showed a strained grin and fell onto her back, pulling her assailant with her. She pulled her legs back and delivered a double kick straight to the humanoid’s stomach. The furs gave underneath, neutralizing much of the attack. Her tail wrapped around the partly numbed arm.

Aclysia advanced, clad in her armour of black scales and cracking ice. The aura of bitter winds was toggled off, as ineffective against these enemies as the smoothness of the floor was at halting her advance. She raised Salver and repeatedly brought the white-black weapon down on the spine of the Ice Scout. Each swing sunk a little deeper into the protective outer layer. The Black Ice hardly stuck to the furs.

“Mission complete, tactical Sylph incoming!”

The warning had a strange echo to it. No wonder, since the person it belonged to was leaping from point to point like a laser through a hall of mirrors. The volt bunny bounced from floor to house wall, back to the floor, drawing behind her a streak of green and blue that faded slower than she moved. Every jump only further drew this point home, until the entire battlefield was dominated by a zig-zag of lingering elemental magic.

Like collectibles in a videogame, Sylph zapped through Firefae placed in her path. Red, blue, green, white, then Sylph had gathered all the buffs.

All air in the area suddenly stood still when Sylph’s flying knee slammed into the side of the Ice Scout atop Siena. The streak behind her caught up with the arcvolt elemental. Then the world realized just what speed had struck the humanoid. The body of the raid enemy was sliced in half. Clothes and the midsection underneath were not just cut through, they were immediately incinerated by the unleashed electrical force.

Then the shockwave exploded outwards, strong enough that Lydia had to do an involuntary somersault. Just barely more prepared than her enemies, she used that force to cleave open the back of the head of one of the two enemies that had still been accosting Beatrice.

Sylph allowed herself a single giggle, landing on the ground. The same magic that had allowed her to accelerate to such a ludicrous degree protected her from the repercussions of delivering such a strike. She bounced on the spot, bunny ears flopping about, smiling.

“Sometimes, I do appreciate you’re on my side,” Siena confessed and sat up. Undine immediately tended to the massive hole in the shadow spirit’s neck.

“Awww, thank you, I knew you loved me, I’m cute and all that after all. Super, super cute. Never seen anyone cuter, except maybe Velka, but she’s a pet so that doesn’t count. I’m bestest concubine and that makes me super cute. Also, I am the shortest and shorter always equals cuter, it is known!” Sylph kept bouncing on the spot the entire time she babbled. Her long hair fanned out on each descent. “Anyway…” She turned her eyes to the last enemy. The grin reduced to a slight smile. Her voice dropped, no bubbliness remaining. “…let’s finish this.”

Sylph zapped forwards with the build-up speed. An echo of what came before, and still enough to send the last Ice Scout flying when she hit its back with a whirling kick. It sent it right into the ready tip of Beatrice’s spear. A Sunder strike cut open the fur coat and sent the helpless enemy flying upwards. The Ice Scout grabbed its ice pick, ready to punish Beatrice on the way down.

Aclysia Aided her faux-twin, appearing in front of her. Servant Strike bolstered the attack force of the upwards thrust of her next attack, driving Tiemarath through the exposed chest of the vaguely human entity. By the time she tossed the body aside, it was already turning into dust.

“These things sure are tough, ey?” Momo asked, as she settled down among everyone else. They took a general breather. Many resources had been expended, cooldowns or otherwise, and it was always nice to just have a moment to breathe before scouting for the next engagement. “Anyone want something? Snacks? Cola?”

“Malt beer!” Sylph declared, her voice back to the usual cheer.

Momo had actually packed that and pulled it out of her inventory. While the volt bunny sipped from the can, Aclysia voiced a question, “May I ask about that voice change you do?”

“Hmmm?” Sylph peeked up in her typical squeaky tone and then responded with all the threatening dignity of a noblewoman that had three hired guards behind her, “This? Are you talking about this?”

“Affirmative. I have observed you do it more frequently. Is there any particular reason?”

“Weeeeeell,” Sylph immediately fell back into the usual, “it drives Metra mental and I love that. It’s so difficult to make her go snappy in a way that’s not deliberately snappy, so making her all ‘YOU STOP THAT RIGHT NOW!’ is hilarious… Hihihihi, I have to giggle just thinking about it. She gets soooo mad, it’s- OH NO!” Sylph had done a random twirl while speaking. Normally not an issue, but the beverage in her hand was not as exempt from the law of gravity as she was. Pouting, she looked at the sip of malt beer that she was never going to get back.

“No,” John warned her when she leaned towards the ground.

“But, but…”

“Your lips will freeze to the floor – no.”

“Aww… Anyway,” Sylph immediately snapped back to the conversation, “it also kinda just happens when I Unleash these days. Probably habit. Maybe it’s just because I can talk now while still being focused. My brain volume tripled since we last met!”

“And it’s still smaller than anyone else’s,” Salamander threw in.

“Ye!” Sylph declared.