Chapter 911: Song Of Ice
Chapter 911: Song Of Ice
Isdis stared blankly forward, her eyelashes freezing from the sheer cold. Isbert stared at her getting buried in the snow with an emotionless cold stare. "We descend from an ancient hero who once soloed hell, halting a whole invasion on his own. After which he dove into the nine hells to rip and tear the devils apart. We call him the hero of ice, Silver."
Isbert's hand slowly moved up, pointing at the words engraved on her armor [Absolute Zero] "This was his title. No one could match the coldness of magic; he had perfected it. This means I too have achieved the Absolute Zero cold, reach it and I'll let you have it engraved on your armor."
Isdis tried to move, but her skin cracked.
"You can't brute force this. This place is a bit colder than when water freezes. Slowly but surely, the water in your skin is freezing, you'll die if you can't adjust to the cold." Isbert stood there, watching as Isdis froze in place.
Isdis's consciousness slowly faded away, she couldn't even feel the pain of the frostbite eating her body, numb to the world, she sat there, fading away amidst the white snow. The skin on Isdis's ring finger cracked, and the ring fell off...sinking into the snow. "Absolute Zero is an impossible level to achieve if you can't even deal with this cold breeze." Isbert approached Isdis and lifted her ice sword, "Farewell, snowflake." She swung down.
CRACK! A large hand caught Isbert's ice sword, Arad was standing over Isdis's body, putting her between his massive thighs. The heat gushing from his body quickly melted the snow around as he glared at Isbert with burning eyes and an enraged face.
This place was within Hati's training ground, on the south pole of the demi-plan, the place that Hati warned him about going into. The moment Isdis's skin froze and lost contact with her ring, Arad's wedding ring signaled him that the bond was cut, and he immediately located Isdis and flew toward her as fast as he could. Hati's demi-plane wasn't as large as he expected. It was almost the same size as the moon.
"Who are you?" Arad growled, clenching his fist on Isbert's ice sword, trying to shatter it but he failed.
Isbert lifted her arm and Arad's whole body got lifted up. His insane grip strength allowed his several tons of body to remain grabbing into the sword tip, but even that scene was stunning. The thin Isbert lifted her sword up with Arad's massive human body grabbing to the tip like an iron statue.
"What grip strength, you can hold that position?" Isbert looked at him with an indifferent, passive face.
"You can lift me up with one arm?" Arad asked, looking at her thin frame with a puzzled face, even though she was wearing heavy armor, he could tell she was no larger than Isdis.
Arad tried to open his palm to jump down and punch Isbert, but it was frozen shut to the elbow. Without hesitation, he shattered his frozen arm and swung the other fist at Isbert's face.
Using her palm, she caught his fist. "Cool your head a bit...in ice..." Arad's arm froze, shattering all the way to his shoulders. Merely touching this woman was enough to freeze him beyond repair. He could heat his body from the inside out using [Ho-white Nova] but that might burn Isdis who was behind him, and he can't even use that much power of fear that the death curse would activate again.
Arad couldn't use his nuclear engine for heat thanks to Isdis being close, and so found himself in a hard spot.
In the blink of an eye, he lunged at Isbert with a burning kick. But with a single graceful swing, she slashed him across the chest and froze him in a pillar of ice. Arad couldn't even see her swing; something was off about her. It was speed, nor acceleration.
At Absolute Zero, even atoms freeze and electrons stop moving, everything halts. Isbert was indeed a bit faster than Arad, but if that was all she could do, he would've caught up. Using her cold, she's freezing the space around her to slow everything down. She could even freeze time, and this was different than time-stop magic. When she freezes time, only those who could freeze it like her are able to move.
Isbert's area of effect was this whole southern poll.
"Rest in peace, among the ice..." Isbert stared at the frozen Arad, lifting her sword to slash him in half.
CRACKLE! CRACKLE! She stopped, hearing ice cracking behind her.
"Snowflakes trailing down...trailing down...Absolute peace..." Isdis's voice came from the snow as she slowly moved. Isbert looked behind, seeing Isdis standing with a violin in her left hand and an ice sword in the other.
Snow gathered behind Isdis as her sword drew closer to the violin. That snow formed several humanoid bodies, all carrying different instruments and were ready to play.
"Like shattered glass...the tundra's howls... Rumbles! ...This had turned FOUL!" Isdis ran her ice sword on the strings of the violin, sending a powerful note and causing the ground beneath them to rumble. The stalactite of ice that dangled from the trees shattered like glass, and Isbert stared back at her.
As all of the snowmen behind Isdis played, their music shook snowy wastelands, it boomed, masking the howl of the snowstorm.
"Took you long enough." Isbert lifted her sword and charged with a thrust at Isdis's face. With a large smile on her face, Isdis played the violin, sending waves of compressed sound at
Isbert.
While Isbert was a spellsword based on a fighter, Isdis was based on a bard. A clash between vastly different fighting styles yet with similar magic.
Isdis's sound waves rushed forth, shattered Isbert's ice sword, and hit the pillar of ice where Arad was frozen, cracking it. Isbert immediately conjured another sword without flinching and swung at Isdis's neck, at which Isdis blocked with her violin, engulfing it with ice. As Arad's pillar cracked, Kayden appeared standing beside it in a clown outfit. "What are you doing here?" Kayden sighed and swung his hand, shattering the ice sealing Arad.
"Listen, if you ended up like this, how do you think she's managing to keep up?" Kayden pointed back with his thumb, "She's holding back quite a bit. Get back to your training and don't interfere with them. They are training just like you."
Arad fully regenerated, and suddenly disappeared as he lunged at Isbert, ignoring Kayden.
Kayden's red clown nose was left floating in the air as he jumped after Arad, grabbing him by the back of his neck. "You're strong, but still have a weakness. It's your wives." Arad tried to swing back at Kayden but he failed. Caught like a kitten, no matter how he tried to move, Kayden remained outside his range.
"See? I wouldn't have caught you like this if you weren't distracted." Kayden jumped with Arad into the sky, and his red clown nose finally hit the solid ice sheets formed from Isbert
and Isdis's fight. HONK!
In a second, Arad found himself flying toward the field of swords where the poor demon was sitting, twiddling his thumbs and patiently waiting for Arad to return.
Kayden threw Arad to the ground, and the demon stood with a happy face, waving his hand at Arad as if he wanted to play.
"Focus on your training and let them also train to grow stronger. Otherwise, they'll die before you could even reach them." Kayden said, his eyes burning red. "If Isbert was serious, Isdis would've died long ago before you could reach them. If this was a real fight, she would've been long gone. Understand that well, you can't protect them at all times, they must be able to at least survive until you arrive."
HONK! Kayden's clown nose hit the ice again, and he appeared beside it, catching it in his hand. "Isbert, I've convinced Arad, he shouldn't bother you again." Kayden put the nose back
on and disappeared.
When Kayden landed back at the orphanage, his wife Lily rushed to him, she was a massive 3- meter {10 feet} tall Oni with red skin and two long black horns on her forehead. "The kids are getting bored, where did you go?"
"To take care of another kid." Kayden replied as he walked back on stage, honking his nose and the kids cheered.
As Arad reluctantly returned to his training and Isdis kept her fight with Isbert, Hati was walking through the hallway with Mira, leading her into the backyard where she had called a
guest.
"You said you have a workshop?" Mira asked, "What do you have in it?"
"I'm not really sure, I never worked there. But an old friend of my husband built it." Hati replied with a smile, "I called that old friend to help you make a weapon for Arad, but he's too
busy so he might not be able to stay for a long time."
BANG! BANG! BANG! Someone was in the workshop, smacking something with a hammer. With each strike, Mira could see sparks of divine magic flying into the air, making the old shed
seem more like an abandoned temple.
Hati walked in the front and called, "Can we enter?"
"Warmed me 'hammer... that' our greedy lass. Welcome to me 'forge!" Albeit the short and
stout man who didn't stand taller than five feet greeted them with a cheerful face, his bushy red beard and eyebrows, angry-looking face, and wide muscular body made him look more
intimidating than anything else.
"It's MY forge." Hati glared at him.
The dwarf snorted, "Tis mine now; Lazy shit-bucket..."