Chapter 188: The Glacier Annihilation Battle (Part 5)
The giant continued its charge. Even with its arm severed, it broke off an ice shard with its remaining hand and relentlessly advanced toward the red dragon.
Cassius hovered in place, calmly flapping his wings.
"Such a peculiar creature…"
"I wonder how long it can last."
He made no attempt to leave the storm's center. On one hand, Vengeance Storm was beyond his control; entering it himself posed great danger.
On the other hand, he had absolute confidence in the devastating power of his creation, believing this giant incapable of standing before him.
The Vengeance Storm had already cycled over ten rounds, with relentless winds and freezing rain battering the land beneath the thunderclouds.
The giant's form grew ever smaller, appearing stripped of its outer layers to reveal its fragile core.
Its movements slowed as it struggled through the storm, yet it stubbornly crawled toward Cassius.
"Enemy… of Eternal Frost…"
"I… will never… let you go…"
Its voice was like a fragile vessel in a storm, growing fainter yet unwavering, a testament to the indomitable will of Eternal Frost's fallen guardians.
However, under the amplified magic surge, Vengeance Storm grew ever more ferocious. White, blue, and violet lightning tore through the black sky, descending with unstoppable force to obliterate everything on the ice plain.
Black fog churned as lightning illuminated the glacier, revealing the dreadful power of the storm.
Yet the giant pressed on, now only a few hundred meters from the red dragon, clutching a sharp ice shard as it advanced.
"Boom!"
A deafening thunderclap reverberated through the air.
Dozens of blinding lightning bolts converged, forming a claw-like shape that tore through the black veil of clouds and struck the unsuspecting Ice Crystal Giant.
"No—"
Endless lightning engulfed the massive figure, illuminating the surroundings as if it were daylight. White steam billowed upward in thick plumes.
Across the vast Wahala Glacier, every living being heard a wretched wail mingled with the searing crackle of thunder.
When the lightning dissipated and the steam cleared, the Ice Crystal Giant lay shattered, barely clinging to its strange form of life.
Half its head was gone, leaving a grotesque visage.
Its massive left arm had fractured and fallen to the ground.
Its pelvis was split in half; its right leg was gone below the hip, and its left leg was severed at the shin. Only the left thigh remained capable of movement.
Maintaining even this mutilated form drained its strength. Its body was riddled with cracks, on the verge of collapsing into shards of ice.
Yet its half-mouth still moved faintly.
"Eternal Frost's… ene…"
The shattered giant dragged itself with its remaining left thigh, writhing awkwardly across the ground like a worm, inching toward the red dragon.
Cassius watched in silence as the giant crawled toward him.
With each meter it moved, fragments of its icy body ground away, leaving a trail of fine ice crystals.
By the time it reached him, a path of scattered ice lay in its wake.
The giant's remaining shoulder barely brushed against Cassius's talon. With great effort, it raised its head, its half-mouth trembling.
"Got… you…"
"Eternal Frost's…"
Before it could utter "enemy," a sharp cracking sound filled the air as the Ice Crystal Giant succumbed to its myriad fractures. It shattered completely, its nearly twenty-meter-long form collapsing into a small ice mountain, motionless on the Wahala Glacier.
Cassius casually picked up a fragment of ice, holding it in his claw and feeling its bitter cold, which he instinctively despised.
"A magical creature driven purely by hatred, utterly devoid of wisdom, yet capable of reaching a legendary life tier."
"What a peculiar thing. I'll let Langpu study it thoroughly."
"Perhaps it might become a weapon in my arsenal."
Cassius surveyed the devastation, admiring the calamity he had wrought.
Though the Ice Crystal Giant had fallen, the Vengeance Storm raged on, amplified by the magical surge. It would continue to expand until natural laws rebalanced and quelled this world-destroying instability.
Unrelenting wind and icy rain lashed at everything under the storm's domain. Countless lightning bolts struck down, shattering ice mountains one after another.
The Frost Giants' snow fortress was rent apart by lightning, collapsing in a cascade of rubble. Their ancestral stronghold was buried under the shattered glacier, with their tomes and histories entombed in ice, lost a hundred meters deep.
The Frost Giants' hunting grounds were scoured by acid rain, leaving them unrecognizable. Coarse horns, bone spears, and shields disintegrated into the earth.
Even the icy valleys sustaining the Frost Giants were buried by collapsing glaciers, erasing every trace of their existence. Cut furs, animal bones, and children's carved ice figures were forever sealed in frost, unknown to any future explorers.
From the ancient wars to this final annihilation, the Eternal Frost Tribe had struggled for nearly ten thousand years. At last, they met their end at the claws of a red dragon.
The fate of Kobal Eternal Frost's tribe—rising after slaying a red dragon, only to fall for provoking another—was a small, millennia-spanning jest of destiny.
"The Frost Disaster has ended."
"Because I brought the plague a disaster."
Cassius glanced around the scene of devastation, finding the irony somewhat amusing, as though it were a linguistic blunder.
He tilted his head slightly, his interface updating once more.
[You have slain [Solem's Winter Avatar] (Challenge Rating: 20), earning 25,000 XP.]
[You have destroyed the faction—[Eternal Frost Tribe].]
[You have earned the unique achievement: [Frost Giant Destroyer].]
Achievement: [ Frost Giant Destroyer]
"Frost Giants, the easiest prey. They lack the magic tricks of Storm Giants or Cloud Giants and can be taken down with brute force. Even a pathetic white dragon can easily kill them. The only downside—their meat tastes like frozen gravel, as if pulled straight from an ice cavern. Utterly inedible." —Ancient Red Dragon, Kabalya Horth
Trait Acquired: [Frost Giant Slayer]
Strength +2
Skill Proficiency: Intimidation +3
As the exterminator of the Frost Giant tribe, your reputation instills terror in them. You deal significantly increased damage to the [Frost Giant] race and exert a natural aura of intimidation.
Moreover, the destruction of Eternal Frost has strengthened you further, granting a twisted confidence that bends reality, along with resistance to cold damage.