Chapter 100: Domain of the Frost King
A white wall building itself into the shape of a dome.
No matter how he looked at it, the phenomenon unfolding before his eyes was the White Dome come again. Walfred muttered in a voice tinged with bewilderment.
"Why is the White Dome here, of all places..."
Wasn’t the White Dome supposed to refer to the [Nest of the Frost Dragon] where Elsa had been sleeping?
But as if to mock that very thought, the white wall completely swallowed downtown Philadelphia and turned into a hemispherical White Dome.
’...Let me think this through.’
After forcing down his bewilderment.
Walfred recalled what the White Dome he’d seen in New York had in common with the one before him now.
The Nest of the Frost Dragon, where Elsa had slept.
The Permafrost, where the Spirit King had been born.
Laying the two side by side, he saw they shared one thing in common: both were the domains of frost-attribute Boss Monsters.
"Don’t tell me..."
Maybe the White Dome wasn’t a specific place like the Nest of the Frost Dragon, but rather the very domain of a frost-attribute Boss Monster itself?
For now, that seemed the most plausible explanation.
And then.
Ding!
-----
[Warning! The Frost Spirit King is enraged.]
[All beings within the influence of the Permafrost are afflicted with the ’Slow’ effect.]
[Action Speed]: -75%
[All Resistances]: -50%
[Physical Abilities]: -50%
-----
A warning message similar to the one from when he’d first entered the Nest of the Frost Dragon appeared.
And then.
"Urgh!"
His body grew abruptly heavy.
His legs went sluggish as if weighted down with sandbags, and a cold he hadn’t felt until now crept in along with it.
A powerful debuff crushing down on his whole body.
Walfred dropped to one knee with a groan.
The pain didn’t last long, though.
[Begone.]
A single word Elsa murmured.
The instant Dragon Tongue activated, the weight binding his entire body vanished as if washed away.
-----
[Notice]
[A being of a higher order interferes with the phenomenon.]
[Frost Spirit King’s Wrath] effect dispelled
[You are freed from the ’Slow’ state.]
-----
Right after, the debuff disappeared completely.
To think Dragon Tongue could even wipe out a debuff. As Walfred made a startled face, his senses fully restored.
"Daddy, are you okay...?"
Elsa spoke up with concern.
Walfred nodded.
"Yeah. Thank you. You saved me there."
"Hehe, yeah!"
Elsa smiled brightly.
He smiled along at how reassuring she looked, but only for a moment, then his expression hardened again.
’More importantly, the fact that this just happened means the Spirit King extermination failed.’
In that case, fleeing all the way to the edge of the White Dome would be pointless. The White Dome could only be escaped with the permission of its master.
’Of course, if I use Elsa’s Dragon Tongue...’
They might be able to escape.
Dragon Tongue was that powerful.
But even so, that wouldn’t solve the fundamental problem. He could get them out of immediate danger, but everything beyond that would be bad.
Every survivor in Philadelphia, including Erica, whom he’d worked so hard to find, would be slaughtered.
’And on top of that, if the White Dome expands as the Spirit King grows, the way it did in New York?’
Then surely they’d run into it again someday.
By then it would have become a monster so powerful that the present couldn’t even compare. Thinking about that, dealing with it now, somehow, was the best option.
’But...’
The matchup was far too unfavorable to fight head-on.
The only skill Walfred had that could deal meaningful damage to the Spirit King was [Ice Shatter].
And on top of that, even Margaret, an A-rank fire-attribute Hunter, had failed. Could he really fight and win?
Walfred bit his lip.
Just as his deliberation deepened.
"Do whatever you want, Daddy."
Elsa stared straight at him.
Her eyes were clear and spotless. With a look that seemed to read his innermost thoughts, Elsa beamed.
"Whatever you do, I’m all for it!"
"..."
At those words, Walfred quietly closed his eyes.
’What I want to do.’
What he wanted came down to two things.
One was to flee this danger zone right this instant and head for Key West.
And the other.
To fight against the worst before him, in order to prevent the worst yet to come. Caught between those two paths, Walfred soon opened his eyes.
"Elsa."
"Yeah!"
"I’m going to run fast, so hold on tight."
Lowering his stance, Walfred turned around.
At that, Elsa promptly climbed onto his back, then burst into giggles and shouted.
"Hehe, let’s go!"
With Elsa’s laughter as the final cue.
Walfred’s feet kicked off the ground.
Toward the center of the newly formed White Dome. Toward the place where the Frost Spirit King waited.
---
After Walfred broke away from the group.
Naked hostility poured in toward Margaret and the Hunters from every direction.
The murderous glares sent by the thousands of spirits filling the ground and sky. It would have been only natural to shrink under them, yet Margaret’s expression stayed composed.
"Then let’s begin."
She’d already steeled her resolve.
And so had Damon and Julie.
The first of them to move was Damon. Taking in as many of the spirits’ shadows within his field of view as he could, he activated his skill.
"Shadow Chain."
A skill that bound shadow to shadow.
With the activation of [Shadow Chain], every shadow within Damon’s field of view was woven into one.
At that, the Frost Spirits who owned each of those shadows were all dragged together into a single spot.
Bambambam! Whump!
The spirits crashed wildly into one another.
The spirits flapped their wings trying to break apart, but they couldn’t budge from their spots, as if nailed down.
In the meantime, the double made from Margaret’s shadow charged into the spirits and opened the battle. As the chaos went on.
"Phantom Rebellion!"
Julie activated her skill too, as if she’d been waiting for the moment. An illusion-type skill that made its targets perceive those around them as enemies and burn with hostility.
And in that instant.
The clumped-together spirits quickly began to claw and bite at one another. It was the moment hundreds, thousands of monsters fell into infighting.
"Go get them, Major!"
"We’ve got this end covered."
Along with those heartening shouts.
Margaret glared at the Spirit King.
"...Ignition Heart."
Starting with a skill that drastically enhanced her body, she chained one additional buff after another.
"Overheat Mode, Rising Heat, Ignition Accelerator. Fire Weapon."
Reinforcing her fire-attribute skills.
Raising the frequency and temperature of her heat emission. Amplifying her action speed and arming herself with a fire-attribute weapon.
After completing every last preparation.
Crrrrk! Bwoom!
Along with the sound of the ground shattering.
Margaret kicked off the earth and, at explosive speed, closed the distance to the Spirit King in a single bound.
Only then did the High Spirits notice the ambush and prepare a counterattack, but it was already too late. She had already made contact with the Spirit King’s body.
And then.
"Flame Burst!"
KABOOOOOM!
Centered on the Spirit King.
Searing flames hotter than several hundred degrees surged in from every side, triggering a massive explosion. Margaret wasn’t satisfied with that and pressed her offensive.
"Explosion! Hellhound’s Fang!"
All of them skills that boasted tremendous power in exchange for a cooldown.
Normally it would be standard to calculate the cooldowns and use them strategically, but this time she had no intention of doing so.
’I’m going all out from the very start!’
The Spirit King had only just been born.
It had no combat experience whatsoever. So before the thing could learn how to fight, she had to bury it under overwhelming firepower.
KRAKAKAKAKOOM! KABOOOOM!
Explosions and flames in a relentless chain.
The ordinary Frost Spirits near her couldn’t withstand the heat and melted away, and the High Spirits took no small amount of damage either.
The same was true for the Spirit King.
[⍎⚸⟐⌖⍜─!?]
The Spirit King shrieked madly in a language no one could understand. She didn’t know the meaning, but the emotion packed inside it came through clearly.
Alarm. Confusion. And fear.
Certain now that she’d seized the upper hand, Margaret cranked up her output and kept up the assault. As a result, part of the Spirit King’s body broke apart.
Crunch! Krrsh!
Beyond the gaping hole in its outer shell.
She could see something like a blue marble pulsing rapidly like a heart. Spotting it, Margaret’s eyes flashed like a predator that had found its prey.
’The core!’
Just as the weak point of an Elite Monster was its mana stone, the weak point of a Boss Monster was that core.
She had taken part in a Boss Monster extermination battle in the past and had seen the shape of a core, so even a brief glimpse was enough to be certain.
’I’ll destroy it in one strike.’
If she just broke that, it would all be over.
Margaret wrung out the last of her mana and converted it into blazing flames.
Then she activated the most destructive single-target skill she possessed.
"Ignite!"
A concentrated mass of ultra-high heat exceeding several thousand degrees.
Small in size, but to anything [Ignite] touched, it was a disaster in itself.
Because a flame that would never go out until the caster’s mana ran dry would latch onto whatever it struck.
Fwoosh! Whooom!
[Ignite] shot straight toward the Spirit King’s core in an instant. Just as [Ignite] closed the gap in a flash and was about to complete its task.
An intruder cut in.
BWOOOOM!
It was a High Spirit.
The thing took [Ignite] with its own body in the Spirit King’s place, then exploded right there.
"Dammit...!"
An unexpected turn.