We arrived back to the Frozen Kingdom after half a day. The ride back in the carriage was interesting, to say the least, as the Princess continued to exceed my expectations of just how much trust she placed on me because of her unique skill. She said she would do anything, and I believed her. With such a person in place, the issues dealing with the kingdom would be taken care of with ease.
The procession of carriages and wagons went inside as citizens welcomed back their Ice Princess with vigor. I talked with Adelaide about the events after this, and she was confident that nothing even remotely dangerous would happen now that she set foot back here.
Even the person scheming in the back would be crippled for a while after they lost such a big piece. She would be meeting the King after I left, a powerhouse that I was interested in seeing sometime soon.
But I was itching to test out my new skills on powerful opponents, so after escorting the Princess to the Snowy Peak and seeing all the guards surrounding the manor, I flew out and made my way over to the Skypeak Nest. It was time for me to have fun with that EPIC beast I ran away from more than a week back.
My speed with [Flight] continued to increase as I learned and activated more support skills, but I was using it for its function of keeping me in the air as I used [ Regal Archer's Eyes] and [Instant Transfer] in conjunction to disappear and appear a few miles away. Using flight at its maximum speed would get me across the same distance, but not as fast as the instantaneous movement.
I thought back to the other rank S skills I received from the dead mercenaries earlier today as I flashed towards the beast's Nest. The ones that I didn't see myself actively using but I still learned nonetheless were [Ricocheting Shield], [Bear's Fighting Style], and [Archer's Gamble]. The more useful ones were two support skills, [Lion's Heart], and [Speedster] that increased my speed and damage even further
The remaining four were two offensive skills and two standard ones that I liked. The offensive ones were [Smouldering Sword Strike] and [Earthen Spears], with the ones I called standard being [Thought Acceleration- The speed of your thought processing is raised significantly] and [Crisis Avoidance- A few extra seconds are given to you as you sense incoming danger].
The last two skills were great, especially [Thought Acceleration] that seemed like one of the best rank S skills I've received so far. I knew it wasn't all-powerful, as the person who had it previously fell under my attacks, but it was still a great supplement. Many decisions and thoughts could be made rapidly in a short time span with this skill, allowing me to assess many things quickly before moving forward.
I soon arrived near the towering Skypeak Nest and looked to the prowling beasts below. The goal today was to fully enjoy the usage of the new EPIC skill that I gained. With the excitement that I couldn't contain, I landed on the floating landmass, equipped the EPIC ranked [Kingslayer] sword, and cast [Corrupted Sword Saint's Incarnation].
---
A powerful beast was slumbering not too far from the outer fringes of the Skypeak Nest. Ever since it felt the frequent killings of its brethren a few days ago, it had remained in the periphery of the nest waiting for those cowards that only dared to bully those weaker than them.
Days had passed with no intrusion as it thought about heading back inland where the concentration of essence was much denser. It looked like it wouldn't leave in disappointment as its red eyes opened because of the new vibrations it could feel on the earth.
An expression of glee appeared on its ferocious body as it rose up to be larger than six meters, its disproportionate limbs flinging around its sides. It went forward to see if it was the same intruder that ran away from it last time.
It slowly inched forward so as to not scare the coward away again, and came to a surprising sight of a larger figure swinging around a dark red sword at extreme speeds. The figure was more than seven meters large, with a face that had a dark red horn pointing to the skies and a body fully covered in armor. It let out ripples of power as the sword that should have been heavy in his hands moved around like a feather, smashing into the surrounding beings and causing them to explode in a mass of flesh and gore.
The EPIC beast watching this was angered as it let out a howl and went forward at full speed to clash with this intruder.
BOOM!
As if he knew it was coming, a sword met its outstretched claws as a thundering voice came out from the large swordsman.
"Haha, you're finally here again. Let's go!"
The battle started off rapidly as the two figures clashed. [Enfeeble] was casted right away as the snowy beast felt its power weaken. The beast that was proud of the speed and defenses it had trained all these years found its strikes being met with the sword every time, its claws feeling pain and cracks after every clash.
The being in front of it seemed to be letting out purely physical attacks, with shockwaves exploding after every point of contact. The large figure was moving gracefully with the sword, meeting every single attack the beast threw with extreme precision, so it casted its innate ability, [Iceberg], to end the fight as soon as possible.
VOOM!
A resounding horn that seemed to signal an arrival could be heard as a tremendous landmass filled with a deadly collection of ice elements appeared above them. The iceberg was more than 30 meters long and covered the entirety of their sight as the beast wrapped its large body around the large swordsman and held him down.
BOOM!
A tremendous impact that shook the entire Skypeak Nest occurred as the iceberg smashed into the ground.
"Haha!"
A laugh could be heard as the beast felt the body it was holding down slip away the moment before its attack hit, making it furious. He clawed out of the jagged spears of ice from the fallen iceberg and found the figure mockingly laughing above it, safe and sound.
The 8-meter long incarnation remained suspended in the air, defying the laws of gravity as the body became more and more solid as the red light spread throughout the skies before deadly words could be heard from it.
"Alright, that's enough playing around for now."
The beast's body was shining as it prepared to go all out against the intruder, and it seemed like its opponent was doing the same. A green runic circle appeared as another powerful presence came out of it, and multiple cracks that let out deadly power of flames and lightning formed in the skies.
Neither was backing down as a brand new [Iceberg] appeared high in the skies. The corrupted incarnation looked up to the falling landmass and pointed its large blade up, the body becoming enveloped in red light as the Dark Slayer Sword Style was activated.
While a dark red light spread out in the skies above, a menacing green was spreading throughout the ground as the Plague Bearer triggered [Defiler] onto the surrounding bodies of beasts. The bodies unnaturally began rising as they turned a deadly shade of green, all turning into furious runs towards the EPIC beast.
The humongous incarnation shining in a red light jumped from the ground, leaving behind a crater as it rotated in a spectacular dance, spinning rapidly in the air as the figure smashed into the falling Iceberg.
BOOM!
Chunks of solid ice flew out as the large iceberg was clearly cut in half, its two portions falling on the ground below where a battle continued with a monstrosity belching out poisonous breaths towards the EPIC beast. It tried maneuvering from the snaking lines of flames and lightning as well as the poisonous beast and was becoming slowly overwhelmed.
It howled defiantly as it looked up to see its attack sliced apart, and could only see the figure of the large swordsman rushing towards it, the sword in hand already pointing towards its chest.
BOOM!
The impact of the large body smashing into the ground resounded, as the pained howl of a beast rang out. The red sword had pierced all the way through to the back of his chest, going even further to pierce into the ground. Strength began leaving its body as it could feel deadly power from the sword ravaging all his being.
It didn't help at all that the poisonous beast was commanding the bodies of its dead brethren to continue exploding and cause more virulent poison to pierce into its hardened skin armor and leave its deadly attacks on it too.
HOWL!
It struggled at the sword that nailed it to the ground and tried to move out, but it was unsuccessful. The struggles gradually became less and less as ragged breaths came out. It watched the large figure of the solid swordsman with the horn rising from his head continue to pull its fists up and smash them into its body. The tremendous strength of the strikes was purely physical damage that was causing searing pain wherever they landed.
The combination of a giant figure with a sword, roiling snakes of flames and lightning, as well as a poisonous monstrosity slowly dwindled the life force of the EPIC ranked beast until it could no longer move.
Silence prevailed as the body of Noah surrounded by the sword saint's incarnation looked further into the Skypeak Nest. Multiple powerful auras in no way less than the beast he just took down had become active at the center of the Nest and were making their way here.
The large incarnation could be seen devilishly smiling as it reached out to the body of the dead beast, and then flashed away into nothingness. Three tremendously powerful auras arrived not too long after, but the only thing that met them was a poisonous battlefield with the mangled body of their brethren.