Frostbound Chapter 102 - Wrong Words

Chris

Fuck, this hurts.

I felt the knife in my back dig deeper every ti I moved to swing my hamr or dodge a blow. Every twist of my torso aggravated it further.

Assassins weren't sothing I had anticipated and that failure was biting in the ass. Rogue was one of the 5 main classes and dismissing the possibility of assassins was a rookie mistake.

It went to show how inexperienced we were at planning for war. We were lucky none of us had died from the attack. Jonathan and I were the worst off and he was already healed.

[Frozen Patchwork(R)] was keeping going. The dagger nicked sothing important in my chest cavity but I had no idea what. I was no doctor and could only guess at what had happened.

The chill from the skill numbed most of the pain and worked to curtail the bleeding. It wasn't ant for important organs but I infused my Law into the skill to boost its strength.

We had severely underestimated our foe. I thought that his army would be weakened slightly from the battles he put them through but we were wrong.

The things I heard relayed to from Kathy painted a grim picture.

We still had aces up our sleeves, but I wasn't sure it would be enough anymore. Already people were retreating to the second line of stone fortifications we had built.

The only way I thought to end it, was to kill the one controlling them. It wasn't guaranteed to stop the horde of monsters from attacking but it would certainly weaken them.

So I was going to do sothing stupid.

Like entering the lion's den alone.

I had fought an entire wave alone, I could take out one man.

Making Austin promise to take care of them was probably unnecessary, but it gave peace of mind. I didn't think that he wouldn't, but on the off chance things went poorly, I needed to be sure.

After my decision was made, I began my march. Wading through the flowing thralls and against the current of their bodies. I marched into the belly of the beast.

Leaving as I had left an opening in the front line but the amount I was killing more than made up for it.

The closer I got to the gate, the more pressure was applied to stop and the more bodies found themselves deford.

Their resistance was futile and their efforts were in vain.

It didn't work.

I faced heavy resistance trying to enter the gate but it was nothing my hamr couldn't smash aside. I didn't even have to call on my bloodline to get through and was able to keep it in reserve for later.

I flattened the horde of thralls as I walked over them to enter the castle. They were even nice enough to hold the gates open for .

Imdiately, I felt the blazing heat from the fires in the camp and I had to work overti to fight the hostile mana in the area. It was nothing compared to Rachel's skill with flas and it was easily dealt with.

The fires had no will of their own to give them strength, no one to fight for control.

Where I walked, fires sputtered and went out before frosting over. There would be none of that near .

My target was the only building still standing, the keep.

Trying to conserve my mana was hard with all of the bodies surrounding and at certain points, massive expenditures were necessary.

A giant [Ice Fortress(Un)] combined with [Shatter(Un)] opened up holes in the bodies, giving one more step toward the keep. This was the first ti I was fighting to get sowhere rather than hold sowhere and the difficulty was much different.

It was a lot easier to hold an area against a force than it was to get to an area through a force.

Even so, my hamr swung ferociously and I made my way toward the keep.

While fighting to get here, I had been trying to co up with ideas on how to get into the keep. If the doors were barred and defended well enough I would have trouble getting in.

It wouldn't be a problem if I wasn't so pressed for ti. I would eventually be able to get through, at least I thought I could, but the longer I took killing the Mindbreaker, the longer my family had to fight off the monsters he controlled.

That all changed when I saw the crowd of thralls part before a middle-aged man. Sothing about his face tugged at my mory but I couldn't place it. He didn't have the sa listless expression as all the others and the army around him gave a wide berth. Like they weren't allowed to get any closer.

This was him. The man who had caused so many troubles for . The one who attacked my family and sought to turn them into... this. Their will usurped and their bodies puppeted.

Just seeing him made angry.

It was an unexpected boon that the man himself appeared before and it was one I would capitalize on.

I didn't care to examine him closely or note down his features, they would be smashed into oblivion soon and it wouldn't matter. His body would be unrecognizable after I was done with it.

With the parting of bodies, I launched myself at him, reading my hamr.

"Well, hel-"

Both [Frostbite(Un)] and [Mighty Blow(R)] slotted onto it and I brought it down as hard as I could, not giving him a chance to speak.

Clang

The sound of tal eting sothing hard rang out and it wasn't the dull thud of my hamr hitting flesh.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"Did you really think that would work?" The man said from behind a massive tallic ant that blocked my blow. An ant that was in my recent mory and not for good reasons.

It was the Ant Boss from the last wave and it fully absorbed my blow without showing any signs of wear.

Shit.

As the words flowed out of his mouth, I felt an influence settle over my mind. It was looking for a way in, a way to control . Whisps of fog surrounding and threatening to co in. I had activated [ntal Walls(C)] the second I got into the camp but I double-checked it was active for good asure.

The skill worked to rebuff the influence and I saw the man grimace at his failure.

"It seems you'll be a difficult one." He added but otherwise looked unpreturbed.

I held zero intentions of holding a conversation and even less for holding a conversation with a mind manipulator. My best course of action was to kill him where he stood and to do that, I had to get through the Ant Queen.

"Oh, I can tell this will be fun. You fighting to kill while the rest of your family dies and I get to slowly pick your mind apart. What was your goal I wonder? Did you think you could win?"

His words couldn't be tuned out, it was like they were burrowing into my ears, forcing to listen to his monologue.

There was no reason to hold back any longer and I activated everything I had.

[Montum of the Avalanche(R)] was already going at full blast and [Barbarian's Fury(Un)] boosted my stats further.

I called on the power of my bloodline and I felt the cold spread from my core into every inch of my body. Strength flowed through and my ice felt smoother.[Permafrost(Un)] worked to chill the area even faster and as more frost built up and the air dropped below zero, [Glacial Presence(R)] boosted my stats even further.

"I see you intend to fight anyway. I -"

I leaned on the fury coursing through and the words finally got out of my head. The man seed to be doing sothing, but I threw myself at the Ant Queen to kill it quickly. It was blocking my way to my real target.

I had already killed it once, I would do so again.

Smashing it around with my hamr, while cathartic, didn't go as well this ti around. Other monsters were hampering and clawing at and one giant one made itself known entering the battle.

"ROAR!"

A massive vine bear charged at from behind and knocked to the ground while I was swinging at the Ant Queen. The attack pushed the knife lodged in my back deeper in and it hindered my movent even more than it already was.

I felt it intimately as it pushed deeper in. The pain was excruciating but I pushed it out of my mind. I had a mission to complete and a little pain wasn't going to stop from that.

Turning to look around , I watched as previous bosses made themselves known and for the first ti in a long ti, I felt despair.

I felt the presence of one of them before I saw it. My control over my ice began to waver and sothing was fighting back against it. It was nowhere near Rachel's level but it was an annoyance I didn't need right now facing down three massive bosses.

The massive Vine Bear, roaring and pawing at the ground. The tal Ant Queen with tal pincers that could chomp through my armor. And the burning Blaze Lion to mitigate so of my ice.

Three of the hardest bosses that I had fought recently. Sothing told that wasn't a coincidence. If he had these bosses, he most likely had others and my mind had no trouble coming up with where they might be.

It would seem he held these three back specifically for .

How much of what happened was his plan? Did he know we were coming to attack? Did he know I would charge in alone if I felt it was necessary? Did he plan this?

The despair I felt only grew as my speculations continued. Sothing was nudging my mind along that line of thought but I couldn't feel it. If even the smallest of what I thought was true, it did not bode well for my family and I needed to end this as quickly as possible.

"You didn't think it was only one boss, did you?"

As I looked at what was arrayed against , his words started to cut through again. My fury sputtered slightly, letting the words in.

Even pushing all of my will into [ntal Walls(C)] wasn't enough to keep them out of my head.

"Since it seems you have gone all out, I shall do the sa."

Even though I didn't want to focus on him or his words, I couldn't help but look as his body began changing. Even as amateur as I was at sensing auras, the change occurring was easy to spot.

His presence grew and it almost felt like he was growing physically. Like I had to look up to him now even though we were the sa height. His aura spiked from whatever he was doing and it felt stronger than mine. Not in heaviness sense, but in size.

He was E-rank.

His arms and legs took on a scaly texture and his eyes started to change, unable to stick with a permanent color. It was slightly srizing to look at.

"How do I look?"

His words changed completely. Where they were just annoying before and I was able to brush them off with [ntal Walls(C)] and a little willpower, they changed completely now. Like they could penetrate even the most stalwart of defenses. Whatever he just did made my defenses not possible anymore.

They beca a sultry serenade that I couldn't help but want more of. It was highly distracting at a ti when I needed it least. Three of the bosses from the previous five waves surrounded and I couldn't afford any mistakes.

Instinctively, I used [Identify(C)] to confirm my suspicions.

[Human: Level ???]

He was E-rank. He had to have one of the three Paths of Power but I wasn't sure which. I also wasn't sure what kind of bloodline he had but I figured it made all of his ntal skills stronger.

This wasn't going the way I thought it would.

I dug deeper, pulling everything I had within and I charged at the Blaze Lion. It was the easiest of the three to deal with and getting rid of its hinderance on my ice would make things easier. I aid to eliminate it first.

I didn't even make it two steps toward the Lion before both the Vine Bear and the Ant Queen started to harass . The bear blocked my path to the lion and the Ant Queen attempted to pincer and take chunks out of my body.

The first ti I had fought the bear, it was a close fight that I almost lost, but that was after hours of fighting and when I was under level 45 without a bloodline.

Now, I was over 7 levels higher, 2 skills richer, and a bloodline to push myself further.

I was stronger than it.

The last ti I fought it, I could sowhat tell what it was feeling during the fight. Nothing complex, only surface-level emotions like shock and surprise. Now, though, I couldn't even glean that.

It was like they were robots without a will of their own. I had expected to see shock in the bear at being pushed back but it revealed nothing.

My hamr pounded into it, trying to get through but it fought without any regard for pain. My massive blows rained down on it and it didn't do so much as flinch.

I could feel the force of the impacts up my arm and I knew they weren't as weak as the bear made them look. They were swings using all of my strength, that wasn't sothing it should have been able to ignore.

The Ant Queen nipped at the entire ti making an annoyance of herself. It tore off chunks of my armor and its mandibles savaged my skin underneath. The Blaze Lion was worse. Just its presence started to heat the area and I had to spend more mana to cool it back down.

It didn't help that the entire ti sultry words were whispered in my ear about giving up and letting go.

"Give in. You're never going to win."

All of it added together drove my frustration through the roof. This wasn't a fight. This wasn't battle.

This was stalling.

He was stalling while simultaneously attacking my family and trying to get in my head. The longer this battle took, the better his chances of winning got.

I was in a race against ti and I was losing.

Even as I pulled out all the stops, I couldn't do anything. My hamr was rebuffed by either the Bear or the Ant and the Blaze Lion hindered my ice. Everything I was doing was accounted for and planned against.

The feeling of despair grew and I felt the possibility of losing grow evermore.

I felt in my mind that this wasn't a natural feeling but there was nothing I could do about it. I was fighting back with everything I had but it just wasn't enough.

All the battle, all the killing, all the leveling, and I was going to lose when it mattered most.

"Just stop fighting. There's nothing for you to fight for anymore, your family is already dead."

Oh.

Oh, he shouldn't have said that. Those were the wrong words to say to .

Sothing in snapped and the ntal fog broke, dispelling completely and gave the clarity to see things clearly. The Vine Bear looked worse for wear and was limping from the blows that I had landed and the Ant Queen had dents in its exoskeleton and a bent mandible.

The only boss without injuries was the Blaze Lion but I never got close enough to land any in the first place.

The battle wasn't as one-sided as I had thought it was, it only appeared that way for so reason.

Fury took over but not the skill, raw, primal fury I felt about the whole situation.

He just made a mistake and I wasn't going to let this chance go by.

He should have never ntioned my family.