Ice Vapor Goddess

Chapter 67 The Blazing Sword (Part 2)

The wind and snow continued to rage across the land. The howling white snow, torn to shreds by the gale, swept across the snow-covered plains, swallowing the distant horizon with its swirling flakes.

The sky and the earth were swirling together in a chaotic tangle, as if the world had returned to the ancient mythical era, before humans and gods were born, only the boundless power of nature existed.

The ancient kingdom has descended, and the extreme cold that permeates the world forms a magical network that devours everything.

Beside the tractor's boiler, Arthur had already recounted his story again, but many parts of it were contradictory.

This is a good entry point for psychoanalysis; inconsistencies in language often reveal underlying metaphors, but Siron has no mood for it.

Kyle has been gone for some time now. Just now, the Iceman let out a terrifying roar that echoed from afar, shaking the wind and snow.

Fortunately, Kyle's divine power was being depleted, so he should still be fighting.

All they could do was pray, pray in the wind and snow.

“You mean my neighbor? I heard it’s a guy named Bob who works as a porter in the livestock area. He broke his spine and is bedridden with no one to care for him. He stinks every day…” Arthur was still talking when he turned from telling his own story to telling someone else’s.

Mathilde immediately asked for Bob's address, then took out her notebook and wrote it down. She then solemnly told Arthur that if he ever learned of such things again, he should immediately tell the Gospel Church.

She continued the conversation by telling the story of the working-class community, saying that people must help each other and stick together to have strength. She had personally witnessed someone kill the tax collector sent by the Duke, but the Duke only dared to execute the killer, not the entire community, nor did he dare to impose any more exorbitant taxes.

Xilen glanced at her, but she didn't say that the man was her father.

As they were talking, he suddenly seemed to sense something.

That was sadness, pain, anger, and blood.

It came from somewhere not far away, seemingly out of nowhere.

He heard the lament of mythology and the end of life.

—It's that ice man, the ice man Kyle was destined to meet.

Xilun frowned slightly. To his surprise, he discovered that when his blood was injected into the Ice Man's body, he could actually feel the Ice Man's life force.

His blood battles within the Iceman's body, erupting flames from ice crystals and frost, turning the enemy's body into a battlefield.

He even sensed a wisp of the Ice Man's memory and found his name.

Frost Giant Himil.

And those little ice people... spoils of war? People? Kin?
Wait, why are there so many adjectives...? Spoils of war?

He had no time to think about these things, because Kyle's gun had stopped; he seemed to be caught up in another fierce battle, and the frost giant was not dead.

He could feel the colossal creature kneeling on the ground, panting and weak, with ice seeping from its body. The wounds caused by the holy blood were incurable, and the pain filled him with rage.

“I have to go and finish him off,” he said.

People looked at him in surprise, wondering what he was talking about.

But Siren's tone was relaxed yet firm: "That giant is dying, Kael is being held back, I have to go."

"Your Excellency!" Arthur blurted out first, "That's too dangerous!"

Fafnir also said, "Why don't you enchant the bullet with holy blood again? I'll go and take it down."

Xilun shook his head: "There is no more holy blood."

He hasn't figured out the bleeding phenomenon of the Holy Wound yet. According to church records, bleeding usually occurs on religious holidays, Sundays (referring to the days of worship), and Friday afternoons (the time of the Passion of God), but there are also cases of random bleeding or even continuous bleeding.

For him at least, it was a single drop that flowed every Sunday evening at six o'clock—the time Joseph shot him.

Holy blood will remain in the holy wound, but it will come out easily when squeezed, accompanied by intense pain.

Xilun said again, "The only way to harm the Frost Giants is with divine sense. I am the only one here with offensive divine magic."

People were silent for a while, then nodded helplessly.

Divine spells that can be learned and cast independently are generally classified as "independent divine spells." They can be used by simply learning them and having followers, as long as they are authorized. However, they are generally relatively weak, such as "hymn chanting," "radiance," and "healing" without the blessing of a holy relic.

All the powerful offensive divine spells are found in the [Sacrificial Divine Spells] and [Holy Relic Divine Spells].

The former requires the cooperation of multiple clergy and relies on churches, believers, relics, the Eucharist, rituals, etc., to perform, such as the "Sulfur and Fire Rain" that burns down cities, while the latter is exemplified by the "Holy Fire" spell.

No one could argue with him, but they couldn't let Siren go. So, except for Joseph, who was not good at moving due to his size, who stayed behind with the caravan, the rest of them followed Siren. They only put some planks on the road to prevent them from getting lost.

Snowshoes crunched on the thick snow, the white snow howling in the mournful cry of the frost giant, as if rebuking the harm done to the king. Endless snow fell from the throne of the heavens, and the tiny people hurried along, mouths agape.

Siren was wrapped in a thick black coat, carrying a knight's sword and a shotgun at his waist, using his body heat to keep the gun oil from freezing.

He looked less like a bishop and more like an assassin, leaning to the side to shield himself from the wind and snow, as if attending a grand feast.

They trekked for several hours over a distance of three kilometers.

Nearly.

He could sense the lingering aura; the collision of his divine sense with the ice and snow produced a strange, burnt smell, and the rising white steam carried a putrid and nauseating odor, like a long-buried, rotting corpse that emitted a nauseating stench after being roasted.

He recalled reading somewhere that odor is a human gene's way of avoiding dangerous substances. Individuals who are disgusted by odor and stay away from it avoid poisoning and infection, and have a higher chance of survival and reproduction, thus increasing their survival rate.

He had never smelled anything so foul before.

It's as if not only human genes hate them, but the world hates them too.

That's an extremely dangerous thing.

He saw a magnificent giant emerge from the wind and snow, saw undying magic congealed on the eternally frozen frost, and saw the kneeling giant emitting painful gasps. His body was covered with long bullet holes, and holy blood had burned countless large and small holes into it; his translucent, icy blue body was covered in pale wounds.

The Northern Throne lay silently on the ground, like a dead steel serpent. In that instant, Xiren thought of Thor and Jormungandr.

Perhaps in the legendary Ragnarok, the Mortal Serpent, whose head was smashed, lay on the ground in this way. Its enormous body could encircle the world, but it was dead. Thor knelt beside it, panting heavily. The venom had penetrated deep into his heart. He was losing his life in regret and sorrow. The invincible god would one day face his destined calamity.

The giant serpent and the giant sat facing each other on the vast snowfield, like a scene from a myth, or a solemn and dignified death.

It should appear in the ruins and murals of some ancient civilization.

Xilun stepped forward, knowing that he would have to walk the rest of the way alone.

The frost giants had no other senses—or rather, none at the moment. Xilun could sense, in a way, that the giants were only in their weakest form; they had only just arrived in this world, the weather was not cold enough, and the world was not weak enough.

And most importantly, "that thing's" gaze did not fall upon this place.

"So having too high an inspiration level has its pros and cons," Xiren muttered to himself, already standing before the colossal frost giant.

The terrifying aura almost crushed him, and his whole body trembled uncontrollably. The icy coldness that seemed to come from the depths of eternity filled his mind. It was as if the mere existence of that thing exuded a godlike power, and simply getting close to it exhausted his reason and strength.

He hadn't fought many times, and neither he nor the original owner of the body had much combat experience, let alone facing such a mythical creature.

“The downside is that it’s easy to fail the San Check. I almost died in the car just now… but at least I can get more information.” Xiren raised his longsword. “But then again, I’m not a folklorist or archaeologist, so I shouldn’t be the one to cause the whole team to be wiped out, right?”

He kept talking, and his words had the same effect as Arthur's; the uninterrupted flow of words could suppress the suffocating silence and delay the arrival of fear.

— Fill your mind with known symbols to prevent the terrifying reality from invading your fragile sanity, and try to use known words to jokingly explain those frightening things.

He never imagined that the first time he planned to kill someone would be against such a mythical giant.

Fortunately, this guy was deaf and blind, and facing a giant was almost like an assassination attempt.

"Hey, big guy!" He gripped his longsword and assumed a very unorthodox starting stance.

Golden-red flames erupted from the sword, and the Holy Fire spell burned wildly like never before. Sharp runes, bleeding runes, heavy runes, cutting runes... with the infusion of divine thought, the runes were lit up one by one, and this standard knight's sword produced by the church burst forth with a light that was hard to look at!
"Ezio Auditore sends his greetings!"

He slashed diagonally upwards, and the five-meter-tall ice giant was only a little over three meters tall when it knelt down, its drooping head like a fruit waiting to be picked.

The blade sizzled as if a hot knife were cutting into butter, and the longsword, forged in flames, radiated a sacred glory as it sliced ​​through the icy neck without hindrance.

Behead!

"!!!"

Himil unleashed a deafening roar, not from any single vocal organ, but directly through the vibration and resonance of the magic field!
Xilun's face turned pale; he had clearly guessed wrong, and the head was not his weakness!
But at that moment, he instinctively swung his sword, swung his sword, and swung his sword again!

The premonition of impending death sharpened his intuition to an extreme degree, and his brain worked unconsciously.

The blade dances in a novice-like trajectory, but it doesn't require many complicated classical sword techniques. When the enemy attacks, you just need to dodge; the sword only needs to hit the person.

Himil attacked furiously with both hands. Even with his sword, Xiren's arms were not as long as Himil's, and his icy fists could easily slam into Xiren.

But he nimbly dodged, and when he couldn't dodge, he used his sword to block. On that flaming sword, Himil would roar at the mere touch of it.

The appointment of two knights to the Imperial Guard gave him an all-around increase in physical strength. Although he was still not as strong as those muscular men, his stats were very balanced. He was even surprised when he jumped up.

The flaming longsword pierced the ice man's body, and he suddenly leaped up, the blade following him as it slashed open his chest. His black coat spun in mid-air, revealing the brown lining underneath, like a nimble lynx!

"!!!"

Himil waved his hands wildly, countless ice spikes growing from his body, trying to drive away the crazed guy surrounding him.

Xiren dodged the attacking arm but couldn't anticipate the sudden appearance of ice spikes. His abdomen and hands were pierced, and bright red blood flowed down, but his expression remained unchanged.

That extremely calm, unconscious state erased all his reactions; pain seemed to have become irrelevant. He could still feel the fact of "pain," but his brain would not react to it.

All his thoughts and actions were geared towards killing the target in front of him.

He leaped through the air with his sword behind Himil, the blade cutting almost half of Himil's upper body down from his shoulder!

He dodged the kick with a foot covered in ice spikes, but then another hand came swinging down, his arm, more than two meters long, resembling a spiked mace.

Xilun fell backward abruptly, the sharp tips of ice spikes slicing across his face, tearing open his coat and leaving three bloody gashes on his face. His nose was even sliced ​​open, the blood splashing into the frigid world before quickly freezing.

Bah!Bah!Bah!
Gunshots rang out nearby, and Mathilde fired her revolvers in alternating motions, forcing Himil to retreat in a very rhythmic manner.

Bah! !

Aldridge also picked up his rifle and began firing, skillfully pulling the bolt.

Fafnir appeared on the other side like a ghost, raising his sword and bringing it down, but unfortunately, the blade only managed to chip away a few thin shards of ice from Himir's body. Without the Holy Fire spell, his body was terrifyingly hard.

“Jehovah Rapha!” Mathilde cried out, and light fell upon Siron.

But she had neither a cross nor a staff in her hand, only two revolvers, which were still being reloaded, with only a cross painted on the grip of the gun.

Xilun hesitated for a second, wondering whether he should draw a cross on his gun as well... and then, with a fierce motion, raised his sword from left to right and severed its arm!
The arm that had been flying through the air was still moving, riding the storm as it tried to strike Siron again.

But the Holy Fire spell had already blocked its path. The blazing holy fire enveloped the entire arm and then turned it into a burst of steam that filled the sky!
Block, step, block, squat.

He performed the simplest actions with the most amateurish movements.

The ice spikes on the Iceman's feet pierced deep into his thighs. The crouching Siren could not dodge them; the icicles pierced his flesh and tripped him.

But at that very moment, from bottom to top—he raised his sword and slashed.

The blade, connected to the wound from the shoulder to the waist, blazing with intense golden-red flames, and suddenly cleaved it in two!
(End of this chapter)