Chapter 236: Pyro Sphere

The queen gave him no time to understand it. A shrill screech echoed across the canyon, and the entire colony moved at once.

Workers no longer rushed him blindly. Some burrowed beneath the snow while others climbed the canyon walls, surrounding him from every direction.

Above, the scouts spread into a wide formation before beating their wings in perfect synchronization, redirecting the blizzard until the queen’s enormous figure disappeared behind layers of snow.

"Right," Gideon sighed. "At least let me enjoy my newfound creative way to use my power, would you?"

The first worker lunged toward him with its serrated forelegs raised high. Gideon flicked his wrist almost experimentally.

The crimson sphere shot forward like a bullet, passing cleanly through the aberrant’s head before continuing into the worker behind it and another after that, leaving nothing but finger-sized holes through their bodies.

For a heartbeat, nothing happened. The three workers continued moving as if they hadn’t even been hit. One managed another step, then another.

Crimson light suddenly spread beneath their exoskeletons before every wound erupted at once, reducing their bodies to glowing ash that scattered across the snow.

Gideon blinked. "Holy shit."

There hadn’t been an explosion. It simply pierced straight through them before releasing all of its heat from the inside.

His curiosity lasted exactly half a second before dozens more workers surged toward him from every direction.

"Oh, come on..."

Hundreds of ice spears condensed high above the battlefield before raining down like a frozen storm.

Gideon immediately drew the Unbreakable Sword and sprinted between the impacts, cleaving through every worker that blocked his path while the surviving aberrants deliberately intercepted every route he tried to take.

The crimson sphere had proven devastating, but creating another one wasn’t instantaneous, leaving his sword as the only thing fast enough to keep the swarm at bay.

A scout crashed into his shoulder, knocking his arm off balance. While another worker wrapped thick mistletoe vines around his ankle just as another wave of ice descended from above.

Gideon ignited Pyro beneath his feet. The explosion vaporized the vines and hurled him backward, but something caught his attention to his own sword. Why would he never think of that?

Gideon let the flowing Pyro spread across the Unbreakable Sword. Crimson light raced along the blade until the surrounding air shimmered violently.

Snow began melting several centimeters away from the steel without ever touching it, yet the weapon itself remained unchanged.

Any ordinary sword would have warped under such extreme heat, but the Unbreakable Sword lived up to its absurd name.

"Let’s see if you can steal heat from this."

He vanished into the swarm. The glowing blade carved through workers far more easily than before. Their frozen armor split apart almost effortlessly, and every wound glowed red before erupting from the lingering heat trapped inside their bodies.

The queen reacted immediately. Thick vines burst from the snow, not to bind Gideon, but to wrap around the sword itself while workers crashed into him from every direction, forcing the burning blade away from her.

Even the scouts abandoned reckless attacks, repeatedly diving across his vision whenever he tried to close the distance.

He realized it, the queen was scared of him and his sword might become if it went through it.

Gideon cut through another bundle of vines, but the exchange made him notice something strange. The crimson glow no longer covered the entire blade. Without realizing it, Pyro had begun gathering naturally along the edge, becoming thinner... and hotter.

Less surface and less heat escaping.

His ordinary attacks always spread outward first, losing enormous amounts of heat before ever reaching the target. Against weaker aberrants it had never mattered because brute force solved everything.

The queen changed that. Every flame expanding into the freezing air surrendered its heat to her blizzard before reaching its destination.

But the sword...

The heat barely escaped at all.

"So I’ve been leaking energy this whole time..."

Another scout dove toward him. Gideon swung instinctively, and the burning edge sliced straight through it before continuing into the worker behind it.

Both staggered only a few steps before the trapped heat detonated inside their bodies, reducing them to glowing ash.

He barely had time to think before another barrage of ice spears crashed toward him. Gideon leaped between the falling spikes, kicked off a worker’s shoulder, and caught one of the thick mistletoe vines as it shot toward him.

Instead of tearing it apart, he swung with its momentum, releasing his grip at the last moment to launch himself onto the back of another worker climbing the canyon wall.

The aberrant screeched in surprise as Gideon’s boots landed squarely on its armored shell. Before it could shake him off, he pushed off again, vaulting toward a scout circling overhead.

The creature barely had time to react before the glowing edge of the Unbreakable Sword carved through one of its wings.

Its body lurched sideways, but Gideon had already planted a foot against its back, using the dying scout as nothing more than another stepping stone.

"You’ve got a lot of minions. Mind if I borrow them?" he chuckled, looking at the panicked hornets.

The queen answered with another deafening shriek. The blizzard intensified as dozens of ice spears condensed around her before launching toward Gideon from every direction. They weren’t aiming to kill him anymore. They were building walls.

Towering pillars of ice erupted one after another, sealing every route leading upward while workers scrambled across the frozen structures, turning the entire battlefield into a moving fortress.

"Clever."

Gideon sprinted anyway. He ran straight up one of the newly formed ice pillars before kicking off its side just as another spear hurtled past his shoulder.

The frozen projectile became his next foothold. He landed on it for the briefest instant before springing toward another worker clinging to the cliff, then another, climbing higher with every leap.

The queen continued retreating, beating her wings harder as the distance between them widened. Every flap sent freezing gusts crashing into Gideon, threatening to throw him from the air, but the workers she commanded to intercept him only gave him more places to step.

One tried to slash at his chest, only for Gideon to plant a foot against its foreleg and vault over its head. Another lunged from above, and he met it with a single slash before using its falling body as another platform.

His route wasn’t made of stone anymore. It was built from the queen’s own army.

Only when Gideon reached the height of the canyon did the queen finally realize what he was doing. Her compound eyes locked onto him as another cluster of ice spears formed overhead, this time not to block his path, but to impale him before he could get any closer.

"...Too late."

Crimson Pyro gathered instinctively along the edge of the Unbreakable Sword, compressing into a razor-thin crimson line that distorted the air around the blade.

Gideon kicked off the final ice spear hurtling toward him, turning the queen’s own attack into his last foothold before swinging with every ounce of momentum his body had gathered.

The queen twisted away the instant her instincts screamed. She was fast, but not fast enough.

The blazing edge carved across her thorax, ripping through layers of frozen armor before biting into the flesh beneath. Green blood erupted into the air as crimson heat flooded the wound, instantly melting ice that had protected her body moments earlier.

A deafening screech shook the canyon.

The queen violently beat her wings, throwing Gideon away with a hurricane of freezing wind before retreating higher into the blizzard.

Workers immediately abandoned their attacks, throwing themselves toward the open wound while scouts swarmed around their queen, forming a living barrier that blocked every angle Gideon could exploit.

He landed roughly on a collapsing pillar of ice, boots skidding across the frozen surface as another storm of ice spears rained between them.

Before he could recover, the queen was already climbing beyond the reach of his sword, every beat of her wings widening the distance while the remaining colony desperately covered her retreat.

"Tch..." Gideon clicked his tongue. "That’s smarter than I thought."