Chapter 104: Devoured from the Inside
Chapter 104: Devoured from the Inside
The Spirit King’s vital spot, found at last.
Looking at the deep-blue, glowing, marble-like substance, Walfred turned up the corners of his mouth.
But there was one problem.
’It’s lodged pretty deep.’
The vital spot sat at the dead center of its body.
Just swinging his axe from the outside wouldn’t reach it.
’To break that...’
Going inside the Spirit King’s body seemed like the best bet. The way he had when he’d exterminated the Corpse Lord in the Trenton underground arcade a while back.
Right after changing his plan.
Walfred put strength into both hands and pried the wound wide open. But there was a limit to raw strength alone, so he decided to just borrow the power of his tools.
KA-WHAM! Crrk! Crrrrack!
Merciless axe blows, one after another.
Along with a well-timed [Ice Shatter] mark, Walfred swung his axe harder, forcibly ripping the gap in the wound wider.
At that.
[⍎⚸⚸⟁⧌⚸⚸───!]
A tearing scream rang out.
It made sense. For a human, it would be the agony of having your belly split open while still alive.
Of course, Walfred didn’t pay it the slightest attention.
Before long, the gap in the wound finally grew large enough for him to slip his body inside. Walfred wedged through the gap and entered the Spirit King’s body.
’...Tighter than I expected.’
The interior structure of the Spirit King’s body was a form of bizarre, complex polyhedrons densely tangled together.
Maybe that was why. Unlike its thirty-foot frame, the inner space was suffocatingly cramped.
The one saving grace was that most of what filled the Spirit King’s insides was material like snow and ice shards. That made it easy to destroy even without his axe.
Crrrnch! Crrk!
Walfred moved his shoulders and elbows as much as he could, crushing and breaking the ice shards in his way. To secure the minimum space he needed to swing his axe.
As he bored further inside.
He suddenly noticed something.
’The temperature...’
The closer he got to the Spirit King’s vital spot, the faster the surrounding temperature dropped.
In fact, according to the notification message, the temperature where he stood now had reached -220°F.
’If anything, even better.’
A special skill of the [Blessing of the Frost Dragon].
By the effect of [Absolute Zero], the lower the ambient temperature, the stronger his physical abilities became.
Using those enhanced physical abilities, he finally secured the minimum space to swing his axe.
Walfred swung at once.
Fwooom! KRAKAKAKAK!
[Blessing of the Frost Dragon: ’Ice Shatter’ mark applied]
[Ignores the target’s frost resistance.]
[Duration: 30 seconds]
[Ice Shatter] marks bursting one after another.
Thanks to them, Walfred was able to rapidly close the distance to the Spirit King’s vital spot.
Ten feet, six feet, then three.
’Just a little more...!’
Just as he reached out toward the vital spot.
An anomaly suddenly occurred.
Twitch!
The Spirit King’s vital spot, which had been pulsing regularly like a heart, abruptly stopped moving. Then it began scattering a deep-blue light in every direction.
And starting from that.
All over the inside of the Spirit King’s body, more precisely around the vital spot, blue ice vines grew.
Shrrrrrk! Cinch!
And at a tremendous speed, at that.
In an instant, the ice vines coiled around Walfred’s whole body. His arms and legs, and his waist, thighs, and wrists too, none were spared.
’What is this?’
Walfred tried to peel them off in disgust, but it wasn’t as easy as he’d thought. In the meantime, the Spirit King’s vital spot pulsed rapidly.
And in that moment.
A warning message appeared.
-----
[Warning! Warning!]
[Frost Spirit King’s Core: Activated]
[Mana Drain effect activates.]
[The core is forcibly absorbing mana!]
[Mana absorbed]: 1% per second
[Absorption target]: Walfred
-----
"...!?"
A notification that it was absorbing mana.
This was an ability similar to the Frost Crown Stone that had risen up in downtown Philadelphia, but there was one difference.
Unlike the Frost Crown Stone, the amount of mana it absorbed was staggering.
Walfred’s face hardened at once.
’I can’t stay like this!’
A drastic 1% mana drain per second, no less.
If he stayed put, his mana would bottom out within tens of seconds. So he thrashed to break free of the ice vines somehow, but it wasn’t easy.
With so many vines coiled around his body, moving anything above his neck was about all he could manage.
’In that case...!’
He had no choice but to use this.
His eyes flashing, Walfred worked his jaw and opened his mouth wide. Then he bit straight into the ice vine wrapped around his chest.
Crrk! Crrrnch!
The texture of chewing a solid lump of ice.
Like a starving beast, Walfred chewed and spat out the ice vines without mercy.
And then.
Gulp!
In the process, he swallowed part of a vine without meaning to. An unpleasant sensation, like cold shards of glass scraping sharply down his throat.
Just as he frowned at that.
An unexpected notification appeared.
[You have consumed an ice fragment of condensed mana.]
[Health and mana are greatly restored.]
[You gain bonus experience.]
[Experience: +8.56% (bonus +25.33%)]
"...?"
What? What did I just see?
For a moment, Walfred made a blank face.
But he hadn’t misread it.
His mana, which moments ago had been plummeting below 40%, had recovered to 100% in a single stroke.
And on top of that, a huge amount of experience.
’Don’t tell me, everything here is...?’
Are these things like pure snow made of mana?
Blinking his wide-open eyes, Walfred looked at the ice vines binding his whole body.
Right after realizing the new fact.
His eyes shone fiercely.
’I’ll eat all of them!’
Having realized that the ice vines provided a massive amount of experience, Walfred set aside his goal of destroying the Spirit King’s core for the moment.
Then he stretched his neck out long and bit into the ice vines coiled around his shoulders and forearms, one after another.
Crrrunch! Munch, munch!
Whenever the ice vines absorbed his mana, Walfred immediately tore into them and recovered it.
A situation of eating and being eaten, repeated.
In this process, the only one who profited was Walfred. After all, every time he ate a vine, a tremendous amount of experience piled up, bit by bit.
[Level up.]
[Level up.]
[Level up.]
His level climbing at a terrifying speed.
Did it notice this belatedly? Or did it judge that it had no chance? The Spirit King began pulling back all of its ice vines.
"Where do you think you’re going, you bastard!"
Now that his movements were free, Walfred fiercely grabbed and tore at the vanishing ice vines.
This alone wasn’t enough.
"Cough up more!"
A thunderous roar.
The Spirit King’s belly shook violently. At that, the Spirit King trembled all over as if convulsing and let out a bizarre scream.
[⍎⚸⟐! ⌖⍜───!]
Along with a cry whose meaning he couldn’t make out.
A warning message appeared again.
-----
[Warning! Warning!]
[Frost Spirit King’s Core: Frenzied state]
[Pure mana convergence detected]
[Brace for an attack!]
-----
The instant the warning ended.
This time, tiny hazy wisps began to swirl around the core. Then they turned into something like small bullets and came flying at Walfred.
And then.
Thwack!
Considerable pain.
Walfred let out a short groan.
And he realized.
’...This isn’t a frost-attribute attack!’
According to the warning message, it was an attack caused by a convergence of pure mana, so it might be close to a non-elemental attack.
Meanwhile, the Spirit King’s core kept making and firing off formless mana bullets. Each one hurt quite a bit, so Walfred narrowed his eyes.
’It’s a shame, but maybe I’ll stop here.’
He’d secured a fair amount of experience anyway.
After finishing off the remaining ice vines, he recalled his original purpose.
Destroying the Spirit King’s core.
Fwoom! Thwk! Thwump!
Walfred held his reverse-gripped ice axe out front to protect his head. While doing so, he blocked the mana bullets with his arms and ice axe and pressed forward.
Even if he’d wanted to dodge, the space was too tight, so this was the best he could do. The Spirit King resisted as if making one final, desperate struggle, but Walfred never once retreated.
And at last.
Snatch!
He seized the Spirit King’s core.
But the instant he made contact with the core, a tremendous amount of information flooded into Walfred’s mind.
"...!"
It was a rather familiar sensation to him.
The same feeling as when he’d first met Elsa long ago and touched the ice crystal where she slept.
It matched perfectly with the sensation of another’s memories flowing into his head.
’In that case, this is...’
The Spirit King’s memories?
With that thought, the scenery around him changed.
Whoooooo!
A space of nothing but snow and ice.
A white snowfield blanketed in eternal ice, where not a single building or tree could be found.
At the center of that cold land.
A small ice egg lay sleeping.
Absorbing the surrounding cold and mana, waiting only to be born amid solitude and silence.