Frostbound [LitRPG Apocalypse]

Victor

How was it possible for things to go so poorly? To have everything turn on its head and do the opposite of expectation? How the FUCK was it possible for ONE man to break down the gates like he was hitting a particularly sturdy piñata?

This is before he evolved? Hell, what would have happened after...

He shrugged off [Flame Spear] after [Flame Spear] like it was nothing, and that was with Victor's Law empowering it! All the spell did was melt his armor for a brief period. Brief! It wasn't the strongest spell Victor could throw around, but still!

Then, after shattering the gate into pieces, he MISTED over two dozen people in ONE swing! Disappeared them! Erased them from existence like they were only flesh balloons in need of popping!

A great many things were running through Victor's mind, and for the first time in a long, long while, there was fear. He'd planned, he'd trained, he'd prepared, but watching the man swing his hammer in one destructive arc after another, it didn't seem like enough.

Victor didn't want to face the man.

He wanted to run.

"Quinten! Stop him!" Wren issued the order because Victor was too busy trying to figure out where it went all wrong.

They planned and assumed they would scale the walls, not bust through them, so Quinten and most of their strongest Warriors were not even remotely in position. It was the weaker ones who were placed to hold the gate, just in case.

The Berserker was nowhere near the fighting, waiting for enemies to come over the wall that would never come.

Luckily, while Quinten may have been a muscle head, he knew battle. He knew how to evaluate his opponent and knew that nothing short of his best would be enough against the Baron.

With a mighty roar, Quinten's aura exploded in a vitalic red as any and every berserk skill the man had was activated one after another. With blood quickly being shed around him in great quantities, the man was well on his way to his peak.

Victor could feel the man straining to contain everything. He even activated his Bloodline, which sent his veins protruding and his eyes bloodshot as the energy of the Bloodfur Tiger raged through him.

It was the most powerful Victor had ever seen him. He'd seen him regenerate from certain death multiple times from a level lower than where he currently was.

Quinten should hold him. He's got an Epic Class and skills to match.

Victor's confidence in Quinten's victory should have been high. They had the numbers and the advantage, along with Quinten, Victor should have been assured.

He wasn't.

Instead of staying to help, he ran.

He could feel the promise of death clearly in the air. A chill that tickled his neck and whispered of his demise if he stayed. It was looking for him, and Victor needed to make sure he wasn't found.

I can build a new city, hell, I don't even need a city. I only did it to conscript cheap labor and resources. Fuck all that, I need to survive.

Victor watched Quinten launch himself off the Wall and into the skirmish. He could see Wren firing arrow after arrow, and he could feel Dez sneaking around looking for the perfect opportunity.

Even Olivia was commanding a significant amount of mana, dueling a Water Mage outside the wall he couldn't see. It had to be a powerful one, because Olivia was losing.

He saw all of it, people he had grown to know over the years, and he turned his back and ran.

If I can go South far enough, I should be safe.

Chris

I waded through the bodies trying to reach the stairs to the wall. I could feel the fire I was after up there, and I was determined to get there.

Cutting down the people in my way was quick, but not quick enough. Especially with the annoying ass archer taking pot shots at me the entire time. I assumed he had given up, but I was wrong. His arrows came flying in nearly by the second.

Right before I reached the stairs leading up to the battlements, a roar drew my attention. It, and the aura accompanying it, were coming at me quickly.

A blood red filled the air in a weak haze around a tall, well-built man covered in a crimson pelt on top of the wall. He gripped twin axes in either hand, and with no warning, he threw himself off the wall and directly at me.

It was one of the most insane things I had seen so far, as the man leaped and turned himself into a human missile. Both axes led the way as a dripping red coated both blades in a skill of some kind.

The metallic scent of freshly spilled blood followed the man as he descended, and I could tell the man was strong. D-rank, easily, and was currently running an impressive amount of boosting skills. A Berserker, if I had to guess.

A Berserker with a Blood affinity, I thought, his Vitality and healing will be off the charts.

My assessment was quick, and I knew what I needed to do. To take out the healing factor altogether, I needed to end it in one swing. I didn't want to get stuck whacking a man who just kept healing.

Since the man so willingly obliged by launching himself at me, it would be remiss of me if I didn't take advantage of the situation. [Frozen Leach] would help in a sustained fight, but I didn't plan on this taking long. I still had a fire to put out.

My hammer creaked and changed in a record time as I poured mana into it once more for [Shattering Hammer]. It was my most powerful single target skill, and I aimed to end it in one swing.

I threw my Spirit and Law into the skill to overclock it once more and brought my hammer around in a terrifying, two-handed downward swing.

The Berserker's eyes tracked my weapon fearfully once it was filled with the energy of my skill, and he raised both axes to block it. By launching himself in front of me, he barely had any time to set his feet to receive my swing.

Not that it would have helped him.

My hammer crashed down on his axes and blew through his guard. It wasn't like the weaklings earlier, but while the man was strong, he wasn't strong enough.

His guard was broken, and his own axes were slammed down into his face. He didn't have to think about his weapons hitting him long, as my hammer followed soon after.

His head exploded in a... well, like the bodies from earlier.

Surprisingly, the kill notification didn't come immediately, and the essence didn't transfer. The blood aura was still there, and I could see the energy rushing towards the wound desperately.

Blood gushed everywhere, some of it shooting over ten feet in the air, as the man became a geyser of it.

Scratch that, insane Vitality. I amended.

The man was actually healing from an exploded head. I wasn't sure if it would actually work and the man would come back, but that option was cut short as [Shattering Hammer] demanded its due.

There was still something else carried by my hammer other than force. Knowing the man most likely relied on blood for power and enhanced healing, I directed the violent energy to sunder something specific. I could have let the skill do its thing, but I aimed to sunder his arteries and veins instead of just shattering his body. I wanted to target his base of power and break it so thoroughly that there wasn't a chance of recovery.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

[Shattering Hammer] didn't disappoint. There were spots that my control failed and cracks spread along his skin, but for the most part, it followed my guidance, and from the head down, blood vessel after blood vessel burst and exploded.

Arteries blew open like an over-inflated tire, and veins were ripped apart viciously.

A new round of blood gysered out of the headless man. What little energy and power he had remaining that kept him upright failed, and he toppled over listlessly. Blood pooled... everywhere. Red dyed the area in a gruesome painting of lost life.

The chime was heard, and the essence was transferred. There was no coming back from that.

The stench pooled in my nose, and I struggled to push the bile back down, but I managed.

Something much more important was happening, and I couldn't afford to stay held up on a dead man. The fire was running. It was getting further away from me, and I had to strain [Aura Detection] to keep track of it.

The fire was traveling deeper into the city, closer to the center, while I remained at the Northern edge, just inside the wall. My mind briefly flashed with the thought of running through the city and the deaths that it might cause, but I pushed it away.

I could only hope it didn't come to that, but that man needed to die. Hal had said there was something off about the city, and while I couldn't feel it, he had been adamant. Especially now, with this being the second time he was here.

Even if that wasn't the case, I wasn't going to let the man go. I had set out to bring the man to justice, and I wasn't going to fail now.

The stairs leading up to the wall were forgotten as I bounded away instead. Shields and weapons were raised to stop me, but I blew through them. The annoying arrows had stopped, and none were shot into my back, luckily, not that it would have stopped me.

Bodies were violently thrown away in my wake, but I bounded on, tracking the fleeing flame. It had stopped in the center of the city for some reason, and I wasn't going to let the chance to catch up get away.

My feet quickly carried me to a... building? It was at the direct center of the city, and I could feel the mana being sucked into the dungeon below. The building was remarkably well built and looked every bit as ostentatious as I expected.

Compared to the buildings bordering the wall, the one I was looking at was night and day different.

Its grandeur didn't stop me from blasting the door into oblivion as I rushed in and up the stairs. Floor after floor whizzed by as I took the stairs as quickly as I could without breaking them.

Some were shattered by the force, but they were left mainly intact. Mostly intact. Eh, somewhat intact, I wasn't exactly ginger.

As I climbed the building, I felt the fire dashing back and forth on the top floor, and so when I finally broke through the door and set foot into the room, it didn't surprise me that a slimy-looking man was throwing everything he could into a sack.

Finally face to face with the man, I couldn't help but be disappointed. He looked like an average asshole. Brown hair that was messy from the fighting and a pale complexion with swaths of red. Burn marks? I couldn't tell.

He wore leather armor, and a staff was tightly clutched in the nook of his arm, topped with what looked like an expensive beast core.

Mage. Fire, by the looks of it. Burn marks and a propensity for red. If the powerful fire spells from before weren't enough, the details I picked up in the split second after entering were.

Copper and silver coins were spilled over the table while he tried to sweep them up into the sack that already held gems and crystals.

There were other valuables around the room, but I didn't spend any time on them. I only had eyes for one thing in the room, and it wasn't something shiny.

"Running?" Speaking wasn't something I had planned. I usually didn't lecture or monologue. It was pointless to talk to someone you planned to kill, but I couldn't help it.

Seeing the person I was aiming to kill stuffing a bag and planning to run was too much. It was a disgrace. Honorless. Despicable.

The man's eyes shot to me as soon as I entered, and I could see the fear in them. He was nearly shaking, but he gathered himself commendably, if it weren't for what I had caught him in the middle of doing.

"No. No. NO!" He shouted animatedly. "This wasn't the deal. This wasn't supposed to happen. Not yet!"

I couldn't help it. I expected a fight, and this was going somewhere completely different. "What–"

"Shut up!" He screamed, and it didn't feel like he was talking to me, but there was no one else in the room. "Get out of MY HEAD!"

This man's bat shit.

Not willing to waste any more time entertaining... whatever this was, I stepped into the room and readied to fight.

Like a switch was flipped, the man's entire demeanor changed. The sack was dropped and forgotten as his face morphed into something dark. "Fine. I hadn't planned on going through with this, but you asked for it." He turned to the valuables he'd been gathering a moment before, "Shame, but nothing can be done."

I wasn't willing to let this go on any further and ran toward him and readied my hammer, but I never got the chance.

In a sudden instant, the entire room burst into flames. A fire washed out from the man and quickly set everything alight. The heat exploded the windows and hit me like a physical attack.

My ice was enough to stop it from reaching me, but it was quickly starting to melt. My Law snaked out and soaked into the plates, but even that only gave it extra time before melting.

Tier 2 Fire Law.

That much was obvious, but it was the concepts involved that startled me. Rachel's Law was also Tier 2, but this was completely different. It was so much more violent and with hints of insidiousness. It felt sinister, if a fire could feel as such.

"HAHAHA!" the man cackled like a crazy person, and he was bathed in flames that ignored him but ravaged the room.

I charged through the flames and swung my hammer, but instead of an impact, it hit nothing but air. In a flash of fire, the man disappeared and reappeared in the other corner of the room.

Great. I growled. Rachel had a similar skill, and it was the most annoying thing to fight against. Even Austin's speed wasn't as bad.

Wear him down. The more successive uses, the harder it gets.

I threw mana into [Frozen Leach] and felt the link between us snap into place. The link wavered, and I could feel the flames affecting it, but I pushed more power into it to keep it steady.

I wasn't planning on this taking long, but every little bit helped.

The entire building wasn't helping. It was quickly filling up with Fire mana and heat. Both were bad for me and looked to be good for him. I wasn't certain how his skill worked, but standing in a room on fire was sure to help him.

I tried a few more times to reach him with the same result. He just kept dancing around the room with ease. His hands flung fire in all forms. A bolt, a lance, a spear, any shape he could form was gathered and thrown as he peppered me with attacks.

[Leach] was slowly sapping his mana, but it wasn't fast enough. Not nearly fast enough.

[Glacial Heavy Plate] was quickly melting, and my Law wasn't enough to save it. Even my Spirit coursing through it wasn't enough.

The room was superheated, and the continuous fire attacks were too much. The only ice not melting was my hammer.

Fuck this!

If he wanted to dance around me and sling fire, I would take away his advantage. [Shattering Hammer] activated for the third time, and I slammed my hammer down onto the floor.

The force alone was enough to blast it to pieces, but the skill followed along the floor and into the walls. It arced down them and into the floors below, and in one swing, the entire top two floors were blown apart like a bomb had gone off.

The floor dropped out from under me, but it also dropped out from under him.

The flames followed after the mage as he directed them downward, against their nature. The floor below us was weakened, and the weight from two floors crashing down on it blew it open, and we fell again.

I swung again and again until I felt the building start to teeter. It was going to collapse.

[Icy Bastion] flared around me and bared the brunt of it by erecting a dome of ice around me. I could have done without the skill, but I didn't want to end up buried in debris. The entire building dropped down on our heads, and I waited out the aftermath under a dome of Ice.

The heat threatened to melt it, but I pushed enough into it to keep it from doing so. The Mage was preoccupied with not getting buried and was too busy to be throwing spells at me.

After the dust settled, I exploded out of the rubble just in time to see the Mage do the same. An intense heat burnt to ash anything around him, and he was free once more, looking little worse off.

At least the fire is gone.

Back out in the open, Winter winds whipped around us, and a snowstorm was just beginning to unleash flakes of snow down upon us.

The link to [Frozen Leach] was easier to maintain, and the air was breathable, rather than superheated.

I grinned.

"You think you won? You think that destroying the building was enough?" The Mage yelled and raised his staff.

Mana gathered too quickly to stop, and fire spewed once more. It licked the rubble and set the wood alight once more, but that wasn't all. It shot out to surrounding buildings and set them alight as well.

Building after building was hit by the fire and lit up like torches in the night.

He's burning his own city?

And that wasn't even the worst part. Screams were coming from the buildings on fire.

There were people in them, and they were going to die.

In that moment, I made a split-second decision. It was stupid and it probably wouldn't work, but it was all I could think of so quickly.

I grasped my hammer in both hands firmly and prayed it would work.

Mana roared in my veins. All the mana I could control and gather on quick notice was rushing to my hammer for one attack. One skill.

The icy head lit up in a dance of light. Blues, greens, purples. There was more mana channeling through it than ever before, and an aurora bloomed from inside of it, but I didn't pay it any heed.

My focus was entirely on the mana and forcing as much of it as I could into it. My heart was already beating fast, adrenaline from the battle and the exertion it had brought was forcing it to beat at an unhealthy tempo, but it helped push mana through me.

My head split, but I forced my body to work. To swing my hammer upward.

My hammer, full of mana, aurora radiantly shining, and determination fueled, hit the air and stopped. The air rippled, and the runes along the shaft flared brightly.

A rift bigger than anything I had ever created or seen broke the air. Even the portal the Demons were making couldn't compare.

And on the other side was a land of desolation. Ice and snow drowned the landscape and blew in violent winds. Winds that now had an outlet.

Through the portal came a wind so cold and screaming that it caused goosebumps along my skin and fear to blossom in me. What came next was an avalanche of ice and snow that spilled out in amounts hard to imagine.

[Frozen Rift] was my own skill, but I hadn't thought it was capable of this.