Frostbound [LitRPG Apocalypse]

Chris

Immediately after using the skill, I could feel a tether snapping into place. A spiritual chain connecting me to Tasunka in a way that felt indestructible. Even for my famed strength, there would be no breaking the chain.

I could tell Tasunka felt the chain latch on because he was staring down at his chest, where it connected to him. He swung his arm through it tentatively, but his armored forearm traveled right through the chain like it wasn't even there. As the chains manifested, I felt a large amount of spiritual energy leave me. It was like the energy I'd been pouring into the blocks of stone making up the wall left me all at once.

The amount was large, but manageable for my reserves. They had grown tremendously over the years. Infusing the Walls had stretched them well.

Surprisingly, that was all the Skill's price called for. No mana, or stamina, was drained into the skill, and it only took the portion of Spirit. For a D-rank Legendary skill, that was quite tame. [Shattering Hammer] used to wring my body dry of energy and come with a hefty backlash. [Frozen Rift] took a truly asinine amount of mana to manifest.

Maybe the threat of death reduces the cost, since it's gambling with your life.

I wasn't sure, and I didn't have the time to find out.

The chain was locked, and the field was set. I didn't want to waste any more time than I had to battling to the death.

Tasunka, though, had other plans. Instantly, upon realizing he was about to face me on the ground, he began searching for his mount. He looked at the chaos around him with near-frantic eyes, expecting his horse to return so he could remount.

I wasn't sure how that would work, exactly, as my blow had disintegrated his saddle, but it was better not to test it. Bareback wasn't out of the question as the man was a skilled rider.

Using the snow in the air and the generous amount of it covering the ground, I tapped into [Ice Manipulation] and [Icy Bastion] to block off all escape paths. I wasn't worried about him running, as [Tyr's Judgement] would force him to face me, but I also wasn't willing to allow him to remount.

His skills were strong, strong enough to give my hammer pause, and I didn't want to see if he had any stronger ones up his sleeve.

A dome of thick ice began to rise around us, delineating what would become our dueling arena. The battle raging around us was slowly cut off as the frosty ice distorted what we could see beyond them.

The man tried to run. He saw the walls going up, and his first action was to leap over them, but the chain drew taut and forced him to stay. I got to see firsthand how the skill dealt with those who sought to flee.

'Once initiated, it creates a tether between you and the guilty so that neither Champion may flee or seek to evade the fight in other ways.'

Realizing he couldn't leave, Tasunka's face darkened.

"Fine, I don't need Akecheta to defeat you. They will sing songs of me after I skewer you upon my spear." He said menacingly, or at least tried to. I didn't give his words much thought. A battlefield was no place for them, only valor and mettle.

I also wasn't sure who or what an Akecheta was, but I assumed it was the name of the man's horse. The arrogance at believing he could face me upon the snowy ground, not at full strength, was similar to my arrogance at expecting to face him while mounted. I didn't feel the need to respond, and just advanced on him with [Charge] and [Fury]. [Weight of the Arctic] still needed time to build, as everything had happened in a flash, so I activated my third boosting skill to give me an edge to end this quickly.

I still wasn't sure where Zion was or whether or not he was alive, but even if he wasn't, ending this quickly was in the best interest of everyone else as well. There was a chance, no matter how small, that the Reservation might retreat upon its leader's demise. Zion and the rest of the Bison unit were told to retreat back to our lines after my mission was successful, and I could only hope they followed the plan. Based on the first clash, I didn't want to see the aftermath of an extended one.

The wound in my side reopened at my harsh movement, and I once again lamented [Frozen Patchwork]'s low grade. The ice used to smother my wounds was too weak and ripped open too easily now, being little better than just letting it bleed.

Spirit infused Tasunka's spear as he met my charge with a swing of his own. He was smart enough not to take me straight on and had positioned himself well. I matched his spirit by channeling my own into my hammer. The resulting clash blew his spear out of the way, but it was far from landing upon his body to do any damage.

The worst it did was rattle his hands with the vibration.

"Ah, you have an Anchor as well. So few that I've met could claim the same. Yours tastes of determination and resiliency. Potent, but it won't help you hit me." The man goaded.

After saying so, winds wrapped around him as he dodged out of my way. His footwork took him bounding across the snow's surface at a speed I couldn't match, frustrating me. It was like fighting Austin, but worse. He used pure speed, but Tasunka used wind to push and pull himself out of the way and around the area.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

As the thick dome of ice closed, I ceased pushing mana into [Icy Bastion] and leveraged it into [Tundra's Descent], pushing my Laws into it as hard as I could. The man could spin and dance around all he wanted; we were in an enclosed area.

If my hammer couldn't reach him, the cold would.

I could have used [Sweeping Snow], but I didn't think it would be enough to finish him off. Maybe if he wasn't a Baron, but it would just be a waste of mana against someone strong enough.

No, I had picked up a different skill to deal with things that were tricky to hit.

[Charge] sent me hurtling forward once more, and I felt his grip on the winds ready to dodge, but there was no dodging this swing. [Meteor Strike] fed into [Hammer Reverberation] and unleashed a shockwave of force that Tasunka couldn't dodge fast enough.

His winds broke down in the face of so much force, and he was sent flying back into the ice wall with a resounding thud. Cracks spread from the dome where he impacted, but the abundant Ice and Arctic mana in the area had those cracks refrozen in moments.

Tasunka slid to the ground dazed, and I channeled yet another [Charge], shooting me toward him. The only reason he wasn't more injured was the spirit reinforcing his body, and most likely a skill of some kind.

Mana flared out from him, and he pulled himself out of my way just in time with an evasion skill of some kind. It didn't have the dancing grace of the skill he'd been using previously, and it required much more mana. He came up swinging with his spear, and a thin line sliced through [Glacial Plate] but failed to penetrate the metal underneath. His power was weaker now that he wasn't mounted, and he failed to draw such a heavy wound on me like he had at the start.

He saw the little damage his swing wrought and grimaced.

My retaliation missed as he once again danced out of the way. Our game began once more as I poured more mana into [Meteor Strike] and [Hammer Reverberation], but he was ready for it this time. Instead of trying to dodge, he used his spear to conjure a wall of wind to blunt the blow. My skills blew through it, but the force was eroded, leaving only a portion to actually land.

He grunted, but otherwise showed no sign of slowing.

A few quick thrusts and swings resulted in more ice falling off my armor, but did little else.

"Tricky," he backed away and out of my range. Power flooded out of him in a way I was familiar with. My Bloodline was already burning, while he was just calling on his own now.

A grey haze layered around his form, and two large illusory wings unfolded behind his back.

Fuck me, Austin's got a doppelgänger.

The wings were different from my radiant friend, and were much larger than the ones Austin sported and not birdlike. They were also not the main component of the Bloodline essence I felt saturating Tasunka's body. It was hard to tell from feeling alone, but I could use a few other clues to guess at the Bloodline he had imbibed. It was a form of Wind Pegasus or Zephyr Pegasus if I had to guess. The man seemed to love his horse too much to go too far away from the equine tree, and I couldn't think of anything better that matched what I was seeing and feeling.

After his shift, it became much harder to hit the man.

His evasion was annoying, and no matter how much I tried to usurp control with [Wind Manipulation], it didn't work. His skill with the element was much higher, and his connection to it was much stronger. The added Bloodline didn't help.

I assumed that he was getting a boost just like I did with Ice from calling on mine.

As it was, I struggled to land any hits, while he struggled to do any lasting damage. We were both blowing through mana and spirit at a liberal pace, with Laws being used commonly to empower attacks.

If there was one thing I could bet on, it was on outlasting him.

But I had something else up my sleeve that he hadn't noticed and didn't seem to be prepared for.

His Wind Law was pure violence. The concepts baked into it were all about slicing or severing, with little else involved. My Wind Law wasn't about that. It was about meshing with my Cold and Domination.

It was the Domination aspect I leaned on now. If I couldn't fight him for control of regular wind, I would taint it with cold and fight him with that.

And it was going oh so perfectly. The ice dome worked to keep the space contained and relatively separate. [Tundra's Descent] pervaded all of the ambient mana into Ice and Arctic affinities, and my Law worked to taint any wind mana left over.

The longer this went on, the stronger I got and the less mana he had to work with. It took a few minutes, but the effects began to appear. It took a serious amount of mana, but it was well worth it. The mana cost it took to wrap himself in winds grew, while it was also corroded while in use. Any of his skills required conjured winds took more effort to activate. His Law, that had once been cutting my own Wind Law to pieces, slowly lost ground as more and more Wind mana was tainted.

In less than five minutes, I was just starting to work up a sweat, while he was struggling more and more just to use his skills.

"How?! How are you doing this!" He screamed in defiance. He knew the position he was in, yet could do nothing about it. The chain tethering us together didn't allow him to run.

"What did you expect when you attacked in the middle of Winter?" I said, ready to put an end to this fight. "Your wind may be strong, but it is nothing in the face of the inevitable."

Instead of gearing up to face me, he turned to run.

A shame, really, because the chain wrapped around both of us snapped tight, freezing him in place, and that was all I needed.

Mana, Spirit, and Stamina were all fed into [Meteor Strike] and overcharged it as much as I could without snapping the Skill matrix. [Pervading Cold] came next and drove some of the coldest arctic mana I had into the combination, and amalgamation was fed into [Shattering Hammer].

The skill fought me, and I felt the strain it was putting on both me and the hammer, but my Spirit held strong while my Bloodline helped take some of the pressure.

To cap it all off and make sure no pesky wind whisked my target out of the way, [Hammer Reverberation] added a final nail in the coffin of what used to be a strong Faction leader and Baron.

"RAAAHHH," swinging the hammer felt like lifting the world upon my shoulders, and a roar tore through the dome while my hammer, filled with promised devastation, tore through the air.

Petty wind walls or gusts sent to block or delay its landing were destroyed utterly, and the last look the man in front of me had was one of fear. Fear and resentment.

That didn't last long, as my hammer smashed his raised spear out of the way and landed upon his head with the force to break mountains. His Winds didn't save him, his Spirit didn't save him, and the spear he raised to block the blow didn't save him. All traces of any facial features were blown apart. Blood splattered my face plate, hammer, and the walls.

The chains shackled around me vibrated in something that felt like approval before falling away, and the skill ended.

"Huff... huff," I panted. Throwing all of those skills together took a lot out of me, and was probably overkill, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

Red crystals of ice fell off my hammer and face plate as any trace of Tasunka fluttered to the red tinted ground.

I wasn't ready for the essence that rushed into me or the chimes that came after it.