On another battlefield.
Oxin Barak stood before a towering bull.
The Ice King stood 25 meters tall, its pure white body shining in the sun. Its horns matched its tail, a deep blue filled with spinning crystals of ice, reminiscent of the starry sky. The beast's eyes emanated a chilling light. Despite being an ice elemental, the beast's body rippled with muscles that could send most warriors away with shame.
It snorted, releasing a puff of frost.
The two were isolated, seemingly existing in a world of their own.
Oxin grinned, clearly excited.
Around him, a sea of spectral green mist slowly condensed. This green mist rippled with life, almost as if it were beating in rhythm with his heartbeat. It hung low, crawling along the floor with him as its center.
A necromancer was not necessarily a person who raised the dead. The Barak Family was a group of masters who studied 'Soul Arts'. They extended their souls, manipulating, condensing, and forming it into extra appendages that they would use as weapons.
The sea of green mist moved, condensed, and formed a dense green armour that protected his body. Four extra arms protruded from his back, and a long green tail extended like a second spine. These green constructs took the form of skeletal extensions, looking clean yet eerie.
Spiritual energy mixed with the external soul force to create four long staffs, each attaining physical form through extreme compression. These four staffs were a simple bone, their tips 'carved' with a spell circle that Oxen had spent many years perfecting.
Oxin rose his hand, his actions mimicked by the additional four arms.
The four conjured staffs pointed to the sky, pulling an immense quantity of elemental energy from the environment. The wind elemental energy was stripped from the atmosphere, sitting above Oxin's head like a small storm.
The Ice King would not stand by and let him cast.
It stomped its hoof, exploding forward with incredible speed. Its horns tore through the air as the massive beast blasted forward.
Oxin laughed. His laughter gradually changed from excitement to mania, almost ridiculing the stupid beast.
The Ice King also seemed to understand that it had fallen for some kind of bait. It huffed. Instead of showing caution, the Ice King increased its speed, sending ice and stone flying as it charged forward.
A cone of ice formed before its charge, splitting the air.
Oxin roared. "Call, EARTH!"
His four extra arms split, lowering the four wands to point in the four directions, pulling the ball of wind into an unstable ring around him. His two hands reached out, casting a different spell in each hand through an intricate display of finger movements. His left hand pulled the sky from its throne, and his right hand ascended the earth from its prison.
His body bloomed with green light.
"Lock, WIND!"
The green light mixed with the surrounding wind and earth. The ring of wind was split into twelve portions, slowly transforming into the shape of a hand, each of which was condensed from stone, wind, and magic, puppeteered by the soul.
Oxin stood before the shining king, 2 hands of flesh, 4 hands of soul, and 12 hands of living stone. His 18 hands danced in the wind like a great composer.
The duo met, their collision resulting in an explosive pressure.
When the dust settled, the duo stood there in a stalemate.
Oxin grinned. Eight hands of earth caught the bull by the horns, and four hands of earth held him in place. He had locked down the Ice King, anchoring him to the spot.
His face was so close to the Ice King that he could feel its icy breath.
The 4 spectral hands transformed into blades, shifting forward.
The bull tried to retreat but was held in place by the 12 stone hands that locked him to the spot.
The captured King roared, shaking the surrounding void.
Oxin twitched in a moment of pain, the reverberating sound echoing through his body, tearing him apart from the inside. He kept his stance, unmoved. Blood dripped from his nose, wiped away by his remaining hand.
"Haven't you heard? Once caught by the dead, there's only one path forward!" Oxin thrust his hand forward, intending to end the fight in an instant.
Spectral energy flowed around his hands like the claw of a ghost.
He plunged his claw into the head of the frozen king, forcefully invading its sea of consciousness.
Oxin flooded a part of his soul into the mind of the Ice elemental.
He appeared in a black void, no different in size from a small village. This was the normal size of a sea of consciousness for a tier four being, perhaps slightly smaller. Unlike Petra, who's sea of consciousness seemed to extend infinitely, this ice elementals mind was exposed to Oxin, its limits clear to the human eye.
In the center of the sea of consciousness was a floating ball of light.
This was the soul.
The soul resided in the sea of consciousness.
Depending on various factors, many things about a person could be understood through the observation of their soul. For example, the detail, size, light, spirit, and density all told different information.
The 'Detail' of a soul represented how much a person had matured, either mentally or physically. This usually ranged from a perfect sphere to an exact replica of their physical body.
The 'Size' of a soul represented how long a person had lived. As a person lived, they could accumulate 'Soul force', the substance a soul was made from.
The 'Light' of a soul represented purity. When one did evil, they would be corrupted, and when one did good, they would be purified. This was not necessarily a representation of how they behaved, more like how they saw themselves relative to their peers. A mass murderer would have a pure soul if they fought for their country.
The 'Spirit' of a soul represented how well their body and mind are connected. If one didn't know anything about the soul, then it was likely that their soul would be similar to a statue. If one understood it well, then it would act and behave just like their real body.
The 'Density' of their soul represented how strong their soul was. As they strengthened their soul through cultivation, it would harden like stone, becoming harder to damage.
Anyways...
Oxin stared at the pure white glowing sphere in front of him.
"A newborn caff dares call himself king!"
He thrust his claws forward, shredding the defenceless soul like a cloud. The Ice Kings' sea of consciousness rippled like water before shattering like glass. A sound that could be described as either deafening or nonexistent filled the empty void.
Oxin retracted his claws, returning to his physical body.
The hands holding the Ice King retracted, allowing the towering giant to collapse under itself. Its eyes dimmed, and its mind died.
Oxin did not pause, he turned his attention towards the next target.
Another Ice King had fallen.
* * *
Diving through the sky of the battlefield, the final Ice King flapped its wings.
Its pure white body dove through the snowstorm, appearing and disappearing like a ghost. Its 30-meter-long wingspan blotted out the sun, and with each flap of its wings, ice crystals fell down and froze anything they touched. It had six wings, two large ones, followed by a smaller set in the front and back of each side. Its tail left behind a streak of black mist that spread the Ice Demon Curse.
The loud screech of the bird tore through the clouds.
A man with blue and white robes stood atop a half-fallen tree, looking deeply at the snowstorm above.
He was Nellis Azurefell, a promising youth of the Azurefell Family and Luna and Lilly's older cousin. He held two thin swords with long winding chains that were as thin as string, one in each hand.
The wind blew his long black hair. His piercing blue eyes focused on the beast above.
Around him, an unseen wind blew through the hanging chains, creating a faint chime.
The Azurefell Family specialized in control.
They could turn an area into a 'Primitive Domain' using a very powerful special technique taught to them by an existence called the 'Guardian'.
This 'Guardian'' was both a good and bad thing, having a long history with the Azurefell family. This Guardian was one of the greatest secrets of the Azurefell family, and also the reason they had been chasing the twins so relentlessly.
The Guardian was a remnant of the Age of Chaos. It had recently reached some kind of limit and needed the power of the Lunar Echo Physique to cure itself. This was normal, and it had to do this every few millennia.
Fortunately, it had been tying this constitution into the bloodline of the Azurefell Family for many years.
Unfortunately, the current holder of this physique had disappeared.
As for whether this 'Guardian' was good or evil?
Who knew...
The core technique that the guardian had taught the Azurefell Family was something called 'Chain Dance'. This wasn't so much a technique, instead it was a deeply rooted bloodline Inheritance. The Azurefell Family would have an innate mastery of certain weapons, a stronger and innate spatial perception, and a high level of flexibility and durability.
Nellis robe fluttered in the wind.
His body was light as he jumped into the sky. The light tinkling of chains followed his rise. When he reached a certain height, he flicked his sword into the clouds.
The chain danced around like a streamer.
It disappeared into the white void, only to pull tot a moment later.
The man fell, his speed increasing. When he returned to the ground, he pulled the chain and fished down the Icy King, ripping it from the sky.
The massive bird was wrenched from the sky, its body struggling against this small human's strength.
Nellis flicked his sleeve, shooting three more chains into the ground, continuing the tug of war between him and the Ice King.
The ice king, seemingly giving up his escape, dove down with a torrent of wind.
Its snow-white claws extended and bared down on the man in blue.
Nellis flicked his sleeve and retrieved another sword chain from an unknown place.
He deflected the razor-sharp talons with inhuman strength. He carried the momentum of the parry to kick the beast in the chest, knocking it back, then wrenching it down with the chain in a violent combo of movements.
The king shrieked, pain shooting through its massive body.
It flapped its wings, not to ascend, but to cover the small mam before it with deadly frost. The countless small crystals of magic carried a deadly poison that would inflict near instantaneous frostbite to those hit.
Nellis used one of the chains that anchored the bird to the ground to pull himself out from under it.
He whipped his arm, dragging a tree from the earth and smashing it over like a hammer.
The ice king met it with fury.
Its claws tore the tree in half.
A flash of light blinked out from behind the tree. A massive sword light sliced through the sky and severed the massive bird's wing.
It screeched in horror.
Not only could the Azurefell Family control many chain-bound dancing blades with ease, but at a high level, each of these chains could release a sword light no weaker than a true sword cultivator.
The bird stumbled back, continuously struggling against the increasing number of chains that anchored it to the ground.
It took a breath.
Nellis narrowed his eyes, raising his vigilance.
The ice kings body ballooned, compressing mana in its lungs. Following a roar, the ice King let out a breath that might even rival a juvenile dragon.
A compressed beam of ice, snow, mana, and a deadly curse shot towards Nellis.
He gritted his teeth, knowing that it was too fast to dodge.
Before he could act, another attack came from the side.
A crimson spear shot through the air, colliding with the beast and turning away the birds open beak.
Froooooooooooom!
The frost laser cleaved the sky.
Nellis looked over and nodded at the man from the Dimebek Family before finishing off the final Ice King. His chains wrapped around its neck, and the red spear thrust towards its exhausted body. The Ice King was bound, forced to take the attack through its head.
With a final scream, the beast fell, lifeless, dissipating back into snow.
-
Rotell watched the three Ice Kings fall.
She nodded.
She looked into the distance.
Now was the time to fell the Ice Titan.
* * *