The roar of the Frost Dragon, Velkhana, was not merely a sound; it was a physical displacement of air and mana that struck the plateau with the force of a bomb detonation. The snow that had blanketed the peaks for centuries was instantly atomized into a blinding white fog, stripping visibility down to zero.
Sebastian stood his ground, his [Void Ocean] passive flaring to create a localized gravity anchor that kept him from being blown off the mountain like a dry leaf. Across the expanse of the plateau, the remnants of the Iron Covenant were not so lucky.
"Form up! Aegis Pattern!" General Iron's voice cut through the howling wind, amplified by high-tier command skills.
The discipline of the paramilitary guild was terrifying to behold. Despite the sudden appearance of a Level 50 World Boss, the soldiers didn't route. The heavy shield-bearers slammed their tower shields into the permafrost, activating [Magnetic Lock]. A wall of steel rose instantly, creating a bunker against the dragon's pressure.
Velkhana, a creature of crystalline blue scales and malice, hovered above them. Its wingspan blotted out the pale sun. It opened its maw, revealing a throat that glowed with a blinding, absolute white light.
"Breath attack!" Valerie screamed from behind Sebastian, diving behind a rock.
It wasn't fire. It was a beam of concentrated entropy. The Frost Breath struck the center of the Iron Covenant's shield wall. There was no explosion. There was only the sound of thermal stress—a high-pitched pinging of metal contracting rapidly.
The front line of tanks didn't die from impact. They froze. In a microsecond, their armor, their flesh, and the blood in their veins were reduced to absolute zero. They became statues of ice and steel. Then, the shockwave hit.
CRACK-SHATTER.
Fifty players shattered. It looked like someone had taken a sledgehammer to a shelf of glass figurines. Arms, legs, and torsos exploded into a spray of red ice crystals and blue data shards. The gore was instant and frozen; there was no blood flow, only pink mist settling on the snow.
"Hold the line!" Iron roared, stepping forward. His silver exosuit glowed with a golden barrier, the [Divine Aegis]. He tanked the edge of the breath, his health bar dropping by chunks, but he held. "Rear guard! Suppression fire on the beast! Do not let it land!"
Hundreds of crossbow bolts and magic missiles streaked upward, striking the dragon's underbelly. They did little damage, bouncing off the diamond-hard scales, but they annoyed the beast. Velkhana shrieked and banked left, preparing for a strafing run.
Sebastian watched from the ridge, his eyes cold and calculating. He held the [Shadowfang] loosely in his hand, but he didn't advance.
"They are distracting it," Sebastian murmured. "Iron is trying to turn this into a raid. He thinks he can tank the boss and kill me at the same time."
He looked at the geography of the battlefield. The Iron Covenant had dug in on the widest part of the plateau, a flat shelf of obsidian rock jutting out from the mountainside. It was a strong defensive position against a frontal assault. But they had made a critical error. They had assumed the mountain was solid.
Sebastian looked up. Above the plateau, a massive overhang of glacial ice and loose rock frowned down upon the battlefield. The dragon's roar had already loosened it.
"System," Sebastian whispered. "Access Skill Tree: Terramancy."
He didn't need to fight five hundred elites. He just needed to change the landscape.
[Skill: Earth Spike] -> [Evolution] -> [Terramancy: Reshape (Tier 3)].
He poured 20,000 Skill Points into the skill instantly. The cost was exorbitant, but the return on investment would be total annihilation.
"Valerie, get airborne," Sebastian commanded.
"What?"
"Fly. Now."
Valerie didn't argue. She activated her flight spell, lifting off the ground just as Sebastian slammed his palm onto the rock beneath his feet. He didn't aim at the players. He aimed at the fault line running through the cliff face above them.
"Reshape."
He injected a pulse of mana so dense it turned the rock liquid. He severed the structural support of the overhang.
GROAN.
The sound was louder than the dragon. It was the sound of the earth screaming. The Iron Covenant soldiers looked up, their faces draining of color beneath their helms. The mountain above them was moving.
Millions of tons of rock, ice, and snow detached from the peak. It wasn't a slide; it was a freefall.
"RETREAT!" Iron screamed, abandoning his formation. "GET OFF THE PLATEAU!"
It was too late. The sky turned black as the mountain fell.
BOOM.
The impact shook the entire zone. The plateau didn't just get buried; it collapsed under the weight. The obsidian shelf sheared off the side of the mountain, taking the army with it.
The screams of the players were cut short instantly. There was no time for agony. They were crushed into paste between plates of stone falling with terminal velocity. Bodies popped like blood-filled balloons, painting the falling rocks in streaks of crimson before being ground into dust. Armor crumpled like tin foil.
Sebastian stood on the edge of the fracture line, the wind of the collapse whipping his rags. He watched the Iron Covenant tumble into the abyss below. The sheer volume of the destruction caused the server to lag for a split second, the physics engine struggling to calculate thousands of collision points simultaneously.
[Ding! You have killed Player...]
[Ding! You have killed Player...]
[Ding! Killing Spree!]
The notifications scrolled by in a blur of red text, a waterfall of death. Within ten seconds, the army was gone. The plateau was gone. All that remained was a jagged scar on the side of the mountain and a cloud of dust rising from the valley floor two thousand feet below.
Sebastian peered into the dust. His [Eye of the Void God] pierced the veil.
One signal remained.
Clinging to the side of the cliff, his silver armor battered and dented, hanging by a single hand from a protruding root, was General Iron. He had activated an invulnerability skill at the last second, surviving the crush but losing his footing.
"Stubborn," Sebastian noted.
But he didn't have time to finish the job. A shadow fell over him.
Velkhana, denied its prey by the avalanche, had found a new target. The Dragon hovered at eye level with Sebastian, its vertical pupils narrowing. It exhaled, a cloud of frost condensing in the air.
"New plan," Sebastian said, equipping the heavy [Greatsword of the Fallen] in his off-hand. "We kill the god first."