Chapter 137: Frozen Elysium 4

"What will you do now?" Tulkan chuckled, as he painstakingly poured most of the Mana he had into pulling down a celestial body that lay close by, from outside the world.

Something that had been left to freeze in order to maximize its gravitational power. Essentially, the combination was Tulkan’s best attack, something he had long prepared.

But because it only lay near this planet, Tulkan ended up unable to use it in other worlds, so sometimes he wondered, when would he get to use this power in a direct fight?

He didn’t want to use it for just an ordinary fight or to bully the weak. So, here he was.

’I hate to admit it, but this man is strong. Of course, I won’t lose.’

He was certain that even without this meteor, he would still win. The only question was Tulkan’s desire to finally use this power, and he thought that human was worthy enough to taste it.

He hoped there would be an extraordinary power used in return, he truly hoped for it.

But...

"A bow and arrow? How laughable..."

His face immediately wrinkled in ugly disgust.

’Did I make the wrong decision? This human seemed strong enough, yet he uses a Mana bow against an attack that could potentially be A-Grade?’

Tulkan’s face turned ugly and disgusted.

He lost his rage and the burning excitement, replaced by disappointment and a sense of futility.

But that lasted only a moment.

Whistle—!

The Arrow shot upward with a whistling sound that could tear through the air, so thunderous that it made Tulkan cover his face with his own arm as the wind suddenly grew so fierce.

It wasn’t fierce enough to be dangerous, but even that felt terrifying when he thought about how gravity itself was already being suppressed.

If gravity weren’t suppressed, how thunderous would the Arrow’s roar have been?

"Heh...!"

Tulkan suddenly felt curious. He looked at the Arrow, an Arrow streaking up in an existential blue, its tail looking like an exploding bomb flying into the air.

And the moment the shot struck the crust of the meteor, its pale blue trail stopped there and simply faded.

"...That’s it?"

Tulkan stared in confusion, feeling like a fool, toyed with by that human.

He was about to sneer with excessive irritation, but suddenly the meteor, which had at first looked like a mixed mass of dark gray, brown, black, and a few neighboring colors, now showed something strange.

Between each pattern, each crack, and each hole visible on the meteor, a deep blue light could be seen seeping out from within, one after another.

Julian hadn’t created a skill just because he wanted to, he had created a skill because he needed it. And for that, Julian hadn’t created a skill that could deliver overwhelming destructive power, an ultimate attack that would wipe out an entire football field, but he had given himself something more than that.

Something he needed, and that was pure penetration against a celestial body like a meteor.

Julian intended to destroy it from the inside.

Swaa—!

The faint light grew brighter and brighter, until slowly, within Tulkan’s own control, he could feel the meteor trembling.

"H-huh...! Th-this can’t be—"

A flash of light struck, the sky became so bright and blinding that it cut off whatever Tulkan was saying.

And trailing that blinding beam of light was the sound of an explosion that shook the very side of the world.

BAAAM—!

The ground trembled, a terrifying windstorm sent flying whatever was around it, and the fragments of the meteor itself slowly began to fall.

But before that happened, the fragments had already frozen one by one, then turned into crystallized shards of ice dust.

A region that should have had only summer was now in the grip of winter.

Real snowfall, real cold air, as if the season that had been set for that region had been reset.

Tulkan watched all of it with eyes wide in disbelief. For a moment, he felt his entire body tremble, and after a while, he turned his head, sensing something.

There, Julian stood with an empty, lifeless gaze. A gaze far more haughty and arrogant than any a Dragon could have, a gaze that said directly that...

You are far beneath me.

And in the next instant, Julian, who hadn’t waited at all for the meteor to explode, as though he had already predicted the outcome, had already clasped his sword.

Blue butterflies fluttered, flapping their wings in the surroundings. They were a kind of insect that did not live in this world, so Tulkan began to sense that something was wrong.

He was about to act, but the entire ground beneath his feet had frozen in a crystal-clear color, reflecting a sky full of falling snow crystal fragments.

Afterward, crystal ice flowers grew, blooming perfectly. There were many of them, covering every patch of ground that could hold one, leaving only a little room for Tulkan to move.

Of course, that wasn’t a problem, he just needed to fly and everything would be sett—

That thought was cut off.

Tulkan flapped one wing, his feet beginning to lift into the air, but before that could happen,

Jut out—!

Giant ice spikes rose to the surface, dozens of them forming a huge cage that imprisoned Tulkan.

"...Bastard!"

Tulkan bit his lip. His instincts had warned him of the danger coming, so he didn’t hesitate for a moment.

To destroy those ice spikes, his entire body took on a dragon form of enormous size.

In that form he could rise into the air quickly, making use of his incredibly powerful body.

"L-Lord—!"

Tulkan heard the voice of his subordinate, who sounded panicked as he tried to move. Tulkan looked at him as the subordinate moved, took a step, and in his panic stepped on one of the crystal ice flowers.

Then, what happened next was that the crystal ice flower, which should already have bloomed, bloomed even further until its petals spread wide like a hungry mouth.

But it wasn’t a mouth, it was destructive power itself.

The petals spread out and touched those not far from them, and then the others spread too. All the flowers touched one another and spread once touched, and in the next instant, which felt like an eternity, a terrifying flash struck again and again.

Crack—!

Tulkan, in a panic, took his dragon form and destroyed the ice prison. He flapped his wings and rose as high as he could to evade it, but far below, he heard it.

An explosion full of the sound of ice crystals, slowly reaching his body.

"YOU ACCURSED, DAMNED BASTARD!"

His hostile scream echoed across a vast radius, before his body was finally swallowed by that giant explosion.

Ice crystals, a world blanketed in snow, Tulkan’s entire field of vision had turned white.

He mustered the last thing he had, his scales thickening, and his eyes flickering with a faint reddish glow.

Tulkan was able to endure it, but from here on, he would not be able to endure without suffering a fatal injury.