Chapter 1298: The Ice Dragon’s Fury!

ROOOOAAAAAARRRRR!!!!!

A roar Dragon tore through the Primordial Frozen Zone in pain and fury to shake frost loose from cliffs that had stood untouched for ages.

Its colossal body twisted through the frozen heavens, beautiful even beneath the violence consuming it. Vast crystalline wings hammered against storms fierce enough to grind mountains apart, while ridges of translucent blue-white ice swept from its crowned skull, down the long curve of its neck and across a body large enough to cast entire valleys beneath its shadow. Every movement carried a strange elegance despite the wounds covering it.

Its wings opened fully, even the screaming blizzard seemed briefly too small to contain them.

Ten Rimeleeches were fastened across its back.

The creatures looked as though some ancient frozen sea had spat them out; their swollen bodies were covered in overlapping grey-black plates, dozens of hooked limbs wedged between the Dragon’s scales while long tentacles crawled across its back, sides and wings.

The tentacles tightened with rhythmic throbs, clinging harder whenever the Dragon twisted.

Their mouths were hidden beneath them and each Rimeleech possessed a circular maw packed with thousands of tiny inward-facing teeth, so densely arranged that the inside resembled a living grinder. Those teeth had already chewed through crystalline scales of the dragon harder than diamond, leaving pale fragments scattered through the storm while frozen blood ran between the wounds.

The Ice Dragon snarled and folded one wing sharply before whipping its long tail sideways.

BOOOOM!

The tail struck one Rimeleech squarely and launched the creature hundreds of meters into the blizzard. Its armored body tumbled helplessly through the air, yet the victory lasted scarcely a breath; there were several tentacles remained anchored to the Dragon, stretching thinner and thinner as the distance widened before suddenly pulling taut and thrown Rimeleech was dragged backward by its tentacles.

It came flying through the storm and slammed its car-sized body onto the Dragon’s back hard enough to fracture several more scales, its hooked limbs immediately dug in again as the circular mouth beneath it reopened.

The Dragon roared and accelerated.

The frozen air ahead compressed beneath its charge; wind screamed across its scales as the enormous wings drove harder: WOOOOMMMMM!!! Craacccckkk!!; a deafening crack exploded through the heavens when the Dragon broke through the sound barrier and propelled outward with such violence that the storm behind it split into two enormous walls.

It folded both wings close and spun, once.

Again; but faster.

The colossal body became a drilling spear of silver-ice scales launching through the Primordial Zone winter-white heavens dragging the blizzard around itself until kilometers of snow twisted into a vast spiral. The Rimeleeches screamed as the force tried to rip them away. One finally lost its grip, then another, and a third was hurled into the distance when several tentacles snapped beneath the strain.

Seven remained.

Their claws sank deeper.

The Dragon’s attempt had been little more than a pipe dream:

Before it could even properly unfold its wings again and enjoy the tiny cruel mercy, a flying creature tore from the frozen clouds beside its head.

A Glacial Skyray!

The Half-Divine stage flying beast possessed a huge flattened body wrapped in layered silver-blue armor, its forward skull tapering into a thick wedge meant for one thing alone: impact. Six narrow wings swept backward from its sides and beat so quickly they disappeared into pale streaks.

The Dragon turned—

—too late!

BOOOOOOM!

The Skyray smashed directly into the side of the Dragon’s jaw forcing Dragon’s head to snap sideways.

Bone cracked beneath the impact and several crystalline fangs broke loose and spun into the storm while the lower jaw shifted visibly out of place.

The Glacial Skyray vanished past it—

—three more arrived before the Dragon could recover.

One rammed into the ribs, another struck from the opposite side, while the third drove directly into the Dragon’s chest. Tens more appeared through the storm immediately afterward, racing from every direction before hurling themselves against its wings, neck and flanks with enough force to fracture ordinary mountains of ice.

The Dragon became trapped between them.

Every impact shook its enormous body, and the seven Rimeleeches clinging to its back reacted with vicious excitement. Their tentacles tightened together while the mouths beneath them bit deeper into broken scales before they pulled all at once!

Whole sections of crystalline silver scales of the dragon tore away.

Frozen blood sprayed into the sky.

The Dragon roared.

Something changed within that roar.

Its broken jaws opened wider, and the Primordial Frozen Zone suddenly became terrifyingly still.

The air froze.

The storm froze with it!

Snowflakes stopped midway through their fall, the broken scales hung motionless beside the Dragon. Frozen blood remained suspended in perfect crimson-blue droplets while a white-blue cold swept outward faster than the Glacial Skyrays could flee.

Ten of them were caught and Void-Ice swallowed their wings, claws and armored bodies, imprisoning each Half-Divine creature inside crystalline frost before its charge could finish.

The Ice Dragon twisted violently.

Its tail smashed through the first frozen Skyray and shattered the entire creature into glittering fragments. One massive wing struck another, and then the Dragon surged forward, breaking through one frozen body after another until ten of Glacial Skyrays became nothing more than a storm of ice and shattered flesh tumbling toward the wasteland.

Twenty had escaped.

They spread the instant the freezing roar began and now turned together.

The Dragon saw them coming.

Blue-white brilliance gathered inside its crooked jaws.

Its chest swelled before a Dragon Breath erupted from the dragon’s wide open maw and crashed across the frozen sky; an immense torrent of Void-Ice smashed into the first wave of Skyrays. Several disappeared and disintegrated beneath the blast while others were hurled away with half their bodies entombed in frost, yet the remainder divided around the breath and continued rushing inward.

A Rimeleech tried crawling toward the wounded root of one wing.

The Dragon’s talons came over its own shoulder and hooked beneath the creature:

It ripped upward.

Tentacles snapped one after another as the Rimeleech was torn free and crushed between enormous claws. Another tried to burrow deeper into its back. A talon swept across the scales and split the creature open, scattering dark blood over pale crystal.

The distant stormy skies had already filled with more shapes.

Dozens of Glacial Skyrays were closing in after the first wave was killed.

Farther beyond them, hundreds of more winged Frost Reavers raced through the frozen clouds, leaner than the Skyrays and far more agile, their elongated claws, jagged wings and narrow armored bodies built for tearing prey apart after the heavier beasts broke it down.

The Ice Dragon’s jaw remained crooked. Blood froze across its back, and several beautiful scales had been ripped away entirely.

It did not retreat.

Its wings spread.

The swarm struck!

Far below, upon an endless plain of immaculate ice, a young man stumbled several steps before coughing blood onto the frozen ground.

"Ugh..." The crimson splash froze almost immediately.

Phei barely looked at his blood but that very instants towering creature, a Rime Colossus swung one enormous arm through the place he had occupied.

Phei disappeared.