Chapter 1299: Void Armament: Bleeding Winter

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.

The fist struck empty air and exploded a crater across the ice eating everything in a kilometer’s rage while Phei emerged behind the monster’s shoulder; a dark dagger was already buried beneath the heavy frozen plating protecting its neck.

He pulled.

SKRRRCH!

The blade tore through flesh with a sickening sound.

The Rime Colossus bellowed and reached backward, but Phei had already ripped the dagger free and thrown the second weapon high into the air.

His True Void Steps swallowed him... the dagger spun once beneath the frozen light. Phei appeared beside it in the air, he caught the hilt and continued through the motion up without slowing. The blade swept across the throat of a Frost Reaver rushing below him.

Its head was separated so cleanly.

Phei landed upon the ice and groaned as pain stabbed through his ribs.

Another roar rolled down from the sky.

He looked upward.

The Ice Dragon was being torn apart between Glacial Skyrays that had just arrived and the remaining Rimeleeches, while more Frost Reavers were already descending toward it in numbers that made the sky itself appear infested.

"Fuck..."

Phei stomped!

Void-Ice erupted from beneath his foot.

The cold raced across the ground and climbed the air in the same instant, spreading through the battlefield until hundreds of approaching Frost Reavers, several Rime Colossi and even distant Skyrays were trapped inside and became enormous sculptures of pale crystalline ice.

For several breaths they remained frozen.

Then cracks began spreading before Frost Reaver moved inside its prison, another followed before chunks of Void-Ice exploded away as Half-Divine strength began breaking through.

Phei lifted both hands.

Void Essence gathered between them first, darkness so deep that the surrounding shadows seemed pale beside it. True Darkness followed from beneath the frozen cliffs and from every place untouched by the cold brilliance overhead, while crimson Primordial Blood threaded through both until all three powers twisted together.

A bow formed inside Phei’s left hand.

Its body was black, smooth and slightly curved, with crimson veins pulsing beneath the surface like blood moving through something alive.

Five arrows formed between the fingers of his other hand.

Their shafts carried the same living darkness—

—while their arrowheads burned deep red of the blood—

Seven Frost Reavers had already torn free and were charging directly toward him.

Phei drew the bow and released.

Space itself screamed!

The five arrows disappeared—

Three Frost Reavers charging at him suddenly stopped almost together.

The first shuddered as an arrow emerged directly before one eye and pierced through its skull. Another appeared beneath the second creature’s jaw and tore upward into the head and the head exploded right away the same time the first one exploded, while the third continued flying for less than a heartbeat before collapsing with an arrow buried through its face; its head exploded too!

The remaining three arrows ripped themselves free from the exploding bodies and vanished once more.

The last four Frost Reavers twisted desperately; space opened against them.

One arrow returned directly before an eye. Another appeared within an open mouth, while the last two beasts tried fleeing upward only for the arrows to disappear again and strike from directions they could never have guarded.

Seven Half-Divine creatures fell with their heads exploding!

A blue radiance appeared before Phei.

[Void-Blood Skill!]

[Born from Void and Primordial Blood: Weapons or attacked cast through Void-Blood can tear through space, enter the Void and return wherever Host wills them to strike on close range without providing chance to dodge and would explode the struck part apart.]

Phei’s lips curved faintly.

He had created the skill somewhere during first fours moths of the long slaughter that followed his tempering.

By his own reckoning, he had already spent close to a year inside the Primordial Frozen Zone.

’Perhaps longer.’

Counting time had become irritatingly difficult when there was no sun to follow, no ordinary night to mark the end of a day, and almost every stretch of rest ended with something trying to bite, crush, freeze or eat him. He knew only that many months had passed before Void and Primordial Blood finally began answering each other during battle.

At first, Void-Blood had been unreliable. A thrown dagger vanished and never returned, an arrow once emerged kilometers away from its intended prey our even came back and almost struck him, and another almost entered Phei’s own shoulder after the Void twisted his terrible aim into an even worse joke.

Eventually, he learned.

Now anything cast through Void-Blood could tear open the space before it, disappear through the Void and return where Phei wanted the strike to fall and he’d learnt to apply the exploding of the parts he strikes thank to his command of the Primordial Blood mastery.

The journey lasted scarcely an instant.

For a long-ranged killing art, that instant was everything.

Another roar shook the frozen heavens.

Phei looked upward as a Glacial Skyray slammed into the Dragon’s wing.

Phei crouched and exploded upwards!

The ice beneath him exploded beneath the force of his ascent, and a tremendous boom followed when Phei propelled himself upward fast enough to break the sound barrier.

His ordinary flying speed had improved greatly during the countless months spent fighting here.

But it still could not match the fastest Half-Divine creatures.

So Phei had stopped relying upon flight alone.

True Void Steps swallowed him halfway through the ascent.

The crouching part and exploding was caused by the physical mighty of his body although the True Void Steps required no preparation.

He emerged upon the Ice Dragon’s back.

One of the remaining Rimeleeches sensed him immediately.

Its circular mouth opened beneath its armored body and exposed thousands upon thousands of tiny teeth, each sharp enough to gleam through even magic weapon or armor.

The creature lunged toward Phei’s shoulder but Phei didnt even try to dodge; its jaws closed at his skin.

Claattt!!

A harsh clattering sound followed before the Rimeleech recoiled violently; several of its teeth had snapped and more had bent backward.

The creature screamed while Phei glanced at the shallow pale marks across his skin.

Those same teeth had chewed through scales harder than most armor treasures!

Close to a year inside this frozen hell had changed more than his Void-Ice.

The Great Immortal elixir had begun the tempering, rebuilding very physical aspects of Phei beyond anything Phei had possessed before stepping him into Body Cultivation but the Primordial Frozen Zone had spent the months a year even, afterward tearing that already tempered body apart and forcing Dragon Regeneration and his Primordial Blood to rebuild it again and again beneath colder frost, harder impacts and increasingly monstrous enemies.

The Rimeleech attacked again.

Three black short swords appeared around Phei before its mouth reached him.

[Void Manipulation!]

[First Art: Void Armament

[Host may draw upon Void Essence, True Darkness and Shadow, giving them physical form and shaping them into weapons, armor or any weaponry armament bound to Host’s will. The created armament will only last for as long as and only while Host is using them and return to the Void afterward. While Host can also forge permanent weapons from the same weapon.]

The three short swords moved and disappeared from sight:

One Rimeleech was split from head to tail that very instant.

The second lost half its armored body before it understood the blade had passed through.

The third tried to leap away, only for the final sword to turn in midair and pierce the back of its skull.

Phei disappeared.

The three short swords vanished with him, and two longer blades formed within his hands when he emerged among the Frost Reavers surrounding the Dragon. Their edges were narrow and black and so so dark, formed from darkness and void and compressed until the air itself pulled away from them.

A Frost Reaver lunged at him with both claws.

Phei vanished from before it, appeared above its shoulder and brought one sword downward.

The creature was separated through the torso, he turned through the falling body and disappeared again; another Frost Reaver opened its jaws beneath where he was but once again Phei emerged beside its neck and crossed both swords once.

Its head fell.

These creatures had once been horribly difficult to kill.

Their hides had been hardened beneath the Primordial Frozen Zone for longer than Phei cared to imagine. During the first months of his fight with them, even attacks capable of tearing through other beasts had struggled against them.

Void Armament changed that.