ICY CREATURES

Relevant explanation and plea as to why this chapter was late. But know this, I have, and shall never, miss a single day! And that, you can count on!

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BANG BANG BANG!

It was like an arcade rail shooter, the group ran down the reflective hallways blasting at the arms and weapons that swung at them from the walls. The statues they passed were met with the same fate, only even when the frozen zombies were ground to dust they reassembled as if they were nothing.

They operated with the same sluggishness as golems, and yet they didn't possess a core that was responsible for their regeneration or power.

The only thing Ivan was glad of was that none of the zombies possessed any special abilities other than that to come back to life after facing certain destruction. None of them had devastating skills, powerful magic, or movement techniques that'd put the group in a bind.

While the strength of individual zombies was disappointing, their indestructibility and numbers in a narrow space such as the ice tunnels made for a horror movie-like situation. Ivan brought out the compass before weaving around again, nodding as he allowed Yue to cover for him.

"What are you doing, master?" Claire stood in front of Ivan, chopping up any opposers that stood in their way, and with a glance, she curiously voiced out her thoughts.

"Yue and I faced a situation like this in our second dungeon, golems that would regenerate even without a core. Last time we just had to destroy the giant core— well at least that's what we thought would work... Until we ran into Miledi Reisen herself… But this time I'm optimistic that a central core is powering these zombies from afar!"

He ignored the speechlessness marring Claire's face, closing his eyes and directing his intent to find the mechanism that operates the frost zombies. After a few seconds, the compass began glowing.

"This way!" Ivan came to a complete stop and allowed the rest of the group to pass him, he placed both his hands on the ground before molding the ice around them into a solid wall to keep the rushing frost zombies at bay.

Noticing a fork in the road he returned to his position as the spearhead of the group, in this fork he decided to go through the left tunnel after raising his compass.

"Please work… please work…" Ivan hoped that the compass would direct him to something so vague as a possible energy source for the enemies. For now, it seemed like it would work as the dial from looking for the labyrinth turned to a completely different direction.

"Tio, take vanguard. Claire, go ahead and join Felis and Canis in the back, hold back any zombies that manage to break through." Claire nodded and left her position to take care of the order assigned to her.

"We're approaching an opening, odds are that'll be where we find the core…" Ivan spoke contemplative, earning a nod from Yue who began chanting an intermediate spell as they ran through the frozen halls.

CRACK!

The sound of Ivan's ice wall being destroyed echoed through the tunnel, following it was the groaning and mindless screaming of the undead.

"Shit, I'll form another wall when we reach the opening but odds are we'll need to take care of two fronts. A battle behind us and a battle in front of us. If that happens, the fight to destroy the core is our priority, no point in fighting an undying army when the key to destroying it stands in front of us!"

Ivan put an end to his words once he spotted a bright light at the end of the tunnel, bracing for more attackers he held both his arms to his waist, ready to crush the face of anything that jumps at him.

"This is…?" Ivan needed to make a counter for the number of times he's spoken that phrase since being transmigrated to this world.

There it stood, several meters tall, a single foot capable of crushing his entire being. Its shell of ice adorning long thick spikes makes attacking it dangerous. Those spikes ran even to its knees, where warriors would likely attack it to bring it down.

Wisps of frost escaped its mouth with each huff of its breath, it stared back at the group with glowing gold eyes. And through its see-through shell, was a ball of deep blue light.

"Huh, it looks just like the turtle we have back home! Did the dungeon copy us…?" Felis voiced out what everyone was thinking. The giant turtle in front of them was just like the one Cattleya used against them in Orcus' dungeon, except this one was made of ice and packed with spikes.

"No, if anything those turtles were made by Freid using this little guy as inspiration…" It made Ivan feel a little better that the trash that was Freid turned out to be some poser who copied the dungeon. Not that he could talk though…

WHOOSH WHOOSH

The situation turned from tense to intense the moment the air whirled with the appearance of several new enemies. Eagles sculpted from ice, they poured out the walls of the cave and flurried around like pigeons in a parking lot.

BANG BANG BANG!

Without hesitation the mages of the group began to shoot them out of the air, breaking the ice wall behind them meant the melee fighters had their hands tied dealing with the waves of zombies.

Ivan focused his attention on the colossal turtle, approaching it while activating his field to water transmute the approaching eagles into water. Though like the zombies they just reformed after a couple of seconds.

It was truly a battle of attrition.

The warriors are to fight off a nigh endless amount of enemies, before either destroying the core or being overrun and murdered. "The liberators are only getting crueler and crueler huh… then again we began with the asshole that is Miledi~!"

"RAGGHH!"

The turtle didn't care for Ivan's words, shooting a beam of ice from its mouth directed right at Ivan. He put up a hand and the ice turned to water, and then turned into a wall of ice to defend him from the next attack.

BANG BANG BANG!

He didn't spare a glance to the birds falling dead behind him, only thanking inwardly Tio and Yue, who had been supporting him from behind.

After all, his foe in front of him may be jealous if he turned his attention to the girls. "SO just hurry up and die!" Dozens of needles shot from his gauntlets, blowing up the turtle and creating a veil of smoke for Ivan to close in on.

The heat from the explosion created a near split second of melted ice in the air, Ivan activated his field and shot pillars of Ice toward the turtle's eyes.

The turtle regressed into its shell, obvious to the fact that other than its eyes every other part of its body was also made of ice. Meaning all it had to do was make sure its eyes weren't destroyed.

What the turtle didn't know was that all Ivan would have to do to destroy it was to touch it, an easy feat considering the size of the beast made swift movements near impossible.

Ivan slid his hand across the icy ground and swiped up, a trail of spikes appeared out of the floor and tugged into the turtle's uncovered belly, lifting it into the air slightly. He took the moment it showed visible confusion to create a gate under it, he then went through the gate on his end and stabbed his fist into the beast's stomach.

He ignored its groans, red lightning and blue on each arm doing work and either moving or destroying the monster's form of ice. As each second passed his hands got closer to the core. At least that was before an eagle appeared from underneath it.

It soared through the turtle's mass of ice as if it were water, plucking the core and placing it in its beak. The turtle decomposed almost immediately into a pool of water, before freezing again into a mountain of spikes.

Ivan heated the water around him to a boiling degree before chasing after the bird. If he were to allow it enough time it would probably try to form another ice turtle using the cave walls or other surrounding ice.

"SQUAK!"

The eagle was met with unexpected turbulence as a sickle stabbed its way through its head, and with a swift swing, it was flung around before being slammed down to the ground.

With that amount of force Ivan had no doubt the frost eagle's head was shattered upon impact, he nodded gratefully to Ari who smiled back.

All of the eagles facing Tio and Yue reverted their attention to reclaiming the core, ignoring any lethal attacks done to their body and instead prioritizing recovery.

Ivan signaled for Yue and Tio to cease attacking, now that he knew where all of his opponents were heading he had the advantage. He dove for the core, activating numerous movement skills to get to it first.

"Got you fuckers!"

CRACK

Gravity magic, spatial magic, Ivan activated his boundary to the max. He held the core up in the air to entice the eagles, even more, smiling as hundreds of them flew in only to sink to the ground like rocks, before shattering.

Not hesitating any further he put the core in his right hand, activating his arm of destruction before the core exploded in a bright blue explosion.

"Hm, that was fun~!"

Whether it be the frost zombies or the ice eagles, each of them disintegrated like wet paper. Thankfully, his assumption about destroying the core to put an end to the assault was correct.

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Hello folks! Sorry about the late post, just got back home from Anime Expo. It was a ton of fun! Only... there were so many people... way too many! I spent about an hour walking like a duck, two hours outside in line, and another couple wandering the exhibit hall! I did buy a nice couple of books... I would've gotten figures and dakimakuras but I have no place at home to stash them from my family. I really wanted to go to the 18+ section too!!! BUT, I was there with my brother and that's not exactly somewhere you wanna be with relatives you live with....

And unfortunately I was only able to afford to go to the first day, the next three allude me... However, I learned a lot from the experience. The next time I go I'll be ready! And hopefully, hotter too.... But first I need money, and a dakimakura, the two are tandem but one comes before the other so I may enjoy next time!

So that's the end of my story, next time I go I'll hopefully be more prepared than this time, and hopefully fit enough to pull off a convincing cosplay. And maybe... just maybe... I'll be able to get a four day pass~ Thanks for reading, I love you all, and have a great rest of your evening... See you all next time!

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