Chapter 1 - Battle that shook the world; Pride goes before a fall!

Chapter 1 - Pride goes before a fall!

"Please don't harm us, we beg you." A middle-aged mother wearing tattered clothes carrying a sick and frail daughter in her arms, begged seriously with tears streaming down her glistening, clouded eyes.

"Give me a solid reason why I shouldn't hurt you?" A young-looking woman who gracefully floated in the wind, asked with a cold, evil and ominous smile on her face.

This woman, who was over 6 feet tall—precisely 6'2", had glowing silver eyes, flawless white skin, and glowing, enigmatic white tattoos that adorned her unblemished, soft, and delicate-looking skin. She was incomparably beautiful and ravishing—she looked like an arctic-loving, frigid celestial Demoness of magnetic and mesmerizing beauty ascend to the world from a particular hall of hell where peerless, superlative beauties worship her as the true incarnate of beauty and charm.

She was known as the 'Malevolent Ice Priestess', an ancestral tyrannical being with the supreme and unmatched ability to control both frost and ice. She was so skilled with her ice manipulation ability that she could instantly freeze a vast, predominantly volcanic region—immense mountain ranges with over a thousand active, eruptive volcanic mountains in enormously thick layers of pure solid ice in a heartbeat.

She was exceedingly brutal that she was hated everywhere and by everything. It could even be said that the air detested her, as it would seemingly roar and bellow in heavy protest once her dread-striking, alluring glacial form appeared, unleashing instant air and magma-freezing coldness upon all things with contempt, indifference, and great wickedness.

"P-P-Plea..." The woman begged with great terror in her eyes. But she couldn't finish her plea of overwhelming sorrow when a type of intense coldness that instantly froze the atmosphere around them for thousands of feet in pure solid ice—such that hundreds of gigantic, silvery-white glaciers formed rapidly on the ground and rose for hundreds of feet towards the sky, suddenly descended upon her and her child, immediately turning them to fear, lamentation, and gloom-invoking, terrified statues of ice.

Seeing what she had done, and feeling amused by the great dread and horror carved on their faces now in solid icy form, she giggled and caused the seemingly growling air underneath her currently floating figure to turn cold and make her rise very high into the air, resuming her fast cold flight towards other regions to call down vast frosty chaos and immense icy destruction upon everything in her path. She was out for several other rounds of alarming, ice-bound devastation.

But she couldn't fly far when a particular male suddenly appeared two hundred feet before her with all the rage in the world. This person was over seven feet tall, had glowing, long golden hair, robust muscular frame, bright crimson eyes that shone with boundless rage and hatred. He had a flawless, fair shining skin that was adorned all over with seemingly fire-branded, gold-violet tattoos that shimmered in the rays of the sun and caused the air around each of them to warp, contract, and distort at the same time,

"Theraessa, your great evil stops here. I am determined to stop you with everything I have, including my life!" The thirty-year-old-looking man whose figure endlessly radiated the vast and horrifying power of blazing inferno evocation and oppressive heat manifestation, said with a deafening booming voice, and intense palpable anger that rampantly exuded from his body in the form of violently bellowing waves of fire.

This caused the frozen ground hundreds of feet directly below him to melt and turn into an enormous magma pool. The heat was simply exceedingly intense that it seemed like a miniature scorching sun had appeared in the region, attempting to show off its ardent glory by melting and turning everything into glowing-hot, molten liquid forms.

Unaffected by the intense, sand-melting and river-evaporating heat exuding from the figure of the furious young man whose body shone with a grand and splendorous golden radiance, the Malevolent Ice Priestess who was called Theraessa by name, produced a rather callous and wicked smile on her face and said, "Veyghorth, I see you have recovered from the fatal injuries I inflicted upon you the last time. Well, this time, you will leave your puny persistent life behind. I won't let you escape."

"I don't plan on escaping, I am here to die... for these pitiful people, and the totally oppressed empires and nations that you continuously invoke your endless icy wrath upon. But I assure you, though I will go down, you will as well go down with me. None of us will leave here alive, we will both die, I promise!" The young-looking man who was called Veyghorth, said with fervent determination in his voice and gaze before unexpectedly shooting over like he were a comet to where Theraessa calmly and fearlessly floated.

Theraessa was so composed that even if the vast sky would collapse upon her figure as a tremendously large layer of metal that was capable of compressing the entire world to the flatness of a pancake, she would remain in her cold, aloof, lofty and dauntless form, since nothing could actually cause to waver or severely panic in fear and terror. And this was because of her utmost, dogged belief in her incredible and formidable strength. She was simply too strong and powerful that she considered herself hundreds of realms above everything. She felt she existed in a state where she had no peers, both ancient and contemporary.

"And so he flies to his deat..." Theraessa couldn't finish her calm and contemptuous, deriding speech when Veyghorth suddenly stopped his flight towards her and rapidly ascended towards the sky. Then what happened next was his towering, seven-feet-tall form growing extremely huge in size very quickly. He rapidly grew to a size of forty feet with his whole body becoming engulfed in shining golden fire, one that burned ferociously and illuminated everywhere, dyeing the vast, ice-buried earth in blazing golden hue.

Then in the next moment, a beam so powerful—hundred feet wide, suddenly erupted from his outstretched hands towards her. This beam was brilliant and iridescent in color, emitted searing heat that could quickly reduce a large continent formed purely from solid ice to vapor, and carried with it an immense, exceptionally destructive force—a force capable of crushing an enormous, ten-thousand-meter-wide rock to countless tiny grains.

Seeing the terrifying, immense attack that was raging downwards from a great altitude in the sky towards her, Theraessa couldn't help but be alarmed, immediately exercising one of her strongest skill to parry the massive, overbearing attack.

With a thought, the atmosphere—one inch to ten thousand meters around her, immediately became a highly-charged domain of pure frost and ice, one that if anything got into it, no matter their speed—at even ten thousand kilometers per second, and was composed purely of energy, would immediately stop in their furious trajectories and become solidly-frozen objects.

Then due to the effect of this awe-striking and brutally harrowing, phenomenal icy domain, the colossal area of land enclosed by it instantly became a massive, snowy and ice-cold region that had numerous gigantic structures of solid ice immediately appear and rapidly rise really high into the air—to a height of nine hundred feet above the ground.

She simply turned the space affected by her titanic icy power to a vastly treacherous region filled with countless spiky columns, pillars, glaciers, and enormously-sized mountains of tremendously solid ice.

The raging, berserk beam of radiative energy which moved at a great speed towards Theraessa, was immediately caught in the domain of ice, transforming instantly into a massive column of ice that surrendered to the effect of gravity and fell to the ice-covered ground about fifty feet before her.

Although she succeeded in neutralizing the attack, she however felt suppressed and wrathful, as the offensive unleashed caused her to immediately utilize one of her six strongest skills. And she had never done that for any adversary. But someone she nearly killed a century ago, had come back stronger and even forced her to use one of her most formidable skills—Ice Territory Extension.

Seeing that she had rendered the attack useless, Veyghorth's gaze became more determined.

Then swiftly, he bit himself on the finger, sucked out blood and spat it onto his right palm. Bringing the two giant palms together like he wanted to say a prayer, the air around him began to warp and distort strongly, seemingly like he were a severe, terrifying storm waiting to happen and violently or brutally rampage across towns and cities in an unbridled, devastating manner, seeking to end all lives and wrought endless ruination upon all things. That was the feeling that would be enigmatically invoked in the hearts of every onlooker that would witness this marveling, mystical spectacle.

A second later, the whole region suddenly descended into pitch-black darkness. But this was because every ray of the sun converged on only Veyghorth's figure, making him the only luminous thing in the region. It was a majestic, imposing, marveling, and tremendously terrifying sight to behold.

Shocked by the overwhelming, terror and majesty-invoking display of power, Theraessa immediately moved to use her strongest skill: Endless Expansive World of Behemoth Icy Swords.

Immediately she employed the ability, the large icy domain that surrounded them became another realm. It transformed into a vast space that seemed completely isolated from the world they were currently in.

Then what happened next were swords of astronomical sizes that glowed intensely in blue, manifesting rapidly and thrumming ominously like baleful, sinister machines of destruction and annihilation operated within them.

As they shimmered and glowed at the same time, they exuded the vast palpable power to seemingly cut countless small planets in half and freeze them completely solid.

Whoosh!

Whoosh!

Whoosh!

...

Hundreds of these fearsome, bizarrely-shaped swords octupled—replicated in groups of eight tens of thousands of times over before shooting out at great speeds—hundred thousand kilometers a minute to the altitude that Veyghorth hovered like he had truly replaced the sun, shining forth with exceeding brilliance and painting everywhere in his unparalleled celestial glory and golden divinely candor.

However, the raging, massive swords that glowed blindingly in blue, couldn't get to ninety feet around him before instantly breaking into countless pieces due to the immense mysterious pressure that exuded from his body in all directions. Then in that same instant, they turned into large clouds of mists that rapidly vanished due to the visible, astronomically searing heat that erupted from Veyghorth's body in the form of a large and wild, tempestuous storm of fiendish infernal fire.

Suddenly opening his previously shut massive eyes in his forty-feet-tall form to gaze with unwavering determination and endless, inextinguishable hatred at Theraessa, he said with fierce and frightening resolve in his tone, "Die with me!"

BOOM!!!!!!

The moment he said that, his massive, blindingly glowing form immediately exploded, giving rise to a form of tyrannical, colossal explosion that seemed like it tremendously shook the entire sky and world. While Theraessa who wasn't expecting Veyghorth to try to annihilate himself along with her using a glorious, self-sacrificing skill, tried to do everything within her power to resist the incoming unstoppable blast of heaven-evoking fury.

But it was too late to do anything, as the terrifying destructive wave of endless desolating potency evoked by the fierce, sky-shaking blast, effortlessly shattered through the tens of millions of enormous, mountain-sized icy swords that surrounded her glowing, supremely captivating, magnetic and luscious figure, and thrummed ominously within her summoned, seemingly boundless vast icy realm.

"Aghhhhhhh...!!!"

Then, it struck into her with immense obliterative force—a force that seemed like it wanted her complete erasure from the world, and from the records of destiny and fate themselves.

...

Suddenly, the eyes of an eighteen-year-old girl snapped open, then she screamed out in great alarm and terror, "Argghhhh!!!"

"She is awake. She is awake. Someone call the witch nurse. She is awake. Oh my goodness, I am so happy. The universe must have restored your lost soul." A girl who looked older and less beautiful than the pale-skinned girl lying on the bed, said with a bright and delighted smile on her face.

The girl lying on the bed, whose skin was cold and sheet-white in appearance—but had started to regain both color and warmth, immediately sat up straight to look at herself, only to find frail dainty arms that caused her heart to skip many beats. Then immediately gazing at the delighted girl in front of her, but not knowing who she was, she asked coldly and in a contemptuous lordly tone, "Who are you?"

"Who am I? Really? Well, I am your friend. Your best friend. It seems your spirit hit its head on a rock in the spiritual realm on its way back to your body. Haha! Anyway, to remind you if that truly happened, you are Halgressia, Halgressia Sylvharia Zynnhereth. While I am your very good friend, henchwoman, and a proud sidekick. Hehe. But you should immediately stop this, Hally, if you are pretending so that you can cause me both amusement and puzzlement. It's not funny. I don't like it." The girl who was Zena by name, said with an intensely surprised look on her face, before complete seriousness took over.

However, she didn't try to think too much into it, especially the high-handed and presumptuous chilling tone that Theraessa spoke to her with. She was only glad that her friend, who was declared medically dead because of incurable tea poisoning had surprisingly awakened.

It was utterly shocking, as no one could survive the extremely potent lethality of the Blackshade Greythorn poison, but she was glad and grateful. Thankful to the universe for the swift and cheering restoration of her friend's life.

Theraessa, now Halgressia, furrowed her brows in curiosity. Then she recalled the seemingly world-ending blast and developed a really frosty expression on her face. 'That bastard. May you die a thousand more excruciatingly painful deaths on your way to hell.' She said within herself with great bitterness in her tone. Then she looked at her frail, dainty arms once again and released a really heavy breath of resignation to the indecipherable workings of fate.

She had lost her fearsome powers and skills.

She had lost her vast, dreadful icy aura.

She had been reborn in the body of feeble, perhaps extremely sickly girl.

And, she was possibly reborn without any form of power.

Truly a sad and unfortunate ending for her!

However, her gaze unexpectedly lit up in the next moment with fervent determination. Then she resolutely declared within herself that, truly, her ancient soul had crossed over into the body of another girl in a universe that she knew totally nothing about, but she would surely create means to ascend to the top, where she would be feared and revered by all creatures, even without any sort of power or ability. And if she developed any ability down the line in her unstoppable path to glorious and magnificent conquest, then it would be a bonus!

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[A/N]

Hello, author here. If you like the book, please add to your library and accompany Halgressia (Theraessa) on her journey to understanding herself and becoming a better, more powerful person. It will be a great read. And yea, if you have any question regarding the story, you can leave it in the comment section, I will promptly attend to it. Thank you. Have a nice one! :)