Omen of the end, blanketing white snow. At the hour of twilight, stir up a raging gale. Sealed light, frozen earth. A blizzard across the heavens, three cycles of harsh winter... I am Alf!
"...Wynn Fimbulvetr!!!"
Three colossal wolf-heads, formed entirely of crystallized absolute-zero ice, let out a terrifying roar the instant the magic completed, the sound carrying physical shockwaves! Along with a frost-white cold front fierce enough to freeze the soul, a devastating breath of ice erupted outward with a thunderous roar!
KRK KRK KRK KRK KRK!!!
The ear-piercing crackle of spreading ice crystals tolled like the death knell of a reaper!
A glacier originated from Riveria and surged forward with unstoppable force, instantly swallowing everything in sight!
Evilus soldiers, roaring monsters, twisted trees, jagged rock and earth, even the crystals of the dome above...
Everywhere the eye could reach, all things froze in an instant, transformed into a brilliant, translucent, yet utterly silent forest of ice sculptures!
"N-N-N-Nine Hell!!!"
"It's Nine Hell! Run for your lives!!!"
"Why?! Why is Loki Familia's Nine Hell here?!"
Listening to the screams rising on every side, each one pitched higher by terror, Riveria felt a faint, odd sense of familiarity brush through her mind.
"Hmph, can't figure out why I'd be here?"
If Ais hadn't snuck off into the Dungeon, she never would have ended up here.
It could only be called a coincidence.
A coincidence touched off by that reckless kid Ais.
Valletta, the commander of this Evilus operation, must not even have dreamed that at the critical moment when their painstakingly planned "Adventurer Hunting" was unfolding in Rivira, Orario's strongest mage would "coincidentally" show up right here.
And it was precisely her arrival that made Evilus's assault stall in an instant, before a single Wynn Fimbulvetr broke it outright.
No, she didn't even need magic. Just Riveria standing there was enough for these Evilus members to lose all courage to fight.
And in the face of absolute power's terror, this was exactly the time to test their faith in the evil gods!
The result was obvious. The "faith" of these low-level flunkies was too fragile to withstand even a glance.
"Oh? Seems your faith is rather firm. So, you're one of the executives in charge of this raid?"
Riveria tilted her head slightly, looking down through her half-lidded jade eye at the black-robed figure in front of her, who was shaking uncontrollably with fear yet still blocked the road with grim determination.
"So what if it's Lv. 5?! Don't you dare defile my faith, damn heretic!!!"
The executive let out a roar of despair, as though trying to transmute his fear into one final burst of madness!
He raised high the greatsword-type Magic Sword wreathed in ominous power, with the resolve of mutual destruction, and launched a doomed "suicide charge" at Riveria!
Riveria glanced coldly at the oncoming figure and let slip a barely audible scoff.
"Tch... madman."
...
Leon glanced at the nearly sight-freezing pale cold front and thick white mist rising from deep within the eastern forest, and he shivered.
"Tch, just the aftershock of the first stage of Wynn Fimbulvetr has this much absurd power... the range and force nearly match a second-stage bombardment."
He muttered under his breath, gaining a more visceral understanding of that royal elf's strength.
And this wasn't even all of it.
Leon knew that neither this world-freezing Fimbulvetr nor the all-incinerating Ragnarok Laevateinn from before were anywhere near Riveria's full power.
More accurately, both of those bombardments had been her holding back.
As a peak Lv. 5 mage, her damage against Floor 19 monsters, or these Evilus grunts, was already overflowing to outrageous levels.
Forget the monsters for a moment... adventurers, mere flesh and blood, going head-on against a magical barrage from Riveria?
What a joke. Even an athletic type would come out black and blue from a single hit.
Short of being vaporized on the spot, they'd probably just unlock the "Durability King" achievement.
As his thoughts drifted.
"Guh...!"
Several pained grunts mixed with jumbled footsteps closed in!
A few Evilus soldiers, on the brutal orders of a minor leader, were actually using several dying, blood-drenched adventurers as human shields, charging at Leon with cold, numb expressions.
"Tch..."
Leon furrowed his brow.
Fighting an enemy with no floor to their depravity, resorting to tactics this filthy, was genuinely a pain.
If he were the only one on scene, he wouldn't hesitate to just level the area, hostages included. Rivira was a lawless gray-market town; most of the people down there had done worse than whatever they'd get caught in. He'd lose zero sleep over the collateral.
But besides the other regular adventurers struggling to survive, Ais and Heith, the two girls from major familias, were also on site.
So using overly cruel methods was off the table. Letting them glimpse the darkness of the adult world too early might leave psychological scars.
And when their "guardians" came knocking, he'd have a hard time explaining himself.
"Despicable! Shameless!"
"Let them go!"
Furious shouts erupted around him! The adventurers still in the fight, including Ais and Heith, had all seen this outrageous sight!
Never having encountered such underhanded tactics before, they felt their entire worldview crack open.
Their eyes widened, their faces twisted, and their trembling voices cried out to Leon:
"Don't use magic! Those people are still alive!"
"..."
Under his mask, the corner of Leon's mouth twitched, and he let out a sigh.
"Man, times like this, it'd be great if I knew a group sleep spell like Intoxicate or Sleep Cloud."
Muttering his complaints, he slung his staff onto his back, drew his backup short sword from the leather sheath at his waist, dropped his center of gravity, and settled into a close-combat stance.
The enemy was considerate enough not to keep him waiting...
The Evilus soldiers with their human shields were already like blood-crazed hyenas, trampling over the corpse-littered street and reaching Leon in a blink!
"Got him!!!"
The moment they entered attack range, they tossed aside the dying shields, and their weapons, flashing with deadly cold light, sliced through the air with a savage trajectory, shrieking as they struck at every vital point on Leon!
"Oh? Dropping the shields this early... aren't you a bit... impatient?"
Leon's lips curled upward on their own.
In the reflection of his pupils, the sword tips loomed enormous.
CLANG!
CLANG CLANG CLANG!
The next instant, something unexpected happened!
Those top-grade, razor-sharp weapons in the Evilus soldiers' hands drove hard into the seemingly ordinary layer of ice armor on Leon's body, and erupted with an ear-splitting clash of metal on metal!
Amid a spray of ice fragments, the blades were held fast, unable to advance a single inch!
Out of the corner of his eye, Leon caught the Arcane Ward skill notification flashing to life on his panel, and the curve of his grin grew all the more outrageous.
He said with a gleeful smile:
"On the eve of what they think is an easy win... people tend to get a little sloppy with their moves."
"Frost Nova!"
KRK KRK KRK KRK KRK!
Bone-chilling ice exploded outward from Leon in an instant!
Almost the same moment the ice ring triggered, Leon nimbly hopped back a step.
At the same time, he elegantly raised his right index finger toward the frozen enemies, and a crimson magic circle flashed into being.
"Fireball!"
BOOOM!!!
The explosion rose, flesh and blood flying.
The scorching blast wave whipped up a corner of Leon's black cloak, giving a fleeting glimpse of the finely forged light armor underneath.
"Holy shit!" came the cry from every direction at once.
Sharp intakes of breath hissed through clenched teeth across the battlefield.
All around, the entire scene seemed to hit pause.
Evilus and adventurer alike froze in place, jaws dropped, eyes wide, staring at what had just unfolded in the span of a heartbeat. Everyone was completely stunned.
Especially Ais and Heith, who'd fought alongside Leon and had some small understanding of his personal style. Their eyes went round, their small mouths slightly open, and they stood there like statues, minds gone blank.
After a long while, Heith came back to herself. She instinctively looked down at her own "breezy battle outfit," which at this point was just a few scraps of cloth barely covering the essentials, long since indecent from the fighting, then stiffly turned her head to look at that man who had himself wrapped up like a stuffed dumpling, and at the armor that had flashed briefly beneath his cloak...
An inexpressible wave of grief and indignation shattered what was left of her composure. Her muttering broke into something close to a sob.
"Hey... Sword Princess... just how afraid of dying is Mr. Leon?!"
"If you had defense this broken, you should have said so earlier!"
Heith, on the verge of losing it, jabbed her trembling finger toward Leon's direction and railed at Ais:
"They couldn't even break through your ice armor! So what in the world was the point of sneaking around on the sidelines taking potshots?!"
"Go at them head-on!"
Ais's thin lips pressed tightly together, and her usually cold, delicate little face scrunched up in a rare expression, as though trying to digest some extremely complicated and frustrating emotion.
She said not a word, only swung the Desperate sword in her hand all the more fiercely and sharply. Blade-light poured down like a waterfall, hacking the unlucky Evilus soldier in front of her back step by step, as if trying to vent some nameless fire entirely onto the enemy.
"..."
The other adventurers first stared blankly, then blinked, then looked at the enemies before them, and their eyes instantly blazed with fervor!
"Take them down!"
"Screw these bastards!"
"Kill every last one of these scum!"
"WOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAH!"
Deafening roars erupted like a volcano! In just a few breaths, the morale on the battlefield swung dramatically!
The Evilus soldiers, utterly shaken by Leon's ridiculous defense and lightning-fast counterkill, and further cowed by the adventurers' sudden, berserk momentum, lost all cohesion. Their eyes filled with terror and despair. Collapse was only moments away!
And the adventurers, as if juiced up, surged with soaring fury. They swung their weapons, all the pent-up rage and wild exhilaration of release pouring out of them, and launched an overwhelming counter-offensive against their teetering foe!
"..."
Riveria, who had just rushed back to the scene, looked at the Evilus being hacked into retreat by the adventurers, and her fair face was blank with confusion.
"...Huh."
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