Chapter 227 – The Monstrous Ice Soul Golem

  Quinn:I was hurled through walls of wood and stone, fragments scattering in every dire as I smashed through them. My body collided violently with the structures, breaking everything in my path until I was finally stopped by a solid wall that absorbed my momentum. The final impact left me dazed, my back pressed against the debris.

  My breath came in ragged gasps, eaore painful tha. Something sharp had pierced my back—probably a shard of wood or a jagged piece of stone. If not for the fragile remnants of my elemental armor, I would already be dead. But even with its prote, the damage was severe. My entire body throbbed, every muscle screaming for relief, but I knew I couldn’t afford to stop.

  A groan escaped me as I tried to move my arms, the weight of the rubble pinning me down. The acrid stench of dust and burnt wood invaded my senses, mingling with the metallig of blood dripping from my wounds. My vision was blurry, and each blink seemed to snuff out another flicker of sciousness.

  "Damn it..." I muttered, spitting blood as the bitter taste filled my mouth. My mind drifted to the girl who had dared to face my fmes, clutg my leg in a reckless, suicidal move, using my fire to survive. A bitter ugh slipped through my lips, despite the sharp pain it caused. "She’s desperate, but she has no idea who she’s up against."

  Gathering what little strength I had left, I pressed my hands against the ground, attempting to rise. The weight of the debris doubled the already unbearable pain, but I refused to give in. With a superhuman effort, I shoved the stones and wood away, each motion tearing at my body. Finally, I freed myself.

  Letting out a hoarse scream, I eled mana te the pain and scatter the wreckage around me. A surge of wind and fire burst from my body, clearing the shattered remains of the destroyed structures. The energy I jured burned with a desperate iy, the fmes around me refleg the rage and hatred fueling my resolve.

  On my feet, though staggering, I pnted myself firmly, ign the searing pain c through me. Blood tio stream from my open wounds, evaporating as it hit the heated ground. My gaze fixed oh of destru ahead, zeroing in on a singur goal.

  "She thinks she beat me..." I muttered, taking heavy steps forward, eaent eg the promise that I would not stop. "But she’ll pay for every sed of this fight."

  I will kill her. I will burn her body so Nathan Evenhart feels exactly what I felt when I saw Eliza in that state.

  Using wind and fire, I propelled myself forward, sprinting through the ruined houses toward the epiter of the battle. The se ure chaos: fire ed the remnants of buildings, while other areas were frozen solid, bed in snow and water. The port was nearly unreizable, destroyed amidst the devastation. My footsteps echoed among the wreckage until a deafening roar silenced everything around me.

  ‘ROOOOAAAR!’

  The chilling, guttural sound reverberated through the air, and the temperature plummeted instantly. My steps faltered, and a shiver ran down my spine. "No way..." I whispered as a colossal silhouette began to take shape before me, shrouded in an icy mist.

  "She has one of those?" My voice barely rose above a whisper, disbelief c every word.

  ‘Thump.’ ‘Thump.’

  The creature’s heavy footsteps sounded like muted thunder as it advahe ground freezing solid beh its immense weight. Each step left a trail of icy devastation. And then, like a hammer blow to my chest, the memory hit me: the reports. Dots Nikous Wolves had shared about the Evenhart family. But they mentioned nothing about this. Nothing about Chloe Evenhart being a summoner.

  "She has a damn Soul Golem!" I excimed, my voice ced with equal parts shod dread.

  I ughed at the irony, even as the nervousness g me. "A summoner, just like Eliza! Perfect… the ideal payback for Nathan Evenhart."

  Then I saw it up close. The gigantic creature stared at me, its preseh imposing and terrifying. In my life, I had only ever seen two Soul Golems: Eliza’s, my sister’s, and oher during an underground coliseum match. Knowing Chloe possessed one of these creatures was a blow to every bit of logid predictability I relied on. The ws around unleashing one of these monsters were strict, and no one openly boasted about having one. Summes were worth an obse fortune.

  A Soul Golem is born from the summem, a physical maion of their life’s experiences, a fragment of their soul… So this monstrosity came from someone raised to be a human on? A damn assassin girl with a beast like this.

  The creature before me was unlike anything I’d ever seen. T at nearly 15 meters tall, it resembled a nightmare given form. A hulking, fur-covered quadruped, its bck body oozed an otherworldly blue liquid from holes scattered across its flesh. Everything the liquid touched froze instantly, leaving a twisted, deadly ndscape in its wake.

  "The horns..." I muttered, notig the sharp, menag points ing its head.

  If I weren’t using my Infernal Armor, I would’ve been skewered...

  The Golem was somethiweeh and wiself. Its grotesque, skeletal maw drooled the same freezing blue liquid, emitting a chilling aura that cut deep into the bones. Large, twisted antlers—like those of a monstrous elk—rose from its head, a macabre of destru. Despite its massive size, the creature moved with an uling agility, each step freezing the grouh it.

  It was like staring at the embodiment of a nightmare—a creature that had no p the mortal world. Its glowing, sinister blue eyes locked onto me, as if I’d already been marked as its prey. In that moment, I uood the tless restris surrounding these creatures. This wasn’t merely a monster; it was a living on, something that should never be unleashed in battle.

  "This girl..." I muttered again, as the creature took aep, the biting cold cutting through even the fmes surrounding me. "She’s far more dangerous than I thought."

  Chloe appeared atop the creature, her gaze as id unyielding as the frost spreading around her.

  "Sorry for holding back earlier," Chloe said, her voice cold and precise, each word ced with fidence. "I o focus to summon my ‘little pet.’"

  Instinctively, I intensified the fmes of my armor. The heat surged, reag a peak that briefly turhe fire a brilliant blue—the hottest fmes I could muster. Yet she showed ation. Her gaze was fixed, steady, as the Soul Golem roared once more, sending a wave of frost that made the air around us feel like shards of gss slig through the skin.

  "There’s a legend in my duchy," Chloe began, her voice carrying the weight of a decration. "It’s told by the parents living in the snowy mountains thten their children. The legend speaks of a creature… an evil monster haunting the frozen peaks. An undead guardian of the shadowed forests. This creature is called the ‘Wendigo.’"

  ‘ROOOOAAAR!’ The creature’s roar echoed like an icy thundercp, the sound reverberating through my bones.

  "Ironically," Chloe tinued with a small, defiant smile, "my Soul Golem took on the form of the Wendigo. It suits me, doesn’t it? A wicked mohat haunts the forests to protect them. Just like my family does.

  Before I could react, the creature began to move, its colossal paws pounding against the frozen ground as it charged toward me with a speed that defied its massive size. The ground trembled beh its weight, and the icy wind of its approach cut like bdes.

  “Damn it!” I yelled, summoning a burst of fire to propel myself away from its devastating attack.

  “Kill him!” Chloe anded, her voice dripping with authority. The Wendigo obeyed instantly, opening its monstrous maw and unleashing a bst id wind directly at me. I rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding the lethal current.

  “Fire Beam!” I roared, firing a powerful bst of blue fmes toward the Wendigo’s icy assault. The csh betweewo powers was violent, creating a shockwave that obliterated the remaining surroundings.

  Chloe didn’t waste a moment. “Ice Beam!” she shouted, sending a sed, sharper and more focused bst directly at me. The Wendigo followed her lead, intensifying the freezing gale. The bined assault created an imperable wall of destru.

  BOOM!

  The ground quaked beh the icy explosion. I barely mao dodge in time, but a nearby house wasn’t so lucky. It froze pletely before shattering into jagged shards of ice.

  I g my hand and noticed something horrifying. Even with the prote of my Infernal Armor, part of my hand had been frozen solid. I tried to move it, but the ice was unyielding. Before I could process what had happehree of my fingers snapped off, shattering like fragile gss against the frozen ground.

  “Shit…” I muttered, feeling fear creep into me for the first time. I swallowed hard, my gaze locked on the demonic creature advang slowly, like a predator sav the chase.

  The Wendigo opes grotesque mouth again, sending another barrage of icy winds toward me. I dodged desperately, juring fire shields to block the attacks, but each shield was snuffed out the moment it touched the creature’s freezing aura.

  Damn it! This thing is lethal—if it touches me, I’m done for!

  “Great Fire Beam!” I screamed, p everything I had into my hands. A fiery beam of red-hot energy shot forward with incredible force toward the monstrous creature.

  “AAAAARRRGH!” the Wendigo roared, but to my disbelief, it tis slow advance. Everything around it was transf into pure ice, freezing over with terrifying iy. The heat from my beam barely seemed to graze it. My fmes hit the thick mist surrounding the creature and vanished as if swallowed by an endless abyss of cold.

  It stared at me with hollow, furious eyes, and the air around me began to freeze to an unbearable degree. A dense, freezing mist enveloped me, ing everything like a deadly domain. My fmes flickered weakly, and even the air I inhaled felt like it was freezing my lungs. This cold wasn’t just physical—it was alive, pressing against my very will to fight.

  “I just o raise the temperature!” I shouted, my heart pounding wildly. I eled even more energy into my armor of wind and fire, f it to intensify the fmes. The red of my fmes fred into a bright yellow, fueled by the oxygen I maniputed with wind magic. The heat surged around me, my armor expanding like a fiery beast.

  “AHHHHH!” A wave of heat exploded outward as I hurled myself toward the creature. But Chloe, perched atop her Wendigo, was already prepared.

  “Ice Art: Gcial Era!” she cried, and from the creature’s body, a dense, freezing mist erupted in all dires, snuffing out any trace of heat in the enviro. The temperature plummeted armingly fast, and a fierce blizzard ed the battlefield. It felt like standing in the eye of a merciless icy storm.

  I pressed forward with every ounce of strength I had left. “Fire Beam!” I roared again, juring another inte of seari, now tinged with yellow. But the dense mist swallowed the fmes, dissipating them before they could even reach the creature. The monster didn’t seem fazed in the slightest.

  I o get closer, I thought, realizing that my fmes were growing far too weak.

  The world around me had transformed into a nightmare of id snow. Visibility was almost ent, and the cold cut into my skin like invisible bdes. The only thing I could make out was the hulking silhouette of the creature, moving like a phantom through the blizzard.

  “Blue Bdes!” Chloe shouted, and jagged ice spikes began raining down from the sky in my dire. I sprinted, dodging frantically as the frozen projectiles sliced through the air around me.

  “Yellow Burst!” I yelled, summoning an explosion of wind and fire to propel myself toward the Wendigo. But before I could reach it, the creature roared again and charged, its aearing through everything in its path.

  I eled my power into a direct strike against the monster. My fist ected with its massive form, unleashing an explosion that caused it to stagger momentarily. But the impact flung me backward with brutal force. My body smashed through the remains of a building, and I crashed to the ground with a dull thud, pain radiating through every fiber of my being.

  Gasping for air, I forced myself to stand, gng around at the age. The creature tis relentless advas antlers ripping through carriages and market stalls as though they were made of paper. The enviro around us was utterly devastated. Every sed spehe monstrous being weakened my fmes and drained my strength.

  With great effort, I focused the fire in my hands, readying myself for atack.

  I looked up and locked eyes with the skeletal monstrosity. Its hollow, menag gaze bore down on me, and its overwhelming presehreateo crush any ce I had left.

  “This thing is terrifying,” I muttered to myself as the merciless cold seeped into my very bones.

  “ROOOOAR!” The creature’s roar echoed, and it expelled a wave of icy mist from its maw. The chaos arouensified. Everything became engulfed in white, as though I’d been swallowed by an infinite frozen wastend. The city had pletely vanished; no signs of life or warmth remained. Only this oppressive void.

  Before I could react, a massive paw struck me with crushing force. I was thrown like a rag doll, hurtling through market stalls and carriages that crumbled like toys. Each impact against the frozen ground knocked more air out of my lungs until I finally skidded to a stop, sprawled out on the ice.

  I staggered to my feet, coughing up blood as a searing pain radiated through my abdomen. Gng down, I saw a deep gash running through my Infernal Armor, now weakened and fractured.

  “His cws… they cut through my armor…” I muttered, my voice shaky as hot blood seeped through my fingers, which pressed desperately against the wound.

  In the distahe monster watched me, its gaze unyielding, as though it were measuring my resilies cws glistened with deadly frost, and the viscous blue liquid dripping from its maw glowed with a ghostly light.

  “Ice Art: Gcial Jet!” Chloe’s voice rang out, eg like a judgmental decree.

  The creature moved instantly, spewing the thick, grotesque blue liquid in my dire. Each drop that hit the ground froze everything it touched with an audible crack, dev the surrounding air with an absolute chill.

  “Damn it!” I yelled, realizing that fag this head-on was suicidal. With a swift burst of wind, I dodged at the st sed. Over my shoulder, I saw the liquid collide with a cart behi was instantly encased in translut ice before shattering into thousands of glittering fragments.

  My breath came out in dense clouds, each exhale a fight against the cold. Every moveme sharp pain radiating from the wound on my abdomen, but I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t falter. Chloe Evenhart had to die, no matter the cost.