Chapter 729: Father of Frost
Under the overwhelming might of the Dragon, the Abyssal Drakes let out panicked roars, abruptly halting mid-stride. The Frost Giants perched upon their backs were violently thrown off, crashing to the ground.
Kreom snapped back to awareness, scrambling to his feet in a disheveled heap. He raised his Giant Hammer high, his fearsome appearance radiating primal menace.
"Who? Who dares provoke the mighty Kreom? I shall tear you limb from limb in the icy winds!"
But his challenge was met not with words, but with the deafening roar of Dragon Wings tearing through the air, unleashing a hurricane-force gale. A colossal shadow descended, swallowing hundreds of Demons—including Kreom—into its darkness.
The demons howled in fury, lifting their heads in unison toward the sky. Their grotesque, distorted faces twisted with fear and panic, a cacophony of terrified cries erupting from the horde.
"What is that?!"
"Dragon! It's a dragon!"
"Great Abyss, what a monstrous beast!"
Above them, a titanic Red Dragon loomed, its presence dominating the heavens. Pale golden eyes blazed with surging flames. Its vast wings stretched wide, sheltering the sky. The Dragon Crystal embedded in its chest pulsed with dazzling light, glowing like a sun rising from the depths of Hell.
"Damnation, cursed filth—how dare you bring such a beast into this realm?" Kreom glared up at the Red Dragon, his expression darkening. His grip on the Giant Hammer trembled slightly.
For millennia, the Frost Giants had known no fear of Dragons. In Kreom’s mind, giants were the most noble and powerful of all beings. He had slain countless Gold Dragons and Silver Dragons in the Abyssal Legion’s path—dragons he had fought and conquered with his own hands.
But this Red Dragon was entirely different. It stood apart from every Dragon Kreom had ever encountered.
The most powerful Dragon he had faced was a Primordial Golden Dragon. He had battled that beast for three days and three nights, exhausting every trick in his arsenal, before finally crushing its wise, gilled head with his Giant Hammer.
Even that Primordial Golden Dragon had been less than forty meters long—already a marvel among Dragons. Yet this Red Dragon… Kreom estimated its length at over sixty meters. Its body was not only massive and sturdy, but also possessed a sleek, streamlined grace unlike any other.
Before this Red Dragon, even the Primordial Golden Dragon would have looked like a hatchling—no match at all.
An enemy beyond comparison.
Kreom concluded, after a long, silent observation.
Though a veteran of endless wars in the Abyss, Kreom was no mindless brute. He knew his own strength, and he knew when he faced something far beyond his reach.
And yet, something unnerved him. A deep, instinctive tremor ran through his body. Fear, raw and unrelenting, clawed at his soul.
With grim resolve, Kreom raised his hammer and spoke, voice heavy with authority:
"The Blood War is the eternal battlefield between Demons and Devils. Red Dragon, you do not belong here. Those Hellspawn may corrupt hearts, but if you leave Avernus now, we will overlook your trespass. But if you stand in the way of the Abyssal Legion—then you declare war upon Lord Koscherci!"
The Red Dragon merely flexed its wings, laughing dismissively.
"Koscherci? Who’s that?"
Kreom’s fury erupted instantly. He pointed a shaking finger toward the sky, roaring a curse:
"Insolent crawler! Koscherci is the Lord of the Twenty-Third Layer of the Abyss—the Great Lord of Wrath, the King of the Frost Giants! Cross his path, and your fate is sealed—death! The Lord of Wrath will hang your head in his palace, craft your spine into the finest weapon, and sew your wing membranes into a battle cloak!"
After the outburst, Kreom paused. A strange sensation crept over him.
Why, in the presence of this Red Dragon, could he not suppress his emotions? Why did fear claw at him so uncontrollably?
It was as if he had faced his true nemesis.
Realizing the danger, Kreom swiftly channeled his Abyssal Power, calling upon his master—the legendary Lord of Wrath—seeking aid from the mighty entity he served. His clouded eyes flickered with a faint, desperate light.
"Frost Giant?" Kai Xiusu lowered his head, parting his lips into a fierce, predatory smile. "Coincidence? Just a few years ago, I destroyed a Frost Giant tribe. Killed hundreds. That tribe—was it called Youshuang?"
The moment he heard the name "Youshuang," Kreom’s entire body convulsed. His face twisted in rage, veins bulging on his forehead. His body shook violently.
This was more than hatred. It was ancestral fury—the deep-seated, soul-deep imprint of a race’s eternal enemy. A curse etched into every Frost Giant’s spirit, one even the transformation into Demon could not erase.
—The Curse of Solem, the God of the Deep Sleep of the Frost Giants.
"You! It’s you! You’re the Emperor of the Ashen Flame, the Enemy of the Frost Giants—Kai Xiusu! You will suffer an Eternal Curse! You will die at the hands of Frost Giant subordinates!"
Terror of a true nemesis, combined with the agony of a racial enemy, gripped Kreom. His hands trembled, sweat beading on his palms as he clutched the Giant Hammer.
"That’s him?"
"Kill him! This creature is our common enemy!"
"What a terrifying existence!"
The other Frost Giant cavalry flinched at the name, some even collapsing in shock.
"Already losing control… is this the effect of the Frost Giant Killer trait?" Kai Xiusu watched Kreom’s shifting expression—fear, rage, despair—his eyes gleaming with interest.
After annihilating the Youshuang tribe, he had rarely used the Frost Giant Killer trait. Few Frost Giants remained on the Feiansuo Continent. Most had been reduced to slaves in the Empire, worn down by endless labor, or turned into alchemical ingredients for mages.
"Hmm… Frost Giants tainted by the Abyss. It brings back memories. How delightful," Kai Xiusu murmured, licking his lips. His vertical pupils flickered with a hungry light as he fixed his predatory gaze upon the fallen Demon Frost Giant. "A worthy prey."
"Run! Get out of the way!" Kreom screamed in panic, sensing the overwhelming Majesty radiating from above.
But before he could finish, the Red Dragon folded its wings and unleashed a torrent of flame from its back. With a tail blazing crimson like a comet, it plummeted from the heavens.
A hurricane-force wind tore across the battlefield. Spines-splitting sonic booms echoed as the Mountain-sized Dragon body crashed down, crushing everything in its path. Before impact, the searing gale incinerated countless Demons.
"Boom!"
The ground split open. Stone shattered into fragments. Dust and ash rose in a towering plume. Molten geysers erupted from the earth. A crater a hundred meters wide formed, and tens of thousands of Demons were crushed into pulp, then consumed by spreading magma—leaving only a stench of poison and ash.
As the dust cleared, the Red Dragon’s massive form reemerged. Its winding, mountain-like tail swept across the earth, sweeping aside dozens of Abyssal Beasts. They were flung into the air, their bodies torn apart, bones shattered. The Frost Giant cavalry on their backs were thrown down, screaming.
"Attack! Even if this crawler is powerful, it can't kill us all!" Kreom roared from the ground, his voice hoarse.
"Rend him!"
"For the Will of the Abyss!"
Instantly, hundreds of thousands of Demons surged forward—like a tide of jagged, churning water—attempting to overwhelm the Colossal Entity.
They piled atop one another, forming a black sphere a hundred meters wide with their flesh and blood, trapping the Red Dragon within.
But then, beams of light pierced through the mass. Thick smoke billowed. Demons burned to ash in an instant.
"Roar—!"
Then, dozens. Hundreds. Thousands of light beams shot forth from the black sphere. Tens of thousands of Demons screamed as they were incinerated in a chorus of agony.
Trapped within, the Red Dragon let out a long, thunderous roar. Its wings unfurled, emitting a light so vast it rivaled ten thousand zhang—like the Sun God reborn.
With shrieks of pain, the crackle of burning flesh, the black sphere of Demons shattered, collapsing into a storm of flaming corpses.
Kai Xiusu swept his Dragon wings, unleashing a scorching gale that swept across the earth. Around him, fire tornadoes twisted upward like dancing serpents, devouring scattered Demons.
In mere moments, tens of thousands were reduced to thick smoke—vanished from Avernus.
"Don’t fear! This monster is too big to move fast! We’ll use the Hunting Strategy for Large Beasts to kill it!" Kreom bellowed.
A dozen Frost Giant warriors, wielding spears and war hammers, advanced with hatred in their eyes. They attacked from all directions, striking at the Red Dragon’s vital points.
But they met only claws that tore through space itself, and a tail so massive it could plow through the earth.
A shriek echoed as the claw became an afterimage—moving with such speed and power that it defied all defense. It sliced through the Frost Giants’ bodies like paper, cutting them cleanly in half. Blood sprayed from the severed stumps.
"Attack its legs!" one shouted.
But the tail lashed out—shaking the earth, cracking the ground, distorting the air. Space itself trembled.
"Boom—!"
The Frost Giant struck by the tail was utterly mangled. Bones and flesh twisted together, then hurled through the air like a ragged ball of cloth. Mid-flight, it exploded into a storm of blood.
Their Demon blood splattered the ground, hissing as it burned tiny craters into the earth.
Throughout it all, Kai Xiusu used no spell, no spell-like ability. He even deactivated the Frost Giant Killer trait.
This was pure, unadulterated strength—raw, primal, and absolute.
He wasn’t fighting. He was hunting.
He relished the thrill of melee combat, the massacre, the sheer joy of domination.
"Is this all your strength, Koscherci’s subordinates?" Kai Xiusu shook his head, feigning disappointment. "If so, this is rather boring. I doubt even your chieftain—the so-called Lord of Wrath—could impress me. This won’t even let me have fun."
The sky was choked with sulfur smoke. The earth, charred and cracked like spiderwebs, pulsed with magma veins. Everywhere, Demons’ corpses turned to thick smoke. And Kai Xiusu stood within it all, encircled by the breath of death, his shadow flickering like a god of oblivion.
"This is Lord Bair’s ally?"
"No wonder he killed Zaril. We must never provoke him!"
Across the lava river, in the frontline of the Hell Legion, even Devils from the same battalion felt awe and dread. They stared at the scarred, wasteland earth, the countless corpses, and breathed a silent prayer of gratitude—thankful that this terrifying war machine was their ally, not their enemy.
Strength decides everything.
Faced with such power, even if the Dragon were a Goblin, Devils would still grant it their deepest respect.
Now, confronted with the annihilation of his army, the death of his kin, Kreom had lost all reason. His face twisted further, becoming a grotesque mask of madness—on the verge of becoming a true Abyss Demon.
"You dare… you dare humiliate Lord Koscherci? Damned crawler—die!"
Kreom roared, swinging his Giant Hammer with all his might. The hammer flared with icy blue runes. A freezing cold radiated from its spines, spreading outward.
A storm of extreme cold erupted around the Frost Giant. The hurricane churned with chaotic ice shards—sharp as blades.
Then, a beam of pure white cold pierced space, aiming straight for the Red Dragon’s heart.
Kai Xiusu folded his wings, using them as a shield. The beam struck—its icy light splintering against his wing. But frost began to spread across the membrane, creeping slowly.
The Red Dragon inhaled deeply, analyzing the cold’s essence.
"Solem’s divine cold power… the endless chaos of the Abyss… fascinating."
Kreom glared at Kai Xiusu, growling through clenched teeth:
"Damned crawler… shiver. This is strength bestowed by Lord Koscherci himself. You will become an ice statue—another treasure in the Steel Ice Plains!"
Kai Xiusu lifted his head, studying him with an odd, almost curious gaze.
"So… you’re loyal to that Demon Lord?"
"What do you mean?" Kreom flinched, instinctively stepping back—then sneered. "I’ve served Lord Koscherci for a thousand years, earned countless battle honors. Kill me, and you’ll die too!"
"Good," Kai Xiusu stepped forward, his voice calm. "I’ve been eager to see—"
He spread his wings wide. The frost on the wing membranes shattered under an invisible force, sending ice shards flying in all directions.
"This… is…" Kreom gasped, overwhelmed by an unbearable pressure. His body locked in place. The Red Dragon’s form loomed larger and more terrifying in his eyes.
Fear gripped his soul. His Abyss-tainted heart pounded wildly.
The truth struck him—this Red Dragon had not used his full power.
This was never a battle.
It was a hunt.
And he had been playing.
Kai Xiusu stood before Kreom, smiling.
"Tell me… how far does the wrath of the Lord of Wrath truly go?"
(End of Chapter)
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