[You Have Slain Imp—Level 5]
[Level Up]
[Level Up]
[Level Up]
This sense of nothingness brought calm to his mind.
Rue shouldered the frozen cell’s bars with his dark ice armor and pushed, toppling it over, and the cell shattered into pieces under his weight. He rolled up, looking at both ends of the walkway.
Five figures of frozen Imps were illuminated by the weak torchlight, casting them with a red glow. At first glance, they looked like they were always meant to be dark ice sculptures, but a twitch sent a tiny crust of dark frost tumbling down.
Movement snapped around him.
To Rue’s left, six Imps charged at him, their tridents levelled at his chest. He quickly stepped back. Only to realise that on the right, beyond the frozen Imps, were another three Imps holding their spears with obvious hesitation.
[Imp—Level 5]
The right would be his target then. Besides…
Rue swung his sword. Cold vapor trailed his strike as he slashed through two frozen Imps.
[You Have Slain Imp—Level 5]
[You Have Slain Imp—Level 6]
[Level Up]
[Level Up]
[Level Up]
Cutting through these Imps was as easy as cutting through paper.
The Imps’ bodies were not built for defense—small stomach, thin limbs, and they wore a loincloth only.
Glancing back, the six Imps nearly reach him. He needed to move. With his pommel, Rue smashed one Imp and cut off two heads in succession, letting their heads roll and slacken toward the floor.
[You Have Slain Imp—Level 5]
[You Have Slain Imp—Level 6]
[You Have Slain Imp—Level 5]
[Level Up]
[Level Up]
Prompts invaded Rue’s vision.
He rushed the three in front of him.
His sword sailed forward; however, the three Imps jumped back out of his reach.
Frustation was about to swell, but suddenly—he felt nothing. Just a pure calm of nothing. He blinked away these words and charged ahead.
Running past six cells, he nearly reached the other end of the hallway. The three Imps kept running until their backs hit the far-end wall. With no other way out, their gaze grew hard, faces twisted.
The Imps screeched loudly, like a grating steel, and sprinted at him. Three tridents thrusted forward, one was far faster than the other two.
Rue slowed down his charge and let the trident just barely miss him. Raising his sword, He cut apart the trident. Cold smoke trailed its broken shaft, and Rue now jabbed forward his dark obsidian sword.
He was poised to skewer the gob-smacked imps, but another trident trapped his sword in its forked steel. The Trident’s wielder tried to batter away Rue’s sword, but instead, Rue changed his target.
His sword hissed with cold cloud. And Rue wheeled it through the trident, carving the Imp’s neck apart.
He quickly turned to confront the last two, only to be greeted by two tridents sailing at him. Rue tried to raise his sword—Too late—The tridents scored on his chest and bounced off.
A crack rang like a broken glass.
Rue ignored it and slashed forward. His sword sliced through their body with dark frost creeping through each slice, sending intense cold to both dead bodies.
[You Have Slain Imp—Level 5]
[You Have Slain Imp—Level 6]
[You Have Slain Imp—Level 5]
[Level Up]
[Level Up]
[Skill Option Impending]
The Imps lay dead, dark frost mangled their red complexity like a poison.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Still six left behind him. He had planned to take the corner of the room and blast his magic at the rest of them. When Rue turned and cast his magic, six tridents were soaring toward him.
He brought his sword up in desperate defense. One spear blocked, but the other five dug into Rue’s armor. The impact reeled him back, and his head rebounded onto the wall behind. Five huge cracks fractured his armor. A sense of panic engulfed him—it was suppressed quickly as it came, but not completely. He needed to charge and…
The Imps have another six tridents ready.
How?
Those tridents were long. They couldn’t possibly hide it. Then he saw the reason: one Imp was summoning them behind their formation.
[Imp Forger—Level 10]
And very fast too.
Another five projectiles flew at him. Rue pushed himself off the wall, dodging one that splintered the stone behind him and batting away one that would pierce his neck. But one managed to sneak on his shoulder, and Rue faltered back. This was followed by another three that gored at his chest.
His armor broke apart, and the state of absolute zero left Rue. The last spear held back by the forger went gliding at him.
This was it? As his life flashed before him, a hiss left his cracked obsidian skin. A cold vapor drafted from his broken armor. The sudden gust veered the projectile away from Rue in a fast airstream.
His armor faded into a vapor of cold, forming into a light cold mist around him. At once, the world continued again.
Frigid ice biting his skin, his chest did not hurt somehow.
Am I not injured? After all of that?
Rue raised his left hand, Frost Blast forming. He might no longer have the armor, but surely there must be something he could do.
Cruelly, six tridents surged at him. He quickly whipped his hand forward, and Frost Blast left him. Instead of dark frost, a blue frost surged out like a clasp of air pressure.
The tridents shook mid-air, and their trajectory swerved; still, their force was enough to carry them toward Rue. And one of them almost pierced his feet as a result.
Rue exhaled. A cold wind left him as the impossibility began to dawn on him now.
Could he resummon the armor?
His vision briefly flickered, and he saw the armor resting in a dark, freezing place, all broken. Slowly, the cold fixed his armor, but it would be too late. His vision returned into reality, six tridents aimed at him.
Abruptly, a cell door burst open with a thick vine of green advancing like a frenzied plant.
The imps turned to see that one of them was wrapped around the neck and choked. Bones cracking. Body twisted.
The forger issued a command, pointing at Rue and the new threat they were facing. But then the cell behind them bent apart. A growl rumbled. A blur of huge shadow followed. A large wolf jumped and tore apart one Imp’s neck in a cruel ripping of skin.
[Dire Wolf—Level 1]
Wolf? A summon?
Not over yet.
The cell near Rue opened. An old man sauntered out, wielding a broadsword by his hip.
His hair was white, like Rue's, and Rue recognized that color was caused by the same sickness as him, which was all the more strange since most survivors were still young.
The chance of being very old and surviving was close to zero.
“Take a rest, child, I will handle this,” the old man said with his scrawny, bandaged body and charged.
Rue blinked, unsure if that was stupidity or the reverse. Well, they just got blessed with this strange power, surely…
[ArchSword-Fighter—Level 1]
One Imp thrust its trident forward at the old man. At first, the old man was prepared to dodge, but he was too slow. The tridents pierced deep into the oldman’s stomach, and he gurgled. His body collapsed with the Imp pinning the old man to the floor. The small devil hissed, pushing its trident further.
“H—help,”
Rue took another couple of seconds to watch before snapping into action. He opened his palm, and Frost Sword formed an icy edge. Again, no dark ice anymore. The moment the sword rested on Rue’s hand, he’d almost dropped it.
It was cold.
His breath quickened as he was about to run up to fight. As he took one step, hesitation filled him.
Why?
These emotions he did not feel back in that armor. Why did this happen now? Was this supposed to happen in the first place? And now he was just paying for it?
Rue bit his cheek.
Metallic taste bled around his tongue, and he huffed the icy-cold.
Courage.
Rue bounded forward, bringing his sword in a sweeping arc. The Imp saw him, lifted its bloody tridents off the old man, catching Rue’s strike on its three forked steel.
Come on, faster, stronger…
Rue pushed further, his strength overpowering the Imp—the Imp gripped slackened, and Rue batted away the trident with a powerful swoop.
He whirled his sword back and sliced the Imp’s side. His sword dug in, and Rue hewed further. However, this normal Frost Sword was incapable of separating the Imp’s body like butter. But the damage had been done. The Imp collapsed to both knees as his sword left it.
Dead.
Rue kicked the Imp’s body right on its chest, slamming it backward with a thud.
Three imps left.
“G—Good job, lad, my distraction…”
Rue ignored the old man below and focused on the three remaining Imps.
“No! Bartolomeow!” a man's voice shrieked.
The dire wolf had three spears jutting from its back. Furthermore, the poor wolf was pinned to the ground with blood pooling around its body.
It seemed the Imps had been backing up to protect the Forger from these strange vines that appeared suddenly. They kept retreating, almost descending into a long set of stairs where a single door opened, revealing a long downturn hallway.
“We need to get Berthold back!” A man appeared from the cell to Rue’s left. He stepped out, eyeing the cell door as if it were going to bite him, then bravely went out to stand beside Rue. “You, with your power, it will be possible. You need to help.”
[ArchDruid-Summoner—level 1]
The man even went as far as to grab Rue’s collar.
Rue gripped the man’s hand hard, and he cried out, yanking it backward. The man couldn’t be older than him by much, yet he acted like a child.
“It's dead,” Rue said.
“No, no!” The man screeched as he finally stared at his dead summons.
“Just summon another one,”
“That’s all my Mana.”
Useless piece of…
Rue sighed; he needed to be understanding. Under these special circumstances, people tend to act differently, just like the old man.
“Fine, take care of the old man below me,” Rue said.
All in all, this was not a bad situation, maybe.
The Imps looked unsure whether to retreat. But, they have no choice but to retreat, right?
Besides, Sruka would already know what has been happening here—since she could read their mind earlier, assuming she still could.
Speaking of Sruka’s mark, he could no longer feel it. He needed to check it, but for now, he had to scare away these three.
“They will retreat,” Rue assured the Druid behind him.
“Oh, no, they won't,” a feminine voice said near him.
A girl appeared beside him, stepping out of the cell that had been ruined with thick vines. She crouched, and thick vines lurched forward, coiling so fast that the Imps didn't manage to cross the stairs. Almost instantly, the exit was blocked by the vines, and they were also trapped here.
“What are you doing?” Rue demanded, almost screaming.
“Let’s just kill them like you've been doing.”
[ArchWitch-Druid—Level 4]
“Fine,” Rue said, shoving his annoyance down. “I will take the level ten, you go take the last two.”
“I used all of my Mana.”
“Look, I swear to god I will kill both of you—three of you, if you think this is some kind of sick joke—’
“I have Mana! And a health potion for that injured one there.”
The girl turned toward the source of the voice.
Rue did not need to; he knew the voice was coming from the demoness’ daughter. So instead, Rue kept his sword pointed at the Imp forger who just finished summoning three new tridents.
“What do we do? My name is Ilyrin, by the way.” The young woman said.
“Go take a look, get the potion, but don’t free her.”
“I’m not stupid. Then what about the rest of these cowards?” Ilyrin asked.
“Oh!” the man exclaimed, looking around. “Come out, you goddamns coward!” he screamed.
“We will handle them when I take care of these three,” Rue said, advancing. With his left arm, Frost Blast was ready.
The Tridents flew at him, and he bent their trejactory mid-air by slamming his Frost Blast forward. The Tridents broke apart mid-air, and with Frost Sword in both hands, Rue darted forward.
