Chapter 64 :

Episode 14 : Catastrophe (8)

Silence accompanied with a chilly breeze rushed through everyone after JoonChul got captured inside the Dragon.

HwanGi, who was fighting against the beasts, panted to catch his breath.

For a moment there, the beast's bodies which were created using magical energy, wavered as if they were losing their physical forms.

But after a few minutes, their bodies went back to normal and continued to fight back against the players.

However this time, they were much more powerful than those last beasts, it was as though these new beasts received a power-up. 

HwanGi was confused as to why this was happening while swinging his sword toward the incoming beasts.

With a slash of ‘Heavenly Slash’, HwanGi was able to slain beasts that tried to counter him.

When he looked up, flying beasts drove down toward him, spinning in a spiral to pierce their beaks through him.

HwanGi was about to thrust his sword in those beasts until he heard the shout of JoonChul's friends, yelling out desperately to JoonChul.

Out of the blue, HwanGi felt anxious, slicing the flying beasts quickly before running over to Mirai and Raiden.

Mirai and Raiden seemed to be in a rush, sending their attacks at the Dragon nonstop.

HwanGi glanced at their directions, running through the pack of beasts ahead of him as he used ‘Wave Vortex’ to shield himself, creating a distance between the beasts and himself.

‘JoonChul-ssi..’ HwanGi mused to himself before taking out his MP potion to drink it, restoring his Mana instantly.

As he was surfing on his ‘Wave Vortex’, he sensed a cold presence to his right side.

He shifted his gaze over to where the cold presence was, then he discovered a lady holding a cat while caressing the cat's head.

Soon, the lady and HwanGi's eyes met each other, not so long after, a chilly gust of air rustled throughout HwanGi's body, making him shiver a little.

The lady nodded before turning her eyes toward the Dragon, expressing deep anger at the Dragon from her icy-cold expression.

HwanGi stopped running after seeing her expression, it felt as though her expression meant 'This Dragon is all mine'.

Thoughts whooshed in and out of HwanGi's head as he mumbled. "Right, where is JoonChul-ssi?" 

He looked over to Mirai and Raiden, trying to find where JoonChul was.

Until he saw the appearance of JoonChul emerging from the Dragon's body, HwanGi's eyes were as wide as ever and anger began to fuel him.

Without wasting a second, HwanGi charged in, spinning ‘Wave Vortex’ in front of him to slaughter the beasts.

Coming in closer to the Dragon's leg, he utilized ‘Wave Vortex’ again to launch himself up in the sky, encountering the Dragon's bewildered face.

Even though the Dragon was focused on blocking and attacking Mirai and Raiden, she managed to shoot out a bombardment of flower petals toward HwanGi.

HwanGi was going to avoid the flower petals, but instead, the petals froze in place before dropping to the ground.

Surprised as to what had happened, HwanGi still thought of attacking the Dragon rather than thinking further about why the petals suddenly froze.

HwanGi knocked himself toward the startled Dragon's mouth with his sword pointing directly at her.

On the tip of his sword, white flame bursted out, masking his sword with flame as he was prepared to obliterate the Dragon.

The Dragon thought it was funny to see a human trying to harm her with a sword, thus she opened her mouth as wide as possible to swallow HwanGi.

The moment he got close, HwanGi stabbed his sword into the Dragon's tooth, a crack formed on the tooth as his ‘Divine Flame’ spread through the crack, setting fire to the inside of the Dragon's mouth.

[Gahh! Kwah!] The Dragon coughed when the flame went into her throat, then she proceeded to lick wherever the flame was in her mouth, pushing HwanGi off with her tongue.

Thankfully, HwanGi got away from the Dragon before she could use her tongue on him.

Afterwards, HwanGi landed on the ground, finding the lady from before beside him.

"Excuse me, but who are you?" HwanGi asked impulsively until he realized why he asked that kind of question to a lady in a situation like this.

In the end, HwanGi facepalmed, pondering if the lady thinks he was weird.

On the other hand, the lady answered straightforwardly, not even having a glance at HwanGi but it was JoonChul that she was looking. "I'm Frostina Iclyn. I'm my Liege's assistant."

In an instance, Frostina disappeared, leaving behind a flurry of snow from where she stood.

The baffled HwanGi looked over to find where she was and when he found her, she was sitting casually on the Dragon's tail.

Bafflement was written on HwanGi's face when he saw Frostina, but then, he sensed something was on his head.

A cat's tail swayed in front of his eyes and he became well aware of who it was. 

Behemoth was standing on HwanGi's head before jumping off his head to get close to the Dragon.

"HwanGi! I need help over here!" Alaine shouted to get HwanGi's attention while dealing with a beast ahead of her.

HwanGi was planning to save JoonChul but he also wanted to help Alaine. He couldn't come to a decision until..

Mirai, who was standing on one of her strings in mid-air, caught on what was going on below her. 

She increased her voice volume just to tell HwanGi this. "Go help her. Do not worry about our Captain. As his companions, we will definitely save him." 

HwanGi frowned at the sight that he couldn't help JoonChul, however he still nodded and let JoonChul's friends do the saving instead, because he had to trust JoonChul's friends.

Afterwards, HwanGi rushed toward where Alaine was as he bumped into the beast that she was fighting, knocking it down in the process. 

"Thanks, HwanGi!" Alaine tiredly spoke as she grasped her shortswords, leaning onto HwanGi's back.

"No problem." 

HwanGi smashed a beast's head, swinging his sword at the other beasts while Alaine was slicing the beasts using her ‘Flurry Strike’, bombarding them with blades that came forth to cut through the beast's skins.

———

The Dragon roared as loud as possible, gusting out fire that was strengthened. 

Frostina, who was sitting on the Dragon's tail, was unaffected by the Dragon's fire. 

Then she calmly walked on the Dragon's tail and ice began to expand from each of her steps.

An icy-cold aura surrounding Frostina started to get intense, causing ice to become more violent with sharp icicles forming behind her.

The Dragon soon noticed Frostina and instantly swayed her tail to remove the insect which was on her tail.

[Get off!] The Dragon growled, along with fire blasting toward Frostina.

Mirai and Raiden wanted to join in and help Frostina but they could only support from the back, since they knew the meaning behind Frostina's expression.

After a moment of the Dragon sending her leafy fire at Frostina, the Dragon smirked as though she expected as such from a lowly creature. [Haha. See that? This is what you get.]

The fire started to die down, revealing Frostina unscathed with a cold smile on her face as she stood on an ice block made from the air turning to ice.

Frostina stared at the Dragon before inhaling air. "What a weak fire breath." 

The air that she inhaled was exhaled out and got turned into a frosty breath ready to glacify the Dragon, freezing the Dragon in place for a few seconds.

Then the icicles behind Frostina rose upward before raining down on the Dragon, penetrating through the Dragon's body with ease.

Moreover, Frostina flicked her fingers, signalling her icicles to enlarge itself from within the Dragon's body.

Immediately, the icicles bursted out from different parts of the Dragon's body, freezing her leaves and flowers.

[You litt-] The Dragon wished to speak but instead, an icicle was pierced into the Dragon's mouth and with a flick of Frostina's fingers, a bundle of icicles began to shoot toward the Dragon's eyes, ears, horns and nose, freezing those areas to force the Dragon to suffer

Not only that, Frostina spawned in her ice golems, ordering them to smash and crush the Dragon like a toy. 

Frostina extended her hand up as storm clouds came forth, setting snow onto the Dragon to weaken her while empowering the ice golems's strengths. 

Not long after, Frostina watched the Dragon enduring the ice golems while trying to counter back, Frostina waited for something to happen, and soon, black vines sprouted out from where JoonChul was captured.

Frostina took this chance to step off the ice block, falling toward the Dragon with graceful movement.

She landed onto the hand of her ice golem as she commanded the ice golem to lower its hand just to get closer to JoonChul.

All along, Frostina knew that her Liege wouldn't be easily captured. She became aware of the fact that her Liege purposely let himself get encaged, so he could use ‘Wither’ from within the Dragon.

Frostina touched JoonChul's cheek which was now wooden. The touch felt like wood as she kissed his forehead, releasing ice particles to lend her power to her Liege.

And it appeared that she lended him too much, since a large chunk of black vines outspread throughout the Dragon's body, outgrowing to a bigger size as it assumed to go out of control.

"..Oops." Frostina chuckled at this sight as she was being lifted away from the Dragon and the insane black vines thanks to her ice golem.