Chapter 165 :

Episode 33 : A Disaster (5)

[Stage #20 has begun!]

RUMBLE!!! 

"So it begins."

At that moment, JoonChul murmured with his guild members beside him, being fully prepared for this boss battle. 

[Stage #20 : Boss Battle ‹II›.]

+

Stage Information: With an ice army of its minions and its unbeatable chills, the Ice Dragon, ‘Bianca’ who reigned the element of Ice, had been waiting patiently for this moment to come. At long last, it can now roam freely and satisfy its time in this chilly world. 

Stage Task: Defeat ‘Bianca’, The Ice Dragon.

Time Limit: 24 Hours.

Reward: ???

Failure: Death.

+

As if anyone would have the time to even glimpse at the stage's description, a flare of blinding glint blasted the throne room with its malevolent light.

FLASH!

A gleam that didn't even last long, was enough to force people to cover their eyes from being blinded.

WHOOSH!!

Glancing upon something these people were expecting, a gust of frosty wind suddenly greeted them with a push as they stumbled back step by step.

"What's happening?!"

A devastated cry from a stranger who was being intimidated by the atmosphere around them.

However, it wasn't the end for their cries… 

In the middle of this throne room, the titanic iceberg that was above the throne, was unveiling something in front of everyone's eyes.

CRACKLE!

The titanic iceberg instantly had its shackles spiralling out of control as they proceeded to unravel the iceberg, shaping its chains to that of a pair of draconic wings.

And then out of nowhere, billions upon billions of frost started to be absorbed to the center of the iceberg where Noelle Absolute was.

CRACK!

With an unexpected breakage leaking on the surface of the iceberg, it was then shattered into pieces to reform as the Ice Dragon, ‘Bianca’.

"Look over there!" Someone said as they pointed at the throne.

While the Ice Dragon was awakening from its slumber, the child who was the vassal of it, remained in her slumber as she was lowered to the throne with a snowflake crown on her head.

..But, that wasn't what everybody's glances were at. Instead, their eyes were on the appearance of the Ice Dragon. 

"..eek..!"

As they were horrified by just the gust of air, they were now fearing for their lives when they wondered how much of an eerie presence the Ice Dragon would have.

RUMBLE!!!

In a flash, a gale of air was released with just a flap of the Ice Dragon's wings, unveiling its glacier-like scales to the people around it in the process.

[Finally, I have awoken.] 

Swoosh!

Without delay, the Ice Dragon descended on the ice floor before opening its eyes to witness the surrounding area, glaring its golden irides onto the heaps of players around it.

Naturally and suddenly, Someone shrieked for their life. "How are we even planning to defeat such a beast?!" 

Swish!

Not a second passed when the people suddenly spotted two guys who were charging straight at the dragon to land an eradicative blow.

BOOM!

[Is this how I am greeted?]

Annihilating the atmosphere to be saturated with a burst of white flame and thunder, the two guys didn't end it there as they both splitted up and went the opposite directions.

Upon realizing who these guys were, the players gasped with fazed glances. "Hey.. Aren't those guys one of ‘them’?" 

Yes, their eyes couldn't fool them since these people could easily tell that they were watching ‘The Rebels’ Guild battling the Ice Dragon.

The two guys that they were gazing at, were actually HwanGi and Raiden.

"Oh my god..? Are they really going at it by themselves?!" A lady gasped as she was fazed by the scene. "Gah!!"

SCREECH!!!!

A shriek of aversion and amazement, the Ice Dragon quickly unleashed a wild roar to freeze those who had dared to come its way, wrecking everyone's eardrums as well as their skins that were building up frostbite layer by layer.

[It seems there are a few humans who can pose a threat to me. Then I shall not hold myself back.] 

During its speech, Bianca had folded its wings, allowing it to block all kinds of attacks from ‘The Rebels’ Guild. 

..On the other hand, that wasn't the true purpose of why the dragon was covering itself..

[Prepare yourself, humans.]

[The Ice Dragon, ‘Bianca’ has activated the Hidden Skill, ‘Pique of The Cold-blooded Leopards’ Lv. ???.]

RAWRR!!!!

Laid bare before these people, were a load of snow leopards charging out from the dragon's unfolded wings. 

Running and running non-stop, the leopards were targeting all of the players who weren't expecting an army of leopards.

Not only that, the Ice Dragon wasn't finished even after sending an endless amount of its snow leopards.

[The Ice Dragon, ‘Bianca’ has activated the Hidden Skill, ‘Snow Angels’ Lv. ???.]

[The Ice Dragon, ‘Bianca’ has activated the Hidden Skill, ‘Snowstorm’ Lv. ???.]

Rustling..

The moment snow began to fall, the snowflakes proceeded to give lives to snow angels, descending to circle around the Ice Dragon and gracing the dragon with their snow buff effects.

"AHHH!! I can't see!!" A frightened cry from one of the players resounded loudly.

Out of the blue, Bianca gazed its eyes upon the players who were being pushed and pulled by the snow storm. 

[I pity you all.] 

..Unbeknownst to those unfortunate players, there was more to a storm of snowfall since a hailstorm wouldn't cause that much of a ruinous damage to these players.

..And that was why..

[The Ice Dragon, ‘Bianca’ has activated the Hidden Skill, ‘Photokeratitis’ Lv. ???.]

The dragon precipitated another Hidden Skill of its that may prove to be blinding to the players.

The moment the dragon's skill hit the players, a horrific scream echoed from a terrified fellow. "My eyes!!"

No matter how harmless the snowflakes falling from the snow storm were, it turned out to be snow blindness that blacked out everybody's eyesights as straight as a die.

Eyes that didn't work as clear as ever, were being a troublesome thing to everybody who were trying to fend against the dragon and the hundreds of snow leopards.

ROAR!!!!

Bitten and trampled on, the blinded players were soon being beaten by a mere leopard. 

CLATTER!

"ACCKKK!!!" A person screamed, yet they did not pray for mercy but actually struggled to attack the leopard to keep their life intact.

These players weren't the same as before where they would be dying from the Nature Dragon's beasts. 

"HAA!!!"

Unlike before, they managed to fight while being blinded which proved to them being stronger than ever when fending and killing the leopards.

In addition to the blindness and the horde of leopards, there were snow angels circling above the Ice Dragon, furthering the chaos that might bring harm to these poor players.

Shaaa… 

All of the sudden when screams and growls filled the room, a gang of thunders shot down toward the Ice Dragon.

..CRACKLE!!!

[Thunders..? Urk..!]

With sufficient damage being dealt to the Dragon, it caused the Ice Dragon's snow blindness to eventually die down just like melted snow.

Flash!

Upon opening their eyes to witness what was occurring in front of them, the players were met with a ton of people fighting the Ice Dragon.

..No..

If they were to focus and look closely, they could tell that the group of players weren't actually a group with different people..

As a matter of fact, it was a crowd of the same person attacking the Dragon like it wasn't a big deal.

"Oh my god..! How strong are those guys in ‘The Rebels’ Guild?!!"

The person who they were gazing at with a selfish hope, was none other than Wang JoonChul.

———

Meanwhile… 

Observing this situation from afar, Alexandrite was narrowing her gaze when faced with ‘The Rebels’ Guild's immense power.

"Strong, but that guy.." Alexandrite glared at JoonChul.

"The one who tried to seduce my sister, isn't he quite compelling?" 

Seeming conflicted by her first impression of JoonChul, Alexandrite scratched her head before shaking her head.

‘No, he dared to seduce my cute Pearl, now he will pay for it.’ Grunted, Alexandrite.

Since she was far from the boss battle, Alexandrite swiftly flew toward the throne where a few of ‘The Rebels’ Guild members were.

Swoosh~

‘It appears that the child on the throne is important, and what are these people doing?’ Furrowing her eyebrows, she watched as Noel and Crystal were trying to do something to Noelle.

When Alexandrite caught on to what these people were doing, she was in shock as she couldn't believe that they knew this method.

‘How? I had heard this method was only performed a few times, so how is it that these people know of this?’ 

Despite an unanswered question drifting in her head, Alexandrite still needed to do something to cause trouble to JoonChul's plans.

‘If these people are trying to save the Ice Dragon's vassal, then all I have to do to punish JoonChul is by ruining his plan.’

With a sneer creepier than Pearl's, Alexandrite shifted her glance at JoonChul before forming another villainous smile.

‘Yes, I'll do ‘that’.’ She thought.

———

Moments passed by and by, but the battle still persisted… 

CRASH!

Claws versus blades, Bianca and JoonChul clashed together with a bang as they didn't stop to launch yet another attack.

Bang bang bang!

No matter the attacks that the Ice Dragon directed at, JoonChul parried them like he was slicing a simple cake.

[How interesting.]

Then and there, Bianca swayed her tail packed with icicles that could pierce anything, directing its deadly tail toward JoonChul in a blink of an eye.

WHOOSH!

[Ho?]

Good news was that the Dragon didn't miss him and had its tail punctured right through his body, stabbing countless icicles right through JoonChul's body.

[..Huh?]

..However, the bad news was that the JoonChul in front of Bianca, wasn't the real one but a clone.

[Insole—]

..SLASH!

"Can't you even tell this is a fight? You must be really confident to talk shit while fighting, huh?!" 

A person unrelated to the members of ‘The Rebels’ Guild popped out of nowhere to ram a scythe into the Dragon's eye.

[Who are you?]

But unfortunately.. 

"Tsk! You ruined the fun!"

A protective shield being the Dragon's eyelid was casted onto the eyes of the dragon in the last second to defend itself from Asher's reaping scythe.

[Not a scratch to my eye.] 

At that point, the Ice Dragon glared daggers eyes at Asher, breathing in all the cold air into its mouth before unleashing a blast of its ice breath.

"This Lizard.. Tch." Asher grumbled.

Emerging out from the portal a moment ago, she was now jumping into her portal again to get out of range from the Dragon's ice breath.

"Asher..?" Puzzled, HwanGi mumbled.

‘The Rebels’ Guild who was supposed to fight the Dragon, was somewhat surprised by the sudden appearance of Asher Kim.

In spite of the unexpected situation, they still went ahead and focused on their roles, rushing toward the Ice Dragon to land their individual blows.

"Wherever you are, don't you intervene, Asher!" Exclaimed JoonChul who was dashing toward the front of the ice breath with Frostina.

BOOM!

Together side by side, Frostina and JoonChul took on the ice breath with all their might as well as counteracting the breath with ice power of their own.

"Tsk." JoonChul, bracing for the ice breath, groaned a little while releasing his borrowed ice power with Frostina. "How is it on your side, Frostina?"

Frostina, who was standing with JoonChul, was also materializing a beam of ice blast at Bianca's ice breath. "This is nothing, my Liege."

In the meantime, with the ice breath that was exiting from the Dragon's mouth constantly, it only made sense that Bianca would be stuck in a shooting and defenseless position while it was breathing frost.

"Hyup!!"

Within a flick of a second, multiple attacks flew in from nowhere to deal a fatal wound to the Ice Dragon.

Whoosh!

First was a windy slash from Alaine who appeared and reappeared from behind with tons of her clones doing the same attacks at different areas of the Ice Dragon's body.

SHRIEKK!

Second was a thunderous strike landing straight at the Dragon's neck by Raiden's lightning.

..SCREECHING!!

Third was a ferocious blast that bursted with flame in the color of white, burning up from the bottom by HwanGi who was under the Dragon. 

SCREECH!!

And last but not least, a dreadful slice fell from the above before being dragged onto the Dragon's head, sliding onto the long neck with a blade that could reaped souls.

At that moment, Asher exclaimed with pleasure. "Don't boss me around, JoonChul since I don't want to miss out on the chance of defeating this big lizard."

RUMBLING!

[These humans..]

Ice breath that couldn't be released anymore, was depleted completely by the surprised attacks from ‘The Rebels’ Guild's side, along with Asher too.

[Humans who use their brains are indeed strong.] 

..The Ice Dragon growled and groaned with excitement as if it was enjoying this thrilling match up against these clever humans.

[But you all aren't quite intelligent yet.]

"Just shut up and submit." 

[..!]

Upon shifting its glance, Bianca was greeted by JoonChul who was gripping onto a bow with an arrow, aiming straight at the Dragon.

‘Using a bow in close range?’ Bianca pondered with shock.

[This human..!]

All of the sudden when witnessing JoonChul voicing out one word, the Ice Dragon's eyes whooshed in surprise as its wings were moving by instinct to block his arrow. 

"Ignite."

…BANG!!