Chapter 168 :

Episode 33 : A Disaster (8)

After a while of fighting the Ice Dragon, ‘Bianca’..

CRASH!

With a slam, HwanGi was knocked to the ground by the Ice Dragon because he lowered his guard when he was about to strike the Dragon.

"Ack!!!"

By then, his health was on the lowest of low, forcing him to be in a dire situation since he could be easily one shot by the Dragon and outside attacks by the other players. 

However, he didn't need to worry about it..

[The Skill, ‘Stickability’ Lv. 1 has been forcibly activated.]

Thanks to the skill he got from Stage 17, his body was reinforced with a temporary shield to keep him safe, along with his health regenerating as seconds went by.

Clang.

Stabbing the floor with his sword to support himself upright, HwanGi staggered little by little from just standing up.

He groaned and groaned again. "It's painful.."

Even HwanGi could tell by a glance that his buffed body wasn't able to sustain the serious injury inflicted by Bianca.

"..!!!!" Shocked as he realized, HwanGi's wide eyes shifted above him, noticing a shadow being casted over him.

STOMP!

"HwanGi!"

Whooshing in to save him, the ‘Alaine’ showed up right away to push him off the spot and got crushed on his behalf in the process.

"Alaine..!" HwanGi moaned in pain, taking out a HP potion to recover half of his health points.

Not once overly worried about the ‘Alaine’ who appeared to rescue him and got slammed to the ground, HwanGi took a couple of steps back.

‘For her to come and save me..’

‘She wasn't supposed to reveal her position, but I should thank her for saving me after this battle.’ HwanGi set a reminder to himself.

Rustling… 

"This is..?" 

HwanGi, who took a glimpse at the icy floor, noticed the changes on the floor, watching it switch to a bluish to greenish color slowly but surely.

"It's starting..!" HwanGi gasped as he felt hope and gratification. 

Zap!!

All of the sudden when he was beginning to recover most of his health and strength, he had overheard a sort of crackling sound reverberating behind his left side.

"What was that?"

Curious as he was, HwanGi had a glimpse in that direction to suddenly spot JoonChul discharging electricity after dodging the Ice Dragon's snow angels.

HwanGi thought, narrowing his gaze at the sight of JoonChul's wounded body. ‘Wha— JoonChul-ssi looks more wretched than I am.’

Out of the blue, JoonChul shouted to get HwanGi's attention in which he did. "You know what to do, HwanGi!"

‘How is he able to command while appearing so injured? He's trying to look okay with those injuries..’

‘Then I should try my hardest!’

"Alright, JoonChul-ssi!" HwanGi replied to JoonChul.

Without wasting time, HwanGi casted ‘Divine Flame’ on his blade before running toward the right side of the Ice Dragon.

CRUMBLE!

As he ran with all his might, JoonChul had set off an earthquake underneath the Dragon, quaking the footing of Bianca just to cause it to stagger.

In addition to this, Frostina had come forth to take all of the Dragon's focus by shooting thousands upon thousands of icicles toward it, not lending it a chance to get back to a stable footing.

‘My icicles have no effect, but it does not matter to me.’

Frostina during that moment uttered out her words that were saturated with anguish and scorn.

"I had killed you time and time again, thus it wouldn't be too difficult to slaughter you once more, foolish lizard." 

Her icicles advanced toward Bianca in a matter of seconds, blasting with swift as Frostina kept running toward the dragon with two of her whips in her hands.

Swish!!

With a sway of her whips, Frostina slashed and slashed at the ice Dragon while maintaining a balance between defense and offense.

[It seems your knowledge of creatures is lacking.]

The Dragon definitely didn't like how Frostina just insulted it which prompted it to move its head in her direction.

CLANK!

A headbutt attack from the dragon was soon blocked by Frostina's shield, but the strength within the Dragon was powerful enough to crush the shield into bits upon impact.

Despite having the same element, the Ice Dragon's ice powers were somewhat stronger than Frostina's.

..Would that pose a problem to Frostina?

WHOOSH!

Immediately after having her shield broken into pieces, Frostina bounced off from her spot thanks to the thin ice platform she made.

As she hopped and hopped from one stepp to another, Frostina was soon greeted with the Ice Dragon's head going toward her yet again.

"It is a certainty that you looked like a lizard from what I'm seeing." Frostina taunted Bianca while swinging her whips at its eyes.

[So you judge a book by its cover, I see.]

Swoosh!

Without effort, Bianca blocked Frostina's whip by letting out an exhale from its nose, flinging the whips back at Frostina in the process and causing her to be pushed back slightly.

[Is that all you got? I remained perfectly fine from your iceless attacks.]

"..." Frostina kept quiet before jumping out of the way from the dragon.

[You're escaping? How tactless.]

Watching as Frostina stood a few steps away from it, the Ice Dragon was curious why she was not striking at it until it noticed Frostina with a faint smile.

[What are you—]

In a clap of a hand, Frostina sprinted in a circle around Bianca as if she was trying to get its attention only on her.

As Frostina ran in a circle and reached the Dragon's side, she instantly launched an endless amount of icicles toward the Ice Dragon after swinging her whips.

ZAP! ZAP!

[Player ‘215’ has activated the Skill, ‘Shock Area’.]

..And that wasn't all.

When fighting with Frostina, Bianca appeared to have forgotten about the others that were attacking it as well.

‘So she was getting my attention away from her friends. It seem I was the stupid one.’ The Ice Dragon thought.

[I'm ashamed.]

Embarrassed by its mistake, the Dragon found itself to have a person discharging lightning on its tail until he reached its head.

Itching to sway its wings, the Ice Dragon swung and swung until it felt a strong voltage of shock circuiting through its whole body, stumbling and shaking by the electrocution.

CRACKLE!

Thunder erupted like no other as it brought a halt to some of the Ice Dragon's movements, but not to the point of immobilizing it completely.

However, it was enough as per ‘The Rebels' Guild's plan..

CRUMBLLLEEE!!!!

[Combinations of ‘Hellfire’ Lv. 4 and ‘Earth Crumble’ Lv. 2 had turned into ‘Fire and Brimstone’ Lv. 2!]

Upon vibrating with a burst of magma and lava, the ground crumbled under the force of someone's combined skill which led the floor to be crushed and melted by the lava.

Clatter!!

Magma and lava overflowing from the floor were going too far as to set fire on solid ice and the snow leopards, not only that, the fire that burned because of the magma and lava, was way hotter than that of a normal flame.

Which made it a disastrous combined skill from its violence nature of turning the living creatures it touched to ashes. 

[KUAKKK!]

And all of these were happening below the Ice Dragon..

While it forced the Dragon to be stuck and sunken deep down to the quicksand-like ground, fire that was unrelated to the flame on the floor, proceeded to appear with a flash from the right side of the Dragon.

[You!]

"..." No words had left HwanGi's unfazed face as he advanced with his coated sword.

During this moment, the Dragon saw an amateur move from HwanGi when it witnessed his eyes shifting toward the right side of his vision, prompting the Dragon to be cautious to its left side.

[So this was your plan!?]

When acting like it wasn't startled, Bianca found its glance to be locked onto JoonChul with his sword layered with hellish flame.

"Ignite." 

BLAREE!!!

A word leaving from his mouth unveiled an oversize outburst of black thunders toward the Dragon.

In a blink of an eye, Bianca knew that it was in a dire dilemma with two guys on its right and left sides, and a man on top of its head as well.

Not just that, it understood its situation pretty quickly when it noticed Frostina blocking its front as if she didn't allow the Dragon any chances to escape this spot.

[I can't stand, I can't bail, and I can't prevail. Was this the strategy you all thought of?]

BOOOOOOMMM!!!

Accompanied with a flare-up attack, the Ice Dragon underwent an effective element being blasted to its whole body.

[HEUKKK!!]

Screams of agony did leave from the Ice Dragon's mouth, yet it prevailed to endure those and withstand it all to survive.

Scorched and incinerated by light and dark fire on its ineffective ice scales, there was also a thunderous lightning zapping onto its horns and tail, but it wasn't like the Dragon could witness a thunder that was naked to the eyes.

[URKKK!!!] 

Everybody would hear the shriek of agony exiting out the Dragon's mouth, resounding and blaring out loud.

"Keep going!" Raiden shouted after discharging a shockwave of invisible lightning.

‘The Rebels’ Guild who planned out this whole strategy, were in the middle of torturing Bianca with their continuous attacks, blasting away their fire and thunder without further rest.

"HAAAA! Eat this!!!" Someone exclaimed.

..It wasn't only ‘The Rebels’ Guild doing all the damage as well. After all, the players who were attacking the snow leopards, had finished with that when the leopards started to burn from the lava-like floor.

Because of the sudden increase in quantity, the Ice Dragon was trapped in a wave of numerous skills being targeted at it.

Even as the snow angels who were summoned, were trying to heal the Dragon. Those snow angels couldn't keep up with the constant need of recovering the Ice Dragon's health since it was falling extremely behind in HP recovery.

‘This..! Urghh!!!’ Bianca screeched.

In which cases, the Ice Dragon's health was depleting like butter, dropping without a stop as indicated by the players' unwavering attacks.

Protecting itself with its defense skills could do the Dragon no good, because of Frostina, the Ice Dragon's power was being countered the moment it emerged.

Not just that, Frostina was unleashing protective ice shields to her comrades as well as the unrelated people such as the players, forcing the Ice Dragon to have problems with killing some of the players to lessen their attacks.

 

[Arghh!! This will not be enough to stop me!]

..It was definitely not a favorable situation to Bianca.

Which was why the Ice Dragon had enough of it..

[If this is how humans do their offense, then I will punish them for their lack of strategic knowledge!]

RUMBLE!

Somewhat angered yet calm, the Ice Dragon stomped the ground despite being penetrated by Frostina's icicles and whips, along with the magma melting into its barefoot the moment it stepped on the lava-like ground. 

‘I can't die like this. How could I perish by my preys? I'll come for them again.’ The Dragon groaned inwardly.

Despite the pain and damage it received from that one step, it managed to immediately unfold its wings in a hurry to get out of this place.

[I'll take my departure. Farewell, insolent mortals.]

WHOOSH!

As it seemed like ‘The Rebels’ Guild, judging from their exhaustion, couldn't keep the Dragon at bay, the players below witnessed the horror of seeing the Dragon flapping its wings just to escape.

Terror in realizing that if the Ice Dragon began to bail from this place and aimlessly flew around, then it would result in the stage's timer to end and lead to a death sentence to all the players as per the stage's failure.

"DON'T LET IT RUN AWAY!" One of the players shouted before rushing with their utmost to catch up with the Dragon.

..To be honest, the players were absolutely afraid of dying from the stage's failure because of the Dragon's pathetic attempt to escape without fighting until the end.

But don't let it fool you..

A male player yelled at the top of his lungs. "ATTACK THE ICE DRAGON, HURRY!"

Without a doubt, a dozen of these players had an expression associated with greed as they watched the Dragon who was leaving at a slow pace because of its injured body.

As a result, these players were thinking of killing the Dragon to gain massive amount of EXP and loots from having to slaughter the Boss of Stage #20, even if they didn't get to receive the bonus reward of the most damage dealt to the Boss.

..To be precise, the players wished to steal ‘The Rebels’ Guild's effort in subduing the Ice Dragon for their own gain..

‘They wouldn't mind if we took all of those things, right?!’

‘All the EXPs and loots will all be mine!!’ 

‘Haha!!! I'll be the one who slays the second dragon!! This will be my victory!!’

The thoughts that rang in their minds were quite loud and clear as though the sin of greed had taken over them completely.

However, foolish as they can be, shouldn't they have known that ‘The Rebels' Guild weren't going to let them do that?

‘Just get the dragon before those ops dude recover!!! Sucks to be them! Ha!’

Currently, it is true that ‘The Rebels' Guild are recovering from their loss of SP, MP and HP, so they wouldn't be able to stop those players from stealing the kill.

..Or are they purposely standing there while waiting for something to happen?

"Those players, how could they do such a thing after all we did?" HwanGi scowled from the sight of players charging in for the Dragon kill.

"Humans are full of sins, HwanGi." Spoke, JoonChul.

Then, Raiden commented with a grin. "But it's better than getting attacked while we're exhausted." 

Stretching his body as he cared less about his physical injuries, JoonChul told Frostina. "It will be over soon, so Frostina, you must prepare before we land into an ocean." 

"Understood, my Liege."

‘I'm curious what JoonChul meant by ocean.. He didn't mention that in our strategy discussion.’ HwanGi pondered until he flinched from the loud noise of the players' attack at the Dragon.

BOOM!!!

‘..Ugh.. I need to be treated.’ 

Staring at the scene, HwanGi averted his gaze at his hand that was filled with bruises from clasping his sword too tightly.

There were even marks of his nails digging into his palm. 

‘My hands are trembling too much from my injuries. Urgh..! I need to heal, but I can't drink my HP potion until the cooldown ends.’

‘I better make sure not to take any more damage or else I'll definitely die!’ HwanGi warned himself as he was increasing his guard even further.