Dungeon of Niflheim

228 Chapter 228: Frost elemental

With blood on his robes Frost appeared quite wild but without his pseudo aura the indigenous monsters attacked with wanton abandon. He fought against frost goblin mages, mephits, ice flans, ice slimes, frost sprites (lowest ranking spirits in the form of tiny fairies), an occasional artic or polar fox and finally a frost elemental. The frost sprites were particularly difficult to deal with. Not only were they fast and adept with magic they were tiny and naturally mischievous. Instead of trying to kill Frost they seemed to want to irritate him to death. Launching a single spell before dashing away, repeating such actions over and over while giggling. They stopped and ran away permanently once Frost lost his patience and successfully killed one of them.

The frost elemental was the boss of this floor an upper E-rank monster that Frost didn’t have access to yet. This boss monster was a major turning point for adventurers, though many could take on the ice flan and hunt on the 3rd floor, taking on the frost elemental was too much, restricting them to the 3rd floor. It took Frost several hours to reach the end of the floor, nearly three times as long as the first two floors. Fighting monsters certainly slowed him down but well worth it, another few thousand DP entered his body, yet he still didn’t feel full. Maya wondered when they first left the Dungeon and hunted frost goblins whether he had a limit to the amount of DP he could store within his body. Right now, he had over 18,000DP stored, highlighted in brackets at the top right of the dungeon menu and felt that it wasn’t even half his limit. He could continue to hunt without wasting such precious DP.

“Now that’s interesting,” Frost entered the boss room of the 3rd floor and got his first look at a frost elemental. The thing was easily 2 and half metres tall and though it was made of ice its body was liquid in form and its core or nucleus was always in motion, making targeting it difficult. Plus, unlike ice flans its body wasn’t as transparent, making it that much harder to target. The best way to kill elementals of course would be to shatter their core but most rely upon simply piling up the damage on their body, magic working best. In this case fire would make a world of difference.

In this monster lair, fire mages were always in high demand, and it drew quite a few who wished to make some good money with a low level of risk. Unfortunately, Frost only knew ice magic, the worst possible choice in such a match up. Whereas ice flans and ice golems had innate resistance to ice magic, frost and ice elementals were a step up. They could absorb ice magic and grow stronger. It was like using fire magic on phoenixes, they’d simply eat the magic as a snack.

He’d need to rely on his glaive to kill this opponent, but with its liquid ice body it was not a good match up. Frost finally understood the difficulties of regular adventurers and why they tended to team up in parties. One person’s skills would not be effective against all foes, this frost elemental being a prime example. Unless he had completely overbearing power, he’d struggle to combat against things that nullified his skills.

The moment he entered the boss room, the elemental started attacking, even with its liquid form it was quite fast, different from the flans and slimes. The elemental reached him in moments and once it was within in 5 metres its arms expanded, siphoning some of its torso into them. They grew to be almost comical in size,

“Shit!” Not expecting it to change its form, Frost was caught unaware and forced to dash to the left.

Boom!

The oversized fists crashed on the ice floor, cracking it -thankfully this was a monster lair where the rooms regenerated otherwise these sections would be disaster areas- but it didn’t let up, quickly chasing after Frost, and striking with fervent aggression.

.....

Frost’s brow raised in shock, the thing’s arms constantly changed form, one minute it was a fist another it was a spear and the next it was like a hammer. Though its speed was far below his limit, the constant fluctuation in attack method was quite difficult to handle. He was forced to dodge repeatedly, unable to pick up the tempo. His glaive was used to block rather than attack, for just the 3rd floor’s boss, this thing was quite impressive.

“One two three, one two three.” Frost after catching his breath and his own tempo, started counting the elemental’s attacks finding a slight delay before the third and fourth attack, a delay to exploit.

Shwing!

Dodging the elemental’s spear like arm by a hair’s breadth, Frost gripped his glaive hard and with one swift motion he slashed upwards cleaving the spear in two before jumping backwards to avoid its other arm.

Frost skidded across the floor; his eyes focused on the elemental, gauging its reaction to losing an arm. Unfortunately, his well-timed slash was a lot less effective than expected.

“That’s gotta be cheating,” Frost’s face cringed in envy, his swing didn’t even slow the thing down. Its arm simply reformed a few seconds later as though the wound never happened. What’s worse the sliced off arm turned into a puddle and was instantly absorbed back into its body the moment it moved over it. He was now faced with an opponent that wasn’t effected by his magic -including his chakra since it was ice based- and his weapon only dealt temporary cuts before they regenerated. If its opponent wasn’t Frost, they’d have to cut their losses and flee, setting the difference between the capable and the amateurs.

The frost elemental didn’t give Frost much time to complain before once again charging at him with its newly generated arm.

“Haaaaaaaa” Frost sighed and shook his head before a glint shone in his eyes.

‘If one cut isn’t enough let’s just keep cutting and cutting.’ Not disheartened by the fact he was fighting a regenerating monster that nullified most of his techniques, he looked at it as a challenge. Nothing was unkillable especially something that was only upper E-rank. Given his C-rank strength he was more than capable of overpowering the thing if he really put his heart into it.

Frost entered a defensive stance and the moment the elemental struck he blocked it with the glaive’s shaft before spinning around and slashing its chest. A gash opened up across its torso but closed up a moment later, but Frost wasn’t done.

Shwing! Shwing! Shwing!

Frost with his adept glaive mastery attacked with great finesse, slashing, and slashing the elemental’s body over and over, creating more and more gashes which healed moments later.

‘Let’s just see how fast you can heal,’ with an evil smirk Frost’s eyes focused, and he entered an enlightened state. Blocking and rebuffing the elemental’s strikes no matter what form they took, his slashing speed increased and became more accurate, sharper even. The gashes became deeper and deeper as time passed and the elemental was forced backwards from the repelling force of his strikes. Puddles of its body started littering the ground and its two and half metre frame shrunk down to under two metres, roughly the same height as Frost. His attacks were working, albeit slowly.

Every strike would cause a small amount of damage to the elemental’s nucleus weakening the thing’s ability to heal itself, to hold its body together. To be honest Frost could have finished the battle several minutes ago, his slashes were frequent enough and deep enough to already reveal the nucleus in its chest. He simply deigned to choose another method of killing, slower but much more satisfying. Plus, it was more beneficial to his training.

This opponent posed little threat to him just like he posed a reduced effect to it. He could take advantage of defending against changing weapons with strange composition all while dishing out fast and sharp blows. His glaive mastery improved once again, etching closer and closer to the advanced level.

A few minutes later the frost elemental collapsed into a puddle, its nucleus pierced on the end of Frost’s glaive. Even without the glaive piercing through the centre the thing was covered in numerous cracks from Frost’s fervent beatings. Like all things its regenerative powers had a limit and with Frost’s attack speed that limit was quickly reached. With a flick he flung the elemental’s nucleus from his glaive, smashing it into the wall. It was far too damaged to be of any use.

“Elementals huh,” Frost frowned as he stared down at the puddle that was once his foe. “Certainly powerful, they’d make a great addition to the dungeon’s line up but.....” Frost couldn’t help but feel slightly afraid. His one trick pony status meant that he could only use ice magic. Though he had little fear against fire, hoping to eventually be able to freeze it like all else. Ice was something that truly nullified his skills, what was he supposed to do freeze it twice or thrice. Only when his magic reached that of a different realm would he be able to supersede this law, like with the high earth rank cold flame that if unsealed could freeze even him.