Frostbound [LitRPG Apocalypse]-Chapter 190 - Charge

Chris

Shouts and roars followed after giving the order to charge and were all that could be heard as my feet propelled me forward. With every step, I prepared for what was to come.

I didn't know how long this battle would last, but I couldn't afford to keep anything back. My job was to cause as much mayhem as possible and to do that required my full strength. The small rodent monster I had stored next to me died silently and was the first casualty of the day.

It would be far from the last.

[Momentum of the Avalanche] started to build as I had kept a monster for that sole reason. [Righteous Fury] was lined up to activate as soon as we crashed into our foes.

Speaking of our foes, they felt the disturbance of our charge and I could see them rush mindlessly toward us, the same as we did to them. We had stayed out of sight to keep the element of surprise but that was broken as we charged.

Hounds larger than any Doberman I had ever seen with devilish flames rolling off their forms were just one among the many.

All manner of grotesque Demonlings made up a large portion of the bodies we ran towards. Their shapes and sizes made one ever so different than the next. Some with spear-like limbs ran toward us with every step piercing into the ground while others with club-like feet thudded forward. Bulbous and disgusting imps flew in the air at head height.

Even worse were the nearly humanoid Lesser Demons. They were an evolved version of Demonlings that usually increased their intelligence and changed their forms into something more bipedal. Not all were bipedal, but more likely than not they were.

As my eyes roved over the sea of monsters we charged toward, they focused on the Lesser Demons first because they were the biggest threat I could see. They had the intelligence and cunning that the rest didn't.

The second biggest threat was when I noticed the growing forms of... something coming together. I wasn't sure what I was looking at at first. It started as a large blob of body parts and blackened flesh, then it started to grow.

Demonlings bunched together in large piles of bodies and began to morph into each other in some way. I was too far away to hear anything, especially against the pounding feet of our charge, but my mind didn't have any trouble conjuring the squelches and squeals that I imagined it sounded like.

The process wasn't fast but neither was it slow. If I had been standing beside the pile of flesh as the process started, I could have stopped it but that wasn't the case. I watched as giant amalgamations of any number of the foul creatures attached together to turn into towering versions of themselves.

I dubbed them Giant Demonlings because after the changes stopped, they took on the form of a mixture of a number of them.

All of the Demons we charged toward gave off a revolting feeling, but those were the worst. My mind couldn't stop picturing the 'forming' process.

Before our presence was revealed, the mass of different Demons were content to mill about in a roughly circular area. The center of which was where I assumed the leader to be.

And I assumed there would be a leader.

The Demons were too organized for there not to be one.

After the Demons on the edge of their cluster noticed us, they charged indiscriminately. It was like they saw red and took off toward us, their previous actions forgotten.

With both sides running toward the other, the distance closed quickly.

Our Mages and Rangers were already set up at the appropriate distance for them and I felt when they attacked.

All of my attention was wired and ready to take in anything that could go wrong, which left me in the prime position to feel when the mana from hundreds of people charged into various skills.

The manner and means were all different. Rangers, Mages, and Healers casting buffs. It was all different but the tide of mana that erupted was impossible to miss. Even an inept could feel the power amassed in so many skills.

Certain Warriors among the line sped up or glowed. Others took on a colored light, causing all their attacks to take on an elemental effect. Most healers that deigned to come had at least one boosting skill and they were all on display now.

None fell on me, as I told every Healer in no uncertain terms that they should not use any boosts on me. I felt they were better used on the rest. If one more person survived because they had that extra boost, it was worth it.

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Plus, I wasn't sure how many boosting skills could be stacked on a person. I already had a few and I wasn't willing to push it. [Avalanche] at full power already strained my body.

Adding [Fury] and [Glacial Presence] only made the strain higher. Adding an additional boost from a Healer onto that didn't seem like a good idea.

The boost layered on the Warriors were the first to take effect, but then came the sky-darkening volley of magical skills. Every mage had the chance to power up on opening salvo of whatever they could and their job was to soften the enemy up before we collided.

Fire, Ice, Lightning, Water, Metal, Earth, Wind, Nature, and even neutral Mana were all represented. Those elemental affinities were most common and easiest to pick out among the carpet of mana being launched.

Other, either more esoteric or rare, affinities were also among the sea. Blood, Solar, Kinetic. The amassed skills were too much for me to pinpoint anything else but I knew at least that many.

I could feel the enormous amount of mana pass overhead and braced my eyes for what was to come. Even braced for what I was about to see, it still blew my mind.

Now in my field of vision, I could clearly see all manner of magical attacks rain down from the sky. The one that stood out the most was the giant Fireball that gave even me a tinge of worry.

Wherever that landed, I did not doubt the devastation it would cause.

I wasn't able to take it in long as before I knew it, they made impact with the ground. Explosions rocked the earth and the vibrations spread all the way to my feet, the force was so large. Wind buffeted our line as the air was violently pushed away. As the spells destabilized, their effects complete and destruction wrought, the mana they contained mixed and caused further destruction. Lightning and Fire didn't mix with other mana types on the best of days and this was similar to priming a powder keg to blow.

It was like watching the sky fall.

The sea of arrows sticking out of bodies or the ground was nearly imperceptible compared to the wash of colorful explosions. The arrows were nearly perfectly hidden among the numerous magic spells.

That didn't mean the devastation they caused was any less, only it was far more concealed. The sound of arrows thudding down into flesh and earth was drowned out compared to the other things that happened.

Plants and trees were uprooted, clods of earth shot off in every which way. Some going as high as a hundred feet in the air.

The chants of those running at the front reached their climax as they took it all in.

That was until we watched the Demons return fire.

It was far from orderly, or even coordinated, but the sheer amount made up for that fact. Where we had a few hundred launch skills from our side, they had thousands.

Where the wall of magic from our side was filled with nearly every color, the magic from the demons was less diverse. The spells were all either a sickly black or crimson red and they gave off the feeling of death and blood or somewhere in between.

The spells mostly came from the Imps and Lesser Demons, but there were too many to say so definitively. The chanting and shouting from the people charging with me fell audibly as we saw the spells aimed at us.

Some slowed to activate defensive skills while others ran while weaving mana into various shields. Those with actual shields held them in front and they lit up.

I did none of that.

My stride stayed steady and the only thing that changed was my form started to get covered in ice. [Frost Armor] froze around me with even greater speed and strength thanks to the Frost Rune I had carved, saving precious seconds if the need for quick armament were to arrive.

The mana pushed into the skill passing through the Rune on the armor increased in both purity and density before filling out around me. Greaves froze and locked into leggings which connected with the chest piece.

Thick plates of ice extended out over my armor and my feet left frosty footprints in the grass as I passed. The skill finished with a helmet of ice covering my head.

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Where I once had to leave eye holes to see, they were frozen over completely with ice crystals so clear they looked like glass.

One of the many things I focused on while training in the dungeon was the application of my skills and [Frost Armor] underwent massive changes as the months went by.

Before, I would have let it form on its own, believing that the skill knew best and to leave it to do its thing. Now, with more experience and knowledge, I knew that was the wrong choice.

With time to spare and ideas abound, it was the skill I focused on most. My smithing experience filled me with ideas on how to push the skill further.

The armor was now more streamlined and the linking chinks of armor were far more sturdy. The armor froze into place with time to spare as the black and red magic fell.

Even as they fell upon me and the area around me, I charged forward without slowing.

The skills of the Demons were far too low to leave a scratch on my armor, let alone with my Law running through it. Another bonus of spending hours in the dungeons every day was the application of my Law became easier.

Where it once took a great amount of effort and control to empower my entire armor with my Law of Ice, it became like second nature after doing it thousands of times.

I wasn't the only one to break through the other side of mana covered in some manner of elemental armor, as others were clad in their affinity as well.

If Jonathan were here, I knew he would be right next to me clad in Earth leaving craters with every footfall. If Austin were here, he would be dodging left and right while using me as a human shield.

But they weren't, and I was left to lead alone.

Arrows and magic continued to fly but that wasn't where my attention was focused.

We were close enough now that I could see the saliva and spittle fly out of the hellhound's mouths. Close enough that I could see the lines demarking where one Demonling ended and another began on their giant, mashed together form.

Those who had to stop and deploy defensive skills fell behind while those who charged through would hit first, and prime among them was me.

Close enough that I started to change. Ice burned through my veins as I burned my bloodline and a white hot fury cascaded through me next. Both my bloodline and [Righteous Fury] pushed me and my stats to new heights.

[Permafrost] and [Desolate Blizzard] billowed out, and for the first time in a long while, I held nothing back.