175: In from the Cold (Patreon)

Living Glacier (Demi-Elemental, D-Grade)

Raid Boss (Cold, Death, Ice, Winter)

Health 35,000 Endurance 35,000 Mana 20,000

Traits:

* Colossal Body: The Living Glacier is a 60-foot humanoid made of ice, granted mobility through a Mana network that makes the ice fluid without compromising its durability. Most weapons and attacks lack the penetration and power to affect its body. Most physical and Concept-attuned attacks are reduced by 85%; the reduced attack must then overcome 500 points of Damage Resistance before it begins to affect the Glacier’s hit points.

* Colossal Strikes: Physical strikes inflict a minimum of 1,000 points of Physical and 800 points of Cold damage. If the mass of the monster comes into play (by smashing the target against the ground or other solid surface), the damage gains a multiplier of 2-10.

* Ice Manipulation: The Living Glacier can create and control ice constructs, such as walls, spikes and projectiles. Effects vary but are based off the Glacier’s Arcane Rating of 2,500.

* Frigid Aura: anyone within 100 feet from the Living Glacier are affected by its Frigid Aura, suffering 300 points of Cold damage per second. The aura also reduces speed and effective Dexterity by 50%, increasing to 75% after ten seconds of exposure.

* Winter Storm: The Boss can create blizzards affecting a circular area with 2 miles of diameter. Three inches of snow per minute will fall over the area, as well as hailstones descending at bullet speeds and inflicting 45 points of damage per second to anybody caught in the open. Hurricane-force winds and tornadoes will strike at random. After 1 minute of exposure (5-10 minutes by people inside shelters, based on the shelter’s quality), those inside the storm will suffer the effects of Frigid Aura. Those in shelters will be affected after five minutes.

The monster’s shape was hard to distinguish amidst the winter storm it had summoned. All Roland saw as he rode the Pale Horse was a vague outline – hunched shoulders, long skinny arms that hung down all the way to its feet, short thick legs, and a face that was mostly mouth, an open maw large enough to swallow a Humvee. Two glowing blue eyes glared malevolently over its pie hole.

The life-sapping temperatures of the Frozen Land had plummeted to something close to absolute zero around the Boss. Roland could feel the cold pushing against his aura, a cold so profound it affected matter at a fundamental level.

At that level, atoms stopped behaving normally: their particles lost mobility, lost their resistance to the flow of electrons. They froze.

They died.

Cold was Death. And Death was Cold.

Understanding clicked in his head, as if someone had flipped a switch. It was a moment of sudden enlightenment. Zen Buddhists called it Satori.

Congratulations! Your Death Attunement has increased to 49%!

New Attunement Perk: Cold as the Grave (you can turn up to 49% of your Death damage into Cold/Ice damage. You can produce other Cold-related effects with up to 49% of your Arcane and Aura Ratings. Cold and related types of damage and effects are reduced by 49%.

An ice wall appeared in his path. The Pale Rider accelerated as Roland focused his strength through his aura, shaping it into a missile around the motorcycle. The shielded vehicle struck the ice wall like the fist of an angry god, shattering it without slowing down.

The Living Glacier’s arms sought to slap him out of the air, but it was too slow. Even if its Dexterity was higher than his, its massive limbs took time to move. Roland could weave his bike around them easily enough.

And that was without his Svarga Dantian coming into play. Even when one of the monsters’ flailing claws managed to land a blow, Roland was no longer there, reappearing a dozen yards away.

Mark of Condemnation affected the monster. The Living Glacier was found guilty of attempted genocide. Its motives were its hatred for all living things in general and fire-wielding humans in particular.

Descending Righteous Wrath! The Reaping!

The Pale Horse disappeared. Roland’s naginata transformed into the Reaper’s Scythe, its blade the hue of a starless sky. He rose in the air before teleporting forward and striking the monster’s center of mass.

The Reaping was such a broken trait that Roland sometimes felt guilty about using it. Not now, though. He wanted to get this done and go home.

A distant observer would have first seen a blinding flash of black light that would leave floating afterimages for hours afterwards. The shockwave followed, an almost musical breaking-glass, 200-plus-decibels sound that was more pressure than noise. Normal humans would be killed by the sound of the impact even from a mile away.

Shards of ice flew off, deadly shrapnel that hit like J-DAM bombs when they landed.

The Living Glacier staggered. Even through its defenses, its Health had been reduced by a little under a third of its total.

Coup de Grace! Spirit Weapons! Will of the Reaper!

Roland stayed in the jagged hole he had carved into the chest of the monster. His naginata darted forward, striking twice with every swing, even as a dozen auric limbs augmented with Spirit Weapons tore into the monster’s insides, targeting the artificial Meridians that gave it the semblance of life.

The monster turned its frigid aura against Roland, but his Art kept it at bay. Cold couldn’t destroy or even slow Death down. He understood that.

Even as he dug his way into the monster’s chest, searching for its Core, the necrotizing wounds began to spread like mold inside the monster, destroying the energy network that kept it alive.

By the time he found the Core, the Living Glacier was on its last throes. It had managed to keep Roland from absorbing its Health and converting it into Vital Energy, but now that he was in contact with its arcane heart, its resistance collapsed, letting Roland feed off the life force it had lost.

One last swing was all it took. The solid energy ball shattered like glass, bathing Roland with Mana and Essence. He teleported away as the sixty-foot-tall creature fell apart, some of its mass turning into powdery snow and flowing down as larger chunks of ice joined the avalanche.

Notifications popped up, letting him know about his rewards, which included a World Boss Monster Core holding 5,000 points of Cold, Death, Ice and Winter Essence. There were a few Epic Upgrade Tokens (Items, Skills/Techniques and two Universal ones), one Legendary Item Upgrade Token, and a Mythic Item:

* Triune Weapon Talisman (Mythic, Growth Item): You can link up to three different weapons (including shields) to this Talisman. The items will meld into one, allowing you to use whichever shape or configuration suits the situation and letting you use all applicable Traits with any of those weapons. Any Significance points they have will be combined, and all Significance applications will be usable by any of them, if at all possible.

Once melded, the weapons cannot be removed from the Talisman. Their effects will work at the Quality tier they were. Quality of individual weapons can be upgraded separately.

Growth Item: The weapons linked to the Talisman will be bound to the Class Core or Cultivator Pattern of their owner. They will advance in Grade or Rank as their owner does.

Roland had accumulated dozens of Epic and Rare items and a handful of Legendary ones that didn’t fit his build or didn’t equal what he already had equipped. This was the first item he would gladly use.

Without hesitation, he melded the Standing Death of Benkei, the Lord Executioner’s Gun, and the Kusarigama of Kūkan no Dō. He would need to spend some time practicing with the multi-weapon to gain a good feel for its capabilities. That was a great problem to have, though.

The Dungeon Core waited for him. He dismantled it, gaining 25 Safe Zone Tokens and 30 Dungeon Core Seed Fragments. The side quest had netted him 115 Tokens and 55 Fragments. They would all be put to good use.

Time to go back.

*

Matt ‘Uncle Phil’ Jones (Level 10 Castellan, F-Grade) walked toward the returning conqueror, feeling like someone on his way to his own execution.

Roland Webb waited for him just inside the gate of the Safe Zone. had removed his helmet but retained his jacket, which looked almost normal, even with its red runic inscriptions, until you noticed that it sometimes seemed to ripple in ways leather shouldn’t be able to. When he looked at Roland from the corner of his eye, the jacket transformed into a hooded cape every once in a while. It was unnerving.

“Glad you managed to wipe out the other Dungeons,” he told Matt, shaking his hand.

His grip was light, but Matt felt like he was squeezing something made of rubber-covered steel cables rather than a normal limb.

“We almost lost a few people doing it,” Matt told him. He didn’t mean to sound accusatory, but the words came out that way. “We were lucky the healers managed to stabilize them in time, but three are so traumatized I doubt they’ll ever hold a weapon again.”

One man had fallen into a vat of acid and barely survived; his body had dissolved from his hips down. He was still being healed hourly, his legs growing a little bit at a time.

When he told Roland about the patient, the Reaper Monarch – his Class had changed in the six hours he’d been gone – insisted on seeing anybody with crippling injuries. At the former classroom, now a ten-bed hospital, Roland used a ring one all five convalescing men and women and healed them to full, regrowing their limbs in a matter of seconds.

“Can’t do much about mental trauma,” Roland said. “But I think the System somehow heals PTSD and similar disorders. Raising your Willpower can help.”

Something in his tone hinted at things he left unsaid. Matt filled in the blanks:

And if y’all can’t over the mental trauma, well, the world needs ditch diggers too.

A killer who healed, but a hard man in any capacity. And the horrible truth was that this world needed hard men or soon there would be no living humans at all.

After a short meeting where Roland outlined his proposal to join the fledgling nation he had called the Connecticut Refuge, the six-person Council Matt had gathered around him voted to accept it. Two voted against, looking fearfully at the tall man with the cold stare.

“Glad to have you aboard,” Roland said. “As the Principal of the Technical School Safe Zone, you will get the Challenge rewards, including more Safe Zone Tokens. I’m not planning on looking over your shoulder unless something egregious happens. You will get Territorial Essence to use for building or modifying buildings, plus anything you can raise from taxes or get people to donate. As long as your laws don’t conflict with the broader Territory laws, you are free to make your own regulations.”

“What about drafting our people for war?” Jeff – one of the two votes against the union – asked.

“In a broader self-defense conflict, you will be expected to contribute combat and support personnel. You will only be asked to defend the Connecticut Refuge from any threats, whether they are Dungeon spawn, wandering monsters or bandits, or invaders from other Territories.

“You will – explicitly – not be required to contribute troops to any conflict outside the Territory’s borders. That is in the contract I’ve drafted. A System contract, which means I can’t break it, either. One good thing about the System is that treaties and contracts can’t be ignored. Keeps even politicians relatively honest, although you will always have to read the fine print to avoid being bamboozled.”

Jeff nodded, mollified. Matt had to give the man credit for standing up to someone who would wipe out the entire settlement by himself.

“The Challenge is over,” Roland said as the air seemed to waver around everyone. Matt felt a change in pressure that made his ears pop.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some people to see.”

*

“You bastard!” Dahlia said, hugging him as hard as she could. Hard enough to squeeze a grizzly bear to death, as a matter of fact.

“Missed you too,” he told her.

And he had. That month-plus he’d spent away had been harder than the previous ones. Having people you wanted – needed – in your life made their absence weigh on him. He hoped there wouldn’t be many more long solo trips in his future. There probably was no escaping them.

“How long this time?” she asked him. “For me, it was about a week.”

“Months.”

“That sucks. But look at you! I was so happy to make it to E-Grade, and you still have like twice my stats. Dual-Path is a pain in the ass.”

“Twice as expensive, too. Not sure if that evens things out, but you will be advancing twice as fast as me, if not faster.”

“Small consolation.”

“Anyway, glad to be back. Now will you tell me who all those people camped around us are?”

“Oh, yeah. Dessie, Bloody and I rescued a few stranded frequent flyers.”

“How many is a few?”

“Uh, like sixty-three hundred?” she mumbled. “And thirty-two?”

“Holy crap.”

“Jorg organized a bus caravan to bring them to New Haven. But about a thousand of them want to stick with, well, me. Sort of like reverse Stockholm Syndrome.”

“I’m sure the Refuge can use more people. They’ve got over twenty thousand citizens, but there is a big Zone in contention. I’ll have to go talk to them.”

“Just don’t glare anybody into an early grave, Captain Death.”

“I won’t. Well, let’s get our caravan organized. I can’t wait to get home.”

She hugged him again. “It feels like home already.”

Roland grinned. “You know what? It does.”