Episode 23 : Noel Absolute (5)

[Player '500' has activated the Skill, 'Hailstorm' Lv. ???.]

[Player '500' has activated the Skill, 'Snowflake Barricade' Lv. ???.]

Hovering above the hole with platforms made out of snowflakes, Frostina elegantly climbed them as if they were stairs.

As she was walking upward, she got a bit higher than Noel, making it easier for her to look down on him.

"Get down from there!" Noel bawled at her.

Knowing that this would make Noel furious, Frostina didn't care much about what that boy's emotions would be. That was why she didn't pay no hesitation when she was commanding all the ice pellets around her to lash down at Noel.

"Die." Frostina spoke even though her expression told everything without her talking.

Beyond a doubt, Noel flinched by how much ice was falling upon him, not that the attack was unavoidable, it was the ice that made him puzzled.

Stunned, he gasped. "Wha in the world..?"

['Noel Absolute' has activated the Hidden Skill, 'Cryokinesis' Lv. ???.]

While grinding his teeth, Noel could have controlled the ice to halt their movements, but instead of doing that, he used JoonChul as a shield to protect himself.

Since JoonChul was just a corpse inside frozen ice, Noel was able to use him as he pleased. But Noel didn't know that this was furthering Frostina's wrath.

At that moment when the ice pellets were about to hit JoonChul, all of them stopped within an inch upon Frostina's flick of her fingers.

"How dare you." Frostina said, directing her vicious eyes at Noel which prompted him to freeze from her glance.

Of course, Noel didn't want to let that gaze scare him, thus he stomped his foot, bellowing at Frostina.

"Who are you to tell me what to do?! Get out of my way before I give you a horrible death!"

"...Such a fool."

"Huh?!"

Eventually, Noel stepped back slowly as he could perceive his surroundings turning decreasingly colder than the cold atmosphere before.

In that moment, Noel watched while Frostina moved her hands with grace, stretching both her arms out.

[Player '500' has activated the Hidden Skill, 'Advanced Cryokinesis' Lv. ???.]

When suddenly, the air around them switched into tiny ice pellets as if the water molecules got frozen entirely.

"This.. How?! How did you get such a refined—" Noel gasped before getting cut off by Frostina.

"Because you're a fool."

'Who the heck is she?! How can she do this..?!' Noel, astounded by the scene appearing before him, trembled as he didn't know such a thing could be achievable.

'Her Cryokinesis..!'

For such a feat to happen for Noel, he had to focus continuously for each and every ice pellet within his vicinity. And since those ice pellets were extremely small, it was insanely difficult for Noel to even control 1/10 of those ice pellets in front of him.

Noel thought, being cautious of Frostina and slowly retreating from her. 'And to turn every water molecule to ice.. take hours and hours.. She.. she's in a much greater elite than me and Noelle..!'

'If I were with Noelle, this woman wouldn't be hard to deal with at all! If only Noelle was here, I would—'

While he was thinking to himself, Frostina had combined the ice pellets together to create ice lances with edges as sharp as a needle.

And without giving herself away, she didn't move an inch when the ice lances began penetrating toward Noel.

"..!"

As surprised and unprecedented as it was, Noel got pierced through his leg, it was precisely the part where JoonChul was damaged before.

"Ack.. damn you!" Noel bawled at the top of his lungs, inhaling back the air to catch his breath and almost coughing.

After that, Noel moved his hand to control JoonChul like a puppet, making the puppet to do everything by itself.

JoonChul now a puppet had charged in to protect Noel, striking the ice lances and getting himself damaged by them. With lances punctured everywhere in his body, JoonChul was as dead as a doornail because he didn't react nor respond to getting hit.

"Ha! You're just hurting your own teammate!" Noel nervously and cowardly laughed, standing behind JoonChul.

In spite of getting laughed at, Frostina just stood there with her disinterested and focused expression. It was enough to make Noel doubt if he was safe or not being behind JoonChul.

'There's no way that she will do sneak attacks right?' Noel pondered as he slowly surveyed his surroundings.

Carefully looking around, Noel found nothing of sneak attacks which was why he was letting out a sigh of relief.

'Phew.. She's not that smart at attacking, is she? That would have been a good time to sneak on me.' Mused by Noel, he scoffed.

As he shifted his glance back to the front, thinking that he was safe and sound..

..He was pierced soundlessly to the chest.

"Kuek!!! W..wut?!" Noel helplessly stared at the lance stuck inside his chest, he groaned painfully.

When Frostina, holding on an ice lance, spoke in a somewhat haughty tone of voice, Noel's eyes shook greatly.

"You fell for it."

As soon as she ended her sentence, Frostina expressed a smirk on her icy face, letting Noel experience a chill down his spine as well as goosebumps.

'Why did father not—' Not permitting Noel to think for a second, Frostina threw the lance she was holding to Noel's heart.

Perfectly hitting the ice lance that was already inside Noel's chest, it deepened that lance to pierce further in as it started to poke out of his chest with blood falling out.

"You're wondering about my Liege?" Just as though Frostina read Noel's mind, she asked the boy while swaying her hand.

The hand she was waving, was slowly but surely forcing JoonChul to move toward her.

'That's right..! If her power can control ice much better than me.. of course, she can just take father away easily! How stupid can I be?!' Noel thought.

He desperately called out to JoonChul. "Father..!"

In view of the fact that his father wasn't in his control and that JoonChul wasn't by Noel's side, Noel's body trembled while he was blankly and ghastly gazing at JoonChul who had gone to Frostina's side.

"Father.. No! Come back..!" Noel's shaking lips spoke while trying to use his power to make JoonChul go back.

Weakly reaching his hand toward JoonChul, he tried to manipulate the ice around JoonChul but that was to no avail.

In that moment, Noel's eyes widened by the sight of JoonChul's body with many lances penetrated into him.

The hand that reached out to JoonChul, quivered in an unstable manner before Noel spoke with a terrified tone. "Did..I do that..?"

Finally got the chance to look at what he had done to his own father, Noel was faintly gaining his sanity, but at the same time, he was losing it by the thought of realizing his own behavior toward his father.

"Are you blind?" Frostina spoke coldly while she was close to finally holding JoonChul's hand.

"SHUT UP!" Noel, unable to calm himself, shouted at Frostina with his aggression.

Unaware that his emotion had prompted his surroundings to freeze by his uncontrollable Cryokinesis, Noel's voice caused tons and tons of echoes resounding inside this cave.

The ice pellets that Frostina had with her, soon vibrated like crazy. While they were drifting around in an absurd way because of Noel's emotion and voice, the ice pellets in no time got flung at Frostina, randomly missing her and hitting her at the same time.

Clearly, Frostina covered herself with her snowflake shield before she asked the insane boy. "And now you're resorting to berserk mode?"

"Shut up! Shut up! I don't need to listen to you!!" Noel yelled back at her loudly.

And for the worst case scenario, those ice pellets penetrated through JoonChul, mostly chipping off the ice around him.

Because of this, JoonChul for the most part had some of his body exposed out of his frozen ice and very soon, there was no ice surrounding JoonChul's body.

..Those ice were the only thing keeping him floating in the air.

As a result, when the ice was gone, there was nothing to control his corpse without the ice around him, causing Frostina and Noel's Cryokinesis unable to do as they please.

More than anything else, the ice that was keeping JoonChul's corpse from falling into the enormous hole below him, was no more.

Thus when Frostina noticed JoonChul falling, she swiftly exclaimed. "My Liege..! You! Boy! Stop it!"

While Frostina couldn't manage to subdue Noel because of how unpredictable his attacks were, JoonChul was undoubtedly going to descend into the hole.

"..! Father!" Noel uttered after becoming aware of JoonChul.

As for Frostina, she also called out to JoonChul after Noel ceased-fire. "My Liege!"

Simultaneously, they both sent out their own ice powers toward JoonChul's body in a hurry, hoping one of them could at least prevent him from falling into a deep hole.

'Even though I fell into this pit once, I didn't figure out how deep it was. So if my Liege falls now, I won't be certain if I can find him!' Frostina's thoughts flew in her head in a second.

Noel mused. 'I need to save my father! I have to!'

With their ice pellets flying toward JoonChul, surely both of them could rescue him, right?

..Despite their best efforts, their own skills collided momentarily, colliding into each other to disperse their own power before Noel's ice was the first to disappear.

"No way.." Frostina and Noel helplessly spoke at the exact time.

And as for Frostina though, her ice remained, but it was at its weakest state with only a few ice pellets left. Even with those two ice, she would have been able to bring JoonChul back.

..However, after Noel's and Frostina's skills impacted, it created a bang of tiny ice shards and gave rise to JoonChul's downfall.

"My Liege!" Not a fleeting moment of wasting her time, Frostina uttered as she leapt off of her snowflake platform.

In addition to that, Noel also did the same thing as Frostina, jumping off his platform after a very short moment of hesitating.

Then he called out to Joonchul desperately. "Father!!"

Once they descended to the bottom of the bottomless pit, the storm in the cave and the chaos soon disappeared along with them.

..However, the damage had already been done too much inside the cave. For the cave to have gone through such a destructive moment, it would definitely not last.