Ice and poison

A deafening explosion rang out across the battlefield.

A whirlwind of ice rose from the ground, as if something was breaking free from its chains. Sharp shards of ice like wolf teeth rose around the footsteps of a person who had slowly walked through the battle lines of bones.

Leif.

A black cloak with a white raven pattern fluttered in the wind like the banner of a cold storm about to sweep through the once-magnificent capital.

Ice-blue eyes glanced indifferently at Siegfried, who had a pair of sapphire wings, with soulless black eyes and the strength of a dragon that had been raised from the ashes.

"If I can't negotiate with someone who used to be a human…"

"…then I'll deal with a corpse."

He raised his hands, and the golden artifact shone. Blue-purple light flashed in Leif's eyes, the forbidden magic circles surrounding him like sickles of light spiraling into the air.

He couldn't wait any longer.

He couldn't sit and watch his men fall one by one. He couldn't continue to be an audience for this game between unknown forces and far-fetched plans.

"Half-dragon..."

"Do you know that I was cold enough to kill a real dragon?"

A spell blasted the ground. Leif - the forbidden magician with the element of Ice, could no longer maintain his usual calm. He had decided to take action.

And when the leader of the Black Crow stepped onto the battlefield, the coldness suddenly increased tenfold.

Ice artifacts poured down from the sky like sparkling meteors, each piece carrying brutally compressed manas. At Leif's feet, a hexagonal matrix appeared, not rotating, not burning, simply still like a frozen lake.

The silence of death.

And so...

The one who once led a legion in the war of liberation, the one who was called a traitor to the light, now walks towards a ghost from ancient times.

The sound of metal clashing, the screams of death echoed throughout the newly destroyed land. And amid that chaos, there was a strong metallic stench and lightning, the smell of burning flesh, hot blood, and distorted mana.

Siegfried charged into the battle. No weapons. He didn't need them.

With a wave of his hand, a blue-green poisonous mist covered the three warriors in front. Their skin suddenly shriveled like rotten fruit, in an instant.

The armor melted like wax under fire, then condensed into heavy drops that fell. The sound of blood evaporating was like boiling water in the middle of winter.

The armor turned into liquid, and the skin also flowed down with the armor. The bones were corroded, and the internal organs were also mixed with the black poison.

Every time he flapped his wings, the poison spread layer by layer, like a tsunami crashing down. The arm of a lucky archer escaped, but from the elbow down had turned into a blackened mass of slime, the exposed bones glistening under the poisonous light.

Another knight who had just raised his sword was swept past by his lifeless gaze, but the young man's pupils suddenly shattered, blood gushing from the corners of his eyes and ears.

Siegfried did not shout, did not speak, did not scream. He only killed. Blood soaked into his boots, dyeing the entire battlefield the color of rust and despair.

The skeleton army that followed him also rushed in, colliding with the Black Crow and the Empire forces, like two muddy red rivers pouring into each other. Blades collided, bones shattered, and blood flowed like a flash flood.

Behind him, Leif saw everything. The corners of his lips were tightly pursed. His face was cold, but the hand holding the ice sword could not help but tighten. He was not afraid of death, he was afraid of losing.

Leif stood amid the blood-stained sky and earth, his black cloak fluttering in the demonic wind. In his hand, a small golden coin burned brightly like the sun, framed in metal. His hand flicked it.

"Keng."

The sharp sound of metal hitting fate. The coin spun around, swirling in the air as if slowing down, then fell back into his hand.

But this time, it was no longer just a coin. Each ancient rune burned brightly on its red, yellow, and orange surface, as if it were bursting into a dance of light.

Those glowing engravings slithered out of the coin, turning into invisible rune chains, gliding through the air and wrapping around Leif and Siegfried.

A faint "click" sounded among the layers of formations: The deal was sealed. The soul was wagered, and life and death could not be undone.

Siegfried seemed not to react, of course, with a body that had been controlled, where was his soul to be afraid?

But it was that soullessness that made Leif certain that he was not fighting a human. But an unnamed tragedy.

No more rituals were needed. Leif pulled the ice sword out of the magical space, charging straight at Siegfried.

The wind whistled as the wings of his cloak whipped against the wind. The blue tip of the sword glowed with each heartbeat, no longer cold but burning like the life he was pouring into it.

'Explosão inter-Bang.'

The words were like a bolt of lightning that tore through space, but they did not resound out of his mouth, but exploded in Leif's mind with the speed of instinct, without thinking.

There was no time for hesitation, no gap between thought and action.

The ice-blue sword in Leif's hand drew a sharp arc, drawing a slash in the air that burned with blue light, like the slash of an ice god venting his anger.

The air where the blade passed through exploded into thousands of pieces of eternal ice, dense with magic and hatred. Each small piece was as sharp as a knife tip, reflecting the light and hope of those standing nearby.

BOOM!

A series of consecutive explosions occurred immediately after the first slash, as if Leif had not only swung his sword but had also pulled the trigger of a magical cannon.

The skeleton soldiers standing nearby were immediately blown away by the pressure like rag dolls, broken pieces of armor, and broken bones flying like dust on the battlefield.

Siegfried, with the combat reflexes engraved in his bones from his dragon clan, raised his hand to block the attack. The blue dragon scales on his arm, which had once resisted both fire and poison, were covered in ice, solidifying in less than a second.

At the end of the spell, his entire arm exploded with a terrifying crack, and each piece of dragon scale shattered into cold dust.

A trail of ice from that slash extended behind him, plowing up the ground and freezing the blood that had yet to seep deep.

The first strike, while not killing Siegfried, was enough to make the god of death pause for a moment.

Leif paused for no more than half a heartbeat after the slash. The swing of the icy blade should have been his first fatal blow in this fateful battle. But—

There was no blood. No groans. No trace of pain.

There was only a casual wave from Siegfried.

BOOM!

Half the battlefield shook as if swept by the claws of an ancient god. The skeletons of both sides—friends and foes, no one could tell—were blown away, shattered, crushed, like ashes blown into a furnace of the mortal world.

The skeletons were swept away without a scream, without a sound of pain, only the chilling silence of corpses... for the second time.

The eternal ice that covered Siegfried's hands, what had been supposed to be a punishment, now flew off his body like a piece of foil turned over by the wind. The deep blue scales glistened, harder than any metal, hidden beneath the ice, not a single scale chipped. No cracks. No burn marks. No bruises.

As if he had merely waved his hands dry after washing them.

Leif leaped back, gliding like a bird through the rising smoke, his eyes narrowed, not from fear, but from the terrifying alertness of a seasoned warrior.

He knew. He felt it.

'Didn't reach the core… The attack just now only touched the skin. And the 'skin' of the dragon race is thicker than metal…'

He tightened his grip on the hilt of his sword. The ice on the ground had yet to melt, but the temperature around him had become scorching hot, not because of the fire, but because of the suffocating heat.

Siegfried still stood there, like a stone statue carved under the flames of war. His deep black eyes were unfocused, empty like the bottom of an abyss.

A faint laugh escaped from Leif.

"You're scared, aren't you? I'm scared too. That ancient dragon blood is a bastard."

No dialogue. No negotiation. Only the sound of steel clashing echoed like thunder in the moonless sky.

Two figures, one pure blue ice, one dark purple,

intersected like lightning in a magical storm.

From afar, one could only see long, thin streaks of light, as thin as hair, crossing the battlefield sky, tearing the ground, leaving scorch marks like the whip of an angry god.

Leif, the ice sword in his hand, emitted each pulse like a rapid heartbeat, continuously pulling out and slashing down, each attack was wrapped in hundreds of tiny runes.

Siegfried, who no longer had a soul, responded like an ancient fighting machine, not dodging, only slashing back with absolute precision, each swing of his arm leaving aftershocks tearing through the wind, each turn of his body causing the poisonous gas to spread like the fog of death.

In the eyes of outsiders, if anyone dared to look, this was no longer a battle between people, but two rays of life and death burning the space between them. Each time they collided, a flash of light appeared, and then the sky was torn into pieces.

One was ice blue. One was dark black. One carried an eternal cold air. One had a poisonous gas that burned the soul.

They just kept intersecting, chasing, destroying, roaring, drawing a dance of death on a battlefield that was no longer peaceful.

And amidst all of this, not a single word was spoken. There was only killing intent, magic, and increasingly brutal attacks.

Siegfried swung his arms, his five fingers digging into the ground, the air vibrating like a drumbeat. The ground beneath his feet cracked open, dark blue veins glowing from the ground like deadly spider webs.

Sharp thorns sprouted from the ground, long like sacrificial stakes, glittering with poisonous light, piercing anything in their path.

Leif retreated while casting a spell. He couldn't let himself be surrounded. His arms swung up, the ground beneath his feet instantly freezing, spreading like a tidal wave.

The thick layer of eternal ice swallowed the poisonous soil, freezing the thorns in mid-air. Leif jumped onto a pillar of ice that had just emerged, his eyes fixed on the roaring dragon descendant.

Siegfried stood in the middle of the sea of thorns and ice. His right hand swung up, poisonous blood dripping down like a chant. The air cracked open, a thick blue energy gathered, wrapping around his hand.

That was when Leif understood. He was absorbing magic.

Every descendant of the dragon race is blessed by nature. They are born from mana, live by mana, and master mana. For other races, mana is a power they have acquired through training.

They see mana in a certain form and application. But the darlings of mana, like the descendants of the dragon race and the dragon race are different. Mana is what they want.

If it belongs to others, it belongs to others, if it belongs to others, it belongs to oneself. It is also easy.

Another ice spell from Leif was just created, but was deflected. Siegfried turned that attack into a poisonous ice spear, throwing it back.

The beam of light that had just touched the ice exploded immediately. The ice pillar Leif was standing on exploded like broken glass, and his entire body was thrown backwards.

Leif spun in the air, his hand gripping his sword tightly. He landed on the ice on the tip of his toes, sliding on the ice like he was gliding on the wind. The magic circle emerged from the footprints, following, spinning like a snowstorm.

Siegfried did not move. A pair of soulless eyes, but always aimed at the target. He chanted the spell, and a small space hole appeared on his shoulder, releasing a dense, poisonous wind. Leif's skeleton soldiers in the distance immediately twitched.

Leif shouted loudly, and his left hand pulled out a coin. The rune flashed again. A vertical ice pillar blocked the wind. It shattered in an instant, but it was enough to help him escape from the poisonous zone.

There was no time to wait. He jumped high, launching an attack from the air. The sword slashed down like it was tearing apart space, and each cut was a sharp ice explosion.

Shards of ice clung to each sword strike, exploding a few times after, creating a chain of explosions.

Ice smoke covered everything. But Siegfried's figure still appeared, not a scratch on his scale. He advanced, leisurely as if he did not have the slightest bit of urgency.

His right hand had gathered a blue poisonous tornado, condensing enough to erase the entire area in a few seconds. The wave of his hand sent a large chunk of terrain flying behind Leif.

The ice shattered like glass and crashed into the rocky mountains. The hundred or so skeleton soldiers behind him smoked and fell like dust.

Leif gritted his teeth, a cold glint appearing in his eyes.

'He… is killing his faction.'