“Do you really have to go?” Roya was filled with worry.
“They see this village as a threat and it wouldn’t be out of the question that they send a powerful force here. Don’t worry, we are not that weak. The less of them, the more at ease we will feel.” Ning Xin gave half the reason and the more persuasive reason.
Ebony understood that the two of them just wanted to fight a strong opponent. If he had a choice, he didn’t want to kill them since he could still gain skill levels and even experience though to a far lesser extent. This mindset would probably get him killed and it was too risky for the village.
Troll soldiers move in squads of 8.
In the previous war, about 70% of them were Masters at least level 230 but out of this percentage of Masters about a fourth were capped at 300 but haven’t evolved. They make camps that would have the minimum of 1 squad of Grandmasters. For whatever reasons, there are no mixed squads of Masters and Grandmasters. Probably because the weaker ones cannot keep up.
They had many more Kings than the Empire but most of their Kings weren’t that strong and the Empire’s noble Grandmasters could even fight more than one at the same time. The Trolls learnt to get good Journeymen, Master and Grandmaster evolution but most ignored the evolution to King. They would get a massive power up and they knew the Empire wouldn’t have enough Kings and even capable Grandmasters. The squads of King classed Trolls pressured the Empire a lot and the reason why Navin and the high-ranking nobles were locked down to some places.
Of course, they had some bonafide King Class Trolls that were their peak power but few of them.
No one had a clue how many Trolls were on the mainland, there was a rough gauge due to the town being destroyed but nothing conclusive as there could be many hiding in unpopulated places. Bubble Hills was one of these unpopulated places.
“Sasa strong!” Kiva cheered and punched out her tiny fists.
“Mmhmm.” The swordswoman gave the baby tickles.
“Take care. Please call us as soon as there’s trouble. We will be pretty nearby.” Ebony double-checked his equipment. He wanted to get Roya to reinforce the robe where Icicle rested as it was getting heavier and the robe seemed like it couldn’t bear its weight. It would have to wait.
“Alright…come back for dinner whenever you can.” Roya knew she couldn’t stop them.
His Glacial Models were ‘crude’ but they were surprised he could imbue his will into them. None of the non-fighters here could imitate him and make fighting sculptures.
They quietly left the village. Once out of sight, their trailer was brought out.
“I miss you!” Ning Xin jumped onto the sofa with the white tiger soft toy.
Ebony drove them down south but still within Hoarfrost Glade. It would be a long journey but he was planning to go down as far as they safely could before entering Bubble Hills and start scouring their way up north and back to the village.
His increase in Intelligence greatly increased the speed at which he could drive the trailer. Obviously, he had activated the illusion function. They would travel in peace.
They would spend a few hours running to train their movement skill, Ebony tends to run alongside the vehicle too. She didn’t have the stamina that he had. A large portion of the distance they covered was during the time they ran together.
It was peaceful for 2 days. He woke his housemate up by braking the vehicle and almost sent her knocking into the kitchen cabinet. Instead of complaining she got her weapons ready, put her mantle and boots on. She was so fast it really didn’t matter that she was unprepared.
She was practising the imbuement of different energies into ingredients as part of her new cooking regime. So far she didn’t get any positive results.
All six of his Glacial Models leapt back and hid behind the trailer, holding onto each other since there wasn’t space for all of them.
“What do you see?” She came over to the front seat and asked.
“4 squads. They are cooking boars over a campfire.” They were still hidden by the illusion and the Trolls don’t seem to notice them.
“Not attacking?”
“One of the squads is Grandmasters.”
“...We should be fine if we toss a bomb over and suppress them quickly.”
“Is that what your intuition is telling you?”
“Not exactly. It’s telling me I might not come out in one piece.”
“Then why?”
“Because you’re here.”
“Then I guess I have no choice but to be your accomplice.”
They got a little closer and started preparing their bomb as his Models were sent to surround them but far enough so that they wouldn’t be caught in the explosion.
It took a minute and a third of the fire mage’s manapool. He shot the bomb like a cannonball with the powers of his mind and kept the trailer immediately. Both of them repositioned themselves by splitting up left and right.
‘Hot damn…’ Ebony saw one of the Grandmasters who was sitting against a large tree standing up and sticking his chest out to take on the glowing ball of doom straight on.
A Grandmaster Troll averaged around 7 to 8 metres tall, absolute giants. He hugged the tiny bomb right before it fractured and burst open. The Troll used his body to take every broken ice fragment but his body wasn’t able to hold the explosion of flames and lightning from within. The mini gravity whirlpool was amazing at helping to compress her elemental mana. It also helped to spread the flames and the ice fragments.
The whole area of snow instantly evaporated and the trees turned to ashes almost just as quickly. All the giant lumps of muscles were relatively close together and none of them were spared. Ebony didn’t want to remove the effects of her heat and he was actually a little cautious around the dark flames.
Ebony was glowing from his low output of Frostblaze Augmentation but he turned that up to the limit and got covered in his flames. They usually didn’t need to speak with each other to know what move to take next. Charge!
But this time, Ebony voiced out “I’ll take the grandmasters”
There was not a single notification of a kill. The Troll took their bomb head-on and survived. As expected from a Vitality and Strength focused race.
It was a lucky situation that the squads stuck close together with their squad mates and the Grandmasters who were level 320 according to Ning Xin.
Ebony had over 3000 mana per minute to spare, he could sustain his domain within five metres for as long as he liked unless something was causing him to increase his mana consumption since it only required over 2100 mana per minute. He had spare for Stalwart Endowment while Frostblaze Augmentation, Chaotic Repusive Membrane would eat away his mana pool. The rest of his consumption would go to his active skills and powering the runes in Icicle.
He had to decompress mana for Frostblaze Augmentation as per usual since his body would be frozen solid if he didn’t do so. Stalwart Endowment needed to level more before he could increase the output of Frostblaze Augmentation.
He might have moved in too early as it was scorching hot but it was precisely the time to move in. The Trolls were cutting apart their own burnt flesh!
It might have been a little counterintuitive to start freezing them but it was much better to slow their recovery. Only the one that hugged the bomb had his chest blown wide open and was dying because his hard-to-melt ice was stuck deep in his body and he burst them apart to start freezing the Troll from within.
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One less trouble.
The other four were fine and dandy other than deep burns that they were tearing away from their body. Thanks to their prioritisation of removing burnt flesh, he was able to get in the middle of the squad without retaliation and spread his domain.
They were shocked by the additional pain when they moved their bodies to scrap their flesh, they reacted violently and caused even more pain for themselves as any movements were attacked by his domain’s mana vibrations. He focused the ice mana on freezing their injuries so that it couldn’t heal.
All his Glacial Models took one target and stabbed at their feet, they were strengthened in his domain. Ebony took the last one himself while he continued to burn freeze the one that took the bomb. Every greatsword under his command cast Frostblaze Cladding and successfully took advantage of the panic the Trolls were under from the shocking pain throughout their bodies when they moved.
It was going almost too well when a couple of Master warrior Trolls charged into his domain. His domain was small since he didn’t have that much mana and 2 of the Grandmasters were clubbed so hard they were sent out of his domain. He had to use more mana to expand his domain since these Trolls were gigantic and they filled up all that space. So he hadn’t been able to react to outside help.
Ebony didn’t move out and continued to suppress 6 of the Grandmasters. Although he was able to cast his domain remotely now, it was a new revelation and he probably wouldn't be able to suppress them that way.
He trusted his partner with every other Troll and the 2 bigger Trolls that were knocked out. Nothing else barged into his domain, and those that did were easily added to the group of frozen statues.
Ebony hammered into them to break them into pieces but the only one he killed so far was the one that took the bomb. The others were not completely frozen through and didn’t shatter with each strike. With Guided Path and Sonic Intrusion, it didn’t take long for him to shatter a layer of frozen flesh. He knew these Troll’s flesh were shockingly hard to penetrate with his ice. They were protecting themselves with their control over life force using it like mana reinforcement.
His Glacial Models melted and moulded themselves to stick the Trolls onto the ground so that they couldn’t leave his domain. The Trolls were able to move but their movement caused the frozen flesh to shatter and more ice started to freeze the layer beneath. This repeated and they finally understood that they would survive longer if they remained still.
It didn’t change the fact that it only bought them more time to suffer in silence. They couldn’t even scream.
It got to the point where Ebony left his domain to back Ning Xin up. The two Trolls that escaped his domain were mostly healed up which was a huge problem. Within his domain, 3 Glacial Models were reformed with the mana inside to continue the smashing of the frozen Trolls.
Most of his mana was gone due to the expansion of his domain necessary to swallow up the giant Trolls.
As for the fight outside his domain. 3 weaker squads, despite being further from the blast sustained far greater injuries. The burns were bone-deep and their movements were jerky from the lightning that was infused as well. To the swordswoman, they were just unmoving targets like Ebony’s.
Unlike Ebony though, she had impressive offensive capabilities with weaker opponents. She easily killed 2 squads before the 2 Grandmasters were released from his domain.
Even with the reinforcements, she managed to completely annihilate the lackeys. The fact that the 2 reinforcements were originally weakened by him helped a lot.
By the time he was ready to help her, the 2 Trolls were back at their peak state.
There was a trait of the Trolls that the Frost Elves told them to utilise. If one was a warrior, they would almost always prefer to split off and fight one on one rather than fighting in teams. The Trolls supposedly had great teamwork since they fought in groups of 8 but they were very focused on individual strength and feats of strength. In a setting with few opponents, there was a very good chance of breaking them apart into singular opponents.
This was pretty good for them. They might have gotten amazing at synchronising their fighting styles but it was true that they countered each other to some extent.
Sadly, when Ebony came to back Ning Xin up by pulling one of their enemies away they stuck together.
“Warrior, fight me.” He didn’t think when he taunted but it didn’t work anyway.
“Not warrior. Get lost!”
‘They hate me huh.’ They evaded his charge, not even letting him get close. One of them pushed Ning Xin away and they backed off before he could reach them.
Although they had ridiculous levels of strength, their speed was not something that allowed them to run from him forever. Not with Ning Xin on their tails.
They were indeed weak to temperatures both hot and cold. Ebony didn’t get to observe their normal regeneration speed but these Grandmasters were regenerating about twice as fast as the first Troll they encountered when under fire. He could imagine them to be nightmares without fire magic.
He could practically stop their healing as long as he could freeze their wounds and stop them from tearing away the frozen parts. They did seem to have some form of enhancement that forcefully stops his ice from digging but his flames could do the job.
It seemed like even with the level and skill level gap, his compressed tier 2 enhancement and Ning Xin’s fire enhancement together with a tier 3 life force based enhancement was enough to compete against them. He knew he had about half these particular Grandmaster Trolls’ Strength while Ning Xin barely lost out in strength when her Mortal’s Pulse kicked in. He wouldn’t lose out in stats if his body could withstand a greater stress of compressed mana so he didn’t need to decompress Frostblaze Augmentation.
“Icicle, are you hungrier than usual?” He twisted Icicle’s body to face him. He needed to feed his greatsword more mana than usual.
The reaction was more violent than usual with the shining blue light glowing.
“Did your mother do something to you?” A layer of ice formed on the blade’s flat body.
“You got less injured, she improved your durability runes?”
The layer of ice was reabsorbed. He assumed that he was right. Icicle was made or Rare quality wood but he abused it more than a normal Grandmaster warrior would with his strength.
Kong Jing probably noticed how badly damaged Icicle got after a few fights with the hardy golems. Even so, there were cuts and dents in Icicle. Hacking ice wasn’t gentle on it. It was slowly regrowing and piecing itself together. Faster than he initially assumed when Kong Jing said it would be slow.
The battle could’ve gone very differently. Like mana, life force is also not an unlimited resource. The first bomb consumed a lot of the Trolls life force, the amount used to protect themselves from his freezing wasn’t little either. If they focused on breaking free or used that skill that increased their strength or muscles even more, it might have been better for them.
The recent opponents he had were really undermining his abilities and that was good too. His mana was supposedly so powerful, if he lightly pokes Icicle into a monster the entire creature would be rock solid almost instantly. The ice mana inside Icicle was far too condensed for a normal creature. The Topaz Golems were earthen creatures, highly resistant and even had the weird consumption topaz mana within their bodies that made freezing them impractical.
The Trolls had their life force enhancement which to be fair, was supposedly common in most higher-level physically inclined monsters.
“Domain. Cheat, but I think it's not complete.”
“The consumption is still too high for me. It increases vastly when there's any struggling inside and the number of targets also increases the effort I need to keep it stable. Difficult enough that my core skill was unstable.” Ebony answered truthfully.
The mental effort required against these Trolls were far greater than he thought, domains were extremely mentally straining. It was due to his first Core Skill that he could even maintain it.
This made him recall Mark’s domain, it was one that required little to no mental effort to maintain. Just a ton of mana that he supplies with the help of fire mana ores. There were definitely mana efficiency runes on his spear too.
“Are you sure…I didn’t see you having any trouble with the spell.”
“Really, eight of them were pushing it. That was why 2 of them were knocked out so easily.”
“Still unfair.”
She was adamant and she was right. Within his domain, he felt stronger than ever. It felt like he could take on far stronger opponents. Now that he could cast it relatively stably, he could push its level further and faster.
“You have a ton of life force, why not try creating something like a life force domain that sets up whenever you use Mortal’s Pulse. You pulse your heart with so much energy, I bet a lot of it just dissipates into the surroundings.”
“That’s…a great idea. I’ll hold back on my second core skill slot a bit longer.”
The advantage of fighting stronger opponents was definitely the chance to allow their skill levels to catch up to their Class levels. Like normal people.
They cleaned the place up a little, including burying the Trolls’ remains.
Just before he pulled their trailer out something black flash across the corners of his sight.
‘That was Obsius right? Too fast to be a normal cysaru, she must have been doing well.’ Ebony’s perception was good enough to tell from the tiny details despite the speed that the black figure leapt through the skies.
“Is there something up there?”
“No, I just saw an acquaintance fly across Bubble Hills. Let’s go.”
“Not gonna say hello?”
“It’s okay. We’re going to Bubble Hills anyway.”
He was happy they had the illusion over their trailer to conceal them. The area of Bubble Hill they were going towards was usually avoided. If Korben’s assessment was that they should be careful there, then he was going to try to be careful.
The landscape was gentle and easy to traverse but over the next two days, the sky kept getting darker.
“That’s cool.”
Ebony looked up at the sky that seemed to split in two by a straight line of black clouds. Everything ahead was bathed in darkness and they were at the edge where plenty of daylight reached.
He turned left towards Bubble Hills, staying along the edge and not driving into the shade.