I couldn't let Austin have all the fun and standing still in the gateway wasn't the smartest spot on the battlefield to be.

After the initial surprise wore off, attacks began washing over me again, only this time with fewer numbers.

The defenders were split between attacking the spear-wielding light show or the man covered in ice doing nothing. It wasn't hard to guess who they went after first.

With my main weapon gone, I almost thought to resort to fisticuffs before I stopped. My hammer took hours to make and it wasn't something I could just whip up but I could still do a little something.

I could make a lesser version but it would most likely just break again returning me to the same dilemma. With that in mind, I did something different.

While working to make a new weapon, it didn't stop me from joining the fight. Without the need to hold 6 skills active at the same time, I shifted what skills I was using around.

[Fury(Un)] and [Avalanche(R)] were a given but the rest were free to switch around.

[Permafrost(Un)] blasted out of me with a decent amount of mana drastically lowering the temperature near me before [Hail(C)] started falling to hasten the effect.

I used [Ice Manipulation(C)] to pick up the pieces of hail before sending them spinning around me. My tried and true method.

With enough ice formed [Hail(C)] ended, freeing up something else to use.

[Ice Arrows(Un)] were launched at any and all near me that I wasn't attacking with my snowflakes.

I threw up an [Ice Wall(Un)] in front of a trio of charging warriors before using [Shatter(Un)]. Ice shards exploded out skewering the trio dead.

After pulling in more of the ice surrounding me, I condensed it down the most I could, creating a dense rod of ice. At one end I worked to flatten it out before sharpening one edge. The flat section was barely a foot long compared to the rest of the haft.

A 6-foot Glaive condensed into being in my hands, ready for battle. The force of hammer strikes would break any hammer I made so I opted for a slicing weapon, plus I wanted to use an old skill.

It had been a while since I used it and I wanted to give it a go once again. It used to be my most effective way to deal with many weak enemies.

[Heavy Weapon Proficiency(App)] still worked with my new weapon, luckily, but I was entirely unfamiliar with it. I wouldn't be able to use it to the best of my ability right away but it was enough for now.

We weren't facing anything too strong.

After the glaive finished freezing into shape, a quick twirl to test it was enough for me.

With a weapon in hand, I jumped into the melee.

Limiting my strength was difficult but being able to cut through what I was hitting lessened the strain. With my control over ice, I was able to create the weapon with a wicked sharp edge easing the process.

With my first swing, I decapitated the thrall rushing at me. Even as inexperienced as I was with the weapon, I could still swing it effectively. Seeing a head go flying wasn't the prettiest sight and it wouldn't be the last.

Recovered fully, I began cutting down enemies.

After the initial test of the weapon, I activated [Sweeping Slash(C)] for the first time in weeks.

A blade made of mana condensed on the edge of my glaive and extended my range out past the end of the blade. With my mana control and Law aiding it, the weakened strength wasn't a problem.

The mana blade extended my reach by another few feet. When I used the skill before I was limited to a foot. I was a lot better now.

Add to that weaker enemies, the blade from [Sweeping Slash(C)] was enough.

I had tried to find a use for the skill ever since switching to hammers as my main weapon but it went against the skills nature. It was built to be a slash, it was in the name, and I hadn't been successful in my attempts.

I figured it would take an upgrade or two to change it. Upgrades were hard to define. When we first got the system and were given skills and everything, I had assumed that upgrades only made the skill more powerful.

While true, that wasn't all they did. Take [Power Strike(C)] for example. Both Jonathan and I started with the same base skill but upgraded it into two different ones.

I upgraded it into [Heavy Blow(Un)] which increased the strength and weight of my swings while Jonathan upgraded it into [Sturdy Blow(Un)]. While both skills were similar, they were different enough to earn separate names.

His worked similar to mine but focused on sturdiness instead of heaviness. It went with his earth affinity well.

That proved that upgrading skills had some leeway to change. Both skills didn't change in their function though and both still worked to increase the power of blows like the base skill.

I wasn't sure how much I would be able to change [Sweeping Slash(C)] during an upgrade, but I would try nonetheless.

Even though the skill was only common, it sliced through the defenders easily enough. The mana blade was slick with blood after the first kill and only got worse as the numbers rose.

I hadn't been able to layer any skills onto the mana blade in the past but that changed now. [Frostbite(Un)] easily slid onto the mana blade from [Sweeping Slash(C)].

The mana blade turned a deeper blue and started giving wafts of frost into the air. The slash carried the frostbite effect deep into the gashes and worked to slow down any it hit.

Usually, with my hammer, [Frostbite(Un)] injected ice mana into where I hit and slowed the affected body part. With [Sweeping Slash(C)], the frost effect went only as deep as the cut did.

If the cut was shallow, the effect was surface level. If the cut was deep, the effect penetrated deeper. With the strength I had compared to my foes, entire muscle groups were frozen and made hard to move.

None had a law to defend or any decent defensive skills to stop it. My skill was free to do whatever it wanted.

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With so much practice with it, I mentally pushed the skill deeper into certain muscles, affecting entire limbs. With my control over the ice mana it was trivial to invade their bodies and freeze them from the inside.

Honestly, it was too easy. None of the warriors that charged me had decent skill with weapons and their attacks were amateur. It was almost robotic in nature.

No feints or tricks, only straightforward slashes and thrusts.

Not all of the defenders were on the same level and every once in a while, someone of worth would attack. Saying they were of worth was a stretch, but compared to everyone else here they were.

We didn't know where the so-called 'leader' was but that didn't stop us.

With the effect I had on the environment with [Permafrost(Un)] and the ice flying around me, Austin went off into a different part of the camp. I could fight with people around, but it took away from what I could really do.

Plus, focusing on not hitting friendlies was annoying.

The occasional [Solar Ray] would shoot out toward me but Austin knew I could tank them. He could freely use his skills without the worry of hitting me on accident.

Some of his more powerful skills would hurt, but nothing here required him to use those.

If he used a full-power attack on me with the intent to kill, I wouldn't be able to tank it like it was nothing. He was too strong for that. Plus his light had a penetrating effect that worked well on my armor.

Ice wasn't the best thing to use against light-based attacks. Some always made its way through. An annoyance I had while fighting with him for practice.

As I fought with the glaive, I got better with the weapon. It took wider swings and I had to learn to keep the edge straight, but it wasn't all that hard. I wasn't fighting masters of the sword or anything.

If I had to guess, I was fighting at a beginner level with the weapon not far from novice. All of my experience with the hammer didn't translate directly but they were both two-handed heavy weapons.

When to attack and how to use the haft effectively were similar for both. The extra range from the glaive took some extra work to use effectively.

The slicing motion took some getting used to. I was used to smashing anything that got close, and the movements necessary to aid in slashing were different.

It was a fun training session though. Using a hammer on these people would be overkill and if I still had it, almost disgraceful. They didn't deserve my hammer.

[Frost Armor(R)] shrugged off anything thrown at me and after we worked to decrease their number, even the intensity wasn't difficult to deal with.

After turning the area into the Arctic with [Permafrost(Un)] and my continued ice skills, any fire-based attacks were wiped out. Their control was pitiful and couldn't form their skills in the hostile environment.

It was quite fun for me to rip their skills apart. Fireballs fizzled out and any heat was sapped from the area. I couldn't do so against the Blaze Lions because of their number but I sure as hell could now.

Not all of the defenders were using fire and the ones that were weren't numerous enough to overpower me.

I practiced every day against Rachel and she put these people to shame.

Admittedly, I was a tad worried about Austin. He didn't have the same fortitude that I did and this was a different fight than against monsters. Skills were a different beast altogether.

A few lucky attacks punched through [Frost Armor(R)] but didn't make it past the metal underneath it but he didn't have [Frost Armor(R)]. He wore what was considered medium armor.

How Heavy, Medium, and Light were officially determined, I didn't know but his wasn't as robust as mine. His armor consisted of a breastplate and backplate that were one piece of metal before transitioning into hard leather everywhere else.

The only metal bits were the chest plate and the plates on his thighs. Everything else was covered in leather.

It kept the protectiveness of plate over the torso and upper leg and the mobility of leather on his arms and feet. The plates were smaller than normal too to accommodate the torso's articulation.

Only a small part of me was miffed Vinny made it and not me. It was fine.

Vinny did good work and the armor was well into the common tier, above everyone's here at least.

None of the defenders here had any common tier gear and that made the fight all the more easy. If I could slice through leather armor with my glaive, Austin could pierce through easily.

The penetrative power he could put into his spear was enough to get through some of the bosses we faced now, let alone under-leveled thralls.

Bodies froze as I cut swaths of them down and even more joined the pile through the snowflakes flying around me. What was once a funny idea turned weapon was now a killing machine.

Over the waves, my 'blizzard' had evolved. My increasing mastery over [Ice Manipulation(C)] let me use more and more at the same time while keeping them flying through the air.

My Law worked to give them some substance and make them not shatter as easily.

My fighting style was all aggression. I had the defenses to mitigate if not all, most damage, which let me focus entirely on attacking.

My glaive sliced through an attacker charging at me with a sword while a snowflake impaled a mage further off. By the time I yanked the snowflake out with [Ice Manipulation(C)] a different one sliced through an arm holding a bow.

When I had time in between glaive swings, [Ice Arrows(Un)] flew toward mages out of my reach. I targeted the ones still on the wall or farther away than the rest. If the arrow didn't kill them, [Shatter(Un)] did.

The arrows that penetrated their bodies exploded inside them causing ice shards to rip into their vulnerable insides. Having an arrow of ice explode inside you did not lead to a very long life.

I didn't even have to worry about using [Ice Fortress(Un)]. I didn't need a break to catch my breath or block off a way of attack. None of the attacks were strong enough to pressure me.

The bodies started to thin after continued battle and I was disappointed. With my stats as high as they were and my glaive, with the extension from [Sweeping Slash(C)], I could reap three to four people at a time if they were close enough together.

Clumps of people went down quickest with the slowest being the people on the other side of the camp. It took them a moment to traverse the entire camp and reach where I was fighting.

[Ice Arrow(Un)] got used a lot more frequently then. I could have leaped toward them and ended them with my glaive but I didn't see the point.

An [Ice Arrow(Un)] to the head or chest killed them all the same. It was almost sad how fast I was killing people.

As the last of the people running toward me fell, I was left standing on a mound of bodies. I had been treating it like a wave and it took me a second to recognize I was standing on human bodies, not monsters.

That quickly worked to wash away my battle fever. I had been getting into the fighting spirit but now that I had internalized what I had done, it was gone. I shouldn't feel proud. I didn't want to feel proud.

My hands shook back when the blood from the bandits splashed on me and now I was covered in it. The thought of human blood being on my hands made me so distraught then.

How quickly I had changed was disheartening.

With my mood fully soured, I walked to where I last saw Austin. His skills were hard to miss and he was closer to the other side of the camp. While I let the people come to me and stayed closer to the middle of the camp, he went to them.

I hadn't seen any of his skills go off and assumed he was finished with his side.

I was right.

He was surrounded with the same amount of bodies as I was and was covered in blood all the same.

He sat on a body with his spear propped against his shoulder. He was breathing heavily and I couldn't tell if any of the blood on him was his. He looked up when I came walking over but didn't get up.

"You good?" I asked.

"Yeah, as good as I can be." He said.

I knew he was dealing with killing people better than I was but even he was unnerved by the number around him.

Letting my armor dissipate got rid of most of the blood covering me. The only left after that was from the few splatters that got through cracks before it refroze, which wasn't a lot.

Austin didn't have it so easy and it would take a thorough washing to get rid of it.

"My hammer broke," I said in almost a whine. Even after what we just did my thoughts were on how it started. I wasn't deflecting what I felt now.

"I saw that," He said with a small chuckle.

I didn't say anything back. Austin looked around at the aftermath before slapping his thighs.

"Well, time to loot the place," He said without an ounce of shame.

How he went from unsettled, to excited about looting the place astounded me. I didn't say anything though. Neither of us wanted to talk about it right now.

"I bet I can find more stuff," Was all he said before running off.

I only hesitated for a moment before running off as well. The part of me that noted the blood and bodies wanted us to be more serious about it but I killed that part quickly.

Without the unseriousness and jokes, all that was left was the carnage and that was no fun for anyone.

It was his way of cutting through the feelings we were both no doubt going through.

He had a way of turning serious situations into unserious ones and I was glad for it.

I didn't want to spend any more time here than we had to and his competition worked to speed up the process.