To Alistair's surprise, the fight wasn't winding down at all. The Uxrus's vitality was impressive to behold. It was riddled with holes, and its neck muscles had pretty much been sawed away at this point. It would not be long before the damage to its vertebra would end its flailings.
Riseth's barriers had significantly weakened, and with her tail wrapped around the monster's neck, she could not teleport to avoid attack. Relying on her nimbleness and skill only got her so far against a Grade 9 monster. Her energies were dwindling, yet Riseth was unperturbed as she continued her lethal dance around the monster. The beast clawed at the bladed whip coiled around its neck, trying to get a hold of it, but only dug into its flesh in vain as the chain passed through its claws yet stayed in place.
The Uxru's frustration was palpable as magical energies violently unleashed from its body in a shockwave, shattering Riseths weak barrier and forcing her to let go and teleport into the distance.
The monster launched loose rocks toward Riseth at high velocity. Alistair anxiously observed her swift dodges and teleportations, evading the attacks before swiftly closing the gap to resume her assault on the creature. Riseth typically played more of a support role compared to Alistair. He had hoped her space blades would inflict more significant damage on the monsters, perhaps even enough for her to gain the upper hand. Yet, despite the intensity of the battle, she maintained an easy smile. However, that smile vanished in an instant when the Uxrus landed a lucky strike, shattering her barrier and tearing through her armor with its claws. The force of the blow sent her tumbling across the snowy terrain.
Alistair's fury surged, and he moved to intervene, but she halted him with a firm command over their [Akashic Link], freezing him in place.
As she struggled to her feet, blood seeping from a wound in her flank and the corner of her mouth, she winced, having struck her head on a stray rock during the fall. Meanwhile, the monster charged at her in a blind rage. She gave a toothy smile, her teeth stained by her blood as a flash of light blinded the charging monster. After teleporting out of the monster's path, she raised her hands as both raw arcane magic formed into a bolt warping space around it. Disoriented, the monster flailed where it had last seen her, but to no avail, as Riseth charged her attack. As the monster's vision slowly restored, it turned to face her; the bolt shot from her hands, crashing into the creature in a sizeable arcane explosion that tore tiny fractures into space, creating a miniature rift that tore into the fabric of her opponent's existence. The Uxrus tried to pull itself free, but its arm was sucked in and ripped out of its sockets before the tiny rift closed. Riseth readied herself to attack the monster despite her drained state, but the Uxrus collapsed and died, having spent the last of its life force.
Alistair was at a loss for words. He had never witnessed her use or even train an attack like this before and suspected she had been honing the ability in secret for some time. It was a terrifying display of power, especially considering their current grade.
Teleporting next to her, Alistair felt the urge to embrace her, but he hesitated upon seeing her healing her injuries with a familiar wild grin. He could sense that she had obtained the [Primal Revelation] title. Turning to him, she maintained her smile.
"Welcome to the club of monsters," Alistair quipped as he channeled mana into his armor and gently placed his hand over her wound to assist her in healing.
"What the hell was that skill?" Alistair asked, looking at her inquisitively.
"That was the skill I developed to reach legendary," she said with a mischievous smile, her eyes gleaming with satisfaction.
Alistair was impressed, feeling a twinge of both admiration and a hint of envy. He hoped he could advance his defensive skill to legendary tier during their trip. Alistair sensed that he was incredibly close to upgrading it and could almost taste it. He desperately wanted the title of Legendary Skill Expertise because once he left the trial, he wouldn't benefit from the system's perks and reduced requirements anymore. Mitania revealed that the system implemented this to compensate for the mentoring and nurturing skills available to individuals within influential and powerful groups across the multiverse. Any lowered requirements sticking around after he left the trial would be incredibly valuable.
"Why all the secrecy?" Alistair asked, genuinely puzzled by her decision to hide her newfound skill.
"I was waiting for the perfect moment to unveil it. Now, shower me with praise," she teased, a mischievous glint in her eyes.
He gently lifted her chin with his cupped hand, planting a kiss on her lips despite the taste of blood.
"Well done, Trouble. I'll do my best to keep up," he replied with a grin as she blushed.
After securing the beast to be dismantled later, they lingered for a while until Riseth had healed her injuries. A large pack of Nari, drawn by the commotion of multiple fights, attempted to attack them, but Alistair released King to deal with them as the wyvern grew restless. They had turned invisible to let King have his fun undisturbed. Despite the wyvern being at a similar level to the individual Nari, he was much more powerful than the whole pack combined. Alistair had dedicated a lot of time training the wyvern in magic whenever he taught his school classes. It was slow-going, but the wyvern had eventually learned to dispel magic, which made the Nari's ability to dive into snow useless as he skewered them with his steel-like conjured feathers.
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Alistair watched as one of the Nari tried to leap at King, only to be snatched out of the air by King's large jaws, snapping the creature in half.
"Well, that's gruesome to watch," Alistair commented, casting a privacy sphere around them as he watched the wyvern dispatch yet another of the feline monsters with his blade-like tail.
"At least he is enjoying himself," Riseth commented dryly.
"Despite all our titles and hard work, King still outmatches both of us in terms of stat point total," Alistair remarked with a touch of admiration coloring his voice.
"Guess he's just a big, beastly boy," Riseth quipped, a wry smile playing on her lips as she observed the carnage unleashed by the wyvern.
As the fight dwindled to an end, they dispelled the invisibility and privacy sphere, observing King devouring the last of the monsters with a voracious appetite. Alistair stored King back in his plane before leading the way toward the glaciers adjacent to the mountains. Their journey remained uninterrupted by further encounters with monsters.
Upon crossing the border between the mountains and the glaciers, the air transitioned to extreme dryness, accompanied by a notable decrease in the whistling of the wind. Instead, the sounds of creaking ice and flowing water filled the air. At the edge of the river system, the glacier served as a pivotal point, its icy tendrils connecting to a vast network of waterways. This intricate system resembled a sprawling spider web, interlinking various local biomes and facilitating the flow of water between lakes and sea biomes. Alistair couldn't help but speculate about the intense competition among aquatic species for dominance over these waterways. Occasionally, he had witnessed colossal beasts clashing in the narrow rivers, wreaking havoc on the surrounding area in their relentless pursuit of supremacy.
"We should be able to find some magic-infused ice and some beasts that could carry a core for Melissa's ritual here," Alistair remarked as he landed on a somewhat flat sheet of ice. Fortunately, the passive effect of his temporal combat reflexes helped him maintain his footing, allowing him to provide support to Riseth as she slipped upon landing, steadying her without her falling.
With a grateful smile, she managed to maintain her balance. "Does it matter what kind of ice we find as long as it's magical and the concepts match up?"
"That's my understanding, but we should aim for quality," Alistair replied, scanning the surroundings with his conceptual awareness.
It didn't take Alistair long to locate a pocket of magically dense ice concept deep within one of the glaciers. However, his attention was diverted by something else. The area appeared nearly abandoned, save for a massive corpse lying nearby. The creature was a [Skeljaskrímsli] according to his identify skill. A quadrupedal being entirely concealed beneath a thick marine blue, reflective coat of shells. As he touched the creature, the shells rattled and scraped against each other. Despite its mammalian body structure beneath the shells, the creature exhibited clear aquatic traits, evident in its gills and webbed feet. Strangely, its body remained unharmed, except for its damaged brain, blood flowing from its trunk-like snout, mouth, and eye sockets, suggesting that its demise came from a powerful attack targeting the beast's mind. The surrounding ice bore the marks of its frenzied thrashing, a testament to the creature's violent end. It had a tail that seemingly doubled as a club and a fin for it to propel itself when in water.
Its core had been extracted through its maw, presumably by telekinesis, crushing most of the organs between it and the makeshift exit. The monster had seemingly faced a terrible matchup. Alistair knew how scary mind-based creatures could be.
"It's a mind-based monster, and it's a scary one, too. I'm not exactly well suited to face a tier 9 mind-based monster, and neither are you." Alistair concluded after inspecting the corpse.
"We should fetch the body and the ice crystals and make our exit for now. I'd prefer to confront it after advancing to the next grade," Riseth suggested, as she began manipulating the glaciers with her space manipulation skill, causing them to crack open and eventually reveal the dense pocket of ice crystals contained within.
Alistair, in the meantime, had stored the large body of the Skeljaskrímsli left behind and kept a lookout for the monster that killed the shelled beast. As they were about to head out, Alistair and Riseth spun their head as they felt sudden bloodlust directed at them, but when they checked, nothing was there, and the bloodlust was gone.
"What the fuck was that?" Alistair asked.
"Something smart enough to know when to run and hide," Riseth said quietly.
"Damn, this might be an intelligent creature using mind attacks that makes it even more dangerous. It's a good thing we agreed to only come here together because whatever this creature is would probably try and ambush us if we were alone," Alistair remarked, his tone tinged with concern.
"Let's leave. There are no ice monsters here, and I'd rather not get ambushed," Riseth said as she grabbed Alistair by his arm before taking to the air.
Riseth lead him towards the north behind one of the glaciers before turning them invisible and giving Alistair a meaningful look.
"We should see if the creature shows itself. I'd rather ambush it than the other way around," Riseth said over the link as they peaked over the edge of the glaciers toward the location they had just left.
They waited there, taking a bit higher to the air concealed by invisibility. However, no matter how long they waited, nothing seemed to show itself. Alistair scanned the area with his conceptual awareness but could not spot the monster either. Riseth could not spot the monster either. Alistair even summoned King, as he had much higher senses than either of them, but after circling the area, he had not spotted any living monsters in the vicinity, only corpses showing signs of having their minds squashed like overripe fruit and their cores extracted through orifices.
"I'm pretty sure it fled or has skills to hide itself. Let's come back here once we reach the next grade. I still need to kill some beasts, and there is a tundra to the southwest we could check for the ice cores we need.