❆❆❆❆Chapter Thirteen❆❆❆❆

The Thrill of Battle

[Snow]

The ground around the tornado was coated in ice, similar to the area she entered this world from. The air from the typhoon was intense, and its temperature was freezing. As Snow stared at the dancing winds, its blue light reflected off her face, and the frostblade at her side vibrated stronger and stronger.

Snow approached the tornado wall and saw someone on the other side, her mother.

“Mom!?”

The figure of her mother just stood watching her from behind the tornado wall. Snow ran up to the wind wall and touched it with her hands. When her fingers made contact with the wind, golden lines flashed across her arms. The wind of the tornado felt like a solid wall, but Snow was able to push into it.

The wind wall was a few feet thick with shards of ice, and debris flew along, slicing past her the further she went in.

“Mom! You came for me! I’m coming!” The tears on her face were being supplemented with more and more blood. The image of her mother was the only thing in her mind as the debris scraped over her clothes and skin.

Snow’s head emerged on the other side of the wall, and the rest of her body followed suit.

She crossed over.

Now past the whirlwind of death, Snow’s collapsed to the ground. Her body was cut up, her hair was uneven, and her clothes were tattered. Her fingers squeezed the ground. She felt soft grass.

When she looked up, she saw where she was at. She was in the eye of the tornado, but it was beautiful. Flowers were growing all over; it smelled like spring.

“Mom?!” Snow called out. But, There was no one else here. Only her.

Snow pulled herself together and stood up. She noticed a rock formation in the middle of this tornado’s eye with a faint light streaming down it. The light fed into a small rift in the sky that contained stars and darkness. The rock formation itself was weirdly shaped and rather large. Around the rock formation was a ring of symbols on the ground, similar to that secret seal in regalia.

If the two were similar, perhaps this could be a way back?!

Snow quickly ran up to the glowing symbols indented onto the ground. When she got close, the rock formation began to shake violently. The pile of rocks was combining into something big. Snow backed up and watched as it constructed itself into a new form.

It was a stone golem.

This golem must have been the source or protector of the tornado’s power. It had two legs, two arms and towered over her. Golems, to her memory, harbor a rune somewhere on their body that acts as a control mechanism. It might shut off the tornado if she turned it off or broke the rune. Snow examined the tall golem and wondered if it was hostile.

The golem slammed both its arms down in her direction, but she jumped away in the nick of time.

It was hostile.

Snow drew the frostblade.

“Alright, I can do this.”

The golem unleashed a magical screech as it started to stomp toward her.

Snow could feel the frostblade’s power as it was growing into a new shape. She wondered which form it would take. The blade shortened and thickened into a…

Simple shortsword?

Snow’s thoughts were interrupted when the golem launched itself at her. She rolled to the right as the arm slammed the space she was just standing in.

Snow took off and ran around the golem while examining it. It had to have some weakness, and she already knew what it was; Between its joints were ball bearings that blatantly radiated frost magic. If Snow stabbed into them, she had the feeling they would break. So that was her plan of attack.

Snow stood in wait as the golem rushed towards her again. She kept her nerve and stood still. The golem made a similar attack as she predicted, and Snow hopped to the side, avoiding the slam of its arm. She yelled as she lunged at the golem, thrusting the frostblade into its arm joint.

When the sword made contact, it got about an inch in, as far as snow could physically push. Then the sword blade exploded in length, penetrating deeper into the joint.

“Woah!”

Snow twisted and ripped the sword downward as hard as she could. Finally, the ball bearing broke, dropping half of the golem’s arm to the ground.

“Yes!” She celebrated.

The golem, in response, screeched lower as it swung at her. Snow scrambled backward, avoiding it. The golem continued its assault as Snow continued to dart back and forth like a roach, trying not to be smashed.

Soon, its attacks began to repeat, and Snow immediately noticed. She no longer darted back. Instead, she charged forward and dodged with close calls: Left, Right, then under. Her heart was pounding. She didn’t know if it was adrenaline or a death wish. On the contrary, there was somewhat of a thrill that had formed inside of her heart. She didn’t know why but she didn’t feel fear of this enemy. It was, in fact, the opposite. She daresay she was having fun. The thought that any attack from this giant could kill her only increased her focus instead of diminishing it.

Snow knew she was capable of beating it. She felt like a child poking a lion with a stick. The challenge of defeating an opponent five times her size and a hundred times her weight only made her want to conquer it more. She didn’t need frost power to dodge the attacks, and the sword did all the work. She had everything she needed to win. She focused up. She stood dangerously calm, dangerously focused.

“After this spell of three attacks, it’s going to go for that overhead slam." One good thing about fighting this massive golem was that she didn’t have to worry about swordplay. She literally just needed to dodge and stab the weak points. She held the sword like a dagger and jumped away, spinning. When the golem’s arm hit the ground for the overhead attack as she predicted, Snow was already mid-air and drove her sword into its joint. The blade made contact by an inch and then exploded in length, just like before. She ripped the joint off and its second arm fell.

“Is this what battle is?” A grin formed on her face.

The fact that she was only a tiny figure compared to this golem, and yet she was capable of maiming it to this extent, exhilarated her.

The golem had two half arms now. Now it was time to disable its legs. With explosive confidence, Snow yelled at the golem.

“Come on, is that all you got?!”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

She was never weak. She was just fighting the wrong way the entire time. Trying to rely on a power or technique was the wrong way to go about things. If she knew the extent of her opponent, she could use whatever attack she wished to get the job done, power or no power.

The golem fell back and rolled upside down before standing again. Its half arms were now half legs. A horizontal line cracked across its stomach as it spun like a spinner toy.

“Woah, you can do that?”

The spinning death came her way. This was new, Snow didn’t know how to dodge this yet, and it came at her incredibly fast. She crossed her arms in a block as it slammed into her, sending her flying into the tornado wall.

The wind wall felt solid when she crashed into it. The shards in the wind cut into her back. It felt like she was getting slashed by countless whips before it flung her back in. Snow fell to the ground panting.

“That.. was nothing.” She gritted her teeth and replied, more to comfort herself than to declare a fact.

Stomping boomed, and when she looked up, the golem ran right at her. Snow prepared herself, and the golem used the spinning attack again. Snow was in the same predicament. If she couldn’t avoid it, then... She looked at his spinning arms and tried to jump.

She mistimed it and got sent flying into the wind wall on the other side of the area. Whatever advantage she thought she had quickly got reality checked. She couldn’t feel pain anymore, but she knew there was a lot of damage, another hit, and she might die. She counted herself lucky; nothing was broken.

“Come again, you big idiot!” Snow yelled out in anger.

The golem did the spinning attack again as if to answer her taunt.

Snow gritted her teeth. She couldn’t lose focus. She couldn’t track its arms anymore as they were moving too fast, maybe its chest? Her eyes ignored the arms and looked to the chest. The upper half of the chest spun. It was a lot more trackable than the arms. She counted on it.

“3..2..” Snow jumped,

and got hit.

But, she didn’t let go. She was holding onto the golem’s arm, slowly crawling up to the joint while it continued to spin. When the golem realized she was on it, it stopped and began slamming its arm on the ground in an attempt to get her off, but it was too late. Snow stabbed the frostblade into the joint and swung off, breaking off the third limb. The golem collapsed into a crawling state.

Snow was proud of her work.

The golem started throwing what looked like a tantrum, rolling all over the ground and rampaging about. Snow thought about how she should finish this thing off.

She still hasn’t seen its control rune.

While Snow watched the convulsing golem, something happened. First, the runes on the ground in the center lit up. Next, the golem began to glow blue, and then a dozen fat tentacles started flopping from its chest, swishing around.

“What in the hells is that?”

The tentacles all began slamming the ground repeatedly, and ice spikes shot up wherever they slammed down...

This thing was not going to let her get close.

“How fun...”

Getting near it was near impossible now. Eventually, the tentacles started growing more prominent, adding a larger and larger radius to their attacks.

The exploding ice was too large to dodge, too quick to get past, and there were no openings. The tentacles were causing a mini earthquake at this point. Spikes of ice kept getting summoned and destroyed around itself. She didn’t need the frost power before, but now it seems impossible to get close without it. The waves were getting bigger and bigger. She was forced to back up. Soon, there would be no room inside this tornado to stand.

Snow tried to think of a plan. She took a closer look at the rampaging golem and noticed a light flicker on the top of its head. It shined for only a moment, but that told her everything she needed to know.

“There it is.”

The control rune, it was on top of its head. That was the vital point, but knowing that doesn’t solve the obvious issue of getting past the rampaging tentacles. Snow didn’t want to throw away all the effort she put into this fight. But maybe living to fight another day was the play here.

Snow glanced at the wind wall and back at the golem. Her eyes calculated the distance between the wind wall and the golem and then concluded.

“I will win.”

Snow backed into the wind wall but didn’t leave the tornado nor come back in. She stood in the wind wall. After a moment, she started getting pulled by it. Rising with it Going higher and higher. Before it flung her back twenty feet off the ground in the direction of the golem.

“Raaa!” Snow landed right on top of the golem’s head, slamming her blade down on the rune on its head. The sword didn’t even have to pierce it. The second the sword touched, it exploded into the golem’s head. Lightning came down from the sky, striking the sword, throwing Snow off to the side as the golem began losing all its color. Snow looked on from the ground. The blade was sticking out of the golem’s head as its futility tried to remove it. Seeing its removal futile, it looked at Snow before deciding to pursue her one final time.

The golem limped in her direction, determined to kill her. Snow gripped the grass and tried to push herself up, but she found she couldn’t move. There were easily enough bloody flowers around to signify that her heavy blood loss rendered her immobility. Snow watched as the golem got closer and closer. Its light was turning off, powering down with each step until finally, one step away from her, it shut off. The tornado around her died out, revealing a beautiful, spring-like landscape. All the snow had dissipated. And the land around the tornado was freed from its winter coat. She looked up at the golem; its husk was moving closer?

No, it was tipping over in her direction.

“Oh, no.”

Snow held her hand out instinctively to shield herself, but she noticed the sword sticking from its head was in view. If she could summon the sword to her, perhaps she could push it away?!

Snow focused on the sword. The sword came to her last time. This time she was trying to push it away.

The golem began to descend towards her. Snow could feel the blood in her arms pulling to her hands as she thought, “push!” Then, the golem slowed to nearly a halt. Snow’s arm was shaking. She could feel the tremendous force; It felt like she was holding up the golem’s weight.

“Argh!” Snow held it up just long enough to roll out of the way. The golem fell, crashing into the grass a few inches next to her.

Snow sat on the husk of the golem and focused on healing her wounds. She was healing a lot faster than yesterday. Maybe it had something to do with the tornado being gone. “Well, I won.” She padded the golem husk.

She tried to pull her sword out, but it was stuck fast into the golem’s head.

“Nrgg.. give me… my… sword!” Snow pulled as hard as she could on the sword, and it wouldn’t come out. The frostblade wouldn’t break off, either.

She held her hand and focused on the sword.

“To me.”

The sword didn’t budge.

“Well. This sucks.”

Wolf howling came in from the distance. The wolves were back.

“Alright, magic sword, I kinda need you right now.” She started pulling on the sword repeatedly.

The wolves were running towards her from the tree line. It was the white pack.

The wolves encroached on her very slowly. First, they started to sniff the destroyed golem’s remains. Then, some began to roll around in the grass and play in it. The direwolf approached. It didn’t look hostile, so she let it walk up to her. Not that she had a choice.

“What are you-“ The wolf started licking her as more snuck up behind her and began licking the cuts on her back and arms.

She felt her wounds starting to close a little faster. But she was getting covered in wolf saliva. “Ugh, gross.” She complained. The wolves decided to help her; she didn’t know why, but she definitely wasn't going to turn them down. She looked at the direwolf.

“Umm, thank you?”

The ground suddenly boomed.

She heard loud, familiar stomps. The giant was back.

“Oh no, not that thing.”

All the small wolves got startled and started running away towards their home. The direwolf ran a few feet towards the source and started barking loudly at it.

Snow tried to retrieve her sword again, but she had no luck. She had to leave it behind. The giant came into view and began stomping toward them. The ground boomed with each step. Suddenly, the direwolf ran up to her and laid on the ground in front of her.

“You want me to get on?”

Snow grabbed its pelt and pulled herself on top of the direwolf.

“Ok… go!” They took off.

“RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!” The giant gave chase. With each step, Snow was almost thrown off the wolf. That, combined with the fact that the direwolf was going nearly full speed, she could barely hold on.

A weird feeling had formed in Snow’s gut; something wasn’t right. She looked back, and the giant was losing ground. A small line of shadow appeared under them, growing larger and larger. Snow looked to the sky and saw a colossal javelin plummeting down, aimed ahead of them. She tried to get the wolf to stop, but it wouldn’t. She had to get its attention somehow. She grabbed its right ear and pulled hard, forcing the wolf to veer to the right. The wolf growled in anger just before the ice javelin exploded a few feet to their left. The wolf realized what had just happened and gave Snow an eye of appreciation as they rode into the wolf forest, towards the rocky gorge. The wolf forest suddenly went from looking like it was in the middle of summer back to winter. It seemed the summer-like transformation only affected the area around where the tornado was.