I was so shocked that my feet rooted to the ground, refusing to move.

But it only lasted for a second.

I had to move, I needed to.

There's no need to defend, this height and mass is more than enough to bury me twice, and jumping would've given her an opening to freeze me to a popsicle.

Then…

“Hah…!”

I stomped the ground with my right foot, turning my waist and shoulder with the perfect timing to launch my right arm— punching straight with a power like a catapult. No, compared to such would’ve downgraded my power. Let's just say… 10 times the power of a catapult.

POW!

A roaring voice generated from my blow.

I made myself a large hole in the centre of her snow-wave, and made my way through it safely, standing on the snow.

It may be powerful, but I forgot the cost of punching through her snow bare-handed.

“Ow…!”

Argh…! It's even colder than zero degree Celsius…!

My fist stings in pain and trembles from the coldness. It actually shivers so much that I can't even move my hand properly. There`s ice sticking to it, and it grows and spreads out— slowly covering my hand. Though I`ve never dealt with this before, but on first instinct— the best way to deal with this is to get rid of the ice first.

Thus, I quickly slap away the ice on my hand with my left, constantly tighten and relax my hand to warm it up.

The girl let out a cold sigh. It sounds like a fed-up sigh.

Flinched by it, I immediately raise my head to look at her.

“…Aren't you persistent…?”

“Persistent? What do you mean? You are the one attacking me all of the sudden!”

For some reason, her face twitched a little— she immediately narrowed her eyes.

“…so this is what you wanted…” She murmured coldly.

Then—

—she extends her right hand forth, pointing her three fingers at me. In that instant— cold air starts to gather around us, swirling, with both of us in between. Our surrounding temperature immediately dropped drastically in less than a second.

Looks like this is a special gesture for her to use her powers. I better be on guard whenever she does this. But still… Why is she attacking me all of the sudden? Even if she`s in a bad mood, there's no way she would attack a bystander that's just passing through. Let's calm down and think…

She was already attacking even before I jumped down, but even far before that— I don't think I did anything offensive to her. All I did was spoil her mood, making her jump down, and perhaps that's when those five dudes arrived and she needed to deal with them. Then I jumped down, those guys looked at me with a pathetic pleading look— oh.

So that was the reason?!

I raised both of my hands and yelled.

“H-Hold it! I'm not one of them!”

“…who cares.” She said arbitrarily with a cold look, then snapped her fingers.

Spears made from ice suddenly form around her, randomly floating in mid-air. Judging from it, there`s exactly 20 of it.

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This girl— she intended to take me down since the beginning…! She's still interested in our duel and she's making this to her own advantage!

Among those twenty of it, three random spears slowly move next to her head, about her right shoulder. Its tip is pointing to my direction.

“…Pierce.” She whispers, and sways her hand in her special gesture.

“Urk…!”

The moment she swayed— the three spears earlier launched to me with a speed so fast that it's near to that of the speed of a bullet, as if she`s shooting a target. But if it's like this then why? Why did those guys earlier gather together? Won`t that will only make them a bigger target?

On first instinct, I tried to run to my left— but her first spear suddenly shifted its trajectory to my left, stabbing on the ground, preventing me from running away. As for her second spear, it stabbed onto the ground on my right just as I was about to move.

From that, I immediately understood why those guys cuddled together. It's not that they wanted to, it's because they had no choice but to do so. They aren't even allowed to run away.

All that's left, is her third spear that`s aiming straight on me— more specifically, my chest. Then again, the rest of the seventeen spears then followed behind the third spear.

Shit…!

I took a side step and bent my waist, moving my upper body away to the right and flexing my right hand, catching her spear.

O— OW…! COLD…! IT'S FREEZING! JUST HOW COLD ARE THESE THINGS!?

Compared to her snow-wave from earlier, her spear is at least several degrees much colder. It's so cold that my whole arm throbs from the sharp pain, it nearly takes my all just to prevent it from slipping off my hand. Enduring the pain, I overcame the power of her spear that`s like the power of a rocket— and gave it a spin with both my hands, deflecting the rest of her spears.

If it's just such a degree of pain… I can endure it.

However, I can't get used to the coldness. I can't feel anything from my arms. Fighting a long battle against her is a total disadvantage. I need to be careful.

Then, the girl lifted her hand.

I know this gesture. She's going to restrain me with her vines. Fine. Come at me with all you`ve got. I will make sure to break every vine you have.

“…Burst.”

She said coldly as she snapped her fingers.

“Huh— BUGARGH!!?”

An explosion.

The spear on my hands exploded, along with the others.

Forget about destroying it, I couldn't even defend against it.

A moment later, my world turned white. Up and down, left and right, front and back, the world was completely white before I realized the intense cold. This is the mist. This is the mist I came across earlier.

It came from the explosions of her spears.

I learned what it might feel like for my entire body to freeze.

I felt like a tub of water getting frozen to ice in a second.

It hurt.

My body hurts from head to toe, but my hands most of all— is shaking like it never has shaken before in its life.

It's frozen. I need to get rid of it.

I crushed it with a slam on my knee. Her ice crumbles.

If I stay here any longer— she would`ve sent me a temporary trip to the north side. There's no use to hesitate.

Thus, I took my hands up and charged out from the pool of white mist.

I lost sight of the girl.

There`s no sign of any attacks either.

“…annoying.”

With those words, I immediately faced the girl`s direction, where she's suddenly standing way behind me. She must have approached from the left when I charged out from the right.

“…penetrate.” She whispered, with her special gesture pointing down.

What is she going to do this time…?

There`s nothing around her. So I was stunned for a while.

My instincts kicked in.

Not even looking up, I took a small leap backwards. That's when a spear drops in front of me with a similar bullet-like speed from earlier, stabbing on the ground.

T-THAT WAS CLOSE…!

Realizing it came from above, I immediately looked up.

“……!”

One, two, three… okay, I don't know how many are there, but a lot of spears rained down. It wouldn't be exaggerated to say it's raining hails— but those are spears instead. There`s not even a small opening to let me escape unscathed.

Do you really need to go that far?

S-Stay calm. I need to stay calm.

There's no time.

I pulled out the spear that was stabbed on the ground, enduring the cold and pain as I held onto the spear, as if I'm clinging to it.

Though… I hope this spear is able to withstand my strength from breaking.

I then grabbed the tail of the spear.

“One Handed Spear Arts— Swing!”

It's nothing, really. I merely swung the spear from left to right as I pointed it upwards, as hard as I could. As for how strong that one swing is, it generated more than enough force, enough shockwave to scatter most of the spears above me, her spears then fell everywhere.

Good. Her spear survived.

If she wants it, her spears now could explode anytime under her command, or even grows to a spike vines forest. I don't know what she still has up in her sleeves, but I bet she still had tons of it. She's just that dangerous.

As I thought that, I moved away from most of her spear`s explosion range, as I kept up my guard.

“…Burst.” She whispers.

Though she didn`t snap her fingers this time, I played it safe and threw away the spear on my hand, tossing it aside.

Then— this time, every spears exploded, leaving ice roses behind on every spears. It's like a garden of ice roses.

But yet— because I had the chance to throw back her spear back to her, but I didn`t. It stimulated her, causing her to be even more furious than just now.

…Crap.

I`m already not a match for her. I knew that already.

At this rate, I would be late.