-Slide....
The Knight of the Frozen Earth slowly raised its enormous greatsword.
It was not a simple lump of metal, but a sword where ice and steel had fused into one.
Blue light shimmered across its surface.
First, to seize the initiative, “Intimidation.”
I activated the Intimidation Skill the same way I had while climbing to the 10th floor.
[ Ding! ]
[ Intimidation Skill has no effect. ]
[ The target has no emotions! ]
“Tch. Figured.”
I frowned.
There was no way this would be easy.
It seemed the bastard was not an existence based on emotions.
In that case....
-Whoosh!
Before I could even finish thinking, the greatsword cleaved through the air.
“!”
I reflexively lowered my body, but.
-BOOM—!
The direction was wrong.
The greatsword struck the ground and created a wave of ice that tore my body to pieces, and my lowered body was split vertically in half as the wound rapidly began freezing over.
“Guh, urgh...!”
I was flustered by a kind of pain I had never felt before and tried to restore my body, but.
[ Ding! ]
[ Death Detection activates. ]
[ Regeneration speed is greatly reduced due to low temperature! ]
The split cross-section of my body froze as if it were frozen meat, and regeneration began at a much slower speed than usual.
“...Damn it!”
I spat out a curse and examined the Knight of the Frozen Earth before me.
Its attack had split my body in one blow, yet even as I still stood there regenerating, it showed no trace of doubt.
-Thud....
It rested that enormous greatsword on its shoulder.
-THUD!
Then it kicked off the ground and charged toward me.
It raised the greatsword and slashed horizontally.
“Damn it!”
-Whoosh!
I had barely finished regenerating when I lowered and twisted my body again, evading the bastard’s greatsword.
-THWACK!
Then I landed a spinning kick squarely on its helmet.
But.
-Shhhhh....
The bastard’s head only turned slightly, and it looked down at me with blue eyes.
Stats.
I thought I’d raised them quite a lot, but were they still not enough to bring it down?
-BOOM—!
“Guhah!”
The bastard slammed down its greatsword and pierced my stomach.
-SQUEEZE!
As the bastard tightened its grip on the greatsword,
-CRACK!
“Kak...?!”
With a crackling sound of freezing, ice spread from the wound across my entire body and covered me.
[ Ding! ]
[ Death Detection activates! ]
[ Regeneration speed is reduced due to temperature drop...! ]
“I know that already, f...uck!”
-Thud!
My body would not regenerate easily.
I grabbed the bastard’s cold, heavy greatsword with both hands and watched blood flow.
Should I try using Blood Absorption or Blood Release?
I thought that for a moment, but that was impossible too.
The blood froze the instant it flowed.
Of course it did.
This was cold enough to freeze my flesh.
There was no way blood, a liquid, could withstand it.
“Damn it!”
The bastard drove the greatsword embedded in me even harder, pinning me into the ground.
-BOOM—!
With a thunderous roar, my frozen body shattered like a block of ice and scattered across the floor.
“...!”
I could not even speak.
My arm went to the right, my legs below, my torso remained on the greatsword, and my head flew far away and scattered apart.
‘Reattach, reattach! Fuck!’
I thought it inwardly, but I would not regenerate easily.
My body, which normally would have joined together quickly, did not even come closer because of the cold.
In the freezing chill, my frozen flesh and blood were gradually becoming one with the floor like well-preserved lumps of meat.
-Vwoooooom....
The Knight of the Frozen Earth looked down at me with blue eyes.
This was a feeling I had never experienced before.
Even when I had been hit by blows that reduced every piece of my body almost to nothingness.
Even when some unknown dimension had cut apart my neck and limbs, even when I had ended up inside the phloem of a plant, I had ultimately taken form again....
I was frozen.
Even though my body was right in front of me, it would not regenerate.
It was like an ominous sensation that I would be preserved forever with my body in pieces, unable to die or live.
-SLASH—!
The Knight of the Frozen Earth pulled out the greatsword embedded in my body.
-Clang.
Then it struck the floor with that enormous greatsword and looked down at me.
Blue eyes as cold as the air itself, without even a trace of pity.
-THUD, THUD....
It slowly walked toward the place where my frozen head was.
As if to end this for certain, as if it meant to shatter my frozen head like LEGO bricks.
I could neither die nor live.
I had shouted tens of thousands of times that I wanted to die, but a situation like this, where I could neither die nor live....
“No... thanks...!”
[ Ding! ]
[ Death Detection activates! ]
[ Overcoming Death activates due to death under special conditions! ]
At that moment, a notification window appeared.
[ A new resistance skill is temporarily created! ]
[ Cold Resistance LV.1 has been created! ]
And.
-Twitch!
My limbs moved slightly.
Very slightly.
-Shhhhh....
The pieces of flesh that had been frozen and unable to move began vibrating faintly and joining together.
Slowly.
Little by little.
My body connected again.
-Clang!
And even in that moment, the footsteps of the Knight of the Frozen Earth came one step closer.
I could not wait any longer.
“Hh, hup!”
-CRACK!
The Knight of the Frozen Earth swung its greatsword down at my frozen head, but.
-....
There was nothing there.
“Where are you looking, when you’re that damn slow?”
The Knight of the Frozen Earth looked back over its shoulder.
Thanks to the effect of the Cold Resistance Skill, I had finished regenerating from my frozen and shattered body, and I glared at it while cracking my neck.
“What are you staring at, blue-eyes?”
-BANG!
As if reacting to my provocation, its enormous greatsword instantly cut through the air and came down toward me.
Although it was still extremely cold, and my senses had yet to properly return....
“You’re still slow!”
Even so, the bastard’s speed was absolutely not fast.
-BOOM—!
I easily dodged the enormous greatsword and slipped out of its trajectory, but.
-CRACKLE, CRACKLE, CRAAACK!!
When the greatsword struck the floor, ice spread explosively.
But this time was different.
“Tch!”
-Tap! Tap!
I quickly fled from the wave of ice and dodged aside, then climbed onto one of the countless ice pillars and looked down at it.
“Good.”
There was a chance of winning.
I confirmed it for myself and clenched my fist tightly.
“Things are going to be a little different from now on, you lumbering oaf.”
-Flash!
I kicked off the ice pillar and flew toward the Knight of the Frozen Earth.
At the same time, I thought.
‘That attack just now didn’t do any damage to it.’
I had landed a clean spinning kick to its temple, yet it had not reacted.
Intimidation had activated but had not worked, and no emotion could be felt from it.
It was like....
‘A Wraith Soldier...?’
That was right.
It reminded me of the Wraith Soldiers I had encountered in Namyangju Tower No. 2.
In that case, the answer was either Holy Power, or there was certainly some other weakness.
-Slide...!
The bastard lifted its greatsword with both hands as it watched me flying toward it.
And then.
“!”
Only then did I finally see the bastard’s body properly.
A helmet, chest, and armor made from ice and steel, tightly fused together.
And....
‘The center!’
Behind the armor covering the bastard’s sturdy chest, there was a core glowing blue, a core much like the Incomplete Golem’s.
But the problem was....
‘...How do I break that?’
The distance between us was close now.
My thoughts accelerated.
My stats were not yet high enough to damage the bastard through its armor.
The helmet on its head, the pauldrons on its shoulders, its breastplate, and the plates on its legs.
Every single one of them was outside the range of viable attack targets.
However....
What about the joints?
I narrowed my eyes and focused on the Knight of the Frozen Earth’s elbows and knees.
“As expected!”
Sure enough, although they were formed from ice, I could see that they looked relatively looser than the other parts.
“I’m aiming there!”
Only then did I complete my attack plan.
-SLASH—!
And in the same flying posture, I was magnificently cut in half by the bastard’s greatsword.
-Flop!
Then I fell behind it, split into two halves and reduced to a corpse.
-Shhk, shhhh....
My mouth hurt, and my head hurt.
I was a bearer of the Curse of Immortality.
I had experienced this level of ‘bisection’ more than five thousand times.
After restoring my body in an instant, I turned around.
-GRAB!
I seized the bastard’s waist.
-THWACK!
Then I drove my foot hard into its loose-looking knee joint.
-FLOP!
For the first time, the bastard lost its balance and dropped to one knee.
“That hit!”
-Grrrrrrrk...!
“What the hell are you growling for, bastard!”
-THWACK!
I immediately brought my foot down toward its opposite knee.
-CRACK!
This time, a clearer crack formed.
-GRAAAAK!!
The bastard let out a roar, dropped its greatsword entirely, and collapsed forward with its hands on the ground.
I was certain.
“Now...!”
Now the time for death was over.
Now it was time to clear this!
The legs were roughly finished.
This time, I just had to tear apart the upper body and attack only the core.
It was my turn to push.
“Haaap!”
-GRAB!
To attack its upper body, I clung to it from behind, riding its back as if choking it out.
-Crrrack, craaaack...!
I strangled the neck as hard as I could.
-THWACK! THUD! THUD!
Then I hammered my fists down, hard and repeatedly, against the connection point of that ice-block-like neck.
“Guh, guh!”
Each time I struck, flesh flew,
and blood sprayed out and froze.
-THUD! THUD! THUD!
At last, bone showed through and throbbed white-hot, but what did it matter?
Enduring pain and regenerating.
That was my specialty now.
-Crack!
Finally, a crack formed at the connection point on the back of its neck, and I did not miss the moment. I thrust my fingers into the crack to widen it.
“Grrk!”
Then, just as I put strength into my fingers to make the crack in the ice larger,
-GRAB!
“Huh?”
The bastard raised its arm behind itself and grabbed my waist.
-BOOM—!
Then it slammed me, still clinging to its back, straight into the ground.
“Guhaak...!”
My skull burst apart, and gray-white brain matter scattered across the cold ice floor.
-Grrrrrr...!
After I recovered and raised my head to look,
its eyes, glowing bluer than before, were glaring at me in rage.
“Didn’t it... have no emotions?”
-Thump!
The bastard grabbed its fallen greatsword.
-SLASH—!
With much greater speed than before, it cut me in half.
“Guhak!”
-THUD!
Then it pinned down the chest of my severed upper body with the greatsword, and when its blue eyes flashed even brighter once more,
-Vwoooooooom...!
A cold wind blew violently, and unable to withstand the ice fragments, I squeezed my eyes shut.
“Grrk!”
The bitter cold was too severe for my current level of Cold Resistance to handle.
A lower body grew from the chest the bastard had pinned down with its greatsword, but the moment it grew, it froze again.
Severed parts grow back.
Destroyed parts are restored.
But freezing is different.
There is no way to recover from it.
“Gyaaaah...!”
I simply squeezed my eyes shut as I endured the cold from the greatsword, slowly and violently surging from my chest.
“Fuck! Hurry up and raise my Cold Resistance level!”
The mechanism of ‘Overcoming Death’ only rose by repeating death.
Freezing, on the other hand, left me in a state where I was neither dead nor alive.
In other words, it was the greatest enemy of ‘Overcoming Death’!
“Fuck, fuck...!”
-Vwoooooooom....
As if it knew that, the bastard no longer cut me or tore me apart, and only continued to emit cold energy from the greatsword embedded in my chest.
“Kill me! Try cutting off my head! You son of a bitch!”
-Grrrrr....
Even at my provocation, the bastard only gave off a low grinding sound.
On top of that, as they said, there was always another mountain beyond the mountain.
[ Ding! ]
[ Required deaths not met for a certain period of time. ]
[ Stats increased through Overcoming Death are reset! ]
“Bullshit! Fuck!”
Apparently, being frozen did not count as death.
That had been proven for certain now.
I could not die, and therefore I could not restore myself, and so I could not grow stronger either.
Then....
“Then how am I supposed to win...?”
-Whoooooooooosh!!
The ice wind raged even harder.