The icy path wound steeply up the frozen side of Glacial Peak.
Snow crunched under Evren’s boots as he climbed into a narrow mountain pass. On both sides, jagged ice pillars rose thirty feet into the howling blizzard, forming a natural stone-and-ice corridor.
Evren didn’t look back, but his S-Rank hearing tracked every breath and rustle of metal three hundred yards behind him.
’Six of them,’ Evren noted calmly to himself. ’They’ve been trailing my scent since the wolf pack.’
Evren deliberately slowed his pace as he reached the center of the pass, stopping before a frozen boulder. He loosened the Glacial Trench Blade in its scabbard.
SWOOSH!
Without warning, three mana-infused arrows flew through the swirling snow, aiming straight for Evren’s head, chest, and knee.
Evren shifted his weight, twisting his body out of the way. Two arrows zipped past his fur-line collar, while the third hit the boulder behind him and shattered into tiny sharp pieces of ice.
"Surround him! Don’t let the delivery rat escape!"
A harsh command rang through the pass.
From behind the ice spires, five heavily armored figures closed off the entrance and exit of the canyon, while a sixth figure stepped forward from the rear.
It was Prescott, wearing his golden-trimmed dragon-scale armor, flanked by five elite A-Rank hunters from Prescott Guild’s first raid division.
Leading the front was a burly six-foot-five warrior holding a heavy tower shield and a spiked war hammer. Beside him was a nimble rogue in dark leather armor wielding twin serrated daggers, a frost-mage holding a glowing crystal staff, and two archers perched on the icy ridges above.
Evren glanced at the five hunters, noticing immediately that none of them were among the low-level perimeter guards he had tossed into the snow earlier. Prescott had brought in his guild’s true core raid team.
Prescott sneered, resting his hand on his broadsword. "You ran pretty far for a delivery boy, Evren. Did you think getting lucky against a few wolves made you invincible?"
Evren turned around slowly. "You followed me all the way up the mountain just to talk?"
"Talk?" Prescott let out a malicious laugh. "You stole DashExpress and humiliated me in front of the city elites. In here, there are no security guards and no cameras. Once my men break your limbs and take all you have on you, your corpse will rot under fifty feet of snow!"
Prescott raised his arm and barked: "Kill him!"
"Lock formation!" the six-foot guy shouted, slamming his tower shield onto the frozen ground.
CLANG!
A shimmering wall of defensive earth-frost mana surged from the shield, creating a solid barrier. From behind the shield, the frost-mage raised his staff, chanting rapidly as five jagged ice spikes materialized in mid-air, hurtling toward Evren!
At the same time, the two archers on the ridge fired a continuous barrage of explosive mana arrows, blanketing the narrow corridor in crossfire.
Evren drew his Glacial Trench Blade.
SHING!
He swung his blade to deflect two arrows, but the explosive mana force jolted through his arms. An ice spike grazed his thigh, tearing through his combat trousers and leaving a burning frostbite sting.
’They’re not like the wolves, and they’re definitely not like the fodder outside,’ Evren thought as his mind raced. ’Their timing is seamless. The tank blocks my line of sight while the ranged attackers control the distance.’
Against coordinated A-Rank raid veterans, rushing the front shield blindly would leave him pinned under an endless volley of spells.
SWOOSH!
The rogue vanished into the blizzard, reappearing silently at Evren’s left flank, driving a poison dagger toward his ribs.
Evren reacted on pure reflex. He stepped into the rogue’s strike, raised his left forearm to block the rogue’s wrist, and drove the pommel of his trench blade straight into the rogue’s jaw.
CRACK!
The rogue grunted in pain, his head snapping back as teeth flew into the snow. But before Evren could finish him, the tank hunter lunged forward, swinging his spiked war hammer with earth-shattering force.
BOOM!
Evren brought his blade up horizontally to parry. The kinetic impact shattered the ice under Evren’s boots, pushing him back five yards through the snow.
"He’s fast, but he has no raid coordination!" the tank barked, holding his ground. "Mage, freeze his footing! Archers, aim for his eyes!"
The frost-mage slammed his staff down, and the snow around Evren’s boots suddenly crystallized into thick, grasping ice chains, locking his ankles to the ground!
The two archers on the ridge drew their bows to full tension, locking their sights on Evren’s chest!
"Die, trash!" Prescott yelled from the back.
Evren’s eyes narrowed. Golden mana flared violently within his core.
’You want to freeze me?’
BOOM!
Evren didn’t try to chip away at the ice chains. Channeling his S-Rank power, he flexed his leg muscles and launched himself off the ground.
The ice chains shattered into a million powdery fragments.
Evren’s body launched into the air like a launched missile, soaring twenty feet straight up toward the icy ridge where the two archers were perched.
"What?!" the lead archer gasped in horror. "He jumped that high?!"
Before the archers could reload, Evren landed on the narrow ridge between them. With two blindingly fast, controlled sweeps of his Glacial Trench Blade, Evren snapped both of their composite bows in half and kicked both archers off the thirty-foot cliff.
THUD! THUD!
The two archers crashed into the deep snowbanks below, screaming in agony as their ribs fractured.
Evren dropped from the ridge, landing with a heavy thud directly in front of the frost-mage.
The mage’s face turned completely white. He raised his staff in panic, trying to cast a barrier...
Evren’s hand shot forward like a striking cobra, grabbing the crystal staff and snapping the reinforced wood over his knee. He threw a palm strike into the mage’s chest, sending him flying fifteen feet backward into an ice spire, knocking him unconscious!
The tank hunter that Evren had abandoned to deal with the wide-ranged hunters stared in pure, unadulterated shock. His hands trembled as he raised his war hammer, backing away step by step.
Evren walked forward through the snow, the Glacial Trench Blade resting loosely in his right hand.
"Your turn," Evren said calmly.
Tank roared in desperation, swinging his war hammer with all his remaining mana...
CLANG!
Evren sidestepped the hammer swing without much effort, spun behind the tank, and struck the back of his armored knee with a sharp kick.
SNAP!
The tank fell to one knee with a pained roar. Evren placed the cold, flat edge of his blade against his neck.
"Drop the hammer," Evren ordered softly.
The pinned hunter swallowed hard, releasing his weapon into the snow, completely defeated.
Behind them, Prescott stood alone in the howling wind. His broadsword had slipped from his trembling hands, clattering onto the ice.
Prescott looked at his battered, unconscious raid team, then looked at Evren standing untouched amidst the carnage. His face was drenched in cold sweat, his teeth chattering uncontrollably with terror.
"Y-You’re a monster..." Prescott whimpered, stumbling backward. "You’re not an F-Rank... you’re an S-Rank demon..."
Evren walked toward him with cold, indifferent eyes. "You said you’d break my limbs and leave my corpse in the snow."
"S-Stay back!" Prescott screamed hysterically.
In pure panic, Prescott reached into his spatial pouch, pulled out a glowing blue Emergency Rift Return Crystal, and crushed it in his fist.
FLASH!
A pillar of blue spatial light enveloped Prescott’s body.
"You won’t get away with this, Evren!" Prescott shrieked as his body dissolved into spatial mana. "Prescott Guild will destroy everything you own!"
The light vanished, and Prescott was gone, fleeing back to the Rift entrance like a frightened dog.
Evren scoffed, not even bothering to stop him.
He walked over to where Prescott had been standing, picked up the high-grade Spatial Supply Pouch Prescott had dropped in his panic, and tossed it into his ring.
ROOOOOOOOOOOOAR—!
Suddenly, the entire mountain trembled violently.
Massive avalanches of snow and ice tumbled down the cliffs as a deafening, dragon-like scream echoed through the clouds above.
The sky above the summit turned from turquoise to a pitch-black blizzard.
Descending through the storm clouds was a massive, forty-foot winged beast. Its body was covered in pale blue crystal scales, and its sixty-foot wings were generating hurricane-force frost gales with every flap. Its blue reptilian eyes were filled with fury.
[WARNING: B-Rank Rift Boss Awakened — Level 45 Frost-Fang Ice Wyvern!]
The massive beast slammed onto the mountain ridge fifty yards ahead and its claws dug deep trenches into the solid glacier. It pulled back its serpentine neck back, locking its freezing gaze directly on Evren.
Evren gripped the hilt of his Glacial Trench Blade as a fearless smile spread across his face.
"Finally," he muttered, his golden eyes glowing brightly in the dark storm. "The main event."