Chapter 40

Chapter 40. The God of Frost, Cryos

Cryos was certain.

This war could not be lost.

He was a meticulous god.

Not a fool who moved armies on emotion.

Before issuing the order to advance, he had already completed his investigation of Rag.

'All froth.'

The conclusion was clear.

The fastest Seed to become a god.

The one who had built an S-grade floor in record time.

Flashy titles trailed behind him, but look beneath the surface and there was nothing but an empty shell.

'It's all Heimdal's reflected glory.'

A massive supply of Nectar.

A gifted Divine Armament.

Without those, Rag would have been a nobody floundering on Floor 1.

On top of that, intelligence reports on Floor 7's state had been obtained.

—There is a temple plated in gold.
—Hot springs flow and flowers bloom everywhere. It's like a resort.
—There are no defensive installations or traps whatsoever.

"A flower garden."

Cryos scoffed.

On the eve of war, and he'd turned his floor into a resort?

That was impossible unless his head was full of flowers too.

And the troops?

At best, the Frost Tribe elf scraps he'd stolen from Cryos's own territory.

A weak, combat-ignorant race that had been earmarked to be burned as Offerings.

And he thought he could stand against an elite army with those?

"Arrogant."

The price for picking a fight would be steep.

He'd make certain of the annihilation.

The disparity in forces was overwhelming.

A frost legion trained and disciplined over millennia, loyal to him alone.

Losing the gatekeeper Kusan, the Lion King, stung, but it didn't affect the bigger picture.

He had subordinates far more powerful and far more loyal.

'Death's Four Knights.'

His prized personal guard.

Undying knights born from the depths of abyssal cold.

As long as they stood, nothing Rag did could break through.

Even in a one-on-one fight, there was no chance of losing.

His Divinity ran deeper.

His experience weighed heavier.

"Let's go."

Cryos moved at a leisurely pace.

He crossed through the dimensional gate.

The preparations for the victory report were complete.

All that remained was to sever the head of this impertinent newcomer and present it to Lady Skadi.

WHOOOOSH!

The disorientation of spatial transfer passed.

Floor 7's air touched his skin.

Warm.

A sickeningly mild energy.

But soon enough, this land too would be buried under his frost and frozen solid.

That was when.

"GRAAAAGH!"

"S-save me!"

"What is this?! AAAGH!"

Screams erupted.

Wretched death cries.

Shrieks that could split eardrums rang out in every direction.

The corner of Cryos's mouth rose.

'It's begun.'

His vanguard must be slaughtering the elves.

The dying screams of weaklings—always exhilarating, no matter how many times he heard them.

He opened his eyes at leisure.

To savor the carnage.

Expecting a golden city drenched in blood.

But.

"......?"

The scene before his eyes.

The moment he saw it, Cryos's expression hardened to stone.

"......??"

Blood was flying.

Severed limbs cartwheeled through the air.

But the blood didn't belong to elves.

"AAAGH! It burns!"

"I'm melting! My body is melting!"

It was the Frost Giants.

It was the Glacial Knight Order.

His proud army was being butchered the instant they crossed the dimensional gate.

"What...... is this?"

He couldn't process what he was seeing.

A flower garden, they'd said.

A resort, they'd said.

But what lay before him was hell.

CRASH—!

Dark-red pillars of fire erupted from the earth.

From the sky, razor-sharp ice arrows rained down like a monsoon.

The legion that had charged in with absolute confidence in victory was met with slaughter at the very entrance.

A perfect countermeasure.

A complete reversal.

A counterattack that had dissected Cryos's forces down to their weaknesses and exploited every one with ruthless precision.

The fire pillars burned through the Frost Giants' hides; the ice arrows pierced the joints of the Knight Order's armor.

"......A trap?"

Cryos bit his lip.

This was a fortress bought with money.

The rain of arrows, the erupting pillars of fire—every bit of it was Nectar.

Transforming a peaceful resort into a killing field in an instant required astronomical funds.

'This makes no sense.'

A flower garden, they'd said.

Not a shred of war preparation—just idle leisure, they'd said.

Then where had this staggering volume of materiel come from?

The arrow of suspicion pointed in one direction.

'Heimdal.'

Could Heimdal have broken the pact with Lady Skadi?

Support was forbidden after the declaration of war.

But nothing else could explain this.

A bottom-rung Lesser god hoarding this much Nectar?

"Damn it!"

Cryos bellowed.

But the shock was brief.

He was the master of Floor 50.

A conqueror who had roamed Asgard's battlefields for millennia, trampling countless gods on his ascent.

He wouldn't crumble over a surprise of this magnitude.

"Hold your ground!"

He swept his hand.

HUMMMM!

His frost Authority blanked the battlefield.

The ice arrows filling the sky froze in midair.

"You think this crude cold can pierce me?"

CRACK!

He clenched his fist, and the arrows shattered to dust.

Superior compatibility.

In the hierarchy of cold, his dominance was absolute.

"Shield wall! Form ranks!"

At his command, the panicked legion snapped into disciplined motion.

Giants bearing massive ice shields stepped to the front.

The fire pillars hammered the shields but couldn't breach the thick ice walls.

"Advance! Push through!"

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The shield wall surged forward.

And then.

"Fall back! Fall back!"

Frantic shouts erupted from the woods.

The rain of arrows ceased.

The ambush forces began retreating.

Cryos sneered.

"Vermin."

Blocked firepower, so they run.

A predictable pattern.

"Pursue! Leave no one standing!"

The legion's morale soared.

Nothing was more exhilarating than chasing a fleeing enemy's back.

Cryos was certain.

Floor 7 was small regardless.

No matter how far they ran, it ended at a cliff's edge.

Kill Rag or destroy the floor's Crystal—game over.

The momentum was his.

'Traps paid for in Nectar run dry eventually.'

He followed the legion at a comfortable pace.

The Frost Giants flattened the forest and carved a highway.

The Glacial Knight Order surged along the path toward the golden temple.

The enemy's stronghold came into view in the distance.

But.

"......?"

Cryos's brow furrowed.

Too easy.

The resistance at the entrance felt like a distant lie—there was nothing in the way.

As though a path had been cleared, inviting them in.

'Surely not.'

A chill of foreboding.

In that instant.

The leading Frost Giant's foot sank through the ground.

"Huh?"

RUMBLE!

The earth shook.

Not an earthquake.

The ground itself was collapsing.

What they'd taken for a flat road yawned open like a colossal sinkhole.

"It's a trap!"

"Dodge!"

Too late.

Thousands of soldiers were sucked into the pit.

And from the depths of that darkness.

HISSSSS!

A nauseating stench accompanied a rising green mist.

Poison.

A virulent toxin that dissolved flesh and bone in seconds.

"GRAAAAGH!"

"Help me! My legs! MY LEGS!"

The pit became a living hell.

Giants clutched at dissolving legs and writhed.

Knights' armor corroded and bit into their flesh.

Cryos ground his teeth.

"You...... despicable bastard!"

Poison.

A god of the Natural Lineage using poison?

And on this scale?

This was the Biological Lineage's playbook.

It was nothing like the traps a Natural Lineage god would set.

The trap design was expert.

Diabolically cunning.

Cryos clicked his tongue.

'This is supposed to be a freshly minted god?'

Unbelievable.

If winning meant anything goes, this one didn't care about the means.

Honor? Pride?

Toss it to the dogs, apparently.

It was the style of a veteran steeped in the mud of countless dirty fights.

Someone who'd been through war after war and come out the other side.

The psychological warfare was flawless, too.

'I was played.'

The flower garden had been camouflage.

The resort concept had been theater designed to induce complacency.

He'd deliberately feigned weakness.

Pretended to panic and retreat, luring Cryos's legion into the deepest, most dangerous part of the floor.

Soldiers were dissolving in the poison fog.

The screams wouldn't stop.

"Steady!"

Cryos roared.

"Fall back! Get out of the toxin zone!"

He had to take one step back.

Fighting inside this pit of hell was suicide.

He had to regroup.

Time was still on his side.

His troop numbers were still overwhelming, and traps like these couldn't be sustained indefinitely.

"Retreat! Full retreat!"

At his command, the Frost Giants turned.

The Glacial Knight Order stumbled backward.

That was when.

WHOOOOSH!

A fierce wind slammed into them from behind.

Biting cold laced within it.

"......?"

Cryos turned his head.

His eyes went wide.

A massive whirlwind was blocking the retreat.

A gray storm.

Inside it, tens of thousands of ice blades rotated like the teeth of a gear.

'An Authority.'

Rag had done this.

The moment he swung his staff, the storm came alive and writhed.

'Frost as well?'

Cryos shuddered.

The storm carried frost.

Dense, high-purity cold.

He could feel it instinctively.

It was no less potent than his own Authority, 'Extreme Frost.'

No—in terms of sheer destructive power, it might even exceed it.

"......Heimdal's Divine Armament."

The staff he'd only heard rumors about.

Seeing it firsthand—it lived up to every word.

Wind carving through space, cold sealing every wound.

A perfect instrument of slaughter.

"GRAAAGH!"

Soldiers with nowhere to run were ground to pieces by the storm.

Giant hide tore like paper.

Knight armor froze and crumbled.

Poison in front, a storm behind.

A sandwich.

"Break through! Stand still and you die!"

Cryos blasted frost to try to cancel the storm.

But it wasn't enough.

This wind wouldn't yield so easily.

In that moment.

HUMMMM!

The sky roared.

Another surge of energy came crashing down.

Multiple types of Disaster.

Fire, water, earth, and collapse.

Four different Disasters tangled together and rained down.

"What now?!"

A Legendary-grade Authority.

Calamity from All Sides.

It defied understanding.

Multiple Disasters fused into a single Authority.

Such a thing could exist, in theory.

But for one being to wield it—and with that level of mastery—was an entirely different story.

Ordinary gods possessed one type of Authority.

Fire was fire. Water was water.

Mastering one's own element and reaching its apex.

That was the path—and the law—of a god.

Granted, some gods could handle two types of Disaster.

With exceptional talent, three or four were possible.

But the law was unforgiving.

'A hodgepodge is weak.'

Someone who dabbled in many could never defeat someone who devoted everything to one.

Compared to a god with a single Disaster Authority, each individual component was inevitably shallow and crude.

But that man?

"......This is impossible."

He wielded the Divine Armament's typhoon while simultaneously deploying this comprehensive Disaster.

Far from weakened, the forces complemented each other, generating synergy.

Fire melted ice into water. Water soaked the earth into mud. Collapse followed atop it.

Seamless coordination.

Like the conductor of an orchestra, Rag was orchestrating countless Calamities with a single finger.

Cryos shuddered.

A memory flashed through his mind.

'Disaster Aptitude: zero.'

The disgraceful score Rag had received during the selection trial.

The gods had laughed.

An incompetent. A nobody who'd gotten lucky.

But what about the spectacle before his eyes?

Was this the handiwork of an incompetent?

In destructive power, in the mastery to control multiple Authorities—only a god of prodigious talent could pull this off.

"It was all...... an act?"

SHUDDER!

Cryos could do nothing but tremble.