Chapter 340: 178. The Frost Giant -1 (Part Two)

Translated by A Passing Wanderer

Edited by RED

-Well, it doesn’t really matter anyway.-

Hrímr pressed down hard on its cheek to freeze the wound closed, then shifted its gaze down at the portion of the city encased in ice.

-How does it look? Will this area serve as a wonderful location to build our ice castle?-

Hrímr rubbed its chin in contemplation. It addressed the giants around itself, none of them tall enough to even reach up to its waistline.

These giants flinched again, and hurriedly nodded along.

-Well, that’s good to hear, then. This northern region will now serve as my territory. I’m sure the other kings will not protest in dissatisfaction regarding my choice of location.-

Hrímr shifted its gaze beyond the city limits and towards the verdant grasslands in the distance. Humans riding on skeleton horses, as well as several carriages, could be seen fleeing.

Those humans had somehow managed to escape from the city.

Hrímr looked behind itself, and spotted the vampires breathlessly chasing after the giants and belatedly arriving at the city limits.

The Frost Giant tutted while staring at these undead. ‘How pathetic. Such weaklings were proclaiming that they would become gods in the future?’

Measly little insects that would get so easily killed simply by squashing them in a giant’s fingers dared to drool over the position of godhood?

How laughably ridiculous that notion was!

Hrímr slightly raised its foot before stomping the ground. Spikes of ice broke through the ground and impaled a portion of the vampires.

“Heeeeiiik?!”

The vampires, who had now become nothing more than slaves of Jötnar, cried out in fear.

Hrímr glared at them as if they were disgusting bugs and roared out, -Go and chase the humans down. If you let even a single one escape, I shall freeze the lot of you and devour you!-

“U-understood!”

The Progenitor Vampires urgently rushed away in the direction the evacuees had gone off to.

-Well, now. What should I do next?-

Hrímr’s gaze then shifted over to the citadel located in the centre of the city. That location seemed ideal for the Frost Giant’s ice castle to be constructed. However, that tiny little human castle was getting in the way.

-Well, I can simply tear it down and build my own castle from the ground up!-

Hrímr’s jaw slowly opened, and a tongue made out of ice slithered out to lick the vicinity of its lips. With a sinister grin on its face, the Frost Giant strode over to the citadel.

**

“Just… just what is the meaning of all this?!”

The King of Frants still remained in the citadel. King Zayner was rooted to the spot, unable to move from the sheer shock of it all. He was currently taking in the sight of the city through the window.

All those soldiers, and even the powerless subjects of the kingdom, couldn’t even let out a single scream before they were imprisoned in ice, their faces frozen in despair and horror for all eternity.

King Zayner nearly collapsed at this unprecedented slaughter, where not one person could offer up any meaningful resistance.

“Oh, oh, dear gods…!”

He had already accepted his fate. He even accepted that all these sacrifices were meant to buy that crucial extra time for the rest of humanity. That was why he resolved himself to fight against the Jötnar, the giants of myth that had apparently even tried to oppose the gods.

But this… They couldn’t even buy any time at all!

Look, look! In the blink of an eye, they were all annihilated!

There were thousands, tens of thousands, of lives here, yet…

The entire army of the Duchy was rendered powerless in an instant, without being able to do anything. It was like saying that all that hard training the soldiers had gone through was for nothing, a waste of time!

Humans simply couldn’t win against these marauding giants!

“Y-Your Majesty, Your Majesty-!”

King Zayner turned his head and noticed a familiar butler rushing towards him. That old man was the butler employed by the House Ariana, but Zayner couldn’t remember his name.

“Klare?” Runan called out the old butler’s name.

Butler Klare urgently ran up to King Zayner and his group of escorting soldiers. He panted breathlessly after forcing his aged body to move so fast. “Y-You must escape from here, everyone! It’s the order of His Imperial Majesty, the Holy Emperor!”

“W-wait, are you trying to say that His Imperial Majesty has personally come here?!”

If so, that sound of a gunshot earlier?…

“Where is His Imperial Majesty, then?”

“…” Klare clamped his mouth shut, and quietly shook his head.

“…It can’t be. He has already been defeated?”

King Zayner fell into even deeper despair, but he still turned his head to the side to look at his younger sister, Runan.

She was someone who didn’t even bat an eyelid in front of a powerful vampire. Yet her complexion was pale white right now. The indescribably overwhelming might emanating from the Frost Giant had even made her drop her rapier.

King Zayner saw this, and gritted his teeth. He made up his mind there and then. He reached out and grabbed Runan’s hand, “Marquis Runan, I hereby order you to escape from here.”

“Older brother?! But the fate…!”

“The future Seran saw did not contain the scenes of our death. Meaning, it will work out somehow.” King Zayner then shouted out a new order at the soldiers. “Go and secure a carriage right away!”

The soldiers nodded and urgently turned around. But just as they began dashing through the corridor…

BOOM-!

The location the soldiers were running through suddenly caved in and collapsed in rubble. A humongous hand made of seemingly nothing but ice brushed past that location.

Just that simple action had caused a portion of the citadel to be completely ripped apart.

The soldiers, along with the debris of the citadel, were squashed by the ice hand, and literally vanished from the view.

King Zayner Frants and Runan’s mouths clamped shut in shock.

The citadel’s side had caved in to resemble the end of a cliff, and a huge face now could be seen from the opening. That face was also covered in ice and snow.

All those compacted layers of snow making up its frozen face began shifting around to change its expression, as if it was a human being.

-Oho, I can see a little crown on your head! Does that make you the king of the insects, then? Ahaha!-

Hrímr the Frost Giant guffawed loudly. Pure white frost wafted in the air, making King Zayner to shiver from the cold. He wrapped his arm around Runan.

Klare urgently grabbed the two and addressed them. “Please, Your Majesty, my lady! You two must flee!”

“…It’s too late now.” King Zayner unsheathed his sword.

-No, no, no. You still have a chance. Even if you poke me with that little needle of yours, you still won’t harm me in the slightest. So, you better start running away, oh the king of little insects!-

Zayner gritted his teeth and urgently looked behind him. Unfortunately for him, though, the Frost Giant’s other hand crashed through that side of the corridor, caving it in as well.

And just like that, both ends of the corridor were gone, making them look like cliffs.

-Deary me, looks like your escape path is all gone now!-

With a hardened expression, King Zayner glared back at the Frost Giant. It was as if the massive giant was a little kid messing around with a bunch of ants.

-I wonder, what kind of squeaky noises will insects make when I slowly freeze them to death? Heh, this is so interesting.-

The Frost Giant thrust its hands inside the both ends of the cut-off corridor. Bone-chilling air began gushing out from both of those palms of ice.

King Zayner, Klare and Runan, now caught in the middle, began shivering away from the cold.

Hrímr sneered mockingly at them, the corners of its lips curling up.

-A male and a female insect, plus an old one, too. I wonder how you all will taste when I…-

-I shall now ask you a question, oh the King of Ice.-

Hrímr flinched in surprise and quickly withdrew its hands, then hurriedly scanned its vicinity.

-Are you afraid of death?-

An unknown voice was coming from somewhere.

Hrímr furrowed its frozen brow. Where was this voice coming from? Just from where?

-As you are a king yourself, I shall now inform you of my own name.-

“…The Skeleton King.”

The Frost Giant flinched again when he heard that other voice, and looked down at the ground.

Right below him was another small, measly little lifeform. He was standing before the wreckage of the citadel. There was a skull of a mountain goat on his head, while a set of bone armour was equipped on his body.

A lake of holy water was spreading out rapidly all around this puny being.

-My name is…-

…Donn O’Donnchadha!

Hrímr felt this ominous feeling creep down its spine just then.

The moment it reflexively pulled itself back, two hands made out bones shot out from the lake of holy water and grabbed both of the Frost Giant’s legs.

At almost the same time, a sword gleaming with golden light exploded out from the water’s surface and thrust into Hrímr’s torso.

The Frost Giant’s chest was impaled clean through!

The giant stared at the lake of holy water below with trembling eyes. The water down there swirled around in a spiral, and the sealed upper torso of a certain creature slowly rose up from there.

-That is…-

This creature’s hands were gripping onto that massive sword made seemingly out of gold and bones. The holy water gushed and fell like a powerful waterfall.

A huge skull adorned with a golden crown and an even larger bone torso finally revealed itself amidst all the falling holy water.

-…My name.-

The Skeleton King’s eyes burned fiercely within its eye sockets as it glared up at Hrímr above.

-Oh the King of Ice, I hereby declare your death today!-

The Frost Giant and the Skeleton King glared at each other, one spitting out breaths laden with frost, while the other exhaled the thick aura of divine power.

< 178. The Frost Giant -1 (Part One and Two) > Fin.

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