Chapter 354: Chapter 354 : Battle at the borders

While Alicia bathed the skies in dragon blood, another nightmare unfolded far from the capital.

At the borders of the Avaloria Empire, the barrier shattered with a sound like breaking glass stretched across the heavens. Light fractured, then vanished.

And from the white storm beyond, they stepped through.

Frost Giants.

Each one towered like a walking mountain—thirty feet of pale‑blue muscle wrapped in jagged ice‑armor fused directly into their flesh. Their skin wasn’t truly visible; it shimmered like distorted air, refracting light and magic alike. Arrows curved away from them. Spells slipped, weakened, as if reality itself refused to grasp their forms.

They did not charge.

They advanced.

Every step crushed homes.

Every breath exhaled winter.

A city on the frontier vanished in minutes.

“Hold the line!”

Steel rang. Banners snapped in the frozen wind. Thousands of human soldiers stood shoulder to shoulder, shields raised, mana flaring through their ranks, eyes fixed on the towering shapes in the storm.

The first giant lifted its arm.

Frost bloomed.

Not ice—conceptual cold.

The ground turned brittle. Stone screamed as it crystallized. A wave of pale magic surged outward, and an entire battalion froze mid‑motion—faces locked in terror—before shattering into dust.

The second giant hurled a spear of condensed winter.

It pierced a tower cleanly.

The tower collapsed a moment later, stone fracturing like fragile glass.

A third giant slammed its fist into the earth.

The battlefield folded.

Ice erupted in jagged spires, impaling cavalry, lifting soldiers into the air before snapping them in half. Their magic was ancient—First Frost, a primordial authority over cold that did not merely freeze matter, but erased heat from existence itself.

“Fire mages! Full output!”

Flames roared, rivers of fire rushing toward the giants.

They passed through shimmering bodies and dimmed, reduced to embers.

One giant laughed—a low, grinding sound like glaciers colliding.

It swung its massive arm.

A shockwave of pressure tore through the army. Shields bent. Bones snapped. Hundreds of soldiers were flung across the field like broken dolls.

Brave men forced themselves back to their feet, driving enchanted spears into giant calves.

The weapons passed through, slowed, then shattered.

The giants’ physiques were not just large—they were dominant. Each movement carried such mass that the air warped around them.

Each stride crushed courage.

Their muscles flexed beneath translucent frost‑skin, power layered upon power, every fiber infused with ancient magic.

One soldier leapt, blade glowing, and struck a giant’s knee.

The giant looked down.

Then stepped.

The man vanished beneath its heel.

Commanders screamed orders that no longer mattered. Formations broke. Hope cracked.

A final stand formed at the city gate—mages in front, knights braced behind them, civilians huddled in terrified clusters further back.

The lead Frost Giant raised both arms.

The sky dimmed.

Snow began to fall upward.

“Frost—Edict.”

The world obeyed.

Temperature ceased to exist.

Armor split. Blood crystallized. Breath turned to glass inside human lungs.

The defenders froze where they stood, transformed into statues of despair.

The giant walked through them.

They shattered beneath its stride.

Wherever the Frost Giants advanced, civilization ended—not in fire, but in silence.

And far away, beneath a burning sky, Alicia’s blade screamed through dragon flesh…

Unaware that another extinction marched across Avaloria’s frozen horizon.

The frozen plains burned with silence.

Frost Giants advanced in steady, unstoppable strides, their towering forms distorting the air, every footstep cracking the land beneath them.

Behind shattered barricades and broken formations, the soldiers of Avaloria regrouped again and again—only to be erased moments later.

At the center of the chaos stood Reynard von Crestvale.

“Third battalion—fan out!” he roared. “Ice‑breakers, target the joints! Mages, layer heat over lightning—don’t let their bodies stabilize!”

His voice cut through the panic like steel.

“Shield line, rotate in waves! Don’t let them build momentum!”

Men moved because he spoke. Even in the face of walking extinction, they obeyed.

Ballistae fired.

Runes flared.

Elemental storms crashed against ancient frost.

It still meant nothing.

A spear of condensed winter pierced a mage tower and exploded, scattering frozen stone. A giant’s palm came down like a falling glacier, crushing an entire squad in a single blow. Soldiers vanished beneath translucent limbs, screaming only once before becoming red stains across white ground.

Reynard watched his men die.

Again.

Again.

Again.

His hands clenched around his sword.

“Fall back—!” he shouted.

Too late.

A Frost Giant tore through the front line, scattering bodies like snowflakes.

Something inside Reynard snapped.

His aura ignited.

Golden light erupted from his body, warping the frost around him, his presence forcing warmth back into existence. The ground beneath his boots cracked as he stepped forward alone.

“Enough.”

The giants turned toward him.

Reynard raised his blade.

“Sovereign Blade—Ninth Form.”

The world bent.

With a single swing, his sword did not move through air.

It erased it.

Space between him and the first giant simply vanished. The cut manifested directly across the colossus’s torso.

Not a slash—

A declaration.

The Frost Giant split in silence.

Its massive body separated along an impossible fracture, space itself screaming as it collapsed inward. The giant tried to move.

It could not.

The place it stood no longer existed.

Reynard’s arm trembled.

He turned, blood already running from his nose.

A second giant raised its arm, gathering frost.

Reynard forced his body to obey.

“Ninth Form,” he growled.

Again.

Space fractured.

The second giant’s head and chest ceased to share the same reality. Its form froze for a moment, then slid apart as if cut by the hand of a god.

Both giants fell.

Dead.

The battlefield went silent.

Reynard dropped to one knee.

Blood poured from his mouth. His muscles screamed. His vision blurred at the edges. The strain of erasing space itself tore through his body from the inside out.

He coughed, crimson staining the frost.

A slow, heavy clapping echoed across the field.

“Wow… such valor from a human is unexpected.”

The Frost Giants parted.

From their ranks emerged Morag.

He was larger than the others, his body carved from deep‑blue ice, ancient runes glowing beneath his translucent skin. A massive axe rested on his shoulder, its edge shimmering with killing cold.

“I see now,” Morag said, voice calm. “We underestimated you.”

He stopped in front of Reynard.

The air bowed around him.

“I sense it in you—your power, your will… your love for these fragile beings behind you.”

His tone held a rough respect. “It is a shame. A warrior like you should not die here.”

Reynard lifted his gaze.

Far beyond the frozen clouds, toward the distant capital, he saw the sky lit with fire and falling dragons—a lone figure dancing amid the chaos.

Alicia.

A faint smile touched his blood‑stained lips.

’I am so proud of you… my girl.’

Morag raised his axe.

“I will honor you,” he said. “Your life will end by my own hands.”

The blade rose.

Frost gathered.

The sky darkened.

Reynard closed his eyes.

And the axe came down—

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