Tessa’s eyes were glowing red as she buffed the group with Holy magic, adding damage to all their attacks, even Karl’s lightning and the Golems’ blades.
With the Golems in place, Karl didn’t have to switch back to his sword, but it was still transferring energy to the group from its spot on Ophelia’s back while she used her twin axes to block and attack at the same time.
The Giants were beginning to reform their lines, and Karl was considering giving the order to retreat as they worked together for a group spell. His [Stun] couldn’t deal with that many of them, and he wasn’t certain what they were casting.
He fired as fast as he could, targeting different areas of the group, but at the last second, a surge of golden Holy Energy surrounded them all, and the power radiating off Thor surged. The Lightning Cerro had made it to the Commander Rank, and with it, his Circle of Protection and Refreshing Lightning Barrier had improved a Rank.
Karl noticed that the golden streaks on Thor’s scales were becoming more pronounced, and now his horns were beginning to turn golden from their natural ivory.
“Looking fancy, buddy.” Karl laughed as a barrage of Icicles slammed into the hastily erected barrier Dana had placed in front of them, and then shattered against the barriers on their bodies.
None of them took more than minor wounds, and these icicles weren’t as insidious as the attacks of the Yeti Clans, as they weren’t trying to freeze them now that the damage was done.
Tessa shouted in victory as the Giants roared in frustration, but the battle was far from over. Karl’s group was still vastly outnumbered, and most of what was left was the Commander Rank and the stronger Ascended Rank Frost Giants, who hadn’t been annihilated by Chain Lightning or Hawk’s fireballs.
The water hating bird was going insane overhead, launching fireballs as fast as he could, three at a time, into their ranks. They had ice barriers erected over themselves, but the fireballs weren’t weak, and the barriers were having a difficult time keeping up with the incoming damage.
Karl wasn’t ready to rest yet. Even with the barrier refreshing them, Thor would run out of mana eventually, and they had to have the Frost Giants dead before then.
Tessa was fully focused on offensive buffs, and was mostly out of combat and not attracting attention, while Lotus was focused on keeping Thor and Rae at full efficiency.
That meant Ophelia had the worst of it, with Dana not far behind, though the clerics were keeping them both fully healed, and they weren’t showing any visible injuries, despite the splatters of red blood on Ophelia’s armour.
The enraged Berserker knocked both of a Frost Giant’s arms wide, and Karl put an arrow into its forehead, shocking all the enemies gathered behind it with [Chain Lightning].
The Berserker laughed as she charged into the body and tossed it backwards to get at more targets. But Karl noticed that she carefully stopped before she got out of range of Thor’s Circle of Protection.
The Giants had no problem coming to her, and now that the group was getting surrounded again, it was getting easier to shock large groups, slowing them to the point that they were barely effective fighters against the speed of the Spider Golems.
Stun was an option, but as it only affected a single target, it was less effective in a group fight, where slowing everything made life easier for the offence than stunning one target.
While they focused on herding and eliminating the Frost Giants, Hawk had set fire to all the wooden siege weapons that the Frost Giants had constructed, and the orange glow was giving the blowing snow a hazy look, like streetlights on a foggy morning. At the very least, that would make it safer to retreat if it became necessary.
Lotus whistled to get his attention, and pointed toward her staff. “I need time to recharge.”
That meant no more water funnels, but the number of enemies was dropping rapidly.
Karl realized that something had changed, and the enemies were dying much faster than they should have been, given the group composition. Commander on Commander, it generally took five or six solid hits per enemy to disable your target, but the back ranks were nearly completely gone.
He knew he had missed something, but not what, until the last of the Frost Giants turned and ran back into the hills with Hawk in hot pursuit. His fireballs were burning straight through their armour and into their bodies, causing massive damage even to Commander Rank giants.
Karl thought he might have learned a new skill to optimize himself against water or ice element targets, but a nagging feeling in his mind brought his attention to his status.
[Skill Master Rank 2 Activation] Flame Body skill advanced to Royal Rank by Hawk
He actually hated Ice Magic so much that he had forced his Flame Body skill to the Royal Rank so soon after reaching Commander Rank, just to spite the Frost Giants.
Never again would Karl underestimate the benefits of the beasts having an emotional attachment to their advancement.
But more importantly, now that the advancement was complete, Karl could feel the shared skill advancing as well. The retreating Frost Giants were too far for him to hit with an arrow already, but the next time they were in combat, he would have to try to use the improved skill in melee combat.
Tessa made a pleased noise as she looked around the battlefield. “Well, that was more than enough to keep the War Dragon happy. Plus, it looks like we made a pretty good haul today. There are plenty of magical items on the battlefield for everyone to take their pick.”
Everyone spread out and collected all the potentially magical items that they could, and then Tessa dumped out the bag of weapons that Thor had been carrying around, which had been dropped in the trees when they charged.
“We should have time before anything gets close enough to give us trouble. So, I will identify everything, and we can try to bond what works best for us. It looks like we’re behind enemy lines, so if there is anything that might even be a little improvement, don’t hold back.” The Red Dragon Priestess reminded them.
There had to be fifty pieces of gear in front of them that had been identified as possibly useful, not counting the ones that had been tossed to the side as too damaged to be salvaged.
Ophelia passed Karl’s sword back to him as she found another two-handed blade, this one with a proper life leech effect, so she would heal as she attacked. For a Berserker, that was definitely close to optimal gearing. She also found a few pieces of Commander Rank armour, and a ring of fire resistance, not that it would do her much good here.
Lotus and Tessa both managed to finish upgrading their armour to Commander Rank, while Dana claimed an Ice Barrier Ring that added strength to her already impressive advanced barrier spell. Karl found a ring of agility and a set of bracers that improved damage reduction.
They were an odd-looking bunch now, as they were all wearing the Frost Giants’ preferred boots with fur trim, as well as Commander Rank leather pants, with mismatched armour pieces. Tessa and Lotus hid them mostly under their robes and new white cloaks, while Dana hid them under her mage dress and a large fur cloak with a hood. Karl and Ophelia had found fur trimmed cloaks that helped resist cold damage and cold weather.
More than anything, they looked like they were from one of the arctic barbarian tribes. Those didn’t live anywhere on this continent, but Karl had read about them in school and saw pictures. They were one of the stories that teachers told about human resiliency.
“Well, at least we’re all warm now.” Lotus giggled as she looked around at the collection of white fur cloaks.
Then she grabbed one of the excess cloaks, which were sized for Frost Giants until they were equipped, and tied it around Thor’s neck. It didn’t bond to the Lightning Cerro, but it did cover him in a huge fur blanket that matched the snow. That would make it easier to sneak up on future enemies, and it was a Commander Rank piece of beast fur, so it would resist some wear and tear without issue.
Rae took one look at it, then adjusted her body colour to match the cloak and lay on top of Thor with a happy buzz of her mandibles. He was like a giant pillow now that he was covered in fur.
“Now we just need to pick weapons, and we should be good to go. There has to be enough Commander Rank weapons there for all of us.”
Ophelia had already grabbed one, while the others looked dubiously at the assortment of clubs, massive sword and other weapons. If they didn’t adjust to human sized, they would all be useless to them.
Dana hesitantly picked up a dagger the size of a short sword, and after a moment of concentration, it vanished, then returned at dagger sized in her hand.
“Oh, that’s a relief. I have no skills with a sword, but I can use a knife well enough.” She sighed.
Karl looked over the pile with his hand on the hilt of the Vampiric Sword. Most of the weapons he got close to produced a repulsion effect, but when he got to the far side, where a massive maul with a blue crystalline head on it was sitting, he nearly got dragged off his feet by the attraction between the two weapons.
Karl put the sword away and hefted the Maul, which instantly adjusted to be just over two metres tall, and comfortably usable with a double dose of giant strength items. That seemed a bit excessive, but when he noticed the stats on the weapon, he decided it might be worth it.
[Crystal Maul of Resonance] Applies the effect of spells imbued into an attack up to five times when a strike lands.
