CHAPTER 165: ROUND 50 - DONE

The ice spikes surrounding the bear-like boss body started revolving around the boss at a horrific speed. Without warning, one shot out in a direction, striking Jax.

Jax barely managed to block it before another one went flying for someone else.

Ning took the first hit. An icicle the size of a spear slammed into his shoulder, shattering before his armor, leaving behind a dent. But that wasn’t the worst part. The shattered icicle began spreading around his shoulder, ice forming around the spot.

"Fuck!" Ning gasped, stumbling backward. His entire arm was going numb from the cold. He quickly warned the others.

Roman hid behind Jax and Melayne for now, waiting for the moment when he could go help Ning.

The boss’s attacks slowed after a few seconds, as if a spell had come to an end.

Jax dove back into the fight, his burning threads whipping through the air. He was burning through his Navi like crazy, constantly creating new threads to replace the ones consumed by flames, but it was working. Every strike of his was still a weakness for the Boss.

The battle turned absolutely terrifying. More icicles flew in random patterns, impossible to predict. Melayne took one in the leg and immediately started limping, ice crystals forming around the wound. Jax caught one across his chest and felt the cold seeping through his body like poison.

The pain only made him fight harder, however.

"Roman!" Melayne called out, her voice tight with pain.

"I’m trying!" Roman shouted back, his healing magic working overtime. "There’s too many of you hurt at once!"

Thankfully, things were different this time. The boss wasn’t healing like it had before, even with all the snow.

Jax’s makeshift whips were tearing chunks out of its body, which no longer regenerated at all. And without armor, the wounds were far more pronounced. Lucille’s fire blasts were leaving permanent damage as well.

"It’s working!" Jax yelled.

The fight became a brutal exchange. They’d take damage from the flying icicles, Roman would patch them up as best he could, and they’d dive right back in. Over and over, pushing through the pain and the spreading cold.

Lucille’s octopus grabbed onto the beast’s legs, holding it steady long enough for her to land another devastating fire blast. Steam hissed up from the impact site, the snow clearing in an area around the boss.

"Almost got it!" she called out, already preparing her next spell.

Jax was pouring everything he had into his threads, making them thicker and stronger with each swing. The bludgeoning impacts combined with the flames were devastating the creature’s defenses.

Then Lucille let loose her lightning spell.

The spell hit the Glacial Frost Devourer like the crack of a whip. The beast let out a sound like a dying avalanche before its entire body shattered into snow. The fragments scattered across the arena floor before dissolving completely, taking all the environmental ice with them.

Suddenly the arena was warm again.

"We... we did it!" Roman shouted.

"Finally," Melayne breathed, collapsing to her knees. "That was horrible."

They were all exhausted. The constant cold, the injuries, the icicles– it had pushed them to their limits. Without a word, they made their way to the small mount in the center of the arena and just sat down.

"I’ll get the loot," Ning said after a moment, forcing himself back to his feet. His body was still stiff from the cold, but he could move it again.

He gathered up the scattered items and brought them back. The usual Emerald stones were divided among them as always, and Jax claimed the Ice stone without argument. They all gave him the Elemental stones without question after all.

"Glacial Boots," Ning announced, holding up a pair of heavy-looking footwear. He tossed them to Melayne, who used her scroll to check its information.

"It comes with a movement debuff, in exchange for a higher than normal defense. Who wants it?" she asked.

"There’s a spell scroll too," Ning added, already examining it. "Frostbite spell from the looks of it."

They discussed it for a few minutes. The boots went to Roman in the end. He didn’t need to move around much during fights anyway, just stay safe and heal.

Lucille decided to take the spell since it was useful for her.

"You sure you want to learn it now?" Melayne asked as Lucille read the scroll.

"No point waiting," Lucille said, learning it. The scroll suddenly vanished, knowledge flowing into her mind, and she smiled. "Flash Frost. Targets an area with a fifty percent chance to freeze enemies. If it doesn’t freeze them, it slows their attacks and movement by half for ten seconds."

"That’s actually pretty good," Jax said. "We’re lacking area-based crowd control."

Roman was already putting on the new boots, testing how they felt.

They rested for a while, and Jax brought out the healing wine again. Last time, they had only consumed half of it, so this time they were likely going to consume it all.

"Here," Jax said, passing it to Lucille. "You first. We’ll be fighting soon."

She took a small sip and made a face. "God, that’s awful."

"So many are gone," Melayne said from the side. They looked to her to see her head toward the sky.

They all looked up at the sky as well.

The floating names had dimmed dramatically since they’d started. Of the tens of thousands that had begun this trial, maybe a hundred were still glowing.

"Most of them probably haven’t even reached the fifth boss," Jax said quietly.

"Makes you think," Ning said. "We’re actually doing pretty well."

Jax nodded. "One more boss and we get a three-star ticket."

Final 10 gave a 4-star Ticket. And Last remaining gave 5-Star.

"Five stars," Melayne said. "That’s what we must strive for."

They sat in comfortable silence for a moment, each of them thinking about what that could mean.

"Things are getting more dangerous," Lucille said. "But our chances have never been better."

"Yeah," Jax agreed, looking up at the timer that came to an end. "Let’s see how far we can go."