Novel Full Chapter 1930 Pieces of Victory
Chapter 1930: Chapter 1930 Pieces of Victory
— Kat —
Kat had come to the conclusion that she was in a bit of a bind. The issue was, fundamentally, that she couldn’t really move the Ice Primordial around. Pushing it back into the original was nearly impossible, the fact she had to ’clean up’ any damage done slowed her down more, and the chains were in much less useful positions then they seemed originally. Most of them were concentrated around the central body with only a few that went through the hands. Even with one of said hands on the ground fighting her, that just meant there were two ’free’ chains to use.
And getting to them was a problem. Kat was finding that if she stopped fighting the primordial it was very happy to start increasing in size or digging into the ground to escape. The chains didn’t just keep it in place, they were constantly putting out a great deal of heat. Of course, the primordial was also putting out a huge amount of cold so for the people in the room it cancelled out… but it did keep the thing weakened. Hedera’s words rang through Kat’s mind. They could not let it escape… and that was proving to be a challenge.
Kat found attacking it to be monstrously hard. If the thing was smarter, it would just be ignoring her and continuing to free itself. Luckily, it had no real intelligence. It was all reaction and instincts, but… for all that it left itself constantly open and was easy to dodge once you knew what it was ’planning’… Kat didn’t know how to properly hurt the thing.
Hedera’s fire arrows, a somewhat limited stock, were keeping it in place but not really doing any damage. Sure it melted the thing, letting water pour into the nearby grate… but it regenerated those missing pieces quickly. It couldn’t seem to make itself larger which was a major boon… but it wasn’t getting smaller.
Kat had made one attempt to throw some of the smaller bits into the larger, immobile leg of the primordial’s original body… and it had just straight up bounced off. Kat had no idea how that worked. The little bits of ’ice’ were perfectly happy to merge back into the smaller form and Kat was under the impression that the one she was fighting could be pushed back into the original… but there was some worry it wouldn’t work now. Hedera didn’t say anything, just kept firing the occasional arrow, usually when Kat threw a bunch of ice around and needed time to clean it up.
Lily had found her niche as well. Whenever Hedera sent a flaming arrow, a storm of paper would come soon after. It wasn’t the best material to keep the burning going but it did extend things. It gave Kat more than enough time to throw all the ice bits back together… but she wasn’t really able to gain ground after that. Like… what was the plan? Slicing it into pieces just meant more pieces to pick up. Trying to move it back had failed multiple times.
I think I might need to accept making this harder for myself before I can make it easier. Could I get away with cutting it into… four or five? Probably five. One for each limb, and then a final section for the upper torso and the head… ish. It’s not like the thing stays humanoid all the time.
If I could bring the size down… I might be able to throw it? The problem is that only the smallest bits can easily be thrown and anything larger tends to just… depend on how the thing is feeling. Could… could I slice it up into real small pieces and then try and throw them all at the legs? I could certainly get them that size, and throw them over that way… would it be fast enough though?
Testing would be required. Two parts of it. The first would be to find out if she could still stick two smaller bits together after they’d been separated for a while. Considering the little bits didn’t want to return to the ’main’ trapped body there might be limitations she wasn’t understanding. Then again, it could also be the size differential or heck, perhaps it was the chains themselves.
Hmmm… yeah ok maybe it’s a bit too risky to stick to that plan. Perhaps I can get the chains? But I don’t really see how. The chains are embedded in the floor and ceiling and frankly I’m just not strong enough to manage slicing through them with the band limiting me… and heck, depending on what they’re made of I might not have been able to do it normally. Though… hmmm… what if I throw the little bits at the chains? That’s easy to test.
Kat moved in for another round of attacks. The ice primordial was still burning and Kat was able to cleave off a nice section of its side. She was still stabbed a few times for her troubles, but Kat had gotten good at ignoring the blades. For all that the thing had gotten better at cutting her… it had gotten worse at causing damage. Now the cuts were clear and fast and incredibly thin. It took Kat less then a second to recover from a dozen of those puncture wounds.
Kat took a fair bit more damage from the balled up ice she’d sliced off as it dug into her hands and tried to eat away at her skin but Kat was ready for it, and didn’t let the pain stop her hurling it up towards one of the chains. Instead of sticking a bit, or dissipating properly it exploded into steam which then visibly flowed back into the body she’d just been fighting. It grew back to its old size even as the fire died down.
For fuck’s sake. Why didn’t that work?
[I think that… the chains are just the right amount of ’heat’ to counteract its regeneration. A delicate balance that keeps it from melting too much and getting free, while still burning it enough to prevent it from moving. Honestly, the fact that it’s managed to remain locked at all might be a miracle.]
Might? I can hear the emphasis on that.
[I’m wondering if the enchantments are adaptable. Not instantly, clearly, but perhaps if they’re embedded in the thing long enough it can raise and lower the temperature to keep it in place. In fact, it almost certainly does.]
Alright… so do you have a better plan then what I’m currently trying?
[Maybe? I think I should try flying up and checking out if I can disconnect the chains from the ceiling. If that fails then I guess just keep throwing bits of ice at it until it adapts enough to keep it in place.]
Isn’t that going to be too hot?
[Surely not.]
Kat shrugged and got back to fighting the primordial. Nothing really changed as Lily went to test out her idea. The primordial didn’t react, didn’t get harder, it just kept trying to stab her a bunch. Apparently it was smart enough to get better at injuring people but not smart enough to realise what regeneration meant. Strange considering it could do something similar but maybe that was the point? It thought of Kat as a similarly unstoppable force? Perhaps.
Regardless… Lily’s attempt was indeed doomed to failure. Lily found she couldn’t get too close to the chains before the heat was sweltering, especially up at the ceiling and away from most of the melting ice. Worse, trying to stretch out her shadow didn’t work either. The constant heat output disrupted them in a way she hadn’t seen. Perhaps with a proper spell or more practice it would be possible to resist… but not this time.
So instead, Kat had to focus on throwing bits of ice at the chains where they were. It was also a chance to test how fast everything reformed or started to move an attack her. Instead of throwing them directly at the chains, Kat threw them above. This meant the ice would arc down and land on the chains eventually. Seeing the results? Kat wasn’t even tempted to switch things up.
With her best and highest throws? The little ice balls already started to react properly. Some of them even managed to glide a bit to the side to avoid the chains. Kat throwing things quite so high after that. Her attempts stretched on. Thirty minutes of fighting. An hour. No sign this was working was present even as the stalemate continued. In theory, this could work. Maybe they were making progress but it was just so hard to tell.
Two hours in, that’s when things started to change. Kat had managed to get so adept at taking the primordial chunk apart that she could keep it nearly completely in pieces. It required a little risk, throwing the ice chunks higher then Kat really wanted… but it stopped attacking her from two directions, instead just biting her hand for the most part.
It was time to try.
Kat swapped her throwing angle, instead of aiming for the nearby chain, Kat wanted the ice to land right in the centre of the original body’s back. Kat sped through the motions, rapidly disassembling the ice, pushing right up against the limits of what the band would allow her to access.
Kat collapsed as soon as this was done. Her last bits of demonic energy burnt up to ensure that she was fast enough. As Kat lay down on the ground, she watched as the golems giant hand grew back. Right through the ice. The screaming didn’t stop of course… but the primordial was still once again.