Chapter 1734: Polar Power - Frosttusk

•What in the name of the gods is that?!•

•Is that an aether art?!•

•What kind of monster has the power to produce an attack like that?!•

The encampment surrounding the Collectrix’s floating rubble fortress erupted into chaos as an immensely powerful aether art fell upon their heads like a localized apocalypse.

The art in question, as far as they could tell, consisted of a massive snow storm that had been pumped up with enough electricity to make every single snowflake feel like a taser upon contact.

A single taser jab isn’t always fatal, but several thousand snowflakes infused with an equivalent amount of electricity would definitely lead to someone getting a heart attack.

Which is actually what happened.

As the snow storm got closer to engulfing the camp, several dozen of the gathered warriors were unlucky enough to get prematurely zapped by errant snowflakes landing on them.

It had gotten to the point where people realized running away was a terrible idea and instead tried to use various aether-based defenses to block the snowflakes or seek shelter for temporary defenses.

Both turned out to be pointless ideas.

Those who blocked the snow initially saw some success as some of the flakes melted on contact with their defenses. However, secondary flakes that followed melted the defenses instead and shocked the people behind it.

As for those who sought shelter, they failed to think that as the snow melted on contact with the tents, that said tents wouldn’t get wet and become significantly more electrically conductive. That, and they failed to realize that some of these tents still had small enough openings for the snowflakes to fly in and zap the occupants.

As the panic continued and more and more people were electrocuted into unconsciousness, though, someone amongst the masses finally figured out something weird about the snow.

•Wait...this attack carries the same power as the Blessed!•

•Oh fuck!•

As soon as this was pointed out, several dozen warriors suddenly flew out from the panicking people.

•The Blessed ones are on the move!•

The "Blessed" ones, were a bunch of ragtag looking tribal warriors that had, thanks to the power of the Collectrix, been literally fused with a variety of aether treasures and turned into monstrosities that enabled them to wield the power of [Chaos] in hyper specific ways that were related to the original function of the aether treasures that they were fused with.

By most other people’s standards, they looked like freaks of nature. In the eyes of the tribal warriors, they might as well have been divine attendants.

Focusing on the storm before them, the "Blessed" warriors began to focus their new power into the armaments.

•On three, fire!•

•Three!•

Streaks of light flew through the air and slammed into the polar storm.

Every single last one of these attacks carried traces of [Chaos] in them and, in the minds of the Blessed, should’ve been enough to pop the storm.

Alas, that wasn’t the case.

Instead, the lightning-infused polar storm suddenly stopped advancing...

•Did it work?! •

•It looks like it stopped... •

•Hang on, do you guys sense that? •

...and then began to transform.

•What the fuck... •

Before the eyes of the "Blessed," the polar storm before them began to suddenly condense into the shape of a giant warrior, and not just the vague elemental outline of one.

Ice and snow began to condense into the form of armor, while lightning condensed into electric blue orbs where the eyes were. As for the body itself, it was still that same swirling vortex.

However, all of that power was significantly more...concentrated.

•Oh fuck me... •

And now, right before their very eyes, this giant was about to go for a massive swing of it’s freezing arms.

...POV change time...

[Huh...I guess the legend was true,] I said as I watched our combined attack tear through the Affixed warriors.

[Echoing Frost] was a World-class Aether Art that was supposed to emulate the power of an ancient invasion of ice giants. More specifically, the cry of war they unleashed when they invaded the heavens.

Back when I was mortal, it was considered a lost ancestral art of the Storm Singers that disappeared even before my time.

When the Zhen Clan came to the Echoing Valley and showed the Storm Singers this ancestral art, they were treated even more favorably than before.

In those old legends, it talked about how this aether art’s true power could only be achieved when a hundred Aether Emperors pooled their efforts together.

In other words, what we were seeing now, wasn’t even close to a fifth of the aether art’s true power.

Then again, that amount could’ve been higher due to the factor of strangeness provided by me and my fellow kaijin.

"That...is very different from what the old stories say would happen," Hakon said as he admired the result. "Is that form because we used [Chaos] to empower it?"

"Possibly," Zhen Hai admitted. "[Chaos] is the power that seems to give life to the lifeless. So..."

"Oh, speaking of [Chaos]," Zhen Xun Tian interjected. "It appears some of those Affixed weirdos are realizing that we exist."

[Yup.]

From our vantage point, we could see that some of the Affixed warriors had realized that attacking the snowy storm giant was probably a stupid idea and had decided that the best course of action was to either run like hell or figure out who caused this walking apocalypse to attack them.

Once they saw us floating in the air, they immediately began to fly towards us at breakneck speeds with clearly violent intent.

[Should we meet them head on?] Nepherage asked me while channeling fire [Chaos] in the palm of her hand.

[Nah,] I answered. [We got to be smart. Mess with them and force them to overplay their hands.]

[Right on,] Hurricroak commented as she activated her innate abilities and grew a pair of massive wasp wings. At the same time, Zhen Xun Tian had advised the mortal warrior to scatter as well.

"Fucking scatter!" Zhen Xun Tian shouted.

Acting as if a starting gun had fired, both the Zhen Clan warriors and Storm Singers began to fly in random directions, causing the approaching Affixed warriors to scatter as well.

This was perfect for us because it gave us a chance to do two things right under the noses of these knock-off cyborg fucks.

First, it allowed us to bait out and see what exactly these tinker toys were capable of doing.

We had theorized that due to their aether treasure implements that they had highly specialized abilities and were probably lopsided when it came to leveraging most of their literally installed abilities.

Many had weapons installed so they focused on trying to attack with them, even when they didn’t seem to know what their weapons does, while those with "utility" treasures tried to use them even though they failed most of the time due to not being strong enough to properly leverage the power of their treasures in the first place.

For example, one of the Affixed had tried to use an aether treasure that appeared to be an amped up music box built into their throat to try and render us unconscious. Unfortunately, they lacked the practice or power necessary to actually use it before Terra ripped the music box right out of his throat.

[Disgusting.]

"Hrk?!"

As for the second activity, it was a way for us to even the odds when we got past these tinker toys.

[Incoming!]

Clatter.

[Dodge right!]

Swish.

[Block!]

Ominous whistling sound...

•Miserable invaders! Die!•

As they were chasing and attacking us, we made sure that every exchange included a moment where we dropped our zako marbles into the encampment below us.

If any of these idiots were paying attention, they would’ve seen dozens upon dozens of tiny marbles fall through the air like the snow flakes that were still buffeting the people beneath us.

Eventually, I bought, people started to notice that these marbles weren’t snowflakes as they soon transformed into zako warriors that began to dive bomb and body slam the enemy.

Cries of alarm interspersed with the echoes or crashing bodies and clanging weapons as the zakos began to attack the already panicking tribal warriors like they were raiders attacking a sleepy village.

The irony wasn’t lost on me, but j was too focus on the opponent in front of me...who was a complete dumbass.

•Burn for me!•

The enemy Affixed in front of me tried to blast with me a jet of blue flames from an aether treasure in his chest.

The flames, of course, did nothing more than empower me as the vents in my body sucked them in.

•Wait, what?•

•My turn.• I said as I pointed a trunk in their direction and unleashed a surge of icy air that slammed into them like an eighteen wheeler.

The "oof" escaping his lips didn’t even get a chance to fully come out before he was knocked out of the sky and sent tumbling down below.