Under this terrifying dragon fear, even the abyssal drakes let out panicked roars and skidded to an abrupt halt, violently bucking off the dazed frost giants on their backs.
Only then was Klemun jolted awake. He scrambled awkwardly to his feet, brandishing his massive warhammer, his face twisted into a hideous snarl.
"Who is it? Who dares provoke the great Klemun? I'll tear you to shreds in the freezing wind!"
The only reply was the shrieking rush of dragon wings tearing through the air and whipping up a gale. A colossal dark silhouette fell across the ground, engulfing hundreds of demons—including Klemun—beneath its shadow.
The demons craned their necks in frantic agitation, looking toward the sky in unison. Yet fear and panic instantly overtook their ugly, distorted visages, and a clamor broke out across the host.
"What is that?"
"A dragon! It's a dragon!"
"Great Abyss... What an enormous dragon!"
A red dragon of incomparable size looked down upon them from above. Flames churned within his pale golden pupils, and his immense wings blotted out the sky. The dragon crystal embedded in his chest blazed with blinding radiance, like a sun rising over the depths of Hell.
"Damned Hell bastards... To think they had an ally like this..."
Klemun glared up at the red dragon, his expression grim, his grip on the warhammer trembling faintly.
A frost giant who had fought for thousands of years did not fear dragons. In Klemun's heart, giants were the noblest, mightiest race in existence. He had even slain several gold and silver dragons that dared obstruct the Abyssal Legion.
Yet the red dragon before him was an entirely different beast, worlds apart from any dragon Klemun had ever encountered.
The mightiest dragon Klemun had ever faced was an ancient gold dragon. He had waged a bitter battle for three days and three nights, exhausting every trick in his arsenal to kill it before finally crushing that bearded, sagacious skull with his warhammer.
Even that ancient gold dragon had measured less than forty meters in length, which already put it among the pinnacles of dragonkind.
Yet this red dragon—Klemun judged him to be at least sixty meters long. Moreover, his anatomy was distinct from ordinary dragons, combining immense brawn and solidity with a streamlined grace.
Before this red dragon, even an ancient gold dragon would seem like a half-grown wyrmling. There was simply no comparison.
A troublesome foe.
I most likely cannot defeat him.
After observing for a moment, Klemun reached this conclusion.
Though the frost giant had waged war in the Abyss for millennia, he was no witless brute; he had a lucid grasp of his own capabilities.
Furthermore, for reasons he could not fathom, facing this red dragon made his entire body tremble with an unbearable dread.
With that in mind, Klemun raised his warhammer and declared with grim gravity, "The Blood War is the eternal battlefield of demons and devils! Red dragon, you do not belong here!
"Those Hell bastards are indeed adept at poisoning minds. If you depart Avernus right now, we will overlook your offense. But if you insist on standing before the Abyssal Legion, that is tantamount to declaring war on Lord Kostchtchie!"
The red dragon merely beat his wings and let out an indifferent chuckle. "Kostchtchie? Who is that?"
Klemun instantly flew into a rage. Catching the mocking subtext, he pointed toward the sky and bellowed curses: "Ignorant reptile!
"Lord Kostchtchie is the ruler of the twenty-third layer of the Abyss, the great Lord of Wrath, the King of the Frost Giants! If you dare stand in his path, death is your only end!
"The great Lord of Wrath will hang your skull in his hall, forge your spine into a favored weapon, and stitch your wing membranes into a rugged cloak!"
Yet after venting his fury, Klemun felt something amiss. An eerie sensation welled within his chest.
Why could he not keep his emotions in check when facing this red dragon? Why did an involuntary terror seize him?
It was almost as if... he had encountered his natural predator.
Realizing this, Klemun dared not take matters lightly. He hurriedly channeled the Abyssal power within him to call upon his master, crying for aid from the renowned Lord of Wrath, dark light flickering within his murky pupils.
"A frost giant?" Cassius lowered his head and bared his teeth in a sinister grin. "What a coincidence. Just a few years ago, I wiped out a frost giant tribe and slaughtered several hundred of them. That tribe was called... Everfrost, wasn't it?"
At the name "Everfrost," Klemun's expression changed violently. Veins bulged across his forehead, and uncontrollable fury flared in his eyes as his entire body shook violently.
It was not mere hostility, but racial enmity—an imprint branded into the soul of every frost giant, one that even demonic corruption could not erase.
It was the curse of Thrym, the slumbering god of the frost giants.
"It's you! It was you all along! You are the Cinder Emperor who destroyed the Everfrost Tribe—Enemy of the Frost Giants, Cassius!
"You... you will suffer an eternal curse! You will die by the hands of the frost giants!"
Dread of a natural predator and hatred for the enemy of his race clashed within Klemun's heart, racking him with tremors as sweat slicked his grip on the warhammer.
"That's Cassius?"
"Kill... kill him! He's the enemy of us all!"
"What a terrifying monster!"
Upon hearing that name, the other frost giant cavalrymen looked on in sheer terror, some even fainting on the spot.
"Raving already? Is this the effect of the Frost Giant Slayer trait?"
Cassius watched Klemun's rapidly shifting countenance—alternating between horror and hatred—with an amused expression.
After wiping out the Everfrost Tribe, he had rarely had occasion to use the Frost Giant Slayer trait, as few living frost giants remained on the Feanso Continent.
Those who survived had either become gelded imperial slaves, slowly perishing under grueling labor, or ended up as alchemical ingredients for wizards.
"Heh. An Abyss-tainted frost giant brings back memories. This really is..."
Cassius licked his lips, faint light glinting in his vertical pupils as he regarded the demonic frost giant below like prey. "...a fine quarry."
"Watch out! Evade!" Sensing that overwhelming might, Klemun cried out in panic, roaring at the top of his lungs.
Before the words had even faded, the red dragon snapped his wings in, roaring torrents of fire erupting from his back. Trailing a scarlet plume, he plunged from the heights like a falling comet.
Riding a crushing draft of air and a deafening sonic boom, the dragon's mountainous bulk crashed directly into the demonic host. Even before impact, countless demons were engulfed by the scorching gale.
Boom!
The earth convulsed and shook. Rubble scattered as a plume of dust shot into the sky, and columns of magma erupted from the ground.
A massive crater a hundred meters across opened in the earth. Over ten thousand demons were pulverized into paste before being swallowed by spreading magma, leaving behind only rancid plumes of noxious smoke.
As the dust gradually cleared, the red dragon's massive frame emerged. His tail swept across the ground like an undulating mountain ridge, sending several abyssal drakes flying. Their flesh was torn to shreds and their bones shattered, tumbling the frost giant riders from their backs.
"Attack! No matter how strong this reptile is, he can't kill every demon here!" Klemun scrambled up from the ground, letting out a hoarse roar.
"Tear him to shreds!"
"For the will of the Abyss!"
In an instant, hundreds of thousands of demons in the vicinity surged forward like a mottled tide, seeking to swallow the behemoth whole.
Layer upon layer, the demons piled onto one another, actually forming a black sphere a hundred meters across out of their own flesh and blood to entomb the red dragon within.
Yet before long, several beams of light pierced through the demonic mass. Trailed by billows of thick smoke, they incinerated the outer ring of demons to ash.
Roar—
Immediately after, a dozen, dozens, then hundreds of beams pierced outward from the black sphere. Tens of thousands of demons perished in agonized shrieks.
Surrounded by demons, the red dragon roared toward the sky and snapped his wings spread, unleashing blinding radiance like a sun god incarnate.
Accompanied by shrill screams and the crackle of scorching flesh, the black sphere of demon bodies shattered and collapsed, bursting into countless burning demons.
Cassius beat his wings. A blistering tempest swept across the ground, rippling outward from him as several fire whirlwinds spiraled up like dancing serpents, swallowing stray demons into their fiery guts.
In mere moments, tens of thousands more demons were reduced to acrid smoke, wiped entirely from Avernus.
"Don't be afraid! He's so huge, his movements must be terribly slow! Use our big-game hunting tactics to bring him down!" Klemun shouted.
A dozen demonic frost giant fighters gripped their spears and warhammers, eyes burning with hatred as they converged on Cassius from different directions.
They brandished their weapons, aiming for the red dragon's vitals.
Yet what met them were talons sharp enough to tear space itself, and a massive tail capable of flattening the earth like a plow.
With a sharp hiss of rushing wind, talons blurred into afterimages. Carrying unstoppable force, they swept through the muscular frames of the frost giants at horrifying speed.
The sickening sound of tearing flesh rang out. The frost giants' bodies were cleaved neatly apart, blood fountaining from the clean cuts.
"Aim for his hind legs!" a frost giant yelled.
Instead, that thick, elongated tail swept through the air. The earth shook with a low rumble, and even space warped and fractured under the blow.
Boom!
The frost giants struck by the dragon's tail were mangled instantly, bones and flesh pulverized into one. They were hurled backward like crumpled rag dolls before detonating midair in a shower of blood.
Their demonic blood hissed as it struck the ground, burning small pits into the scorched earth.
Throughout it all, Cassius used neither spells nor spell-like abilities, and had even deliberately suppressed his Frost Giant Slayer trait.
This was the purest, most fundamental suppression of raw power, devoid of any trickery.
Rather than fighting, Cassius was hunting—and he relished the thrill of visceral, bloody slaughter.
"Is this all Kostchtchie's minions amount to?" Cassius shook his head with an expression of mild disappointment. "If so, this is rather dull. It seems your master—that so-called Lord of Wrath—won't be much stronger either. Not enough to keep me entertained."
Sulfurous smoke choked the sky. The charred ground was riddled with a web of fissures, magma coursing through them like veins. Everywhere, thick fumes rose from dissolved demonic remains.
Enveloped by this smoke laden with the reek of death, Cassius loomed like an indistinct, colossal silhouette—a god presiding over demise.
"Is this Lord Bel's ally...?"
"As expected of the dragon who slew Zariel... We must never cross him!"
On the other side of the lava river, along the positions of the Legion of Hell, even the devils on his side felt profound awe and terror.
Looking across the scarred battlefield and the carpets of dead demons, they marveled from the bottom of their hearts, grateful that this terrifying war machine of a red dragon was an ally rather than an enemy.
Might decided everything.
Before a being wielding such overwhelming power, let alone a dragon, even a goblin would command the heartfelt respect of devils.
Now, facing the slaughter of his army and the slaughter of his kin, Klemun had completely lost his senses. His face contorted hideously, teetering on the verge of turning into a mindless Abyssal fiend.
"How dare you... How dare you insult Lord Kostchtchie! Damned reptile, die!"
With a furious roar, Klemun swung his warhammer. The eerie blue runes etched into the hammer flared once more, releasing bone-chilling frost.
A frigid storm surged outward from the frost giant. Countless shards of ice imbued with chaotic power swirled within the tempest like razor blades.
Immediately after, an intensely cold white beam pierced through space, hurtling straight toward the red dragon's heart.
Cassius folded his wings across his front, using them as a shield to block the frigid beam. Yet a layer of frost and snow coated the wing membranes, creeping steadily outward.
The red dragon carefully savored the bone-numbing chill, analyzing its true nature. "The freezing divine power of Thrym, and the chaotic force of the Abyss... How intriguing."
Klemun glared at Cassius with eyes full of venom, hissing, "Tremble, damned reptile! This power was bestowed upon me by Lord Kostchtchie himself! You will become an ice sculpture, just another trophy in the Iron Wastes..."
Cassius lifted his head, casting him a strange look. "So that means you're that demon lord's confidant?"
"What do you mean?" Klemun took an involuntary step back, then sneered, "I have fought alongside Lord Kostchtchie for thousands of years, achieving glorious deeds in battle! If you kill me, you will certainly die as well!"
"Very good. I would like to see—" Cassius advanced step by step. He snapped his wings wide, and an unseen force shattered the frost clinging to his membranes, scattering shards of ice into the air.
"Wh-what is this...?"
Klemun felt an overwhelming pressure descend upon him, pinning him to the spot. In his eyes, the red dragon's figure seemed to grow ever more towering, ever more terrifying.
Sheer terror seized Klemun's soul, and his Abyss-corrupted heart pounded frantically.
The red dragon was holding back the entire time!
This was just a hunting game to him—he was toying with us!
Cassius loomed right before Klemun, grinning down at him. "—just how far this Lord of Wrath's anger can reach!"
Chapter 725