King of the Frost Giants

Mastiphal shouted excitedly, "Red dragon! You will be my greatest quarry! This is an encounter ordained by fate!" The centaur demon leaned back, the muscles in his arms bulging as blue veins stood out tautly. Drawing the bowstring to its limit with all his might, he nocked an Arrow of Dragon Slaying with a spiraling arrowhead onto the longbow, poised to fire. His deep-set eyes flared with terrifying killing intent, and a wisp of dark crimson light clung to the arrow's razor-sharp tip—the very essence of death. *Screeech—!* The arrow pierced through space and tore across the sky, shrieking with terrifying momentum straight toward the distant Cassius. The instant it was loosed, a torrential surge of chaotic mist followed in its wake, surging toward the red dragon aloft in the sky. Should the red dragon be struck, the corrupting power of the Abyss would instantly flood into the wound, tainting his draconic body and plunging him into final madness. "Come then!" Cassius narrowed his eyes, feeling the intense death force. He opened his jaws, fire churning once more deep within his gullet. *Boom—!* Silver flames cascaded down like a waterfall, illuminating half the sky as they pulverized the Arrow of Dragon Slaying into dust and dispelled the boundless, churning chaotic mist. Immediately following, a sun slowly rose, unleashing ten thousand radiant beams that lit up most of Avernus. "It burns!" "A sun! What a sickening aura! How could such a thing appear in Hell?!" The light of order was so brilliant and radiated such divine power that merely looking at it caused the demons from the Abyss to feel their eyes burn. Even Bel let out a startled, uncertain cry: "The Lord of Eternal Radiance?!" Mastiphal instinctively lowered his head, cursing under his breath in vile tongues as a wave of nausea washed over him—an instinct innate to demons. Cassius seized this precious opportunity. Snapping his wings, he tore violently through the space before him, crossing several thousand meters in an instant to appear right before Mastiphal. Cloaked in Chaos Fire, the red dragon dispersed the dark Abyssal mist in a flash, barreling straight through the barrier and crashing headlong in front of Mastiphal. Mastiphal raised his head, gazing at the red dragon in terror. "You actually stopped my arrow and broke through the Abyss—" "Now—who is the prey?!" With a savage grin, Cassius pounced, his talons sweeping out with a shriek as they tore through the air in a deafening sonic boom. *Crash!* Bones shattered; blood and gore flew! Mastiphal was smashed to the ground with a single blow, his skull partially deformed and his already hideous face twisted even further. His equine lower body kicked wildly, hooves flailing in desperate struggle. Cassius had seen through the centaur's true nature long ago—the fellow was a gimmick fighter. He was great at bullying the weak, and could hold his own against someone like Bel, a newly ascendant Archduke of Hell whose footing was unstable and who had just lost a portion of his essence to the red dragon. But against an entity of truly equal caliber, he was outmatched. And Cassius was an amalgamation of overwhelming stats and broken mechanics. Although Cassius lacked an immortal divine nature, he possessed a body on par with a sub-progenitor dragon and had plundered multiple quasi-divine powers into himself. He had no fear whatsoever of Mastiphal's death force. And once the clash turned into hand-to-hand combat, the outcome was beyond question. Though Mastiphal was considerably larger than Cassius in physical size, that bulk was largely inflated by chaotic energy. Even corrupted by the Abyss, a centaur-like anatomy was ill-suited for close-quarters grappling. Cassius, on the other hand, far surpassed the centaur demon in both strength and constitution, and his powerful sub-progenitor dragon body was an engine of war of the most terrifying sort. *Roar—!* Pressing his advantage, Cassius slammed down heavily onto Mastiphal's body and snapped his jaws viciously toward the centaur's vulnerable neck. Mastiphal spat a mouthful of foul blood. Straining with all his might, he jammed his bone bow hard against Cassius's head to keep those fangs from crushing his vitals. Yet Cassius's talons mercilessly ripped through the centaur's thick hide and plunged into that colossal body brimming with chaotic power. He churned through the viscera within, sending dark-red demonic blood and twisted organs pouring out like a flood. "Damn reptile—!" Mastiphal howled in agony. He was a monster born from death, but that did not mean he did not fear it. Soon, Bel flew over to hover above Mastiphal. The Lord of Hell was battered and bruised, but his pitch-black pupils burned with hatred. He was determined to repay every drop of agony this centaur demon had inflicted upon him! "Cassius, let me!" Gripping his infernal greatsword with both hands, Bel unleashed a ferocious roar. Cassius glanced up, then shifted aside, leaving Mastiphal's brutally carved-open chest exposed to the air. Bel showed no hesitation. Grasping his hundred-meter-long infernal blade, he drove it down with ruthless fury. "Die!" With a sickening crunch, the black blade impaled Mastiphal, bursting through his back and plunging deep into the ground, gouging a massive chasm. *Rumble!* Magma surged up from the subterranean depths, engulfing Mastiphal's form. The half-man, half-horse abomination was cleaved clean in two at the waist, spilling out its slime-drenched viscera in a torrent. Yet it did not end there. As if venting all his accumulated fury upon this one demon, Bel swung his hellish blade in a frenzy, hacking the demonic body to pieces until it was reduced to a mangled mess. "Long live Lord Bel!" "Praise the mighty and wise Lord of Avernus!" "Lord Bel, that demon was never a match for you! Look at him, fit only to cower at your feet!" "With Lord Bel here, why worry about repelling the demons and holding Avernus?" Seeing the tide turn, the devils resumed their shameless flattery, heaping all the credit onto their lord. Cassius also lashed out with his talons, hacking the Abyssal-corrupted equine lower half into chunks, reducing it to piles of sickening minced flesh. "Lowly prey, you cannot kill me!" The shredded flesh and severed organs seemed to take on a life of their own, surging toward one spot and rapidly coalescing into a grotesque, twisted creature. It was Mastiphal once more: horse legs, a human face, and arms crudely mashed together, barely holding the semblance of a centaur. Those deep-set eyes remained, glinting with madness. "An immortal entity indeed," Cassius said coldly. Staring at the demon that had stripped him of his dignity and forced him to sign a contract, Bel gritted his teeth. "Can you destroy him permanently?" "If you pay a sufficient price, of course. But permanently putting down an immortal abomination is quite troublesome." Bel scowled and fell silent, inwardly cursing the red dragon's shameless greed. "You only need to hold him off for now. After all..." Cassius smiled, then glanced toward the north as though sensing something, murmuring, "The mightiest of the lords... is about to arrive." *Wuuu—* A resounding horn call drifted from the distance, echoing through the heavens. The tanar'ri frost giants banged their weapons together, raising guttural, thunderous roars. Meanwhile, more than a dozen frost shamans raised their staves high, chanting fervently in what looked like pious prayer: "He is the Polar Night; He is Midwinter; He is Eternity; He is the new master who leads the frost giant race toward greatness! He comes from the Abyss, bringing a new domain to all our kin..." "Praise the King of the Frost Giants! Praise Kostchtchie!" The sky above Avernus abruptly turned pitch-black as auroras unfurled across it. Piercing, freezing gales howled over the land once more, and amidst tremors from the earth, towering icebergs slowly rose up. For a moment, the region resembled the frozen, sunless reaches of the far north, completely enveloped in bitter frost and snow, an expanse of desolate white. Within the howling blizzard, space warped and shuddered. The firmament looked as though it had been clawed open by a demonic taloned hand, leaving a hideous rift that wept Abyssal black mist. Immediately after, an unimaginably colossal figure appeared high in the sky, releasing a terrifying aura that smothered a hundred li in every direction. It was a frost giant nearly two hundred meters tall, burly and heavily muscled, clad in leather armor stitched together from white dragon hides. Fastened to his waist were over a hundred skulls. At that moment, he sat perched upon a massive throne carved from an iceberg. The frost giant looked down disdainfully upon all living beings below. Cruelty and savagery glinted in his pitch-black eyes, and a raging fury burned within his pupils. That was the King of the Frost Giants, lord of the 23rd layer of the Abyss, the renowned Prince of Wrath—Kostchtchie! Dragging his broken body, Mastiphal galloped northward, laughing like a madman: "Kostchtchie has arrived! That frost giant may be a bastard, but even I must admit he is the strongest among us! You are finished! The great Abyss will claim this land in the end! Prey, you are finished!" Hatred burned in Bel's eyes, yet he did not give chase. He merely glared into the distance with a grim expression. As a devil who had lived for thousands of years, he knew all too well how formidable Kostchtchie was. "This is... the ripple of divine power." Beating his wings, Cassius ascended several hundred meters higher to meet the gaze of the Frost Giant King from afar. The expression on his draconic visage finally grew grave. "What overwhelming pressure. It seems what descended this time... is his true body." This guy was a genuine demigod-tier powerhouse, one of the most famous demon lords in the Abyss. He had his own church and worshippers, had conquered multiple Material Planes, and had swallowed demiplanes once carved out by the ancient giant empire straight into the Abyss. Kostchtchie's record in the Blood War was equally prominent; he had invaded Avernus multiple times. It was only during the last Blood War that he had been defeated by Zariel, who had tricked him and stolen his signature weapon. Upon hearing the news of Zariel's assassination, Kostchtchie had mobilized his Abyssal legions without a second thought to wage this Blood War. Cassius studied the true body of the frost giant closely, his countenance growing heavier. A frost giant nearly two hundred meters tall, whose size was no hollow product inflated by chaotic energy, but a genuine body coursing with an immortal bloodline—this was extraordinary. Even in the Astral Plane, he would qualify as a gargantuan titan. Were such a creature to appear on the Material Plane, the terrified planar will would likely banish him in an instant. Kostchtchie's body was knotted with thick muscle; every sinew and vessel thrummed with boundless power. In a standard fistfight, even Cassius, with his sub-progenitor dragon body, would have little confidence of winning. Furthermore, radiating from the frost giant's colossal frame was not just the chaotic aura of the Abyss, but an immortal divine power akin to Thrym's, as if it could freeze all creation in eternal ice. "What a terrifying adversary..." Cassius could not help remarking. Although the red dragon had battled avatars of deities like Dumathoin and Gruumsh, those were merely empty vessels stuffed with divine energy, severely restricted by the laws of the multiverse. They had essentially been dragged down to an elementary schooler's level, only to be thrashed by Cassius, who was punching slightly above that grade by virtue of his cheat system. Deities were, in the end, deities. Beings fundamentally different from mortals. Had he encountered a greater deity like Gruumsh on the Outer Planes, Cassius would likely have been obliterated in a single instant, unable even to preserve his own life, let alone dream of victory. And this time, it was Cassius's first time clashing head-on against an entity possessing a divine nature—and against their true body, no less. Astride the iceberg throne, Kostchtchie wore a savage smirk. "Tsk. Mastiphal and Ishinix are truly useless trash to have fallen by your hands. Still, just as well. It saves me the trouble of disposing of them after taking Avernus." Mastiphal was infuriated. Snapping his head around, he roared, "Kostchtchie! You bastard! You promised me a third of Avernus after the war was over!" Kostchtchie sneered coldly, "In your pathetic state, you think you're worthy to negotiate with me? The will of the Abyss has never cared for so-called promises." "Besides..." The frost giant cast a frosty gaze upon Mastiphal, a chilling grin spreading across his face. "I have already dispatched an army to the 179th layer of the Abyss. It will soon belong to me as well." "You... you dared—?!" Mastiphal trembled violently in sheer terror, screeching at the top of his lungs, "I will return to the Abyss! I will hunt down every last frost giant!" Yet Kostchtchie replied casually, "You're not going back." "What?" Mastiphal looked up in dread, meeting the frost giant's cold stare. A horrific wave of freezing cold crashed over him, freezing him solid into a block of ice in an instant. The centaur's face remained frozen in an expression of shock and outrage, encased beneath ice so thick and ancient it seemed sealed for ten thousand years. Both Cassius and Bel felt a jolt of shock, drawing in a sharp breath. Though Mastiphal was grievously wounded, he was still a demon lord of the Abyss. To be frozen solid in his tracks so effortlessly! Was this the true might of the King of the Frost Giants? Only then did Kostchtchie raise his head to fix his gaze upon the distant red dragon. Fury blazed in his eyes, and his voice boomed like the howling north wind: "Cassius, I told you—the moment my true body descended would be the day you die! Now, I have come to make good on that promise!"