The passage was narrow and gloomy. As soon as Lan and his companions entered, they could smell a sour and rancid smell. As they walked, they would occasionally step on some indescribable things.
There were piles of bones scattered in the corners, including skulls, leg bones, and other bones of elk, snow rabbits, wolves, bears, and even humans. This passage was not connected to the outside world, and the air inside was turbid. It was obviously used as a warehouse by the ice trolls, and these bones were collected or used as decorations.
At this time, there was only one living person in this "warehouse".
"Harold!" Easter called out the living person's name in surprise.
The chieftain Harold, whom everyone had been looking for with great difficulty, fell on a pile of bones, like a sack that had been randomly piled up. He had gray hair and a big beard, with tattoos of family totems and beasts on his arms and back. He was extremely strong, especially his pair of iron-forged arms.
However, at this moment, his hair had been solidified into wisps by mud and ice, and large patches of blood scabs had almost covered all of his tattoos, making him look extremely miserable.
Immediately, the Tursek guards strode forward to help the kidnapped Lord of the Todaloch family up, and began to carefully check his condition. After a while, they nodded slightly to Easter.
"Still alive." The guard judged.
Easter breathed a sigh of relief.
Another guard who knew battlefield first aid continued to give Harold a simple physical examination to determine whether he had any serious injuries and to provide timely treatment to avoid secondary injuries when carrying him back.
But as long as the person is still alive and will not die in the short term, he can be taken back to the Oak Ring for treatment. If that doesn't work, there is still Lan.
Easter was relieved. The mission in the mountains was accomplished. The patriarch of the big family who was kidnapped by monsters was rescued, and he was lucky enough not to encounter the ice giant. Not even a single soldier was injured. Everything went incredibly smoothly.
Just as the soldiers were checking the situation, Harold's eyelids suddenly trembled a few times and he groaned.
"Who is it...Easter?"
"It's me, you are saved." East squatted down and comforted the middle-aged man who still had fear on his face.
Harold looked around with confused and timid eyes, and did not relax at all because of Easter's words.
"Easter?" he repeated the question.
"It's me." Easter continued patiently, signaling with his eyes to the guards around him to help Harold up and prepare to leave.
"No, Easter, you shouldn't have come!" Harold suddenly screamed miserably, "You don't understand, that monster, the ice giant, you don't understand what it looks like now!"
"It's okay, Harold." Easter said softly, "We didn't encounter any ice giants. Later, the seven major families will unite their forces to destroy them. No matter what kind of monster it is, it can't be the enemy of the entire Skellige."
They carried Harold back. The dark corridor was long and narrow, and the soldiers at the front held torches high, but they still couldn't dispel the cold and haze that was like a tarsal body in the snow-capped mountains.
Harold was in a state of confusion, half asleep and half awake during the process of moving. But suddenly, he seemed to be shrouded in a nightmare:
"No, it will come back, Easter, you have to be faster!"
Harold screamed in horror, but before he could finish his words, an explosion was heard in front of him.
Everyone's eyes suddenly focused. Did something happen to the troops stationed in the rear?
Lane and Easter looked at each other and suddenly quickened their pace. Soon, flames appeared in front of them, and chaotic shouts of killing immediately reached everyone's ears.
…
No one knew when it started, but a steady stream of monsters rushed towards the Tursek family guards stationed there from the corridors in all directions.
There was only one kind of monster surrounding them, their bodies were similar to water ghosts, but more disgusting than water ghosts. Their heads were covered with bloated wrinkles like those of Shar Pei dogs, forming a fleshy hood, and the sparse hair behind their heads, as thick as intestines, swayed with their leaps, and the tendons and fascia directly exposed to the air were connected to form a fleshy shell, with sharp teeth and a ferocious appearance that made people feel cold.
Corruption demon.
The Tursek soldiers had encountered this kind of monster before when they were supporting the Todaloch family, but their numbers were very small at that time.
It seemed that the Frost Giants' attack on the Todaloch family was a spur of the moment decision, and they did not spend much time gathering the group of monsters they could command, so only the highly mobile Sirens followed - as a result, they were all wiped out by Lann, the soldiers, and the druids.
The Corruption Devils had short limbs and were unable to cross mountains and ridges, so not many of them participated in the previous battle. But now they obviously had a nest nearby, so they gathered in large numbers to encircle and suppress the Tursek soldiers there.
"The shield guards in front will form a formation. Don't fight in close combat. Use bows and arrows!" East was not there, so his adjutant took over the command. He had previously fought against the Corruption Demons, so he had already mastered some tricks.
Lann was the fastest and had already reached the cave entrance. He was so scared when he heard the adjutant's order.
"Don't shoot! This is a mine!" Lann shouted. "The Corruptors are too dense. If one of them is detonated, it will immediately trigger a chain explosion and this place will collapse!"
"Lord Lannister..." The soldiers who were drawing their bows and arrows hesitated for a moment, caught in a dilemma.
Fortunately, Lann immediately applied a layer of [Quinn Seal] on himself, then appeared at the front of the team with a flash of golden light, opened his left palm and made the [Alder Seal·Bone-piercing] handprint.
"We found Harold. Everyone, retreat in the direction you came from!" East also ran out of the tunnel at this time, and shouted to his troops, "Leave this to Lane!"
The passage they came from was the widest and the only one without any corrosive demons. They had done detailed reconnaissance along the way to prevent the retreat route from being blocked, and they were sure they could evacuate safely.
None of the soldiers who received the king's order objected, and they immediately began to exit the mine in an orderly manner.
…
Lan took a deep breath.
Although he was leading the way, he actually had no idea whether he could prevent the explosion of these corrosive demons by freezing them into ice using the [Bone-chilling] blizzard.
But even if it doesn't work, it doesn't matter. Lann doesn't intend to kill these corrosive demons. He just plans to control his magic power to spray the storm continuously and steadily. The size of these corrosive demons is enough to knock them away and delay their pace.
After all, the scavengers are too deadly in this kind of terrain.
The other demon hunters had obviously noticed Lann's plan. One of them blocked a passage and made hand gestures at the same time, preparing to delay time for the army's evacuation.
[Alderfar...]
"boom!"
——The corrosive demon closest to Lan exploded without any warning.
The shock wave and the lifted rocks hit Lan's protective [Quen Seal], causing waves.
Behind this exploding corrosive demon, several other demons were knocked to the ground by the shockwaves of their companions' explosions. Then their hands and feet began to twitch uncontrollably, and their disgusting and bloated bodies began to twist and expand irregularly like a low-quality balloon, as if several gas streams were rampaging in their bodies.
Lan's heart went cold.
He was very sure that he had not done anything aggressive towards the Corruption Demon just now, but the Corruption Demon just exploded.
And there are more corrosive demons following closely behind.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
At the same time, explosions were heard one after another in other corridors.
"Full speed ahead!" Easter didn't know what happened here, but he knew there must have been an accident. He quickly ordered the soldiers to take Harold out of the mine at full speed, and he personally led the guard team to cover their retreat.
…
What went wrong?
Lann kept retreating. The violent explosion had broken several supporting beams and pine pillars. The other four demon hunters had also withdrawn from the corridors they were guarding, and rocks kept falling from inside.
"Something's wrong, there's something wrong with these rot demons!" Kolgrim shouted, "I didn't use any signs, and I didn't touch them at all, but they just exploded in front of me. I guess the same is true for you!"
Cohen listened to the rumbling sounds around him with a serious expression, and looked at the rock dust and stones that kept falling. "Could it be that these corrosive demons were already seriously injured before, and they forced themselves to walk to us before detonating?"
They were not worried about themselves, knowing that Lann could use the unique "Ancient Blood" to leave the mine and summon them out at any time.
"No, I didn't see any scars on these monsters. Even if there were, they wouldn't be fatal to this extent." Gede denied the speculation of his two companions, "It's more like they blew themselves up, launching a suicide attack - just to cause the mine to collapse."
Gede looked up at the increasingly trembling mine and signaled everyone to gather together, ready to open the advanced protective shield of the [Quen Seal].
The first Tuersek guards to leave had already left the mine with Harold. They blew the horn to report the current situation, which made Easter's expression slightly better.
"Why do these scavengers do this? This is against the survival instinct of living things."
Geralt took a deep breath, and a guess came to his mind. He answered solemnly: "Unless there is an unquestionable existence that orders them to do so..."
Everyone's expressions changed at the same time. Who else in the mountains has this ability?
There is only one answer - the Ice Giant.
So why did the Frost Giant order so many Corrosive Demons to come into the mine at this time and launch a suicidal attack?
Lan's pupils suddenly shrank, and he shouted to East: "Hurry up and alert the soldiers outside, a fight may break out at any time!"
East's adjutant picked up the horn, but before he could blow it, a desperate scream came from outside.
The long and narrow corridor trapped the sound inside, forming an echo that lasted for a long time, causing the soldiers who were still in the cave to break out in cold sweat on their sword-holding hands.
The vibrations inside became more and more violent, but this time the vibrations did not come from the mine tunnels that were unstable due to the explosion, but from underground.
It was as if the ground beneath their feet began to be pounded violently and regularly. The muffled sound from the bottom of everyone's shin guards continued to transmit to their various senses. They knew - these were the footsteps of a giant.
Lan's eyes glowed with bright emerald light, and he was ready to activate [Teleport] to transfer everyone out.
However, the next second, there was a loud noise like a landslide above their heads, and a skylight was forcibly chiseled out of the rock wall. It was not sunny outside, and there was no light, only cold air and fist-sized boulders pouring into the hole.
A rough, ugly, and savage head with a face appeared in the empty space. The head was huge and hard, covered with folds like rock cracks, with a cold color on it, and a strand of brown-red hair grew out of the folds, like a dead tree on the top of a mountain.
The face on the head had distorted features, extremely far-set eyes, a short and thick nose, and a bloody mouth with uneven teeth. Ferocious and brutal were the messages conveyed by this face.
But at this moment, on this face that could scare a child to tears in any painting or illustration, the eyes revealed an extremely incongruous look - that was confusion.
The confused eyes looked into the cave hall and uttered a word:
"god?"
…
“Ester…” Geralt swallowed, his voice trembling. “Are the giants in Skellige… so big?”
Monsters that normally have the word "giant" in their scientific names, such as the Cyclops, are actually only five or six meters tall at most.
However, judging from the effect of the Ice Giant's appearance, the height of this monster is definitely over ten meters. A big man can stand on its shoulders, and an ordinary person can only hit his knees if he jumps up.
"No, I've seen descriptions of it in poems before. It shouldn't be this high..." East muttered to himself, "It is...it has grown bigger again."
Looking at the giant face that suddenly appeared, the emerald light on Lan's body gradually went out.
Because in the hand of the ice giant, there was a person holding - Harold.
East's face suddenly turned gloomy. He could guess what the troops he had just evacuated had experienced.
Just as everyone was in doubt about the appearance of the ice giant, the ice giant was also looking into the cave through the skylight he had opened. His confused sight came into contact with Easter, and then focused on the iron crown.
It looked at Harold who had fainted in its hands, then looked at Easter, and uttered the words again:
"god?"
The next second, in front of East's horrified eyes, a bunch of oak appeared from nowhere and wrapped Harold tightly, growing and deforming continuously, and finally formed a wooden coffin. Then the ice giant opened its bloody mouth and swallowed Harold and the entire oak coffin.
It pounded its neck and chest hard, and coughed twice, as if it was choked. The loud sound of it pounding its body could be heard from far away, and everyone who heard it doubted that the force was enough to break rocks.
After doing all this, there seemed to be some momentum suddenly rising up around the ice giant, and it stretched its hand in from the hole, and its target was - Easter!
The guards all gathered in front of their king. Even if they were facing a hand that was bigger than them, even if their hands holding the weapons were shaking, they were determined to defend their king to the death.
Fortunately, in the next second, a familiar golden light flashed, and Lan appeared in midair. Relying on the strong core strength of his waist and abdomen to stay in the air for a short time, Lan raised the sword of the Lake Lady in his hand above his head, and after a short breath of power, he slashed at the wrist of the ice giant.
“Clang—clang!”
A sound like the collision of metal rang out in the cave.
With a "bang", something fell to the ground. Everyone looked closely and found that it was a wrist guard made of animal bones. However, the size of this wrist guard was too large, and it was enough for ordinary people to use as armor.
This is the wristband of an Frost Giant. This giant possesses amazing intelligence and has begun to learn how to use tools and even make simple protective gear - although the defensive power of this protective gear may not be as strong as the Frost Giant's skin itself.
Lann cut open the wrist guard of the ice giant, which was a matter of course. The long sword charged by [Rage Burst] was enough to split rocks and break iron, so a wrist guard made of bones was no big deal.
The question is, did Lann hurt the ice giant?
No.
The Lion-Eyed Demon Hunter flew backwards in midair, and a huge reaction force was transmitted from the giant's wrist along the long sword to his body. At this moment, Lann did not feel that he was a systematic demon hunter. Instead, he felt as if he had just crossed over and chopped the city gate with a standard long sword. His hands were slightly numb.
Another black magic scimitar behind him lit up with flames at this moment, and the soul in the painting in the Gothic skirt appeared in an instant, caught Lann before he hit the rock wall and landed safely.
"god!!"
A deep wound was left on the ice giant's wrist. However, before the blood could overflow from it, the skin around the wound began to tighten rapidly, leaving only a scratch-like mark.
"Deep wounds" are for humans, but for an ice giant of his size, the wounds are probably just scratches.
But even though no blood was shed, Lann's attack made the ice giant, who had not been injured for many years, extremely angry. It roared, and the momentum that had been condensed around it suddenly reached a peak, and then poured out.
Today, Lann has been able to distinguish that the ice giant is surrounded by a strong natural energy.
The badges on the chests of all the demon hunters began to vibrate violently.
The ground beneath their feet began to tremble, the strong wind between the cliffs began to roar, the snow on the top of the mountain was no longer suppressed and turned into waves sweeping down, and the cave where Lann and the others were began to collapse completely.
"Run!" Lane yelled.