Chapter 44: First demonstration
But of course, there wasn't that much time to think about that.
There were cries of pain that rang out not far away, along with the sounds of weapons clashing.
When I looked in that direction, it seemed that the Awakeners of our group were struggling with the Orc General that had suddenly appeared.
These Awakeners that made up the outer lines were only D Rank Awakeners, so they were the weakest members of our group in the first place. However, in a place like this, that should have been enough to deal with the orcs.
It was the appearance of the Orc General that changed everything.
The Orc General by itself was only considered a D Rank monster, but when it was with all of these orcs, its rank increased. It was only able to show its true power when it had minions to command after all.
The 'general' part of the Orc General's name was not empty.
When this Orc General appeared, the orcs had started moving in a much more coordinated fashion which made it hard for these Awakeners to fight them. After all, most Awakeners only worked in parties and only in large groups like this. So in terms of coordination, the Awakeners were weaker.
It seemed that with just the D Rankers, we wouldn't be able to take care of these orcs and the Orc General.
So there were a few C Rankers in the center of the formation that were about to move.
But before they could, there was an icicle that cut through the air.
Before anyone could react, that icicle had slammed into the Orc General's sword and pushed the Orc General back several meters. At the same time, the icicle exploded into ice particles that quickly covered the Orc General's sword, causing ice to form over the sword itself.
The Orc General couldn't help revealing a slightly fearful look when he saw his sword being frozen like this, but then the Orc General slammed the sword down on the ground and shattered the ice surrounding it.
It was just too bad that the icicle that had flown out was only a casual attack.
The Ice Princess stepped out from the formation and said, "I'll take care of this myself. The rest of you will clean up the orcs."
The C Rankers were surprised to hear this order, but they quickly reacted and said, "Yes!"
At this, the C Rankers spread throughout the formation that we were in. The C Rankers moved separately and to different parts of the formation, backing up the D Rankers as they fought the orcs.
With the C Rankers helping, the D Rankers were able to push back the orcs without any problems even if the orcs were working together better.
Back at the Orc General, the Ice Princess didn't waste any time.
She raised the sword in her hand and there was a world of frost that appeared around her.
The water in the air condensed into ice crystals that just floated there around the Orc General.
The Orc General knew that he was in a dangerous position, so he didn't make a rash move. Instead, he called out in the orc tongue, as if he was giving some kind of order.
Then all of a sudden, the orcs that were behind the Ice Princess suddenly turned and raised their clubs at her.
The Ice Princess had flown over the orcs and the D Rankers fighting to face the Orc General. This had put her in a position where she was in between the orcs and the Orc General.
But once the orcs turned, the D Rankers and C Rankers immediately started cutting them down from behind.
In fact, seeing that these orcs had wanted to attack the Ice Princess, they started fighting even harder as if they were her personal knights.
One of the C Rankers even shouted, "We will never let you lay a single finger on our goddess!"
It was clear that these D Rankers and C Rankers were fans of the Ice Princess as well.
The Ice Princess had never turned back once during all of this.
Even when the orcs were about to attack her from behind, her eyes were still focused on the Orc General.
It was as if she already knew that the D Rankers and C Rankers would have her back.
Seeing that he wouldn't be able to count on the orcs to provide backup, the Orc General knew that he had no choice.
The Orc General suddenly raised his head and let out a loud roar.
As it roared, there were red veins that appeared on its green skin.
It was clear that this Orc General was using some kind of buff skill to increase his power.
However, the Ice Princess just stood there without doing a thing. It was as if she was even waiting for the Orc General to finish buffing himself before attacking.
Finally, the Orc General brought his head back down and looked right at the Ice Princes.
She looked back at the Orc General with ice cold eyes while still seemingly waiting for it.
The Orc General couldn't help feeling a trace of fear when he saw this, but he suppressed that fear and raised his sword to point right at the Ice Princess.
Then with another roar, the Orc General started to move.
But before it could take more than two steps, the Ice Princess suddenly pointed her sword at the Orc General.
When she did, the ice crystals that had been floating there in the air suddenly started to move. They cut across the air, creating cold streaks as they flew right at the Orc General.
The Orc General panicked when he saw this, swinging his sword out at the closest ice crystal.
There was no resistance at all as his sword cut through the ice crystal, but after it had cut through the ice crystal, there were bits of ice that started forming on the surface of this sword.
The Orc General didn't notice this at first since he was too busy dealing with all the ice crystals coming at him. He kept swinging his sword out to cut through each of the ice crystals as they came closer.
As he did, more and more ice started to form on the surface of his sword.
And with more ice that formed on the sword, the Orc General's movements started getting slower.
At the same time, there were more and more ice crystals that started appearing around the Orc General. There were just too many of them for the Orc General to cut them all down.
So these ice crystals that made it past the Orc General's swings started clinging to his body.
The moment that the ice crystal made contact with the Orc General's body, a layer of ice started forming on the Orc General's skin. Each ice crystal didn't create that much ice, but there were plenty of ice crystals to make up for that.
The Orc General did all that he could to avoid these ice crystals after seeing what was happening, but there were just too many for him to avoid.
Eventually…a layer of ice formed over the Orc General and he stopped moving.
What replaced the Orc General…was an ice sculpture that was shaped just like the Orc General.