King of the Frozen Wastes Faces the Regent of the Dead Forest

A purple robed man traveled across the tundra, trudging through the endless sea of snow, groaning as he did so. "Friggin hell. So this is what it was like for Carwen? Must say that I do not envy her." he spoke. His Ivory white rapier dangling at his side, he continued his march, his neclace freezing his skin where it touched. The man saw a a tree further forward and decided that it would be a most excellent place to scout the area. He climbed it's tops, taking in the landscape. It was quite the sight. Rather beautiful for being a wasteland, despite his distaste for the winter seasons and just about anything related to it. "Now to find the bastard..."

Before the man laid the frozen tundra. Ordinarily a blizzard obscured it from vision, but in the summer months it was visible, plain as day: the Grand Tundra guild hall, guarded by the enormous ice gates created by the man who founded the guild.

As the man layed eyes upon the grand guild hall, a toothy grin spread across his features. Finally had he found his destination. "You'd think that a construction that large would have been easier to find." he spoke to himself, his voice deep, but also a bit shaky from the cold. Not feeling quite up for walking or running to his destination, he took the second route. Through the air.

He layed his right hand upon the tree on which's branch he was standing upon, and as he did, the treee began to bend. Lower and lower it went until the top was almost touching the very ground itself. Then, he ceased his treatment to the tree, which suddenly hard him hurtling through the air until he landed surprisingly deftly on the ground in front of the gates. "Now... To knock... or to blow up?"

Before the man could do anything, the doors began to open. Out walked a giant, so tall that he almost stepped on the man upon exiting the guild hall. "Oh pardon me," he said in a booming voice, deepened by his size. "Are you here to join my guild? We're recruiting new members."

The purple robed man eyed the giant up and down many times over as he took him in in all of his greatness. The man cocked his head to the side, his long chromatic dreadlocks dangling along. "Cow or mammoth?" he simply asked curiously.

"What?" asked Hyperborean. Seeing it as another common jab at his immense size, he began to laugh, his voice causing the area around to shake. "You're a funny one!"

The man shrugged. "I do my best." He spoke as he unceremoniously stepped through the gates and took a closer look at the colossal hall. "Oh mi oh my, This is quite the guild you have here. I'm impressed. Most dark guilds are not able to afford such luxury that you have here. Maybe my own guild will have a hall like this in the future. Once I've built up a reputation of course."

"You have a guild of your own huh?" said Hyperborean. "I guess that means you're not here to join me. And those that wish to join the Bellona Alliance are supposed to speak with Cronus.  Which must mean you were sent here to eliminate me.  I guess those people forgot to tell you that I'm a giant!" Hyperborean lifted up his foot, and aimed to crush the man under his boot.

The man sidestepped the falling foot and reposturing himself "They forgot to make mention of tht rather large detail, yes. Anyway, sir, i think we have gotten off on the wrong foot." He spoke as he glanced towards teh spot where he once stood, a colossal foot in it's place. He looked back up. "My name Is Hotoke Perzsike and I am here to offer a way out. You can not win a conflict agains the council and the guilds that are sure to join in on the battle to come. I'll admit, I was sent here to take you down, but seeing you now, it would be quite the shame to do so. Leave this alliance and abandon this foolish endeavour and we can both walk out of this as happy men."

"Leave the alliance?" asked Hyperborean with a haughty laugh. "Not possible. Othrys alone has already conquered Caelum!  If I even attempted to leave the alliance, Cronus would destroy me.  Besides, I have been promised what I've always desired.  The destruction of the Sun Village!  I am the exiled giant: Hyperborean!" The ground suddenly became much more slick, as Hyperborean froze it with his magic. Sliding behind Hotoke at a rapid pace, he immediately exhaled, not a magical blast, but enough to send a huge gust of wind in Hotoke's direction in order to blow him out of the guild hall, the ice giving him no traction.

Hotoke began to glide towards the exit when his movements were suddenly halted as he reached downwards and thrust his hand through the floor, grabbing hold of it and therefore stopping his trajectory. "Sorry, but I won't be leaving quite so easily. Speaking of easy, this will not prove an easy victory for you. We have the means of battling the alliance's forces. By stying with them you will only promote more bloodbath. Let this end and come with me." he spoke firmly.

"Talk all you like!" shouted Hyperborean. "Nothing will stop me from taking my revenge on the Sun Village!" He punched the ground, sending a gigantic shockwave of snow and ice towards Hotoke, encompassing the entirety of the opening of the door.

"If that is your wish..." Hotoke stood firm as the incoming shockwave was heading his way. In a mere instant, Hotoke's body, turned a bright scarlet, as did his clothes, his pores oozing with red liquids. "Then I must crush it. Blood Nova!" With a great blast, blood shot out of Hotoke's body in every direction. While not his most powerful spell, it was enough to stop the shockwave and ice. The walls were now coated in a mass of blood, and from those masses, orbs of blood, with a dark center took form. "Iron-Blood Shot!" he cried out once more, sending orbs in a barrage towards the Gigantic man.

Hyperborean waved his hand in front of him, freezing the blood orbs. "You think you can take on me! The guild master of Grand Tundra!  In my own element!  You should know better than to fight a giant like me!  Ice God's Bellow!" With the same cold as his previous attack, he fired a large blast of black snow and ice from his mouth. Due to his larger mouth, the attack was much larger than any other God's Bellow. If Hotoke tried to block with another blood attack, the ice would freeze over it, with the attack continuing on after the initial freezing, and continue past the frozen blood, shatter it, and continue on towards Hotoke.

While the ors of blood may have been frozen solid, it did not change it's trajectory or speed of travel, thus resulting in them pummeling the sides of Hyberborean. However, due to that they froze, they had lost their leeching properties and due to their now frozen state, the giant would find that his natural resitance to all manners of icy natured attacks would protect him from the majority of the damage that the orbs ought to have caused. Figuring that this was not the kind of foe to take on lightly, Hotoke prepares himself for the worst. In a moments notice, his body began to shine with a bright green light. "Divine Roar of the Forest Dragon!" He cried out, sending out a colossal roar of enough magnitude and power to cancel out the bellow. "Hyperborean, this is idiotic! There's no way that you can win this in the end. if it isn't me it'll just be someone else!"

Hyperborean laughed again. "You were lucky the blizzard wasn't going today. Under normal circumstances, people get lost in the storm, and they freeze to death.  Out of all those that have come to take my head, and even join my guild, only ten percent have survived the ordeal.  Five percent give up the hunt as well, and four percent join my guild.  You're part of the rare one percent that comes to take my head, and they die as soon as they come here.  I see you have a sword.  Let's put your skills to the test.  Ice God's Club!" he created a large club of black ice, and swung it downwards to crash Hotoke.

Hotoke was quick to draw his Rapier out of it's sheath. Sword in hand, she enchanced the blade with divine forest energies and thrust it upwards to counter the Club's blow. As the two made impact, the club shattered along it's frame, rendering it near useless for a second attack. Meanwhile, the rapier which had blocked the blow remained unharmed and Hotoke, miraculously still standing strong and firm, grinned up at the giant. "Want to try again?"

As the ice began to fall around Hotoke, Hyperborean held out his hand, and made a claw motion with it. Suddenly all the shards surrounding him transformed into ice needles, each one aiming to impale him from every direction, and still imbued with Hyperborean's Ice God Slayer Magic.

With barely a second to spare, Hotoke conjured up leafs infused with divine light in his hands. When the leafs were prepared, he thrust forward, sending an nova of razor sharp divine leafs in a near omnidirectional attack, guided by him to shred the spikes if ice into pieces, some of which also proceeded to make their way towards Hyerborean. However, there were a collection of them from straight behind him which remained untouched. He spun around and used his rapier to redirect and even destroy a good deal of them. Sadly, one remained which he was not quick enough to grasp, a spike which pierced straight through his heart. The burning cold feeling surged through him as the ice slowly began to spread through his body, causing him extraordinary agony. Hotoke fell down to his knee, gasping for air.

Hyperborean waved his hand, generating a wave of snow that blew the leaves headed towards him off course. He walked up to Hotoke. "You should've known better than to come here. Ice God's Giant Hammer!" With the ice on his fist, he aimed to crush Hotoke with his gigantic fist. The ice was a safety precaution in case Hotoke wasn't as out of commission as he looked.

"Divine Forest's Blaze Engine!" Hotoke cried out as two great propulsors appeared on his back, sending out wave after wave of divine forest evergy, crushing the hammer as it was heading towards him, rendering it and the remaining shards into nothing but fastly melting snow. Hotoke rose up and turned on the heel. "Sorry, mate." He spoke as he grabbed hold of the spike and tore it out of his body. "But it takes a little more than that to put me down." he said and with a wave of his hand, all the ice contaminated flesh and blood in his body was expelled. "Ancestor's Pumpkin Canon!" he cried out and in the palm of his hand, a pumpkin began to take form. This pumpkin was crackling with magic and dazzled with a green light. He conjured up a total of five of these and fired them off towards Hyperborean.

Hyperborean fired another Ice God's Bellow, simultaneously freezing the pumpkins and blowing them back towards Hotoke.

Slightly elevated above where the two masters were fighting, two mages sat above them. "Is the master fighting again?" asked Erik.

"Yes," said Lionel.

"Should we do something?" asked Erik.

"No," said Lionel. "By the way, you're head's on fire."

"Gah! What?!" exclaimed Erik, immediately patting his head and feeling the flames. "Crap! Not again!"

With a slight movement of his hand, the five frozen pumpkins made impact around his feet. "You're quite something, Hyper. Too bad that you have found yourself on the losing side. You would have made a mighty ally. Alas, we both know that there can be only one survivor in this. So let's hurry this up, shall we? I wonder how you handle this: Roots of the Sacred Tree: Yggdrasil!" With those words, the very earth began to quake, the floor crack open. In an instant, colossal roots sprung up from the ground, whipping and cracking about like the tentacles of an octopus, breaking the surrounding hall. The roots grew as large and high as Hyperborean himself. The gigantic roots came crashing down upon him.

"Trust me when I say that it is Ishgar that will lose this war," said Hyperborean, "it would be wise for you to switch sides instead!" His aura flared up, as the tree limbs made contact with his body, they instantly froze, and cracked, and shattered on the ground. "There was a reason I wanted to take this outside. You're ruining my precious guild hall!  Ice God's Blizzard!" He fired a large stream of snow and ice, generating white out conditions to anyone stuck in ice. It would freeze over anything stuck in its path. This spell was more like wind than ice, and would continuously move over whatever Hyperborean wanted. Hyperborean literally wanted to freeze Hotoke in his tracks.

The white blizzard kept evrything out of view for Hotoke, barely aware of his surroundings. Hyperborean gazed into the icy winds, his eyes focused upon the slowly kneeling man before him. The weak hint of breath coming from his gasping mouth, growing weaker and weaker, hinted towards a lowered body temperature. The battles seemed all but won. Then a light appeared around Hotoke for one brief moment. The warm breath returned with an unseen intensity. With his head still lowered, Hotoke jumped forward fist reeled back and ready to strike. The punch was coming nearly too fast to keep up with, yet a tint of rose could be spotted as it traveled.

He knew that he had no chance of dodging this strike. He froze his arms in incredibly dense Ice God Slayer ice, and crossed them in front of him. His giant's durability combined with the ice surely would've been enough to block a strike of this magnitude. Hotoke crashed into him, sending Hyperborean skidding backwards, grunting at the unexpected difficulty of blocking this strike. The ice began to crack from the pressure, it seemed as though his defense would be destroyed, but Hyperborean's retreat slowed. Ice began creeping from his body, aiming to freeze Hotoke from the inside out. Even still, a bruise had appeared on his arm, and the ice had nearly been destroyed. "How could a lowly Dragon Slayer house this much power?"

The ice from Hyperborean began to creep up along Hotoke's scaly, clawed arm, but that was as far as it extended. "Have you forgotten, dear friend? Your lowly magic ain't shit compared to a dragon." He spoke with a giggle. "With a flex of his muscles, the ice shattered away from them, the cold leaving his body at a quicker pace tahn it could infect. "Divine Forest Dragon's Hatchet!". His left and unoccupied hand took the shape of a wooden axe, crackling and dazzlng with "divine" energies, a scaly pattern along it's sides. He brough his axe-hand down with the intent of maiming the giant.

"You dare compare your lowly magic to that of a god!" The hatchet sunk into Hyperborean's arm, but it was stopped before it could sink in too deeply. The thickness of his Giant muscles had served him well. With Hotoke still locked in place due to his latest attack, Hyperborean used his other hand, aiming to slam him into the ground with an open palm thrust, and would follow up immediately with a kick from his Giant foot.

Hotoke was slammed to the ground with a heavy thud, and then the kick came which sent him hurtling out the guild's doors, crashing into the frozen gate. Hotoke was like nailed to the gate, like an unfortunate bug on the wind shield of a car. He gazed towards the spot where Hyperborean stood, and while he could not see the giant, he knew that the giant could see him. "Oh? The magic of a god?" He spoke as he thrust himself away from the crater on the gate. "You must be quite delusional if you believe this magic to be the work of gods. Your magic was made by man. No man can slay the dragon." he spoke, and with those words, that rosey tint spread across his body until they took form in the shape of petal-like scales across his face and whole body. "Divine Roar of the Forest Dragon!" he cried out, and from his gaping mouth came a beam of concentrated power, so vast that it would threaten to tear up a a good chunk of the guild hall if it was not intercepted.

Hyperborean was fuming. His aura began to swell again as Hotoke powered up. "I'll show you my superiority!" He shouted as he placed his hands together. The temperature seemed to instantly drop as he powered up his next spell. "God Slayer's Secret Art!" He fired a linear version of his most powerful spell at the same time as Hotoke. "Casket of Ancient Winters!" The two spells collided, generating a powerful explosion, the shockwave sending Lionel and Erik flying backwards despite them being high in their perch. As the two continued in a power struggle, Hyperborean's spell threatened to freeze over Hotoke's. Simultaneously snow began to fill up the room, generating white out conditions. This was the secondary effect of the spell. The snow simultaneously would cause whoever was stuck in the snowstorm to feel immense cold. As the snow obscured his vision, Hotoke would not be able to directly see how his Roar matched up against Hyperborean's Secret Art.

Hotoke maintained his focus on the struggle of of power between the two spells. However, his roar would soon proceed to fade as he could not maintain it for too long. So he decided to tip the scales into his favor. His arms became coated in chromatic petals, color shifting and dazzling with green divine light. Without uttering the name, he waved his arms forward, sending the bursts of petals forward. Any shard of ice that it made contact with was shredded to bits as they traveled towards their target: Hyperborean. If he let go of the power struggle between the roar and the casket, the roar would make tremendous damage to not only him but the guild as well as the casket did little to affect the roar's potency. But if he maintained the strugge with the roar, the petals would do even more to his frame.

Suddenly, from the ice on the ground and walls, it formed a protective wall around him, blocking the assault of the petals through constant absorption of more ice from the area around him. Hyperborean began laughing to himself, still very involved in his power struggle. "How could I forget? I have control over the ice in guild hall, I created it after all!" He continued to poor on the power of his attack, still aiming to overpower Hotoke's Roar.

Hotoke could feel the power in his roar fading and the secret art began to win ground. Without a second of a doubt, Hotoke decided to make a sacrifice for the better. He let go of his roar, letting the art hammer it's way against Hotoke's frame, battering his body with powerful icicles. Hotoke was thrown backwards, but not a single bit of ice succeded in piercing his scaly form. Still being hammered, Hotoke slightly looked up towards Hyperborean's general direction and spoke: "Is this it? Is this all you have to conjure, Hyper?"

The icicles continued to bombard him, but then, they began to stick to his body. Hyperborean manipulated the icicles so that they would freeze over his body. "All you have are quips. You haven't come to terms with the fact that you're going to die here."

Hotoke felt the ice begining to cling to his frame, attempting to freeze him into an icicle. "Meh, I don't feel like dying yet. But just to keep it fair, I'll give you the honest chance to bring me to it." He spoke as he remained standing in place, the scales on his body growing thicker and thicker by the second.

He slid on the ground, using the ice on the floor to compensate for his overall lack of speed. "Ice Giant's Giant Hammer!" He aimed a high velocity punch at Hotoke, his fist encompassing his entire body as the blow landed directly onto his body, as Hyperborean aimed to completely crush him.

Hotoke was hammered into the ground, his fram completely burried beneath the colossal fist and frozen dirt. The iced fist remained over his body for a while, trying to ensure that there was no movement or life beneath it. Hyperborean was just moments away from removing his fist from the shattered ground, when a deep rumbling sound could be heard from below. "I gave you a chance and you blew it. Prepare to face a dragon's retribution!" The earth crumbled as Hyperborean would suddenly find his fist as if blown from the grounds, sending him stumbling backwards. On the spot where Hotoke stood, now stood a draconian monstrosity. Hands and feet like claws, great scaly wings on his back and a dragon for a head. Half human and half dragon as his appearance would speak. "I grow stronger by each passing moment and soon... I won't require magic to best you." he spoke as he charged forth, his hands turning into dazzling green hammers, ready to strike at Hyper with strength which barely he would be able to muster.