Chapter 1669 — Surprise gift

Lex felt It observing him, but he didn’t do much to stop it. Instead, he allowed Fenrir to stretch its legs a bit. As new wraiths emerged from beneath the glacier, Fenrir readied its attack.

The two fields it excelled in were stealth and ice, so fighting atop a glacier was like giving it a home advantage. The inheritance he had gotten was almost as if it was tailor made for him, perfectly blending those two elements and creating something extremely sinister.

But that inheritance was actually for a race called the Polar Scythe race, which meant that no matter what, Fenrir wouldn’t be able to display its peak strength. That, however, was a concern for later. For now, it was more than sufficient for him.

Fenrir pounced, and it was as if his entire body turned into snow, mixing with the blowing wind and disappearing. Even Lex, who sat upon Fenrir’s back, seemed to have disappeared. Yet Fenrir was not truly gone, as became evident soon enough.

The wind was like a scythe, cutting the wraiths in half, leaving behind cuts that began to freeze their otherwise ghostly bodies. Soon, the wraith corpses became frozen statues so cold that even the glacier underneath was affected.

One, one hundred, one hundred thousand cuts slashed at the wraiths, their range as vast as the heavens. Where the wind existed, so too did the lethal blade. Where the wind was absent, soft specks of snow fell, bringing the wind with it.

But such a scene did not go on for long, for the waterfall was close to the castle to begin with. All it took was a couple of jumps for Fenrir to reach his destination, so when he reappeared, the silent attacks faded, and the wind returned to how it was.

But though Fenrir was formidable, the horrors of Abaddon were endless. It could not be understated just how terrifying a place Abaddon was. The only reason they lived was because only Earth Immortals deigned to attack them, and not stronger abominations.

Even It only appeared as an Earth Immortal itself, though Lex was entirely certain that It was much stronger.

"Kaemon, ready to retreat to the castle?" Lex asked, studying the mercenaries. A majority of the mercenaries following Kaemon were beasts, and all of them were extremely formidable, and seemed resistant to death.

It was likely some benefit provided by whatever system the Condottiere had to his workers. All of them were a whole lot more resistant to damage than they should have been, and even when they were injured, their tolerance levels were unbelievable.

"Yes, though I’ll need some rest after. Fighting off the wraiths is no problem. Fighting off the wraiths and ensuring that the waterfall isn’t destroyed is far from easy."

Lex nodded. Having Kaemon rest was no problem at all, considering that providing the mercenaries with a place to rest was the whole reason they had come to Abaddon to begin with. Finding the chalice was actually their mission, not Lex’s.

But just as Lex was about to begin the retreat, something unexpected happened. It spoke.

"Leaving so soon? Do stay a while longer, I prepared a surprise for you."

The sound did not come from any wraith, but seemed to reverberate all around them. Clearly It was watching, and It was tired of being suppressed by Lex despite its many efforts. Finally, It had tried something new.

The glacier beneath their feet began to crack just as the voice faded, and a large chunk of ice jutted out from the ground, forming a sort of cave entrance leading down below. Lex, however, did not think that the cave was leading down below the glacier. Instead, from the darkness of that cave, Lex detected a different kind of evil.

A monster opened its eyes, revealing pale yellow pupils. Then another pair of eyes opened, and then another.

"This is not good," Kaemon said gravely, recognizing those eyes. "Those are Chimeras... and they look possessed."

To date, Kaemon still emphasised on the fact that the Chimeras were the most formidable foes he had faced in Abaddon yet. Lex naturally did not take the lion’s claims lightly, and looked towards the cave, ready to face them. Yet that was not the end of the surprise.

A bolt of black lightning smashed into the ground, and then froze, forming a black arc of lightning that went from the sky to the ground. As if that was not enough, the lightning arc swirled in the air, forming a circle if looked through a certain direction. That circle formed a portal, and from that portal came out griffins - twisted, abominable griffins. They too were possessed.

"There was really no need for such formality," Lex said with an awkward smile as he drew his sword. "We really don’t need any surprises."

It did not respond. Instead, It looked at Lex through the eyes of all the beings it had possessed, a creepy grin on their faces.

Instead of responding, It attacked. The first griffin dove towards Lex, but using Naraka like a baseball bat, he smashed the griffin towards the cave, slamming it into the running chimeras!

"Retreat to the castle in a steady manner," Lex said, his voice deep and commanding. "We’ll make our stand there."

Lex’s instructions weren’t necessary. The Reaving Dread mercenaries had plenty of experience retreating during a chimera attack, and though they hadn’t faced griffins before, it was nothing they couldn’t handle.

"Fenrir, you hold off the chimera for me. I need to prepare a reciprocal gift for our host."

Without waiting a moment, Fenrir vanished from right beneath Lex. The chimeras were coming out of the cave just as the griffins were diving out of the portal. In only a few seconds, barely any had come out, but the longer this continued, the more of them would arrive.

Normally, Lex would deal with this issue the good old-fashioned way - killing. But only recently, he had learned how to correct the wrongness around him.

The sixty-four characters he had learned didn’t seem to have any use in combat, but they were great for developing and maintaining one’s surroundings. Lex even suspected he could use them to groom his realm.

That would come later though. For now, he had to forcibly close a couple of portals.