The dust settled over the ruined Frost Sanctum. The mountain peak, once capped with eternal ice and shrouded in violet clouds, was now exposed to the raw, grey sunlight of the Silverwood sky.
The silence was absolute. It was the heavy, suffocating silence that follows a miracle—or a catastrophe.
Alvian sat amidst the rubble, his chest heaving. The adrenaline that had fueled his suicidal charge against a God was fading, replaced by a bone-deep exhaustion. But his eyes were wide open, fixated on the golden text hovering in his vision.
[Server Announcement: REGIONAL FIRST!]
[Player Alvian has slain the Avatar of Engels (Calamity)!]
[Achievement Unlocked: Godslayer (Incomplete)]
[Experience Gained: 5,200,000!]
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
A warm, golden light bathed his body repeatedly. The sensation of leveling up was usually a quick rush, but this... this was a torrent. It was as if his very soul was being reforged in a kiln of pure power.
Alvian clenched his fist. The weakness from the battle evaporated instantly. His mana channels, previously strained to the breaking point by the [Runic Aegis] overload, snapped back together, stronger and wider than before.
He opened his status panel.
┏━━━━━━━[ Profile ]━━━━━━━┓
│ Name: Alvian
│ Class: Unbound
│ Level: 28 (+5)
│ Title: The Anomaly, Slayer of the Cult, Godslayer (Inc.)
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
┏━━━━━━[ Attributes ]━━━━━━┓
│ Strength: [85]
│ Speed: [92]
│ Physique: [60]
│ Energy: [145]
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
His stats had skyrocketed. He was no longer just a strong freshman; he was a walking natural disaster. A Level 28 with stats that rivaled a Level 45 specialized build.
But the experience points were just the appetizer. The main course lay glowing in the center of the crater where the Avatar of Engels had shattered.
Three orbs of light floated there. One Orange. One Purple. And one... a shifting, ethereal blue that seemed to be made of trapped starlight.
Alvian stood up. His legs felt light, powerful. He walked toward the loot, his boots crunching on the glass-like slag created by Professor Rogge’s sacrifice.
He reached for the Orange orb first.
[Ding! You have acquired [Frost Lance of the Monarch]!]
┏━━━━━━━[ Legendary Weapon ]━━━━━━━┓
│ Name: Frost Lance of the Monarch
│ Grade: Orange (Legendary)
│ Type: Spear / Polearm
│ Requirement: Level 25, 80 Strength, Ice Affinity
│ Attack: 850 - 1100
│ ▷ Effect 1: [Eternal Winter]: Attacks have a 20% chance to inflict [Deep Freeze],
│ ignoring resistance.
│ ▷ Effect 2: [God-Killer’s Echo]: Deals 50% bonus damage to Divine or Demonic entities.
│ ▷ Active Skill: [Glacial Pierce] - Throws the spear to create a line of absolute zero,
│ dealing 500% Physical Damage. Cooldown: 10 minutes.
│ Description: A weapon forged from the shattered spine of the Frost Monarch’s Avatar.
│ It radiates a cold that can freeze the soul.
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
Alvian weighed the lance in his hand. It was cold, heavy, and radiated a terrifying aura. It was a weapon fit for a king.
"Not a dagger," Alvian muttered, his face impassive. "But at this grade, the weapon type is irrelevant. It’s a stat stick."
He stored it. He would use it when brute force was required, or feed it to the Genesis Forge later.
He reached for the Purple orb.
[Ding! You have acquired [Robes of the Void Walker]!]
[Grade: Epic (Purple)]
[Type: Armor (Cloth/Leather Hybrid)]
[Attributes: +30 Speed, +20 Energy]
[Effect: Increases stealth effectiveness by 40%.]
Immediate equip. His mismatched starter gear and the leather pieces he had scavenged dissolved, replaced by the sleek, dark robes that seemed to drink the light around him. He looked less like a student and more like a reaper.
Finally, the blue orb. The skill.
Alvian’s hand trembled slightly. This was the essence of the Avatar itself.
[Ding! You have acquired Skill Book: [Frost Heart]!]
[Grade: Unique (Growth Type)]
"Growth type," Alvian whispered. A predatory grin spread across his face.
┏━━━━━━━[ Skill Acquired ]━━━━━━━┓
│ Name: [Frost Heart]
│ Rank: Unique (Tier 1)
│ Type: Transformation / Passive
│ Passive Effect: You are immune to all Cold damage. Your Ice-based skills deal 20%
│ more damage.
│ Active Effect: [Avatar State] - For 30 seconds, you merge with the essence of the
│ Frost Monarch.
│ ▷ You gain temporary flight.
│ ▷ Your mana becomes infinite for the duration.
│ ▷ All cooldowns are reduced by 80%.
│ Drawback: After the duration ends, you enter a state of [Mana Burn] for 24 hours.
│ All stats reduced by 50%.
│ Cooldown: 7 Days.
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
"Infinite mana. 80% cooldown reduction."
Alvian closed his eyes, imagining the possibilities. With [Frost Descent +2], he could layer blizzard upon blizzard until he buried a city. With [Shadow Weave], he could remain permanently invisible.
It was a trump card. A "Win Button" with a heavy price.
"Perfect."
He learned the skill immediately. The orb dissolved into his chest, settling next to his heart. He felt a chill, not painful, but comforting. He was now truly part of the winter.
He turned around.
The squad was staring at him.
Valeria was on her feet, leaning heavily on her claymore. Her armor was dented, scorched, and frozen in patches. Elara was kneeling beside the unconscious Professor George, checking his vitals. Arin was sitting on a piece of rubble, staring at the empty sky where the God had been, muttering to himself.
They looked like they had survived a war. Alvian looked like he had just finished a light warm-up.
Valeria took a step forward. She looked at the crater, then at the spot where Rogge had burned himself out of existence, and finally at Alvian.
"The notification..." Valeria’s voice was hoarse. "World First. Godslayer."
"It’s done," Alvian said, his voice flat. He walked past her, checking the pockets of his new robes.
"Alvian!" Valeria shouted, her voice cracking.
He stopped.
"How?" she asked, tears cutting tracks through the soot on her face. "How can you be so calm? Rogge is dead! We almost died! You just... you just looted a God and walked away!"
Alvian turned his head slightly. His eyes were cold, devoid of the trauma that haunted her.
"Because if I stop to cry," Alvian said, "the next one will kill us."
He gestured to the pile of ash that was once their mentor.
"He didn’t die so we could mourn. He died so we could level up. Don’t waste the XP, Valeria."
He turned back to the path leading down the mountain.
"We’re leaving. Grab George. The Syndicate knows we’re here."
Valeria stared at his back. She wanted to scream at him. She wanted to call him a monster. But as she looked at the shattered remains of the Sanctum, she realized something terrifying.
He was right.
In this new world, grief was a luxury. Power was the only currency.
And Alvian was the richest man alive.