Dungeon of Niflheim

With his daggers raised and before Alpha could even register what happened, Shadow brought his blades down, silencing his subordinate forever.

Blood dripped from his two daggers as he held them aloft, peering down on the lifeless body that now lay upon his feet. He used his daggers to slice apart Alpha’s windpipe resulting in a quick and quiet death from blood loss, Alpha didn’t even have time say a single word in his defence before his life was snuffed out. Years of loyal service, abiding by Shadow’s teachings the entire time yet a single voice of disagreement and that loyalty was ended.

Shadow kicked away the lifeless husk before coldly glaring at his remaining two subordinates, Beta and Gamma. His gaze translating as roughly ‘anyone else got something to day?’

Beta and Gamma’s bodies shivered in fear before they rapidly shook their heads to the side. Their oldest colleague was just permanently silenced for stating a valid point, like hell they were going to disagree in any way, they still valued their lives.

Shadow’s actions caused a great shift in their feelings towards this master of theirs. Before this they were afraid of him and respected his powers and abilities in equal measures, he did teach them most of what they know after all. But now their respect was completely eclipsed by the fear aspect, thanks to his recent action. They could no longer face him as a student to their teacher.

Seeing his two subordinates having their eyes and bodies filled with fear as they looked at him brought a smile to his face. His subordinates had grown too complacent recently, no longer fearing him as much as they should have. Alpha’s outburst presented a perfect opportunity to correct this behaviour. He didn’t need intelligent self-thinking subordinates just mannequins that did as he ordered no questions asked.

‘Good that’s more like it.’ Shadow smiled before once again vanishing and appearing before Frost once again.

Frost was unnerved by Shadow’s actions, but they actually aided him. Now there was one less enemy to deal with.

.....

“Apologies for that interruption now where were we?” Shadow released a strong burst of killing intent, it was heavy and bloody. He obviously had experience taking the lives of many men and woman, but it wasn’t suffocating or all that imposing. Frost albeit taken aback by Shadow’s abilities felt that Shadow was weaker than perhaps Rock so he should manage.

What Frost didn’t know however was that although Shadow could be considered weaker than Rock, Jin and Drogan, he was an assassin, a master of the shadow. He attacks from and when you least expect, unless you were on your guard at all times, even if he was weaker than his opponent a well-timed strike could end it. That was why Drogan found him difficult to deal with, an assassin was a devastating force when he’s your enemy.

Shadow however ignored his subordinate’s quite logical advice and was facing down Frost in the open thus greatly reducing his effectiveness. But even so, this was going to be anything but an easy fight.

With their master’s blessing Beta and Gamma restarted their assault on the young Leo, pressuring him from all angles while Luna removed herself from Frost’s back, allowing him space to fight all out. She’d focus on helping Leo in any way she could, if they worked in concert, she should be able to cast a couple offensive spells when Leo managed to push back one of his opponents. While Frost would be free to focus on Shadow, and with Alpha’s recent departing, it didn’t seem as though Beta and Gamma would interfere in their master’s fight.

Feeling the onset of a great duel, Frost was reminded of his battle against Alex, the exhilaration, the excitement, the joy, the madness, and he grinned. His eyes ablaze and his blood boiling he charged ahead first with his fastest speed. Closing the distance between him and Shadow in less time than it took to blink.

His glaive wielded with both handed was viciously swung from the side, aiming at Shadow’s ribs. If Shadow was anything like Alpha, he’d be physically weak, so he placed his full strength in this swing.

Shadow merrily watched this unfold, allowing Frost to reach him while showing nothing but a smile full of contempt as images of his brother filled his mind. Out the two he was by far the stronger one, far more talented in assassination techniques as well as straight up combat, a real powerhouse for Adam to utilise. Alex however although fairly strong was around the same level as his recently departed subordinate Alpha but his strength lay in his adaptability.

Alex shined in various elements, he was skilled at handling nobles, merchants and the local gangs that were under Adam’s rule as well as tracking and dealing with certain problems that needed finesse other than simply annihilating the target or targets. He served well and filled an important role for Adam, so he was significantly pained by his loss. He pretty much served as the Baron’s right hand man, a position that Shadow was unable to fill.

As Frost’s glaive inched ever closer it was as though Shadow was watching in slow motion, the one thing he specialised in was speed and Frost was far below him in this aspect.

Shadow withdrew his daggers at extreme speed slashing at Frost’s impending glaive.

Don don don don

Shadow managed to slash at the glaive’s blade four times before forcing it to a standstill, although Frost had greater strength Shadow could triumph with speed and quantity and now it was his time to attack.

“This is what you killed my brother with? So slow.” Shadow moved forward after deflecting Frost’s side swing bringing his face incredible close to Frost’s.

“Tsk” Frost clicked his tongue and head butted forward smashing his forehead against Shadow’s.

Bang!

Not expecting such an attack Shadow received the full force, disorienting him. Frost was only in a small amount of pain being the aggressor and successfully covering his head a small sheet of ice chakra.

Not waiting for Shadow to retaliate Frost kneed Shadow in the ribs knocking him backwards before readying his glaive once more.

“Not slow enough it seems.” He thus swung down a second time on the still reeling Shadow.

“Bastard!” Shadow shook his head and covered his ribs where Frost kneed him before yelling and disappearing into the shadows resulting in Frost’s glaive hitting nothing but air.

Shadow reappeared almost instantly at Frost’s left side stabbing forth with his daggers aiming to slit his throat.

Although Frost couldn’t effectively follow Shadow’s movements, he had good instincts. The moment he lost sight of him, his eyes darted round side to side and he prepared a rudimentary armour of ice chakra over his forearms in defence.

With shadow’s superior movements his daggers reached almost within inches of his neck before Frost noticed and deftly raised his arm in defence.

Ding

His ice covered forearm deflected the daggers away from his neck since they were full of speed and not power. The sharpness however was incredible, his arm was only in contact for a fraction of a second, yet the dagger’s edge sliced the ice and fairly deep into his arm resulting in a deep gash causing the first drop of blood in this confrontation.

“Hahhhhhhhhh!” Roaring aloud Frost spun his body around along with his glaive and stabbed towards Shadow ignoring the pain on his left forearm, such a wound meant nothing.

Shadow smirked once again before utilising a skill this time and one that Frost was familiar with.

“[Shadow step]”

Frost’s eyes opened wide as Shadow literally turned into a shadow and vanished from his eyes, it was far more magically and mysterious than his earlier movements and he was close enough to hear the skill’s command words.

Stopping his thrust and planting his right foot firmly into the floor Frost rapidly curbed his momentum, redirecting it 180 degrees. Twisting his right foot, he pushed and leaped backwards funnelling all his energy into his left arm. In a split second he was now thrusting his elbow behind him while covering it with as much ice chakra as he could in the short amount of time. The still dripping gash painted the ice red somehow making it form faster.

Shadow appeared in solid form not a moment later and was suddenly faced with this perfectly time elbow bash strengthened by chakra. He tensed his entire body and manipulated his daggers into a cross guard to withstand this attack.

Smash!

Shards of ice chakra exploded outward as Frost’s elbow met with the resistance of Shadow’s daggers, but it only lasted a second before Shadow was sent reeling through the air, his strength was no match for Frost’s full power blow especially with such a half assed desperate defence.

Shadow’s feet slid across the floor carving out lines as he was forcible sent backwards due to the immense strength in the blow, he never allowed himself to lose his balance, keeping his body straight and legs firm. He stopped after sliding 3 metres or so away, his hands shaking as he held his daggers. His eyes narrowed as he felt the pain as well as shock as he stared at Frost.

“You’re a chakra user as well, how rare.” He spoke with disgust however, envious of Frost’s talents. Someone being a triple threat of martial, chakra and magic user was incredibly rare even among the noble class. He shook his hands to stop the shaking.

“So that’s how you beat my brother, your weapon mastery is below what my brother’s was and your magic is simple.” Shadow looked at Frost with a greater sense of worth now, albeit still full of hate in fact it was worse now.

“Huuu huuu” Frost breathed heavily, rapidly redirecting his full momentum 180 degrees was quite demanding on his body and his elbow. His gazed moved towards his left elbow, it was bleeding quite profusely. His rapid generating of ice armour was obviously not enough to contend with the quality level of Shadow’s daggers, the pain was quite substantial. Though it seemed that Frost gained the upper hand in the last exchange he was the one that turned out the most injured, but this didn’t dampen his spirits no quite the opposite Frost’s smile grew larger. His fighting spirit had been ignited and every moment that passed the pain grew fainter and fainter.

“Hmph so what, yes I used chakra to beat your brother big deal, at least unlike him I won’t die like a coward.” Frost snarled at Shadow, pissed off about his injury and failing to land a decisive blow. He used this chance to cover the wounded elbow in thicker ice chakra to protect it and numb the area some more before gripping his glaive with both hands once again.

“You dare!” Shadow roared in anger, he was very protective of his brother and wouldn’t allow some random elf to insult his memory. Shadow flared open his cloak and withdrew several throwing daggers similar to the ones Alex used and started launching them at Frost. Which he responded to in much the same way he did to Alex, with his glaive.

Ding Ding ding

Frost spun and swung his glaive around knocking down each and every dagger that was sent his way as if he was performing some kind of dance, it was almost mesmerising. His glaive mastery was a level higher than it was when he faced Alex so manipulating his glaive to strike down daggers was far easier than before, every movement was smooth and required less wasted movement to achieve the desired outcome. Although he gained a rank back in the arena room when confronting Rock this was the first time, he’d been able to really see the difference.

’30 no perhaps even 40% better than before.’ The more he swung the more in the zone he became, his movements became more responsive more accurate and far more deadly. He smiled wildly, if Shadow was going to keep launching daggers at him, he was more than happy to play the target.