Second World

The colossal ice golem looked slow, but when the foot came, it was very fast. Luckily, both Red Death and Rayne were fast-moving classes. They jumped and rolled in different directions as the massive foot stomped where they stood a moment ago.

The ground cracked open from the force of the stomp. Ice dust filled the air.

Red Death tried using her Inspect on the golem but failed. All she managed to get was the golem's name, Ice Titan.

The ice titan saw that its stomp had failed to hit the two. Its fist now came down.

Red Death saw the titan was targeting her. The gigantic fist came down from heaven to where she was running to. She immediately made a sharp turn before the fist slammed onto the ground.

Rayne made a throwing motion. Five flying knives flew up and struck the head of the titan. The head was low enough because it bent down when it punched the ground. Although Rayne was mostly assassin-based, he also had a few skills from Hidden Weapon Specialists.

The five flying knives just bounced off the titan's hard skin. A small damage number appeared above the titan's head. Rayne's sharp eyes could see the faraway numbers, which demoralized him. Each hit from the flying knives only caused 1 point of damage.

The flying knives didn't attract any of the titan's attention, it was still focusing on Red Death. The arm it just used to punch was now sweeping along the icy ground, scraping all the snow. The hand was chasing after Red Death.

The titan's lower arm was flat on the ground during the sweeping motion. It covered a very wide area. Whether Red Death ran to the left or right, it was not enough to escape the arm's reach. Hence, she jumped upward when the arm almost got her.

She lost the double jump ability after exchanging her original unique boots with the set equipment given by Wrath. But one of the abilities from this set equipment enhanced her jump, enabling her to jump even higher than a normal assassin.

Her enhanced jump allowed her to escape the titan's arm, but she saw the titan's other hand come from the opposite direction. Its opened large palm was bigger than her body and it was right beside her.

"Red…!" Rayne called worriedly when he saw the titan's hand clenched around Red Death's figure who was in the air, but his mental connection with her informed him that she was all right.

The titan opened its clenched hand but Red Death was not there. Red Death had used Vanish just as the titan's hand was about to grab her. She teleported away and was now in invisible mode.

She sent Rayne a mental message to distract the titan.

"Distract? For what?!" Rayne asked, but Red Death didn't answer.

There was no need for Rayne to create a distraction. With Red Death being invisible, its attention was now on Rayne.

"Shit!" Rayne uttered when he saw the titan stand back up. It took a step. Its foot was aiming for Rayne.

Rayne immediately ran away. The titan chased after him step after step.

When the two were focusing on one another, Red Death was following the titan from behind. She appeared again when she used a skill. A non-standard skill that could be learned by any ranger basic class, Grappling Hook. The skill shot a rope that could attach to any surface and pull the user toward the object it attached to. At the first level, the rope was 30 meters long, its cooldown was 20 seconds.

The grappling hook attached itself to the back of the titan's knee before pulling Red Death up. Red Death used her daggers and stabbed them into the titan's icy skin to allow her to cling to the leg. She was glad that Wrath had given her these unique-grade daggers. If it was still her old daggers, she was not confident that it could pierce the titan's hard ice skin.

Even though the daggers managed to penetrate the titan's skin, the resulting damage was still only 1 HP damage. The titan similarly didn't feel these stabs. It continued to chase after Rayne. It was oblivious that Red Death was on its leg.

Seeing that the titan didn't show any response, Red Death pulled out one dagger and stabbed it at a higher part of the leg. She alternated between her two arms and slowly made her way up the titan's leg.

But it was easier said than done. The titan constantly moved around. Red Death had to make sure that her stab was deep enough so that she could continue to cling to the titan even with all those shakings. The titan's skin was also hard like stone, making her feel like she was climbing an actual mountain instead of a living creature. If anyone ever climbed a steep mountain during an earthquake, this should feel like that.

There was a time when the titan made a sudden twisting movement to give Rayne a hard punch. This sudden movement caused Red Death to lose her grasp. Luckily, her grappling hook was off cooldown and she used it in the air to get back to the titan's body.

She was more careful then and tried to predict when the titan was attempting any large move. She would then stay still and prioritize holding on to the titan's body.

Carefully, she made her way up slowly. She was now on the upper waist part. When she was still climbing, she caught movements from a few icy layers on the titan's back.

She was unsure at first because the titan was constantly moving, but then these icy layers grew legs. She could see then that what she saw were some sort of ice bugs clinging to the titan's body. These ice bugs were now crawling toward her.

"Damnit!" She uttered. She used her Inspect and found that these ice bugs were level 65 special elites.

They were not a problem to her in a normal situation. But with her having to stay clinging onto the titan, these bugs were now huge problems.

Red Death saw six of these ice bugs crawling toward her. She kept one of her daggers inside the titan's body while the other dagger was ready to deal with the incoming bugs. Her fast movement which was her edge was now nullified in the current situation. She had to fight while staying still and with only one hand.

Luckily, the bugs didn't seem to have any ranged capabilities. They came and attacked using their mouths, which were filled with sharp teeth. She stabbed the incoming bugs who tried to bite her with her fast-stabbing motion. She aimed at their mouths, deflecting their attacks as well as damaging them since her damage power was higher. The demon tooth in his hand granted large damage points.

With six bugs circling her, she was unable to fend off every attack, though. Some managed to bite her. Each bite of these bugs delivered ice damage and had a chance to cause freeze status. Luckily, aside from providing high defense, Wrath's set gears also gave her immunity to freeze and resistance to the ice element. This allowed her to tank these bugs' attacks even when she was not a tank-type class.

She didn't just stay passive, though. She used Combat Clone. Her copy appeared behind one of the bugs that encircled her. This copy used the same gears as hers. The copy similarly stabbed one dagger to the titan's skin and then used the other dagger to stab the bug from behind.

The static battle went on for some time. Red Death and her clone managed to kill one bug with their coordinated attack, but Red Death's own HP kept on decreasing. Even though her unique set armor gave her very high defense, resistance, and passive HP recovery, she was still an outworlder with a class that generally had low HP.

When her HP fell to almost one-third, she waited for when the titan seemed to calm down and didn't do any sharp movement. She then used Phase Strike. She disappeared and reappeared at an upper elevation behind one of the ice bugs.

After completing her strike, she landed on the bug and sat on it. She first drank a recovery potion, before unleashing most of her melee skills on that bug, bringing its HP down rapidly.

When the titan moved again, she quickly pierced her one dagger into the titan's skin for a handhold again. In this way, he slowly wore down the ice bugs' HP. When his Phase Strike was still on cooldown, she used her non-standard skill, Back Shift, which had a similar effect.

With her porting around, some of the bugs started to shift their attention to her clone, allowing her a breather. Since her clone could not use any skills or drink potions, her clone fared worse than her. When the ice bugs were down to two, her clone also died.

But then she noticed something strange, the titan had stopped moving. She also received a mental warning from Rayne.

Red Death turned to where the titan's head was and saw the titan's two large blue eyes staring back at her.

Due to the long battle with the ice bugs, the ice titan was now aware of her existence on its body!