Second World

With the remaining two ice bugs still harassing her, Red Death saw the ice titan's hand coming at her. The ice titan was planning to slap her to death!

Rayne, who was on the ground, tried his best to attract the titan's attention by attacking its legs. But his attacks were completely ineffective. The titan didn't feel a thing.

Just as the titan's hand was about to arrive, Red Death pulled out the dagger that was securing her onto the titan's body and jumped away.

The titan's hand arrived and squashed the two ice bugs that were still there. The two received huge damage and were killed immediately with one slap.

Red Death, who was in the air, used her grappling hook again. She shot at in an angle that allowed her to swing away before the titan's hand came again at her. She also got to a higher elevation thanks to the hook. She landed on the titan's back, where the six ice bugs had sprouted before.

The titan tried to reach for her, but since she was directly at her back, its hands couldn't get to her. In its frustration, it shook its body violently. It even started to jump around in an attempt to throw Red Death off. Her jumping caused the ground below to shake and caused huge ice dust all around its feet. Rayne didn't dare to approach for fear of the titan accidentally stomping on him.

Red Death used her two daggers to cling on madly. She didn't dare make any attempt to climb higher. It was very easy for her to get thrown off in this situation. Her grappling hook was also still on cooldown.

As the titan continued to jump erratically, the ground started to crack. A few more jumps and the ground collapsed. The titan dropped into a large hole in the ground. His leg was submerged until the knee.

Because of the drop, the titan wasn't able to jump or make any large movements. Red Death wasn't going to let go of this opportunity. Her grappling hook was also off cooldown at the time, she immediately fired it again and gave her a boost in climbing.

She landed near the back of the titan's neck. She could sense that her target was close already.

The reason she had decided to climb the titan was not that she thought hitting its head would let her score higher damage. She wasn't even thinking about defeating this titan. It was a seemingly impossible task. He estimated this titan could very well be an eternal-grade creature. Luckily, though, this titan only seemed to be capable of simple melee assaults. Hence, it was unable to get to her when she was already at its back.

The reason she had climbed the titan was that she was still following the cold mana she followed since entering this icy world. The cold mana had brought her to this titan. She thought at first the titan was guarding the mana source. But when she was behind the titan, she sensed the source had moved to her front, which meant the titan was the source.

She then sensed that the cold mana was denser at the upper elevation. Hence, she knew that whatever the source was, it was on the titan's upper body.

When she landed near the neck, she could sense it more clearly. Whatever the source was, it was embedded inside the back of the titan's neck. She used her daggers to climb up and get nearer. From the titan's seemingly transparent ice skin, she saw a round object buried a few inches under the titan's skin.

'That is the source!' She exclaimed in his mind. This was her target.

As she was ready to use her dagger to dig into the titan's skin, she noticed the ice layers on her two sides atop the titan's shoulders budged. Those layers then grew legs and started crawling to her. They were ice bugs twice the size of the ones from before.

Her prize was so close already, she couldn't afford to hold back anymore.

She used the State of Madness from the set armors. The ability increased her damage power. At the same time, she felt this unreasonable rage building inside her, trying to burst out.

As Wrath had pointed out, she always had this rage within her. The rage of her father leaving her and her mother. The rage of having to move away from her hometown due to her parents' split, and into a foreign place she was not familiar with. The rage of having no friends in that new place. The rage of the accident which took her mother's life. The rage of having no choice but to do petty thefts and join the gangsters to survive. And after becoming Wong's disciple, the rage about having the male disciples underestimating her simply because she was a girl. There was also the matter of her vow to beat a boy whom she trained in martial arts with during childhood, a vow that she still couldn't accomplish until now. They all fueled her rage.

She had long since learned to deal with this rage. She kept a lid on them when they were unneeded. Then opened the lid a little bit when it was time to fight, letting them out as needed to fuel her power.

She thought she had complete control. But at this moment when she used the State of Madness, all this rage that she had kept inside had somehow become mad. They were fighting to get out. She felt that she would explode if she kept on trying to hold them in.

With a thundering shout, she let all these frustrations out. Red-like energy burst out of her body. Her two eyes turned completely red. The energy created an explosion that blasted the two ice bugs away. One of them failed to cling to the titan's body and fell. The other stabbed its legs and stopped itself before falling.

The rage made her feel as if she was losing herself, but she didn't let it be so. She had learned to cope with this rage a long time ago. She focused her mind and used Demon's Bite, the special ability from her set weapons.

She stabbed the two daggers into the spot where the round object could be seen. A shadow of a demon's head appeared following her stabs. The demon's head bit down on the spot where her daggers struck.

All this time when she stabbed her dagger, it simply penetrated the skin. But this time, the daggers dug deep into the ice skin and cracked it. The shadow of the demon's head then seeped into the crack before exploding from within, shattering the ice.

The ice titan roared. This time, it felt the attack. A damage number of around 10,000 appeared above the head. Rayne, who was watching from below was extremely shocked by the number. Even for him who was level 72, all his attacks only caused 1 point of damage.

Even though the damage number was impressive, the HP bar above the ice titan didn't seem to reduce at all. The 10,000 damage didn't even seem to be 1% of the titan's HP.

But Red Death's intention wasn't to kill the ice titan. She was aiming to get to the round object inside the titan. There was now a large hole where Red Death had struck, but it was still not deep enough to reach the object. There was still a thin layer of ice. Red Death frantically stabbed, chipping off a small chunk with each stab. Her State of Madness was still active, so her stab was more powerful than normal.

The ice titan felt it. It couldn't just let this person on its back do as she wished. It tried lifting its leg, but the hole in the ground restricted its movement. In its fury, it forcefully tore the ground apart. Rayne stumbled back due to the resulting earthquake.

The shaking also caused Red Death to almost fall. She quickly stabbed one of her daggers to keep her footing. The one ice bug that didn't fall had rushed over and started biting her. She ignored it. She was fully focused on breaking the last layer protecting the round object. The bite had instead made her angrier and increased her damage.

This ice bug was larger than the one from before and hence stronger. Each bite caused large damage. Even with the set armor's high defense, Red Death's HP was still falling at a fast rate.

But she didn't stop. She instead let it continue to bite because she was targeting the State of Madness' ability that will be triggered when she received a fatal hit.

When it happened, her HP lingered at 1. Before the ice bug could bite again, she made a final stab. The State of Madness' effect was gone but her next attack was increased by five-fold. She also used Assassin's level 50 skill, Assassinate Soul.

At its first level, this skill dealt 300% soul damage and ignored 50% defense. If the target's HP was below 50%, it dealt an additional 100% soul damage. It also had a 5% chance of an instant kill.

Red Death had upgraded this level to the max, which increased the inflicted damage to 900%. Added with the five times multiplication, the resulting damage was massive.

But the most useful feature against this ice titan was the skill's ability to bypass 50% defense. The ice titan's defense was astronomical. The Demon's Bite had managed to create a large hole in its skin aside from its high damage was also because the attack completely ignored all defense.

Even though Assassinate Soul only ignored half the defense, the high damage made up for it. The layer that protected the round object cracked open. She stored her weapons and immediately grab the object and jumped away just as the ice bug was about to bite her again.

She only had 1 HP. She couldn't afford to get hit anymore. She let herself fall. She planned to use her grappling hook on the titan's body to stop her fall after putting enough distance from the ice bug. But as she fell, she saw cracks appear all over the titan's body.

The titan then shattered to pieces.

The titan apparently couldn't exist without the round object Red Death had taken.

Red Death looked in dismay. With the ice titan gone, she had lost any place to use her grappling hook on. Her body continued to fall. If she hit the ground with her current HP, she would die.