Chapter 788: 777

Title: Eternal

Momentum.

Ordinarily, it is a term describing the motion of a moving object.

But in battle, this term twists. It becomes dangerous. Having momentum meant holding the flow of battle and one's own moves in an extraordinary grasp of perfection which can be used to overpower the opponent. Whether Nik liked it or not, despite all his training, and his act of robbing Nie Li's knowledge, a full 300 years of battle tactics and experience, the moment he restricted himself only to the use of the water element, and in turn, the ice element while suppressing his physical strength, he instantly fell into a disadvantage.

His blade formed of eternal ice struck the keen edge of Hela's sword and feeling the familiar energy fueled with the aspect of death which Nik couldn't get a hang of till this date simply devouring his ice.

'This isn't cool at all,' Nik's eyes twitched as he felt his right arm getting numb.

Quickly taking a step back, Nik looked at his arm. Greyed and dried till his elbows as the veins of his arms turned pitch-black and extremely revealing.

"It is impressive," Hela looked at Nik's arm while slashing his sword idly, "I expected to devour your entire arm."

'She has better mastery over a concept than I have on Ice and Water. Not to mention, she probably has thousands of years of experience while I...' Nik narrowed his gaze. A rare situation where he just couldn't bullshit out of the trouble is extremely important in his eyes.

'Should I keep on using water and ice?' He thought again.

'Wait... water and ice...'

Nik frowned and this time, a simple sword made of ice materialized through his hand. The size of the blade provided little comfort to the worried Janet, Jennifer, and the Gwen Phantoms. But Morgan eagerly looked towards Nik's shriveled hand. It was filled with the energy of death!

However.

*Fssshhh*

Hela looked strange as Nik's entire right arm seemed to be covered with water.

'That's not it... more. If I am low on cosmic energy to mutate my body through elements, then I'll just use spiritual and magical spells!' Nik continued to operate on his hand. He didn't utilize his body manipulation ability instead focused on the sheer usage of spirit and magic.

Morgan felt her connection with Nik cut off as Merlin disappeared while the flowing water around Nik's right arm started to shape like an actual arm. The currents of water emulated the shape of muscles and structure of ice covered Nik's arm from within to depict a human's bones.

But, in the end, Nik couldn't turn his body into that of water. His right arm looked bigger than his left but Nik still felt satisfied with this form of inspiration.

"What's this?" Hela inquired.

"A man's state when he is home alone for too long," Nik replied with a calm expression as he flexed his overly large right arm.

Without waiting to enter into a battle of words, Hela suddenly struck her sword once again and this time, it was a diagonal slash aiming from his crotch to his right shoulder enforced by water.

'Let's try this... Breath of Ice: Cloud's Arrival,' The moment Nik parried the attack, Hela pulled for another slash without giving Nik any chance to regain his composure as her magical properties entered into a confrontation with his water-ice arm. While the battle of concepts came to a quick end for Hela didn't control the energy of death competing with the water and ice element covering Nik's arm, his sword dispersed into a thick mist. It was quick and efficient, almost as if a spell completed in a snap.

The mist wasn't simply heavy. It was formed from eternal ice. In essence, these were vapors of eternal ice but Nik didn't know if he should call the state of the element as eternal water or not. His thoughts, however, didn't linger on names.

'There!'

Formed with his own energy, Nik didn't use his extraordinary visual senses to locate Hela but the mist itself.

*Swish*

A knife made of dark green energy tore through the mist heading straight for Nik's neck, pausing his plan as he quickly sidestepped.

"I can control death!" Hela hissed as a burst of cosmic and magical energies easily pushed the mist apart.

'Damn,' Nik sighed with a sad smile.

'Pure... I wouldn't have to suffer if you'd just given me your real name.'

'Bleh! Master, just become a Grandmaster in the concept of ice and it'll be easy!' She cheered.

'This isn't the only sword move I created in the series but... most of them are just flashy for the most part. In the end, how does someone use a weapon and ice together? Spikes, sure. More spikes, definitely. But... what else aside from that?'

Nik suddenly crouched as the floating knives around Hela powered by death shot towards him.

'Ice can be used to create sharp objects. But in its basic form, it relies on the cold temperature of its state. I tried making various flowers out of ice, weapons, and even sculpture. But that only means using ice as a tool, not as a concept.'

"Is that it?" Hela mocked coldly while Nik would occasionally form a sword of ice to parry the attacks he saw fit and dodged the many troublesome ones.

'I can try to freeze her in a block of ice. But... since she can break the sword of eternal ice, then she can also destroy a block of eternal ice. If only her magic could be frozen...'

Nik grumbled. He had tested this particular idea but his lack of mastery in the concept struck him out.

'And, the thought of using Ice as water would be drastic. It would expend most of my energy just to experiment on this new state of matter,' Nik's appearance grew uglier by the second.

He had been confident in his ability to comprehend quickly but it wasn't quick enough in the end.

'I have to be more subtle. No fancy attacks. Let the cold creep up on her...' Nik's gaze flashed.

If the most simplistic manner of overpowering the enemy couldn't be achieved then he'll try something different. While his thoughts worked on more methods, he suddenly threw his sword towards Hela.

*Crackle*

Layers of cracks appeared on the surface of the sword before it shattered and extremely small and dangerous shards of ice shot towards Hela which she defended by erecting another barrier of magic.

"This is not what I had in mind..." Poole mumbled, "Nik clearly is the guy for this writing but he's just getting manhandle by Hela!"

"And it wouldn't have happened if you kept your mouth shut," Spider scowled.

"Why?" Poole snorted.

On the other hand, Nik bought himself a little time to put distance around him as he stomped the floor.

The major reason he is only using Ice and Water is to gain an understanding of the concept and he wouldn't begin to understand it as long as he feared the result.

Ice instantly spread out with Nik as the center. The floor was the first to be covered towards Hela's side and her undead soldiers were instantly frozen stiff. The cold continued to spread as the pillars and columns were covered in ice but the green blaze continued to flicker without being affected too much.

"Incompetent tricks. I'll have you witness my true strength," Hela whispered as her sword was instantly layered with green flames, four orbs of magic rotated around her, and an even greater number of green daggers, axes, and swords materialized around her.

"Gilga... is that you?" Poole muttered with his lips gaping.

On the other hand, Nik created another sword to tackle Hela.

'Well, it's at least comfortingly to know that I can use the concept of Ice to annoy the Goddess of Death to use her full strength,' Nik chuckled inwardly.

'Alright, I have tested 38 ice sword techniques developed over these days. They are useful at a base level, but in the end, none of them prove the least bit useful in the battle of higher rankings.

Let's revise,' Nik closed his eyes while Hela charged forward.

'Ice is cold, and the sword should be the extension of your own body. Consider it a limb of ice... being controlled by another limb of ice—'

Nik's eyes snapped open as she raised his sword to parry Hela's blade but a bold idea appeared in his heart.

'Isn't that the answer... fuck, Pure. You are way more deviant than what your name suggests,' Nik groaned internally as his body spasmed and his hands let go of the sword suddenly.

*Clang*

Hela took the chance to pierce Nik through his torso and incapacitate him but the moment she looked up into his eyes, she found his eyes covered with blue veins while his body was going purple at a breakneck pace.

"As you can see," Nik smiled stiffly, even he was unable to move his lips completely, "I've become cool on a whole new level."

Hela instantly rushed back and Nik didn't pursue.

Instead, he felt his blood and veins freezing up. His windpipe filled with frost and his lips dark purple in color by now.

'The answer is way too stupid... Why couldn't I control death energy by now? Because I'm not an undead. What if I push myself into a semblance of that state? I had already copied Lucifer's body structure. Ice can flow.

As long as it's my own blood, I can achieve that!'

To Nik's thoughts, the frozen blood in his veins suddenly shifted, and instantly, cracks appeared on every corner of his body. Still, blood simply couldn't leak!

'Once more! I don't need to mutate myself into an ice statue to achieve this state. Flesh and blood can accompany eternal chill!' More and more cracks spread over Nik's body while Hela frowned.

*Tremble*

Suddenly, Nik's skin began to 'fall.' The shards of his skin would shatter every time they touched the frozen floor.

'Let's check the situation.'

Hela instantly controlled a dagger and shot it towards Nik. He didn't move, in fact, he couldn't move. But the moment the dagger struck Nik's neck, it chafed off a huge piece of his skin, revealing his frozen muscles beneath which were quite dark at this point.

The strangest situation was, the tip of the dagger had been covered with a thin layer of frost.

Hela instantly understood Nik's intentions.

'From the beginning, he's using Ice as a primary form of attack but he clearly is unable to hurt me. In an act of desperation, he's using his body as a vessel to power the effects of the coldness. The moment someone physically touches him, they will have their veins frozen and lungs crushed!'

However, Hela's eyes almost popped out as Nik's tanned skin fell, and replacing it was another stretch of skin growing quickly. Nik's newer skin tone wasn't light but due to purplish interior, he looked extremely pale. His eyes still looked like cracked rocks but the moment Nik smiled, a full length this time, Hela shivered.

Not out of fright. But coldness.

'Body of ice... achieved! Hot damn! No, Cool Damn!'

Nik looked down and found himself naked. Pickle once again appeared around him but this time, she was sky blue in color, clearly affected by Nik's current form.

"You don't just accept the ice and let it freeze you, huh..." Nik chuckled as he recalled all his previous attempts at passing Pure's test. His physical body, at the moment, had grown considerably weaker. Clenching his fist, Nik affirmed his strength and found it to be close to rank 2 again.

'You let the ice destroy you and make more of you. That's the main aspect of eternal ice. To use coldness to create.'

'But this isn't simply a mutation or transformation. I can live like that without any unusual consumption of energy,' Nik narrowed his eyes.'

His skin was a little rough but it was only because of his own inability to completely change his body.

"Whatever you did, I'll still have you crushed under my foot," Hela remarked coldly.

'The Concept of Death seriously is op...' Nik gulped, 'But don't think of that! Think of Hela. Look at her curves! This cold body deserves its share of warmth.'

Nik didn't even dodge the incoming slash and his left arm was instantly slice off.

*Gasp*

Gasps rang from different directions and Morgan finally decided to act only to witness a bizarre scenario.

While Nik let the death energy ravage his chest through his shoulder, Nik covered the entrance of wounds with eternal ice and an arm grew out.

Hela's gaze turned cold and she instantly slashed and sliced Nik's body from various locations.

But despite the death energy she was deliberately controlling now, Nik's body was only reformed time and again and every time, his body would be more attuned to ice and his body became more natural.

'Without constant destruction, how can eternal ice truly thrive? Pure... I get it, you're a masochist!' Nik groaned but Pure was silent at the moment.

But the major chunk of his thoughts was absorbed by a large portion of constant understanding.

"Die!" Hela hissed, absolutely livid at her inability to hurt Nik by now as she gazed at the number of arms, and legs, and pieces of internal organs lying on the floor. Instantly creating a large ball of magic, she shot a light of death energy straight towards Nik's head and obliterated everything above his neck!

"Fuck!" Jennifer growled, her body finally grew large enough to stretch the fabric of her clothes to their limits but before she could move, her body was rooted by a terrifying scene.

Shards of icy crystal grew from Nik's neck and quickly reshaped into a head. Skin covered the ice and Nik's extremely clear eyes, without any cracks this time, gazed at Hela.

"What else?"

***

A/N: As you can see, I suck at fight scenes and this one held me for two days! Damn! And this is also the reason why I prefer writing lemons even if its a little exhausting.