The Frost Giant Summoning Stone — A King Grade Wonder
"Ahem... I already have an older sister."
Lu Yuan cleared his throat.
"Oh?" Tracy asked. "Who?"
"Li Qinghe. Does Deputy Legion Commander Tracy know her?"
"Li..."
Tracy's expression stiffened. She cleared her throat.
"Let's pick up the pace. Stay alert."
"Right!"
Lu Yuan nodded, and the two of them broke into a run toward Camp 306.
Camp 306 sat southwest of Camp 257 — a neighboring defensive outpost, likewise perched atop a mountain.
At this moment, Feral Beasts were flooding up the slopes in waves. Powerful Second-rank Boss Grade and even Third-rank beasts launched themselves skyward, crashing down onto walls that rose dozens of meters above the ground.
They clashed with the Guard Corps in brutal close combat.
Some beasts had already punched through to the interior, hunting down weaker logistics personnel, slaughtering and destroying everything in their path.
**"ROAR!!"**
A beast standing over five meters tall, its body encased entirely in thick armor — a Steelscale Armored Dragon — hurled itself skyward and crashed down onto the wall. Cracks spider-webbed outward from beneath its feet.
It bellowed in fury and swept its thick, heavy tail in a wide arc. Several nearby Guard Corps soldiers caught the blow and were sent flying, their bodies tumbling like broken things.
Blood sprayed through the air, accompanied by the crack of shattering bone.
Third-rank Chief Grade.
Every soldier who witnessed the scene felt a chill run through them.
Then, from the distance, a four-meter ice-blue spear blazed across the sky and drove straight at the Steelscale Armored Dragon.
Dense frost mist coiled around it, radiating bone-deep cold. Before the Dragon could react, it slammed into its flank.
**BOOM!!**
The spear tore through the beast's layered armored scales. Half a meter of ice punched into its body — then detonated, shattering outward in a burst of frozen shrapnel.
The shockwave sent the Dragon staggering back across the wall, bellowing in agony.
A massive, ragged wound had been blown open in its side. Deep enough to see the slow, wet movement of organs within.
Its eyes blazed crimson. The tentacles along its body thrashed wildly, launching jets of eerie green light toward the direction the spear had come from.
There, standing in absolute stillness, was Si Tingxue — robed in blue, ice-blue hair loose around her shoulders, her expression cold as midwinter stone. She moved with fluid grace, weaving a crystalline ice shield into existence before her.
Every green beam struck the shield with a thunderous roar. It held.
Si Tingxue's Staff swept again. A second spear condensed in the air and drove straight at the Dragon — blindingly fast. The Steelscale Armored Dragon was ponderous by nature. It had no hope of dodging.
The spear drove into the wound already torn open by the first strike. It punched clean through the creature's body and detonated from within, obliterating nearly half the Dragon's mass.
The Steelscale Armored Dragon's corpse toppled to the wall.
The nearby Guard Corps soldiers exhaled as one.
A regiment commander who had been sprinting over to deal with the Dragon himself skidded to a halt beside Si Tingxue and bowed.
"Your Highness, the Ninth Princess — thank you for your intervention."
Si Tingxue's brow furrowed. Her voice was ice.
"The Beast Tide isn't over. Is now really the time for gratitude? Get back to your post!"
A cold sweat broke across the commander's brow. He snapped upright. "Yes, My Lord!"
Si Tingxue turned her gaze back to the mass of Feral Beasts still crashing against the base of the wall. Her ice-blue eyes were as cold and still as frozen depths.
Spirit Power surged through her body, sending her robes billowing and snapping in a wind of her own making.
Tendrils of white frost mist rose around her, spreading outward and rolling over the beast horde.
Any beast the mist touched began to frost over. Movement slowed — then slowed further — until some froze entirely in place.
The stronger beasts managed to resist the ice, merely slowing. Si Tingxue's gaze swept over them with quiet precision, ice spears condensing one by one to pick them off.
Everyone watching stared in disbelief.
Si Tingxue at the lower end of Third-rank, holding nothing back — and she was single-handedly suppressing every beast within several hundred meters. Her power was something else entirely.
But one person could never be enough.
Defensive lines kept breaking elsewhere. Beasts pushed into close melee with Guard Corps soldiers, and the death toll began climbing fast.
Roars of beasts and the battle cries of soldiers rang out in every direction.
Camp 306's Legion Commander was himself a Battle King, but at this moment two King Grade beasts had him pinned in the air. Even with his strength, he couldn't overpower both simultaneously — and he couldn't break away to support the men dying below.
He watched his comrades fall one after another, his face a rictus of fury, eyes bloodshot. He roared and hammered at the two King Grade beasts in savage, relentless bursts, his battle axe a crimson blur.
It wasn't just him. Both deputy commanders were similarly trapped — packs of Fourth-rank beasts kept them occupied, unable to break free and address the horde surging through the walls. All they could do was watch helplessly as beasts flooded into the camp interior and cut down Guard Corps soldiers by the dozen.
The Talent Camp students assigned to this base were all Third-rank — none of them weak.
After the initial shock of the assault, they found their footing, drawing on the full measure of their capabilities to stabilize sections of the defense. It was a creditable effort.
But there were only ten of them. Ten was not enough to hold an entire perimeter.
Even with Si Tingxue's overwhelming power, she could control only a radius of a few hundred meters.
And at full intensity, her Spirit Power was burning at a terrifying rate.
Within moments, she had burned through nearly half her reserves.
She pressed her lips tight, kept attacking, and without missing a beat reached into her supplies for a Superior Third-rank Spirit Power Potion — the grade above ordinary excellent-quality — and drank it down.
Her reserves refueled, she held her intensity.
Beyond that, Si Tingxue swept her gaze across the perimeter and reached for stockpiles of attack Talismans and Psionic Shells, hurling them outward to scythe through swaths of beasts and buy the Guard Corps soldiers precious breathing room.
Watching her cut down so many in such short order, the surrounding horde roared and converged on her in a frenzy.
Ice shot through Si Tingxue. The pressure spiked.
She pressed her lips tight and kept fighting.
Then her hand closed around something in her pouch: a rune stone pulsing with ice-blue light.
**Frost Giant Summoning Stone — King Grade Wonder.** *Activates to summon one King Grade Frost Giant to fight alongside you for 30 minutes.*
Si Tingxue's gaze sharpened.
She knew exactly how valuable this was. A summoned King Grade combatant — anyone would understand what that meant.
Even as the Ninth Princess of the Empire, she only had one.
She had held onto it as a lifeline. But the Beast Tide had pushed this far, and she could no longer hold the line alone.
She glanced upward at the Legion Commander, locked in battle against the two King Grade Aberrant beasts above.
*If I can help take those two down — with his full strength back in the fight below, we might actually hold.*
She felt a pang at the thought, but she didn't hesitate any longer. She channeled Spirit Power into the summoning stone.
Brilliant blue light blazed to life.
The radiance swept across the entire defensive camp. A King Grade aura erupted from nothing — vast and crushing.
Every beast and every soldier felt it.
Many of the beasts pressing forward turned toward the source and roared.
The Guard Corps had no time to look. They kept fighting, kept cutting down or holding off whatever was directly in front of them.
As the ice-blue radiance faded, a giant over ten meters tall — its entire form sculpted from condensed frost — materialized before Si Tingxue.
It hovered in the air and dropped to one knee.
A deep, resonant voice rolled out like distant thunder:
"I have answered the summons, my master."
Si Tingxue's expression remained as cold as ever. She commanded:
"Destroy those two King Grade Aberrant beasts."
The Frost Giant did not hesitate for a heartbeat.
"As you will, my master."
With a thunderous roar, it launched itself skyward.
The Guard Corps soldiers standing nearest to Si Tingxue watched this unfold, and shock and relief crashed through them in equal measure.
*That's the Empire's Ninth Princess for you!*
*Unbelievable!*
With a King Grade combatant joining their side, their fortunes had shifted at a stroke.
High above the wall, Camp 306's Legion Commander Ye Zhenghao swung his battle axe in savage, grinding arcs, locked in a three-way combat with a Venom Demon Giant Lizard and a Pale Blue Rat.
His face was a twisted mask of fury and desperation. Everything in him screamed to break off and go down to save his men, but he was trapped.
Then, a King Grade aura surged up from below.
His expression changed instantly — *another* King Grade beast was the last thing they needed. Two he could manage, barely. Three, and his own survival would become precarious, let alone helping the camp.
He shot a glance downward.
The sight that greeted him — a Frost Giant kneeling before Si Tingxue — made his eyes light up with sudden, fierce elation.
*So it's the Ninth Princess! She had something like this hidden away?! Perfect timing!*
An instant later, the Frost Giant roared and shot upward, barreling straight toward him.
With help on the way, Ye Zhenghao let out a booming laugh. His battle axe blazed with a deep crimson axe-light as he hurled it toward the Venom Demon Giant Lizard:
"Die, you wretched beast!!"
The aerial battle erupted to new heights of ferocity.
Camp 306 lay just over a hundred kilometers from Camp 257 — neighboring outposts, practically adjacent.
Lu Yuan's pace alone might not have been fast enough, but Tracy, as a Fourth-rank Battle Venerable, pulled him alongside her and ran — and at near-sonic speeds, the distance collapsed in minutes. Within a few minutes, the two had closed to within five kilometers of Camp 306.
Out here in the outer ring, Feral Beasts were already thick on the ground.
The Beast Tide was still hammering the camp.
The two climbed a hilltop and took in the horde roaring and surging below. Both frowned.
"Camp 257 sits closer to the front line than this one," Tracy said. "They must have absorbed a significant share of the Beast Tide heading this way."
Lu Yuan nodded, expression grave. "How do we get through?"
Trying to punch through a Beast Tide with just the two of them was wishful thinking at best.
Tracy tucked a strand of red hair back and smiled.
"We find a section with fewer beasts, cut our way to the wall, then help hold it. Come on — northern wall."
The southern wall faced the Endless Mountain Range directly. The northern wall, facing away from it, would naturally see the thinnest concentration of beasts.
Lu Yuan nodded, and the two broke into a sprint.
Then they both pulled up short.
A blaze of ice-blue light burst across the hillside not far ahead. A vast King Grade aura detonated into existence.
Both of them stared.
Tracy's brow creased. "King Grade aura? Appearing out of nowhere? What is that?"
Lu Yuan shook his head.
Then they saw it — a colossal Frost Giant launched itself skyward and drove straight into the King Grade aerial battle, throwing its weight behind a human combatant fighting two Aberrant beasts.
The sight washed over both of them like a wave of relief.
"It's ours! Looks like a summon. What kind of person is in that camp who can call up King Grade power?"
Tracy stared, wide-eyed with shock.
Lu Yuan watched the ice-blue giant cut through the sky, and something clicked.
His expression went slightly odd. *Can't be that much of a coincidence...*
*Is that ice queen Si Tingxue actually in there?*
Tracy's voice cut back in:
"Now's our window — a lot of the beasts have their attention pulled toward that King Grade fight. Northern wall, move!"
They moved. At their speed, it took only seconds to reach the northern wall's approach.
The beast concentration here was visibly thinner than elsewhere. Both of them felt a flicker of relief.
"Fewer beasts on this side, just like we figured. Let's go!"
Tracy's expression turned serious. Flames began to curl and flow around her body. "I take the front, you cover the rear."
Lu Yuan nodded — and space rippled around him. Lord Grade Mechanical Guardians stepped out one after another.
Tracy blinked. She stared at the Mechanical Guardians, then at Lu Yuan.
Lu Yuan grinned. "We can hit them from both sides. If it's just this section, we've got a real shot at clearing it."
Tracy's expression settled into something focused and resolute.
"Alright! Your call. I'm going in!"
Two massive Fire Wolves materialized at Tracy's flanks, roaring as they charged into the beast horde. Tracy herself erupted in a corona of full-body flame. Fireballs the size of boulders condensed rapidly and launched in succession, slamming into the mass of beasts.
**BOOM!! BOOM!!**
Each impact rang out like artillery, gouging craters over twenty meters wide out of the earth.
The destructive power of a Fourth-rank Battle Venerable was unambiguous — and fire-element Combat Techniques hit harder than most.
At the same moment, Lu Yuan's gaze swept across his formation. Every Mechanical Guardian opened fire in unison, Spirit Cannon beams pouring into the beast horde.
The thunderous roar was deafening.
The beasts at the rear of the surge — those simply following their fellows toward the camp — suddenly found themselves hammered from behind and thrown into confusion.
Scores died in the initial volley. The survivors wheeled around, locked onto Lu Yuan and Tracy, and charged.
But the beast concentration on this side was already thinner than anywhere else, and the counterattacking force was thinner still.
The vast majority — Second and Third-rank Elite Grade or Boss Grade — had no answer for over two hundred Second-rank Perfect Lord Grade Mechanical Guardians backed by a Fourth-rank Battle Venerable. They were driven back steadily, losing ground with every exchange.
Only a handful of Third-rank Chief Grade and Lord Grade beasts managed to push through the Mechanical Guardians' barrage — and Tracy's Fire Wolves met them one by one and put them down.
The two pressed steadily toward the northern wall.