Belial sensed the surroundings and found the ice element in the area had calmed and thinned out a lot. With a thought, Energy Field expanded and automatically condensed a block of solid ice in the air. The ice was then worn away and reshaped, turning into a lifelike SpaceGodzilla ice figurine.
"Within the range of Energy Field, I can directly control ice elements now?" This was different from before. In the past, he had to use Magic as an intermediary to control elements, but now he could skip that step entirely and act directly.
Before, it was like using Magic to introduce himself to the elements before control was possible. Now, his will alone was enough, and it felt far smoother than relying on Magic. "Pretty nice."
This was a very pleasant surprise. Ice and snow abilities held special meaning for Godzilla. The most direct benefit was temperature control, letting him cool his body and greatly improve the efficiency of releasing Spiral Heat Ray.
"Using ice elements to cast magic is faster too." Belial lifted a claw, and a complex, heavily layered magic construct appeared. It looked like a three-dimensional model but was actually formed from many overlapping planar Magic Array.
With another thought, he easily expanded it to surround his body. After days of practice and relying on his powerful brain, he had thoroughly understood most of the separated effects within Magic Array. Some runes did not guide Magic at all, but linked directly to elements, which felt very novel.
In that instant, his familiarity with runes tied to ice, fire, wind, and other elements rose sharply. He had a vague sense of understanding why those runes produced such effects. Before, he had only applied fixed formulas, but now he could begin to truly grasp and even prove part of them himself.
He also felt as if something extra had appeared inside his body. Following that feeling, his throat tickled, and he instinctively opened his mouth. Cold spread outward as a torrent of ice and snow blasted forth, flooding the small cavern and sealing it in thick frost once more.
What he released was a flood of ice elements. The cold was piercing, and his back spines glowed faintly during the release. Like Spiral Heat Ray, ice elements from all directions also kept flowing into his body at the same time.
"Wow." Belial covered his mouth, feeling his tongue go a bit numb as icy mist drifted from the corners of his lips. Freezing breath was surprisingly interesting.
"Is this a change from eating the fragment? That seems reasonable enough." Belial felt it was perfectly normal. When Godzilla ate something and evolved a new beam or breath, it was hardly strange.
He quickly understood the nature of this breath. It was simply ice elements stored inside his body for unknown reasons, highly compressed and then released through processes he could not clearly describe. The damage was decent, and the temperature could instantly freeze ordinary monsters solid.
He could freely adjust the emission range, from a focused freezing breath to a wide blizzard-like area attack. Because it carried his own Magic, he could still guide it after firing, bending its path or splitting it into multiple streams. "Feels weaker than Spiral Heat Ray."
In terms of raw power, it was far inferior to Spiral Heat Ray. For him, it was more like a support and control skill. Still, having it was better than not, and Belial was quite pleased.
He also noticed that this breath could be further improved by combining it with Magic Array and refining it with Energy Field. There was room to grow, and maybe one day its power could reach the level of the infamous Absolute Zero Cannon used by overpowered humans in the Godzilla setting.
But now it was time to leave. "Since I got what I came for, I should go."
As usual, Belial wanted to take a souvenir. He had thought about prying off that strange black base, but it was far too large for his small Spatial Ring. He also considered taking some high-purity ice crystals rich in Magic, but after understanding their nature, he realized he could make them by hand.
In the end, he took several SpaceGodzilla models carved from those crystals, each about fifteen centimeters tall. "Let's leave something for future visitors."
With a mischievous thought, Belial spat something out. It was an object floating slightly in his hand, almost identical to the fragment he had eaten before. In truth, it was a mass formed from excessive residual ice elements deposited in his body, basically a kind of stone.
Following the old web novel idea of leaving roots behind, he placed this piece back onto the original base. It seemed capable of absorbing ice elements and Magic on its own. After finishing all this, he beat his wings and moved along the tunnel he had dug earlier.
A crystalline barrier formed ahead of him, with a cone-shaped tip spinning like a drill. With a loud crash, he forced his way out again, smashing rocks into dust along the path. His head was hard enough that he did not care at all.
He opened a tunnel wide enough for his massive body to pass through. Thoughtfully, Belial filled the tunnel back in and breathed cold air to seal the gaps with ice. He even carefully adjusted the surrounding snow.
"Now no one should be able to tell a dragon was here." He nodded in satisfaction, then tilted his head with a trace of guilt as he thought about a possible owner who might or might not exist.
Belial flew out of the Snow Mountain that had hidden the fragment and quickly noticed that the temperature around him had risen a lot, or rather, it had returned to normal. The blizzard was no longer as violent as before, and the winds felt calmer against his scales. It was probably the result of him consuming that fragment.
Because he could now control the Ice Element, the snowstorm that once covered everything could be used to sense his surroundings. Streams of cold fed information back into his mind, letting him grasp movement and shapes around him. It felt similar to Energy Field Perception, with a much wider range than eyesight, though the detail was rough.
He figured it was fair to say that ice and snow were now an extension of his limbs, though thinking of monsters baring their teeth at him made the idea less appealing. If it were a pretty girl instead, he would have accepted the comparison without complaint. With that thought, he dropped his altitude to about two thousand meters, barely needing to flap his wings as the wind and snow carried him along.
Relying on his sense through Ice Element, he no longer needed to look around at all, as if a radar was constantly feeding him data. Using this, he quickly locked onto the largest target nearby, the one with the richest amount of Magic. He had slept at least three days in that cave and was already starving.
"Let me see which lucky little cutie I am about to open up… huh?"
He rushed to the destination, and the moment he saw the target, he was genuinely surprised again. A low roar echoed up from below as a white figure more than ten meters long nearly blended into the snowy terrain. Its body was sleek like a feline, covered in white armor plates, shaped like a fierce tiger with amber saber teeth.
Blades extended along the sides of its forelimbs, sharp enough to seem like they could cut the air itself. When it moved, its speed was like a white bolt of lightning racing across the snowfield. Belial stared down at it in shock, the shape triggering a strong sense of familiarity despite the differences.
"What the hell, a white pile of crap?"
For a moment, he wondered if the Kabel Guild had launched some strange crossover again. Yet the faint stirring in his bloodline told him that the white thing below was likely a Wyvern with traces of White Dragon blood. In his memory, it was a kind of dragon that also breathed ice, much like himself now.
Belial dove straight toward that Wyvern, or rather, he decided to call it Icefang Dragon Charge for now. In an instant, his massive body slammed down in front of it like a falling meteor. Snow and ice blasted outward from the impact.
"Roar!"
The Icefang Dragon jumped back like a startled cat, tail raised, limbs low to the ground, every muscle tensed. It bared its fangs and growled in warning, trying to intimidate the figure before it. However, the shadow looming over it was something no small predator could hope to face.
A black dragon stood there, far larger, its body length nearly twice as long. Its wings spread slightly, casting a vast shadow, while hot breath poured from its massive head and light flowed along its horns. Thick fangs jutted out as its heavy tail swayed behind it, eyes filled with cruel amusement as it looked down.
Yet Belial had a different question in mind.
"…Why are you not running?"
He was honestly curious, wondering if monsters in the Otherworld were all this brave. Even animals knew to judge danger by size, and he was nearly twice as big as the thing in front of him. Thinking back, this had happened before, when he was only five or six meters long and monsters still rushed him without fear.