Chapter 23: The Wyrmfall and the Frozen Heart
Aura's breathless warning acted as a war horn, instantly galvanizing the denizens of Nazarick within Vassalheim. The distant threat of the Great Ice Wyrm had become an immediate, existential crisis. Retreat was not an option; the Wyrm was too fast, its path too direct. Cocytus's newly established fortress was about to face its ultimate trial, and Lord Ainz Ooal Gown and his gathered Guardians would be its defenders.
An emergency war council convened in Vassalheim's icy throne room, the atmosphere thick with controlled urgency. Aura provided a more detailed, chilling account of the Wyrm's advance: its size dwarfed mountains, its passage carved vast furrows in the frozen earth, and it radiated an aura of such profound, unnatural cold that Sky-Screecher had nearly frozen mid-flight.
"It. Is. A. Calamity. Class. Threat," Cocytus rumbled, his four katanas already gleaming in his grasp. "Vassalheim's. Defenses. Are. Formidable. But. Against. Such. A. Foe…"
"We will not yield this fortress, Cocytus," Albedo declared, her golden eyes blazing with fierce determination, her human guise as Lady Alva already beginning to shimmer with suppressed power. "This will be the first true bastion of Lord Ainz's dominion in this wretched world! It will stand!"
Ainz listened, his mind a whirlwind of tactical calculations. This was a world-boss level encounter, thrust upon them far sooner than anticipated. His current power, though significantly boosted by recent soul acquisitions, was still a shadow of his former glory. But he was not alone.
"Cocytus," Ainz began, his Elian voice steady, imbued with an Overlord's unshakeable resolve, "direct your garrison. Utilize every defensive measure Vassalheim possesses. Frost-Pelt will be your vanguard. Aura, you will provide aerial support and reconnaissance with Sky-Screecher; identify its weaknesses, target its sensory organs if possible. Sebas, you are my shield. Albedo," he looked at his Overseer, "your power will be needed to breach its defenses and deliver critical blows. I will coordinate our efforts and deploy strategic magic." He paused. "This will be a battle unlike any we have faced since our arrival. Prepare for the worst. But expect victory."
The preparations were frantic but focused. Cocytus, a natural commander, directed his Ice Huskarls and Frost Sprites to their designated positions along the magically reinforced ice battlements. Frost-Pelt, the massive giant, bellowed in understanding and primal fury, hefting enormous icicles the size of tree trunks as makeshift clubs. Albedo, with Ainz's swift approval, began placing some of the powerful defensive YGGDRASIL artifacts she had brought from her personal treasury at key strategic chokepoints within Vassalheim – items that could project force fields, unleash elemental retaliations, or summon temporary guardians. Sebas remained at Ainz's side, a silent, reassuring presence of coiled power. Aura, after ensuring Sky-Screecher was protected by one of Albedo's warming enchantments, took to the stormy skies.
The ground began to tremble with increasing intensity. A colossal shadow fell over Vassalheim, blotting out the dim, perpetual twilight of the Glacial Moors. The magical blizzard Cocytus had conjured seemed to quail, to shrink before an even greater, more primal manifestation of icy power.
Then, it appeared.
The Great Ice Wyrm was a creature of nightmare and frozen majesty. Its serpentine body, hundreds of feet long, was armored in scales like overlapping glaciers, shimmering with captured, ghostly light. Its head, vast and reptilian, was crowned with jagged ice-spikes like a malevolent tiara, and from its maw, lined with teeth like frozen daggers, exhaled a visible aura of absolute zero. Its eyes, ancient and intelligent, burned with a cold, blue fire. It moved with a terrifying grace, its passage carving deep trenches in the frozen earth, its mere presence radiating an aura that could freeze the soul.
With a roar that shattered ice formations for miles around, the Wyrm attacked. It didn't bother with subtlety. Its first assault was a torrent of its ice breath – not mere cold, but a focused blast of pure, entropy-laden energy that flash-froze everything it touched. A section of Vassalheim's outer wall, despite Albedo's recent enhancements, exploded into a cloud of glittering ice dust.
"Engage!" Cocytus bellowed, his voice a match for the Wyrm's roar. His Ice Huskarls loosed volleys of enchanted ice spears, while Frost Sprites hurled razor-sharp shards from the battlements. Frost-Pelt, with a defiant roar of his own, charged forward, swinging his massive icicle club at one of the Wyrm's colossal forelimbs.
Aura, weaving Sky-Screecher through the chaotic airspace, loosed enchanted arrows tipped with alchemical fire, aiming for the Wyrm's eyes. Albedo, her human guise now fully discarded, her true demonic form revealed in all its dark glory, her black armor gleaming, Hermes Trismegistus in hand, unleashed a devastating [Reality Slash] that tore a bleeding gash across the Wyrm's flank, eliciting a howl of pain and fury.
Ainz, from his command post on a high tower (shielded by Sebas), began to orchestrate their defense. "[Greater Full Potential] on Cocytus and Albedo! [Mass Draconic Vigor] on our garrison!" he incanted, his mana reserves already straining under the demand of such high-level buffs. He followed with offensive measures. "[Chain Dragon Lightning]!" A series of crackling azure bolts slammed into the Wyrm, causing it to recoil, but its icy scales seemed to absorb much of the electrical energy. "[Hellflame]!" A torrent of black fire erupted around one of its legs, causing it to shriek as the magical flames bit deep.
The battle was titanic, a clash of YGGDRASIL power against a primal force of this new world. Vassalheim itself became the battlefield. The Wyrm's immense bulk crashed against the ice walls, its claws tearing away huge chunks of the fortress. Its ice breath was a constant threat, capable of flash-freezing even magically protected areas. Cocytus, a whirlwind of four katanas, met the Wyrm's direct assaults, his God-Slaying Emperor Blade leaving deep, steaming scores on its icy hide, but for every blow he landed, he took punishing hits that cracked his azure carapace. Frost-Pelt fought with the fury of a cornered beast, but the Wyrm's power was overwhelming; a sweep of its tail sent the giant flying, crashing heavily against a shattered battlement, grievously wounded.
Aura, her griffin scorched by near misses from the Wyrm's breath, was forced to pull back, her arrows proving little more than irritants against its thick, magical hide. Sebas was a blur, deflecting a colossal shard of ice that would have obliterated Ainz's tower, his fists cracking with ki energy as he shattered lesser ice elementals the Wyrm seemed to summon from the frozen ground.
Vassalheim was crumbling. Cocytus's Ice Huskarls and Frost Sprites were being systematically annihilated. Albedo, despite her valiant efforts and powerful attacks, was being forced back by the sheer, relentless onslaught of the Wyrm's elemental fury.
It was Aura, desperately trying to find a weakness from above, who saw it first. A faint, pulsating glow deep within the Wyrm's chest, visible only when it reared back to unleash its devastating breath attack.
"Ainz-sama!" she shrieked over the [Message] spell Ainz had active with his commanders. "Its chest! There's a weak point! A core, or something! It glows when it breathes!"
Ainz processed this instantly. A core. Like many YGGDRASIL bosses. If they could hit that…
But just as he formulated a plan, the Wyrm, sensing perhaps that its victory was near, unleashed a particularly devastating attack. A wave of pure, crystallizing energy swept across the courtyard, flash-freezing everything in its path. Cocytus, caught in its direct path while trying to shield his remaining Huskarls, was instantly encased in a thick layer of blue-black ice, immobilized, his four arms trapped.
"COCYTUS!" Albedo screamed, seeing her fellow Guardian fall. She charged towards him, Hermes Trismegistus blazing, but the Wyrm, sensing her intent, slammed a colossal claw down, forcing her to evade, its attention now fully on the trapped insectoid warrior.
Ainz saw his opening, and the dire peril. Cocytus was vulnerable. The Wyrm was focused. He had to act, now. His mana was severely depleted from the sustained casting of high-level buffs and offensive spells. But the souls from the Wildling horde, and the constant, lesser trickle from the minor ice elementals the Wyrm summoned and his forces destroyed, had pushed his capacity to new heights. He felt… different. Stronger. Perhaps strong enough.
"Albedo! Sebas! Distract it! Buy me time!" Ainz commanded, his voice resonating with an ancient power that made even his human form seem to expand, to flicker with an inner, darker light. He raised his hands, ignoring the strain on his youthful body, pouring every last erg of his will, his mana, his very essence as an Overlord into a single, desperate incantation. He was reaching for something he hadn't dared attempt since his arrival in this world, a spell that brushed the very edges of Super-Tier magic, something he wasn't even sure his current vessel could survive casting.
"[True Death]!"
It was not the overwhelming despair of [The Goal of All Life is Death]. This was a 9th-tier spell, an instant-death incantation that bypassed most conventional defenses, targeting the very essence of life. Against a creature of this magnitude, its success was far from guaranteed. But aimed at that glowing core Aura had spotted…
A beam of pure, unadulterated blackness, so dark it seemed to swallow the light, shot from Ainz's outstretched hand. It struck the Great Ice Wyrm squarely in its chest, at the exact moment it reared back, its core exposed and pulsing.
There was no explosion, no grand detonation. Just a sudden, terrible silence from the Wyrm. Its colossal body stiffened. The furious blue fire in its eyes flickered, dimmed, and then extinguished. With a slow, ponderous groan that echoed across the frozen plains, the Great Ice Wyrm of the Glacial Moors crashed down, its immense bulk shaking Vassalheim to its foundations, its reign of icy terror finally over.
Ainz collapsed to his knees, his human body spasming, blood trickling from his nose and ears. The backlash from wielding such a high-tier spell in his current form was immense. Sebas was instantly at his side, supporting him, concern etched on his face.
The silence was broken by Albedo's cry of triumph and relief as she rushed to the ice-encased Cocytus, her axe shattering his frigid prison. Cocytus, though weakened and battered, was alive. Aura landed Sky-Screecher nearby, her face alight with awe at Ainz's display of power.
And then, Ainz felt it. The Soul. The soul of the Great Ice Wyrm, an entity of near-godlike power in this world, flowed into him. It was not a torrent, but a veritable ocean of spiritual energy, so vast, so potent, that his human body screamed in protest even as his mana capacity exploded, shattering previous limits, reaching levels he hadn't felt since he was the fully-powered Overlord of Nazarick. New tiers of magic, 8th, 9th, perhaps even the coveted 10th tier, felt tantalizingly within reach, though he knew his current vessel would still struggle to channel them safely.
As the overwhelming influx of power began to stabilize, and the immediate adrenaline of battle faded, Albedo, who had been examining the colossal corpse of the Ice Wyrm, let out a cry of surprise.
"Ainz-sama! Look!"
Clutched tightly in one of the Wyrm's massive, frozen talons, almost hidden beneath its bulk, was an object. It was a horn, nearly three feet long, carved from what looked like a single piece of pearlescent, unbreakable ice, yet it was not cold to the touch. It was intricately engraved with spiraling, unknown runes that pulsed with a faint, internal blue light, and it hummed with an almost unbearable concentration of ancient, elemental magic. It was clearly an artifact of immense power, something the Wyrm had either been guarding, had recently acquired, or perhaps was even a part of its very essence.
Ainz, supported by Sebas, slowly approached the artifact. As he reached out a trembling hand, the obsidian amulet on his chest and the wolf totem at his belt both resonated sharply, the horn itself seeming to respond to their presence. This was no mere trinket. This was something… pivotal.
Far to the south, at Greywater Keep…
Mare Bello Fiore, deep within the earth, felt the very bedrock of the Riverlands tremble, a faint, distant cataclysm that resonated even through hundreds of leagues of stone and soil. He paused in his careful excavation of the New Nazarick bunker, his large eyes wide with a nameless dread and a flicker of hope. Entoma's insects, above ground, went into a frenzy, their chirps and clicks relaying a sense of immense, distant power being unleashed, and then… a profound silence from the far north.
Ser Desmond Grell, pacing the battlements, also felt the tremor, a subtle unease that prickled his skin. He looked north, towards the lands his enigmatic lord had ventured into, and a fresh wave of anxiety washed over him. His next report to the Blackfish would be even more incoherent.
And in Harrenhal…
Demiurge, reviewing reports from his agents about the slow destabilization of the Ironborn presence along the Trident's estuary, suddenly went still. His head tilted, a frown creasing his brow. He had felt it. A wave of magical power so immense, so utterly overwhelming, that it had briefly distorted even his own formidable senses. It had originated from the far, far north. And it had borne the unmistakable, terrifyingly potent signature of his beloved Lord Ainz Ooal Gown, unleashed at a level far beyond anything Nyx had previously reported.
A slow, deeply satisfied smile spread across Demiurge's face. "So," he murmured to the echoing darkness. "My Lord has finally decided to… stretch his limbs. Excellent." His plans for a "subtle gift" of a rescued merchant caravan suddenly seemed rather… quaint. Perhaps a more significant offering was now in order. The Ironborn would provide ample opportunity.
Back at the heavily damaged Vassalheim, as the last echoes of the battle faded into the icy wind, Ainz, Albedo, Sebas, Cocytus, and Aura stood before the mysterious horn clutched in the dead Wyrm's talon. The artifact pulsed with a life of its own, its silent song of power calling to something deep within Ainz.
What secrets did it hold? What new paths would it open? The defeat of the Great Ice Wyrm was a monumental victory, but Ainz had a growing feeling that it was not an ending, but the true, cataclysmic beginning of Nazarick's saga in this new, unsuspecting world.