Immortal Ice Empress: Path to Vengeance

Rhydian, like Mira, could use all 8 Basic Elements; Fire, Water, Air, Earth, Lightning, Ice, Darkness, and Light. Also, like Mira, she needed to train with each of these elements, which Rhydian could do in a number of ways, but the one she preferred was consuming rare resources.

Beasts use the elements differently from humans, as their abilities are more instinctual. Rhydian is no different. Thus, consuming rare resources and training with her affinities will unlock these instincts and abilities hidden deep within her bloodline.

This is one of the reasons why the Golden-Empyrean Winged-Wolf is so overpowered; they are essentially a paragon among beasts.

She can turn anything she consumes into power. Hell, she can even obtain elemental resistances or new affinities like poison/space/etc., just by eating things. Anything under the heavens is hers for the taking, and nothing can stop her from stealing it.

However, there are limitations to this. One is the long hibernation periods, where she will be in a comatose-like state, completely unresponsive to the outside world. The other is the massive amount of resources it'll take for her to break through the Realms and improve her strength.

Although there are other reasons, those are the only two that matter at the moment, as Rhydian is dealing with the consequences of her laziness.

While fighting against these Rank 8 beasts, who have lived for hundreds of years, she wished she had trained more! She wished she had taken Mira's advice and not slept so much!

'These guys are so tough to kill!'

After that first little exchange, they've been fighting for almost half an hour now, but nobody has landed a decisive blow. Meanwhile, the Earth Titan Bear and panther are still watching on the sidelines, waiting for an opportunity to strike.

Rhydian through the sky, dodging the giant spider's silk, which tried to tie her up and attacked the serpent. Latching onto its back, she dug her teeth into its scales, tearing out a few chunks of flesh before it whipped its tail around, smacking her off.

She had already expected this to happen and flew back to a different part of its body and began tearing out more chunks of flesh and scales, but that wasn't enough to do any significant damage to the beast. Not when its vitality was so high and its body so long.

Rhydian flew around the serpent, looking at all the holes and wounds all over its body, but not a single one was enough to take it down! She'd even crushed its spine in a few areas, but it kept moving like nothing was wrong!

Suddenly, the Eagle dived at her from above, with its talons aiming for her neck.

*SWOOOSH!*

Rhydian swiftly dodged out of the way and shot a few bolts of lightning where she assumed it would travel, but that proved to be a waste of energy as it had already disappeared before the attack.

'This fucking…! ARGH! I hate this! I hate fighting these guys!' Rhydian cursed, as this situation has happened more than once.

The eagle would dive in to attack her, fail, and then back off. Although she was fast enough to chase after it, that's only if she didn't have two other strong beasts on her tail. However, since she has two other bloodthirsty beasts out for her life, always searching for ways to kill her, if she takes her eyes off them for more than a second, she'd get caught in some trap.

Since the two flying enemies were too annoying to deal with, Rhydian turned to the only one attacking her from the ground, the Spider.

This one, unsurprisingly, is the most injured. It's missing a few legs and eyes, numerous holes in its abdomen, and green blood is constantly leaking out of its orifices.

The only reason it's still alive is that it's a Rank 8 beast. Even if Rhydian did nothing to it, the spider would eventually die, but she didn't want to wait.

No, she needed it dead now!

'I'll take you down, then kill that dump serpent!'

Rhydian coated her body in lightning, her wings in ice, and her claws with fire. Using the speed extra speed that the lightning gave her, she shot toward the spider at full speed! Rhydian felt the Eagle and the serpent charge at her to stop her attack, but she ignored them. Instead, she shot loads of Qi out of her wings, speeding her up!

The spider felt an intense danger approaching and tried to defend herself, but it was already too late.

*BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!*

Rhydian crashed into it like a rocket that fell from space, causing the terrain around them to vaporize and a side of the mountain to collapse.

"SCREEEEEECH!!"

The spider released a horrifying cry filled with pain and agony. The other four beasts knew that it was on the brink of death, and their auras became solemn.

A few seconds later, the screeching stopped, filling the devastated mountain with a somber silence, and rain clouds soon formed overhead as if the world was mourning. The other beasts didn't need to be geniuses to know that Rhydian had just killed the spider, which turned the already serious atmosphere into something more severe.

After the dust settled, Rhydian walked out of the crater with the spider's head still in her mouth, announcing her accomplishments to the world and warning the four other intruders.

Tossing the spider's head in front of them, Rhydian released a deep growl, "BARK! (LEAVE!)"

The others were confused by the urgency in her voice, but Rhydian didn't bother to explain. They wouldn't understand her even if she tried to communicate.

They didn't know that she could feel Mira's irritation directed at her, nor did they understand that she was giving them a lifeline here. They still had a chance to leave and live, to forget everything about this day, but when Mira shows up…

Well, it's safe to say that their life will no longer be in their hands.

A shudder ran down Rhydian's spine when she thought about the possible punishments Mira would put her through, and soon, her expression became fierce as she glanced at the remaining beasts, who seemed to have no intention of leaving.

'Since you want to die so bad, why don't you just commit suicide?! Why must you drag me down with you?!'

With a thought, Rhydian turned into a lightning bolt, shooting toward the green serpent's neck. As long as she could kill it, then the fight would return to the previous 1v3, and she would only have to worry about a single flying enemy, the Eagle.

"ROOOOOOAAAARRR!" The Earth Titan Bear roared, no longer wanting to sit on the sidelines, as it realized he had severely underestimated the wolf before him. It, along with the panther, charged at Rhydian, but the latter didn't care.

No, it was more accurate to say that she had given up on defending. The only thing she cared about now was killing these beasts before Mira left her meditation! If that meant she had to feel a little extra pain, then so be it.

'It's not like my regeneration can't restore most injuries anyways. At least I won't have to face Master's wrath if I kill them!' Rhydian thought, trying to stay optimistic.

She could tell that Mira had stopped her meditation session a while ago. What did this mean? It meant that she wanted Rhydian to finish the situation herself because if it were any other time, Mira would have rushed out of the tunnel before the fight began, and they would have slaughtered them together.

Since that wasn't the case, it meant she wanted Rhydian to deal with these beasts alone. Most likely as a form of training.

'Does Master seriously only see the world as training opportunities?' Rhydian wondered, silently wishing she could go back to the Battle Maiden Sect to sleep.

However, since she couldn't do that, her second best option was to just go through with this little impromptu training session.

Within less than a second, Rhydian appeared behind the serpent's head and smacked the base of the neck before she continued flying. Turning around, she did the same thing over and over again in rapid succession until she created a massive gash the size of her arm in its flesh.

She looked at the protruding spine and nodded. She took out a large chunk of Qi from her Beast Core and circulated it through her body, empowering her by severalfold.

Now filled with power, Rhydian charged at the serpent one last time and-

*SMACK!*

*BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!*

Her giant, meaty paw swiped its vertebrae, shattering it and killing the serpent instantly. The other three beasts watched on as the serpent's limp body fell from the sky and crashed into the ground, causing the earth to quake.

Staring at the hundreds of wounds along its snake-like body, the beasts realized that they might've bitten off more than they could chew by trying to kill Rhydian, but it was too late for regrets now. Since they've already committed, then they might as well give it their all!