Seeing this through his Clairvoyance Magic, Rowan could not help applauding.
That move really was brilliant. It had driven Reinhard straight into a desperate situation.
However, in Rowan's opinion, thinking that this alone could defeat Reinhard was far too naive.
To most people, Reinhard's overwhelming strength came from the countless Divine Protections he possessed.
But Rowan knew very well that even without those protections, Reinhard was no weakling.
The Divine Protections were merely the world's favor toward him.
Even without them, Reinhard was still fully worthy of the title Sword Saint.
That was simply how absurdly gifted he was.
Boom!
A thunderous explosion rang out.
The ice sealing Reinhard's leg was forcibly blasted apart.
At that moment, Reinhard finally became serious.
Holding the Dragon Sword in his hand, he casually swung his first slash.
The blade tore through the air with a piercing howl and crashed into the massive ice spike covering Esdeath's left arm.
The sheer force of the strike shattered the enormous ice spike outright.
It exploded into countless fragments that scattered in every direction.
Esdeath found this unbelievable.
The giant ice spike she had created was no mere decoration.
It was incredibly hard, with durability comparable to steel.
Yet Reinhard had shattered it with a single sword strike.
What the hell was that sword made of?
Before Esdeath could recover, Reinhard swung his second slash.
This one swept horizontally toward her neck.
The blade emitted a deep hum as it cut through the air, moving so fast that its edge left behind a blurry afterimage beneath the Dungeon's phosphorescent light.
Esdeath's pupils suddenly contracted despite the madness in her eyes.
She did not dodge.
Not because she refused to—
but because she simply could not.
The sword was too fast.
Even so, Esdeath did not resign herself to death.
"Ice-Make Magic: Ice Shield!"
In an instant, an ice shield formed beside her neck.
It was only a palm's width thick, but its density had been compressed to the absolute limit, making it harder than steel.
Bang!
Sword and shield collided with a dull impact.
The ice shield shattered instantly.
But the sword was also deflected by half an inch, brushing past Esdeath's shoulder and tearing open her clothes.
Esdeath used the opportunity to retreat and widen the distance again.
Blood flowed from her left shoulder.
Her breathing had become heavy, her chest rising and falling violently.
Her long ice-blue hair had been soaked by sweat and melted frost, clinging messily to her face and neck.
And yet—
she was still smiling.
Her smile had become even more crazed.
"Strong…"
"Far too strong…"
"This is exactly the kind of prey I want to hunt!"
"This is the kind of battle I wanted!"
"Come on!"
"Let's keep killing each other!"
Esdeath slammed her left palm onto the frozen ground beneath her feet.
The gesture appeared casual.
Yet in that single palm strike, she unleashed nearly all the remaining magical power in her body—
the purest and most concentrated portion of it.
In an instant, with Esdeath at the center, freezing air swept across the entirety of the Dungeon's thirtieth floor.
The entire vast space was transformed into a pure-white frozen wasteland.
The temperature throughout the floor plunged once again.
Snowflakes even began forming in the air, drifting softly downward.
Reinhard immediately sensed the danger of this technique.
His expression grew even more serious.
"Let me show you…"
"My true army!"
Esdeath curled her fingers, then violently pulled her hand upward.
The frozen ground beneath her feet split apart in a perfectly regular pattern.
Cracks spread like the lines of a chessboard, dividing the entire ice field into countless flawless squares.
Then—
those squares began rising.
Blocks of ice collided, ground against one another, and fused together, producing deafening roars like some enormous forging process.
And then—
they stood up.
One.
Ten.
A hundred.
Several hundred.
More than a thousand…
What rose from the frozen wasteland was a complete army.
Silent.
Organized.
And radiating the aura of death.
They were humanoid cavalrymen nearly three meters tall, formed entirely from deep-blue ice compressed to the highest possible density.
Every line of their bodies possessed a brutal beauty designed solely for slaughter.
Their torsos resembled heavy plate armor.
Sharp spikes covered their joints.
Their heads were encased in fully enclosed pointed helmets.
The only visible feature on their faces was the pair of eerie blue flames burning inside their eye sockets.
Their right arms had transformed into enormous ice lances more than two meters long.
Each spearhead was triangular and razor-edged, gleaming with a venomously cold light beneath the phosphorescent glow.
Hundreds of ice lances rose in unison.
A forest of spearpoints.
The oppressive aura they released was terrifying enough to freeze the blood of any ordinary living creature.
Outside the Dungeon, Rowan watched through Clairvoyance Magic and clicked his tongue.
He had not expected Esdeath to be forced into using this move so quickly.
Ice Cavalry.
This was one of the large-scale military techniques Esdeath had created herself.
In the original story, she first used it during the final battle in the Imperial Capital.
The Ice Cavalry were centaur-like warriors created entirely from ice.
Each possessed combat ability far beyond that of ordinary soldiers.
Even if shattered, they could reform themselves.
Most could also operate autonomously.
Before the final battle in the capital, Esdeath had spent a long period accumulating power and created tens of thousands of Ice Cavalry, using them to partially compensate for the empire's severe disadvantage in troop numbers.
It was also worth mentioning that this technique served as the prelude to her nation-level ability—
Ice Storm Commander-in-Chief.
That technique essentially released all the energy stored within the Ice Cavalry over many days at once, creating a massive blizzard capable of covering nearly the entire empire.
It was mainly a large-area suppression technique.
Extremely effective against ordinary soldiers and civilians.
But against true powerhouses?
Almost useless.
After all, the technique had originally been designed by Esdeath to filter out the strong—those capable of surviving in such a harsh environment.
Against an expert like Reinhard, it would be even less useful.
So even if Esdeath had suffered brain damage, she would never use Ice Storm Commander-in-Chief against him.
Besides—
even if she wanted to, she had nowhere near enough time to prepare it.
"Kill."
Esdeath pointed forward.
Her voice was barely louder than a sigh.
But that sigh detonated the entire battlefield.
Hundreds of Ice Cavalry moved simultaneously.
There were no battle cries.
No roars.
Only the perfectly synchronized thunder of hooves pounding against the frozen ground.
That silent, absolute obedience was far more frightening than any screaming charge.
They surged toward Reinhard from every direction.
Ice lances lowered.
Together they formed a forest of steel-like spearpoints with no openings, intending to grind the lone red-haired figure trapped in the center into dust.
Hundreds of lances tore through the air.
Their shrieks merged into a symphony of death.
Standing at the very center of the encirclement, Reinhard faced the incoming flood of ice and steel.
There was no fear in his sky-blue eyes.
No hesitation.
Only a calmness as deep as an undisturbed lake.
Then—
he drew his sword.
The sound of steel sliding against the scabbard somehow overwhelmed even the thunder of hundreds of charging cavalry.
A clear metallic ring echoed throughout the vast underground space.
The instant the blade fully left its sheath—
an invisible pressure exploded outward from Reinhard.
The first Ice Cavalryman reached him.
Its enormous lance carried the momentum of a full charge and the weight of its entire body, stabbing toward his chest like a battering ram.
The force behind that thrust was enough to pin an elephant to a rock wall.
Reinhard did not block.
His wrist turned.
The Dragon Sword Reid transformed into a streak of light completely invisible to the naked eye and traced a perfect arc through the air.
One slash—
horizontal.
Then Rowan saw light.
A circular blade of radiance expanded outward from Reinhard as though it intended to sever the entire Dungeon in two.
There was no thunderous explosion.
Only a crystal-clear sound—
like glass breaking,
or ice falling into a crystal goblet.
Then everything became still.
The Ice Cavalryman at the front froze in place.
So did dozens of cavalry behind it.
A nearly invisible line appeared across their bodies.
It began at the tip of their lances, passed through their torsos, and continued all the way through their lower halves.
In the next instant—
dozens of powerful Ice Cavalrymen split cleanly apart at the waist.
Their upper and lower bodies separated before crashing onto the frozen ground and shattering into a storm of ice crystals.
One slash.
The formation was broken.
Seeing this, Rowan raised an eyebrow.
That sword strike was beautiful.
Beautiful to the absolute extreme.
It seemed Reinhard was finally beginning to reveal his true strength.
The Ice Cavalry did not understand fear.
Their comrades in front had been annihilated by a single strike, but the cavalry behind them simply trampled across the shattered remains and continued charging without losing any speed.
More ice lances stabbed toward Reinhard from every direction.
The density of the attacks had already surpassed what ordinary eyes could follow.
Like torrential rain.
Like a raging storm.
Reinhard neither dodged nor retreated.
He simply took his first step forward.
And walked straight into the forest of death formed by the countless ice lances.
Compared with the enormous bodies of the Ice Cavalry, Reinhard looked tiny.
Yet that very smallness now became a lethal advantage.
His movements reached an unbelievable speed.
So fast that several afterimages appeared behind him, making it seem as though multiple Reinhards were fighting simultaneously.
An ice lance came crashing down from above.
Reinhard did not even look up.
He merely tilted his body slightly.
The lance brushed past the tip of his nose and smashed into the ground.
At the same moment, his sword thrust backward along the direction from which the lance had come.
The tip pierced precisely into the cavalryman's eye socket.
The eerie blue flame inside was extinguished instantly.
As Reinhard withdrew his sword, he used the momentum to twist around.
He planted one foot atop another Ice Cavalryman's incoming lance and forced the heavy weapon deep into the ground.
Meanwhile, Reinhard himself had already leapt into the air.
While airborne—
he struck three times.
Three flashes of sword light descended like lightning.
The three cavalrymen below him, all raising their lances to attack, were split cleanly from head to foot.
Land.
Roll.
Rise.
Sweep.
Four movements flowed together seamlessly.
The four legs of five surrounding cavalrymen were severed at once, sending their enormous bodies crashing to the ground.
More cavalry immediately filled the gaps.
Their offensive became even more ferocious.
They no longer relied solely on straightforward thrusts.
Now they began using precise coordinated battle formations.
Three cavalrymen advanced side by side, sealing off Reinhard's escape routes to the left, right, and above.
Five formed a group, staggering their positions to create an endless wave-like charge from front to back.
Other cavalrymen remained at a distance and hurled their ice lances.
Those lances split apart in midair into dozens of smaller ice spikes, covering the battlefield like a sudden downpour.
This level of coordination was obviously being controlled directly by Esdeath.
Otherwise, the Ice Knights could never have produced such exquisite combination attacks.