Ice Crystal Prison

Over the next three days, Dago kept a low profile. Every day, he was either cultivating arduously or conducting guerrilla raids and reconnaissance in the town.

After the northern district of the town was reduced to scorched earth, large numbers of Black-Robed Wizards from the Duskblood Council poured into the town through the breach, establishing footholds and engaging the Academy's side in street battles.

Every day, explosions from sorcery could be heard throughout the town, along with the cries of Academy wizards and civilians.

Wizard Hall had also officially become the Academy's transit point within the town, receiving supplies and personnel reinforcements from Academy Castle.

However, Dago discovered something strange: ever since the battle in the north, neither side had deployed combatants at the Formal Wizard level. Only large numbers of Advanced Apprentices roamed the town's battlefield.

The strongest opponents he had encountered on the town battlefield were merely Half-Step Formal Wizards.

Basically, the Black-Robed Wizards operated in small squads throughout the town. Each squad consisted of three to five wizards, accompanied by around five Blood Slaves to scout and clear the way for them.

It had to be said, this tactic was truly ruthless. It struck directly at the Academy wizards' weak point. These black-robed men from the Dark Crystal Highlands had exceedingly low moral standards and abundant combat experience.

It also gave Dago a tremendous shock. So this was how wizard wars could be fought.

These Blood Slaves could no longer be called human. They were civilian captives who had been transformed by the Duskblood Council.

Before their transformation, they seemed to have suffered inhuman abuse. Bloodstains formed crimson patterns all over their bodies, while their eyes were filled with madness and a craving for Blood Offerings, like zombies.

Yes, they were obedient zombies, without reason or emotion.

All of this was intelligence Dago had obtained from Wizard Hall.

Although Blood Slaves possessed little combat strength, they could serve as high-quality cannon fodder and greatly restrict a wizard's casting movements. If a crazed Blood Slave came charging at you in a suicidal rush, could you still cast calmly?

Over these three days, they had inflicted considerable casualties upon Academy wizards and hired wizards. Civilians suffered especially badly; once captured, they would be transformed into Blood Slaves.

But who was Dago? He had developed his own method of dealing with them.

A tactic he called Ice Crystal Prison—the same tactic he had once used to kill Raymond.

As dusk deepened, in the western district of the town, Dago lay prone atop the roof of a two-story wooden house. A thin layer of snow covered his robe as he stared coldly at the street below.

In the distance, three Black-Robed Wizards and five Blood Slaves that looked like walking corpses moved along the street. One of the Blood Slaves was still quite young. Blood patterns covered its body, and it wore tattered clothing.

The three Black-Robed Wizards chatted and laughed. From time to time, they cast a spell to destroy a house, listening for signs of human activity within.

The five Blood Slaves obeyed the commands of one of the three men like obedient hunting dogs, entering the houses to confirm whether any civilian survivors remained inside.

Afterward, he would toss a fist-sized lump of coagulated blood onto the ground, allowing the five Blood Slaves to scramble over it like mad dogs.

Then they would move on to search the next house, while the other two Black-Robed Wizards remained on guard against attacks that might emerge at any moment.

Very soon, they entered the area around the house where Dago lay hidden. His cold eyes narrowed slightly as he suppressed the killing intent he could barely contain.

Almost. Ten meters, nine meters... He silently calculated the distance between them.

Now. Dago raised the Ice Crystal Wand in his hand and aimed at the group. He murmured the incantation for the Ice Crystal Technique as a large number of ice elemental particles gathered at the tip of his wand.

By the time the three Black-Robed Wizards noticed the energy fluctuations in the air, it was already too late. A massive blue energy sphere shot straight toward them.

Whoosh! The blue energy sphere plunged directly into the snow three meters in front of the Black-Robed Wizards.

Expressions of relief appeared on the three Black-Robed Wizards' faces, followed by savage glints in their eyes as they raised their bone wands.

When a burst of freezing air exploded beneath their boots, the three Black-Robed Wizards' vicious grins froze on their faces.

Their bone wands had only just risen into the air when they suddenly stopped—frost blooming along the wands' patterns spread wildly, covering the entire length in the blink of an eye and glimmering with a cold bluish-white light beneath the twilight.

"What..." The question in the leading Black-Robed Wizard's throat had not yet escaped when spiderweb-like ice cracks split across the stone slabs beneath his feet.

Countless ice crystals burst from those cracks and suddenly blossomed into ice spikes in midair, their edges as sharp as shattered glass and reflecting a chilling light.

Pop, pop, pop... Sounds like firecrackers erupted from the ground.

Countless ice spikes burst from the snowy street, eventually raising a crisscrossing forest of ice within this frozen purgatory, their pointed peaks piercing the gray sky.

The Black-Robed Wizard on the far left had just raised his bone wand when an ice spike drilled through the folds of his robe and burst from his shoulder blade, carrying beads of blood that froze into scarlet crystal droplets in midair.

A rasping sound came from his throat, and ice shards instantly coated his silver-gray beard. The moment his bone wand fell from his hand, three more ice spikes skewered his wrist at an angle, pinning that bony hand to the ice.

He died still holding the posture of raising his wand. An ice spike pierced through his eye socket, pushing half an eyeball onto its pointed tip.

The leading Black-Robed Wizard in the center reacted swiftly. Flames gathering at the tip of his bone wand struck the ice spikes, yet only melted a few droplets of water from their tips, which instantly froze again into sharper barbs.

Ice spikes erupted from the ground like a torrential downpour. The thickest one pierced straight through his waist and abdomen.

He lost his breath at once. His black robe bulged from the ice spike, like a red rose blooming in the snow.

The Black-Robed Wizard on the right tried to flee, but after only a few steps, ice spikes had already pierced his ankles and snaked upward along his shinbones.

He watched helplessly as an icy spear pierced his throat. Before his vision blurred, he swept his gaze across his companions.

The last thing he saw was his own hair freezing into powder bit by bit amid the ice crystals dancing through the sky, mingling with the blood mist scattered into the icy wind by his companions and falling toward the ground that had long since frozen over.

As for the five Blood Slaves, they too were impaled amid the ice forest in the street like rag dolls.

Dago rose from the rooftop, his sword-like brows slightly furrowed as he endured his nausea and looked over the hellish scene he had created.

He had already buried dormant ice elemental energy beneath the snow on the street using Resonance Art. He only needed to activate that energy with the Ice Crystal Technique to create this scene resembling an icy hell.

The power of this move depended on how much ice elemental energy he had buried beforehand. However, the farther it was from him, the more unstable the ice elemental energy became. Its effect was best within a range of thirty meters.

Dago withdrew the mental power sustaining Ice Crystal Prison, and a great number of ice spikes shattered into icy fragments and fell to the ground.

He leaped down from the roof. His mental power compressed a small amount of air beneath him into a cushion that caught him, and he landed on the ground littered with ice fragments.

Dago swiftly looted the three Black-Robed Wizards: dozens of Low-Grade Magic Stones, the bone wands in their hands, and the Duskblood Council Insignias around their necks. He stored them all in his storage ring.

Then he withdrew from the western district of the town and headed for the central noble district where Wizard Hall was located.