Immortal Ice Empress: Path to Vengeance

Mira stood up, injected Hell Scythe Intent into her scythe, and began swinging it around.

After a few minutes, Mira was quite impressed with the results.

"Not only is the blade sharper, but I can use this Hell Scythe Intent to help me gather momentum quicker and make my attacks more lethal. Truly amazing! I was beginning to doubt this cultivation technique for a second and thought that maybe I should've used a technique more suited for my affinities and Dao, but now I'm sure this is the right path forward." Mira thought out loud.

"You're correct in thinking that way! With your Absolute Ice Dao, there isn't really a need for an ice-attribute cultivation technique. Sure, such a technique might make it easier and more efficient for you to use your affinity, but with your Dao and unique Physique, there's no need for this. As long as you keep continuously boosting your comprehension of your Dao, your control over ice and the other elements will come naturally."

"Therefore, it'd be a waste not to use a different cultivation technique that can work in tandem with your affinities! The Hell Scythe Technique is perfect for that! It keeps your Qi neutral, so you can use all of your affinities at will while also boosting the power of your scythe!" The Guardian's voice rang in her mind, and Mira couldn't help but agree.

That being said, Mira still wasn't too convinced about her cultivation technique. Sure, it's powerful, but needing to continuously comprehend Scythe Intent is a bit much.

Mira decided to stop thinking about this and began thinking about which tunnel she should enter.

Her instincts weren't telling her much other than that they were all relatively dangerous. She wouldn't instantly die as long as she was careful, but that doesn't mean they will be easy. That's the kind of feeling she's getting from the tunnels.

In the end, she just decided to choose one at random.

"Fuck it. My luck is trash anyways, so it probably doesn't matter which one I enter first. I planned on entering all of them anyways. I can't let any possible loot enter someone else's grasp now that I'm here, can I?"

Mira then entered a tunnel at random and walked into it. The tunnel was narrow, and with her height, she had to crouch a little just to fit.

Unfortunately, she had to store her scythe, but at least this gave Mira a chance to practice using her other elements.

Not long after Mira entered the tunnel, she encountered her first enemy. It was a large ant, about a meter tall, black as night, and had large mandibles. It seemed to be a Peak-Stage Rank 6 beast, much to Mira's surprise, as she could feel several more ants of the same strength behind the ant.

From her knowledge, this ant was called a Nightbringer Ant. They have extremely hard exoskeletons, mandibles and legs laced with poison, and are extremely coordinated when in a group.

Seeing these ants, Mira couldn't help but mentally curse.

'Fuck! Why does it have to be ants? Seeing ants here means there's a queen as well. Should I just go down a different tunnel and hope I don't see ants? Literally, anything is better than facing these fuckers!'

Mira might love to slaughter, but ants are really annoying to fight. Not only are they coordinated, but they are extremely vengeful. Killing one essentially means going against the whole nest, and they won't stop coming after you until one side is dead. Worst of all, they reproduce way too fast, so unless you can quickly kill the queen and all the eggs, they will keep coming after you with even more numbers!

And seeing how strong these ants were, Mira felt hesitant to attack. If an army of these guys swarmed her, then even she'd be in trouble.

Unfortunately, ants are also quite territorial, and Mira had already stepped into one of their tunnels.

Unless she can escape and hide from them, the Nightbringer Ants in front of her won't leave her alone.

'Whatever. I don't really have anywhere else to go or hide. If I want to find a treasure, then I'll have to deal with these ants anyways.'

Mira coated her hands in ice gauntlets, prepared her golden tail, increased her perception, and charged at the incoming ants.

In Mira's experience, blunt force is the best way to take down someone with a hard exterior. And since she can't bring out her scythe in this tight space, her fists, and Martial Intent will have to do.

The Nightbringer Ant reacted quickly to Mira's attack and attempted to crush her with its mandibles, but Mira wasn't so stupid to get caught by such an attack.

She summoned two two ice pillars and used them to prevent its mandibles from closing.

Of course, Mira wasn't hoping the ice pillars would actually keep the mandibles at bay; the ants were too strong for that. No, she just needed them to stall the attack by a second, so she could successfully close in on the ant.

Just like she planned, the ice pillars stopped the ant's attack for about half a second before they were crushed, and the mandibles closed.

However, by then, Mira had already appeared on top of the ant's thorax. In this position, there wasn't much the ant could do, which is one of the ants' major weaknesses. Other than trying to throw Mira off or crashing her into the ceiling, the ant had no way of reaching her, much less attacking her.

Mira knew this and decided to take advantage of this major weakness.

Now that she was on top of the ant, Mira used her Martial Intent and began raining punches and tail slams onto the ant's head.

Surprisingly, it took almost 30 hits before Mira's attacks were able to break through its hard exoskeleton, destroying its brain. She also had to continuously pump Qi into her gauntlets as they would crack after each hit.

Fortunately, with her strength and skill in martial arts, she can rain down 30 punches in barely a few seconds, but that still left Mira disappointed.

She knew that if she were to face an army of these insects, a few seconds would be way too long! She'd be lucky if she got a second to rain down punches before being overrun with ants!

'Maybe they are weak to fire? If that's the case, then I might be able to reduce the number of hits it takes to kill one!' Mira thought to herself while storying the Nightbringer ant's corpse, not allowing her black runes to consume it.

She looked at the other Nightbringer ants in front of her, who were now raging as they saw their brethren get killed right before them, and released a sinister smile.

'You all will make great test subjects before I eventually face your queen!' Mira thought sadistically before charging at the next ant.

***

Thank you, Nyviria, for the 15,000 coins!