Whether it was out of his pride as a Turan warrior or to dispel Casava's suspicions, Hailstorm could not refuse Wildhammer's provocation.
Regardless of whether it was on Earth or in the Other World, the rules for drinking were the same.
When you accepted a toast from one person at a banquet, it was equivalent to accepting a toast from everyone at the banquet. No matter who raised a glass to you, you could not refuse.
After cultivating to the level of Wildhammer and Hailstorm, their bodies were filled with totemic power. The efficiency of their stomachs was tens or even hundreds of times that of an ordinary Beastman. There was no problem of not being able to eat or drink.
Moreover, Wildhammer was not targeting Hailstorm. Instead, he was raising his glass to the four aces and five experts of the Blood Skull Crew. They were all unrestrained, even lifting large barrels of alcohol that were as tall as a person and drinking it like an elephant drinking water. In an instant, an entire barrel of alcohol was drained. Steam shot out of his 36,000 pores, making the banquet as lively as a bathhouse.
The atmosphere was so heated that if Hailstorm did not drink three to five barrels, or even seven or eight barrels of alcohol, it would be too out of place.
After three rounds of drinking, Wildhammer was the first to jump out and invite Hailstorm to add to the fun with a war dance.
"War dance" was a unique tradition of Turanze.
It was a powerful battle technique that was performed exaggeratedly in the form of a dance.
It was usually used in sacrificial ceremonies and banquets to please the ancestral spirits, to show respect to distinguished guests who had come from afar, or to show goodwill between two Turan warriors who had once had a conflict.
Wildhammer and Hailstorm had fought many times in the arena, and there were also many conflicts off the arena.
Now, the Blood Skull Crew had to work together and head to the center of Turanze, or even the Land of Holy Light.
At the banquet before the expedition, Wildhammer invited Hailstorm to resolve the conflict with him through a war dance.
This was very in line with the traditions of Turan, and Hailstorm could not refuse.
In reality, Hailstorm was a very outstanding war dancer.
Using a war dance to decide the victor and fighting with one's life on the stage were two completely different concepts.
The moves of the latter emphasized on simplifying the complicated, and they were simple and violent. It was best to silently punch out with a single punch that would erupt with destructive power that could sweep away all obstacles.
The former, on the other hand, required a dazzling and thrilling move to minimize the destructiveness of the attack. It seemed as if the attack was aimed at the opponent's vital part, so that the bystanders and even the opponent himself would think that the attack would definitely hit, but in reality, it could not even touch the opponent's hair.
In this brilliant and perilous battle dance, if anyone were to carelessly leave a wound as thin as a strand of hair on their opponent's body, they would be laughed at by the spectators. They would think that their moves were too clumsy and that they couldn't control their own strength at all.
If this was a more serious sacrificial ceremony, this kind of clumsy battle dance would be thought to anger the ancestral spirits.
Naturally, Frost Storm, who was an agile warrior, could control every inch of his body more precisely than Wildhammer, who had the bloodline of the elephant-men and walked the path of clumsy, brawny warriors. He could perform a more elegant and glamorous battle dance.
Therefore, it was even more impossible for her to refuse Wildhammer's invitation.
Otherwise, she would be saying to Wildhammer in front of all the experts of the Bloody Skull Legion, "Your battle dance is too clumsy. You don't deserve to offer the most elegant dance to the sacred ancestral spirits with me."
Faced with such humiliation, Wildhammer could only turn hostile and fight her to the death. Nobody would stand on her side. She would not be able to participate in the final morale-boosting rally and the battle drill. She had to escape from Black Horn City.
Frost Storm could only grit her teeth and perform the battle dance.
Her dance was unstoppable.
She was both like an agile cheetah, a glamorous butterfly, and even more like a fierce bolt of lightning. On the stage made of dozens of empty barrels, she unleashed dozens of illusionary and real shadows and defeated Wildhammer easily.
Not only did she win the applause and cheers of the hundred experts, including Casava, she also won Wildhammer's sincere respect.
It was naturally a good thing that the conflict between her and Wildhammer had been resolved.
At the very least, during the battle drill, Wildhammer would not stare at Frost Storm and cause her trouble.
However, when an expert invited Frost Storm to offer a battle dance to all the ancestral spirits who had been sacrificed in the Bloody Skull Arena, she could only grit her teeth and agree.
Just like that, after Frost Storm performed a round of battle dance, she would drink a round of wine, and with the help of the boiling wine, she would perform an even more glamorous and aggressive battle dance.
The wine today seemed to be particularly mellow, too.
There was no telling what kind of precious medicine had been added to it, but Frost Storm's every vein and brain seemed to be melting and burning in scorching magma.
But she did not feel any pain.
Instead, she felt indescribable delight.
It was as if she had completely melted her old self and melted into a new, more beautiful, and vaster world.
In the new, spinning world, she could cast aside everything in the past.
The inhuman torture she had to endure as a child.
Or was it his mother's worried teachings?
Or perhaps, she hated the man called "Father" to the bone.
Or was it those days of hiding from place to place, living in fear like a rat, that had left an indelible mark on his soul?
After she came to the Bloody Skull Arena, she had been on tenterhooks every day. She had carefully disguised herself and wrapped herself in a thick mask. She had sealed and protected her truest self with the ice called 'Ice Queen'. She had never dared to reveal any of her secrets to anyone.
All she wanted was to live an ordinary life like a normal Turanite for a few days.
She would still wake up in cold sweat from her nightmares every night. She would touch her body to make sure that her disguise had not been broken in the slightest, but she still could not fall asleep. She could only wait for the arrival of dawn with bloodshot eyes.
Frost Storm, who had been tormented by this feeling for two years, had long been suppressed to the limit.
When she thought that she would be able to leave Blackhorn City in two or three days and go to Pure Gold City to end her destiny …
She felt extremely refreshed.
Without realizing it, she had vented the pain of the past two years — no, thirty years — through the battle dance, mixed with the alcohol.
In the beginning, it could be said that Wildhammer and the other ace gladiators and battle group experts had taken turns to invite and challenge her.
Later, she gradually let go of herself and sank into madness. Frost Storm, who had been controlled by the endorphins and dopamine stimulated by the secret drug, became the one who took the initiative to attack and provoke her.
It was just like in the arena.
She became the center of attention, a celebrity who was in the limelight. She felt that the empty wine barrel under her fast spinning feet was filled with high explosives carefully made by the dwarves.
The explosions made her fly higher and higher, and she charged into the clouds.
Then, she fell from the clouds into the abyss.
She fell into the darkest and coldest corner of the abyss.
…
Frost Storm was woken up by the ear-piercing sound of metal clashing and scraping.
The voice was like a rusty nail, ruthlessly stabbing into her brain.
She was instantly pulled out of the chaos and regained the vigilance of a cheetah.
She immediately smelled the scent of danger.
This was not the scene of the banquet.
It was not her residence or any place in the Bloody Skull Arena that she was familiar with.
Instead, it was a cold dungeon.
The walls and the floor were relatively clean, and there was an oil lamp every two to three arm's length on the wall, which emitted a dim light that slightly dispelled the darkness in the depths of the underground.
Four large pipes at the top of the four corners were also spraying fresh air into the dungeon, so that the dungeon was not as dirty and rancid as usual.
But the blood that had already turned black when it seeped into the gaps between the black slates still made Frost Storm narrow her eyes.
Then, she discovered that her neck, wrists, and ankles were each covered by a black metal ring.
The inside of the metal ring was covered in dense spikes. If her hands and feet moved a little too violently, the spikes would pierce into her flesh.
The outside of the metal ring was engraved with ancient runes. It was not the cuneiform of the Tulan ancestors, but the curvature of the words from the Land of Holy Light that looked like dried earthworms.
The unusually familiar words made Frost Storm's pupils suddenly contract.
She had a rough idea what the hell they were.
Gritting her teeth, she used her right hand to pull the metal ring on her left wrist.
Because she could not exert force on both sides at the same time, the spikes on the inside of the metal ring pierced deep into her flesh, almost touching her bones.
But the metal ring was even harder than steel, and did not deform at all.
It was impossible to destroy this metal ring with just the power of flesh and blood.
She growled and activated her totemic power.
But as the gorgeous tattoos on her body shone, the metal ring instantly turned from black to orange. From the spikes that pierced into Frost Storm's flesh, a few wisps of flames that were fiercer than lightning shot out and drilled into her bones.
Frost Storm screamed in pain, and her totemic power dissipated. She could not even summon half a totemic armor.
She endured the pain and raised her trembling left arm. There was a ring-shaped burn mark on her left wrist. It was like a black, formless shackle, imprisoning the half of her soul that originated from Turanze.
Sure enough, this was some kind of device that sealed totemic power.
It should be the work of the magicians and dwarves from the Land of Holy Light.
Although from the rough texture and the missing runes, this device was not of a very high level.
But it was enough to temporarily restrict Frost Storm's ability.
At this moment, Frost Storm heard heavy breathing coming from behind her.
When she looked back, she saw a totemic beast that was more than three arms long, with fangs as sharp as blades, emerging from the darkness and staring at her.
This beast looked like a combination of a wolf and a bear.
But its head, shoulders and waist were covered with a layer of very thick bone plates that emitted a metallic luster.
It was as if he was wearing layers upon layers of armor.
"Tusk Roar!"
In Frost Storm's mind, a name that could make even the most experienced hunter break out in a cold sweat suddenly appeared.
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