Another Stupid Isekai

The day started as usual, and I quickly was back among the hills with Ki'rai. Without wasting any time, we headed straight towards the guardians of a narrow mountain valley that was shortly vanishing among the walls of stone. Clearly a winding pathway.

Without much trouble, I was able to kill all of them, and then my summons picked up the stones and began to carry my stuff for me.

We aimed at the mountain pass. With how it was twisting and turning, plus the uneven, rocky terrain, it was impossible to look ahead more than a few hundred meters. Eventually, though we reached a bigger space. A hole filled with jagged stone, with a ginormous cave, going under the mountains.

It looked kinda like a crater, but the walls were uneven. Not to mention more giants. I killed them all, but then Ki'rai informed me that we should return since it's to pick up the rest, so we did just that.

The next part of the day was kinda boring, with all the jumping around with people, and clearing already well-established hunting grounds. I ended up donating another 25 698 000 points in crystals, reaching almost the promised quota, but I didn't end the day there.

The hunting group dispersed, and Ki'rai went to the Velvet Lotus, I on the other hand returned to the anchor dropped close to the giants' lair.

It was already dark by then, so I ended up being barely able to see anything with how little light was able to reach that place. I fixed that problem easily, creating a few bigger flame birds.

Now I had the time to look closer at the entrance underground. The hole had around a hundred meters in diameter and was almost perfectly round. There were shards of ice, sharp, and quite long, covering everything but the floor. The chilly air was flowing from the darkness, and turning to thin steam clouds.

- Fucking frost - just left my mouth, as I went deeper, sending my birds further to illuminate the breathtaking pathway filled with beautiful blue light reflected by frozen water.

I walked for around an hour, eventually reaching a gargantuan crystal cave with grey giants, covered by ice, and armed with hammers. They had magnificent beards and mustaches, all covered with hoarfrost, solid.

The light grabbed the attention of a few, and those attacked me sending familiar ice shards, and charging.

I made my flames fly higher, to cover more ground, and I send few fireballs to take down the charging group. Explosions were enough to rip their bodies apart, and also alarmed the rest. The real battle started.

Cutting them down was hard as their bodies were very sturdy. I found myself forced to use 'Shadow fusion' to not waste too much magic during the battle. Not to mention the magic. When more of them gathered I got flashbacks from my battle with undead mages.

Only abusing shadow walk allowed me to avoid accumulating damage, although I got covered in frost a few times thanks to the blizzards they could create.

I ended up summoning my shadows, to pick up the score, as I went further, to cut down even more of those creatures, eventually finding myself in a place completely made of ice. The walls were stretching all the way to the ceiling. Carved alcoves had impressive statues displaying the might of those monsters.

The middle of the chamber was filled with benches and tables made of ice with meats, grapes, wine cups, and more importantly giants, having a fest. A lot of giants. My firebirds put the party on hold, as everybody jumped to grab something to kill me with.

I also charged at them, sending bolts of fire to the air, to rain from above, and create a true firestorm. Consecutive explosions shook the ground killing many and creating an inferno of blazing flames. I wasted most of my mana on this attack, but the numbers were too big to face in a different way.

I emerged victoriously, but really, really damn tired. Mostly because of the lack of mana, which for some reason was taking a toll on me. Maybe because my body was used to storing plenty of that type of energy. I dumped a few heals into myself, and used 'Cleansing', which made me feel a bit better.

Enough to keep going. I found a staircase covered in frost a bit further. At first, I thought it's another alcove, but it was way bigger as I approached the space. Wide stairs, made for giants, were descending into the darkness.

I was so small in comparison, that I had to jump from one to another. Ki'rai would be having fun, but I was quickly annoyed. That was a long travel, as the thing was spiraling really deep underground.

The icing vanished after some time revealing bare stone. Soon after the temperature changed so much, that even I could tell with how high was my fire resistance. A moment after I noticed a bright glow coming from below.

Several minutes later the stairs changed, became darker and darker, soon turning into pure obsidian. The glow was coming out of streams of lava, pouring down from the cracks on the walls, and flowing down through channels on both sides of the staircase.

I didn't need my firebirds anymore, so I made them disappear. Eventually, a reached the next flor. It was the biggest underground space I saw so far. So big that I actually couldn't tell, with literal rivers and lakes of magma stretching to the horizon. There were pathways made out of obsidian plates creating some kind of roads. There were also solid bridges, black, made out of the same substance.

I noticed a bunch of giants here and there, but not that many, just walking around. More had to hide somewhere in this space, ahead of me, as behind was just the staircase I came from and a solid wall.

I went down the few steps that still remained to reach ground level and started my journey through the domain of fire.