Is there any way to quickly delete giant text message chats?

I usually go a very long time without deleting my chats and recently it's been taking up a ridiculous amount of my storage space. Last time I deleted one of these giant chats it took 18 hours (Yes, by sliding ithe whole chat left and clicking "delete") and in this time period I couldnt receive messages or phone calls, neither could I send them out. Is there any way to quickly delete these messages?