Shooting pains hit my skin immediately, as though a hundred tiny blades were piercing it. I heard a soft mumble and a shield of translucent white appeared around us, forming a protective hemisphere. Freya had cast her shield from the Light Arts.
Sharp shots of snow hit the barrier, smudging into soft specks of white on impact, but I could tell those would hurt like hell if I let them hit me.
“I knew you said snowstorm but this is much more than a normal snowstorm,” Freya said. “This is freak weather.”
“Sorry about that,” I said. “To be honest, I don’t know anything about this mountain range either.”
“To be fair, you’d have known nothing if I hadn’t told you what you know now,” Nyx said.
Yes yes, I’m aware, I said.
A rumbling sounded from above us, and when I glanced up, I saw a massive sheet of snow drop down.
An avalanche.
The shield held strong for a second, and gave away immediately after. The ground beneath us shook, and before I even figured out what was happening, I was falling. I glanced up at the crevice above us, watching it close as snow plastered it shut once again.
I caught sight of Freya next to me just as she grabbed my waist and chanted a spell from the Wind Arts. A heavy blast of wind shot from her palms, slowing us down as we came to a stop on the soft snow below.
“Well that could have gone better,” Freya sighed as she let go of me.
“Thanks,” I said quietly, dusting the stray snow off my clothes. I looked up, making sure once again that the crevice above had indeed been sealed. I turned my attention to where we actually were, and my interest was immediately piqued.
Two large tunnels lay before us, each one as dark and mysterious as the other. Wind flowed out of each one, letting an eerie howl echo through the chamber we were in.
“Should we go through?” Freya asked, looking at the tunnels as well.
I thought about it for a moment. There was no reason for us to think we had to head into the tunnels, but this was easier than trying to head back up into the snowstorm. Also, from what I could tell, we were actually quite high up on one of the mountains from the Ulhur range. That meant my priority was to get down closer to ground level, and a tunnel wasn’t the worst way to go about doing that.
“We should take one of the tunnels down,” I said.
“Which one though?” she asked.
I walked myself to the entrance of the first tunnel, letting the wind flowing from it hit my face, the chill stinging my skin. I moved to the other tunnel and my ears perked up immediately.
Voices, I realized.
“Let’s head down this one,” I said. “I can hear something from deep inside.”
“Aren’t voices usually what you try to avoid though?” Freya asked, a little concerned.
“We don’t really have the option of shying away right now,” I said. “We have to be on the offensive the entire time. Whether the voices are friendly or not, they might give us insight into what we need to do to find Nazu.”
“Fine,” she said, not sounding too convinced, but convinced enough for me to feel okay with taking the decision.
We walked into the second tunnel, bearing the chilling winds that came through. It’d probably have been a good idea to get some cold weather clothing before coming here, but everything had been such a spur of the moment.
The wind around us howled as it scrapped past the walls of the tunnel, echoing through the darkness. Freya quickly summoned her ball of light, illuminating the path before us and softening the shades of black around. We’d walked about a hundred yards when we noticed the tunnel suddenly cut off.
I initially thought it had ended but quickly realized that there was in fact a straight drop at the end of our path. We walked up to it and peered through, at the ice walls that went straight down. It seemed like a smooth slide, but that didn’t mean it was any fun.
“What do you think?” I asked Freya.
“Well, we’ve come this far, might as well take it,” she said.
“I’ll go down, and you can follow right after,” I said.
She nodded in agreement. I sat myself on the edge of the drop and then pushed myself off. My body hit the icy surface and I slid down fast, squeaking riling my ears as I surged through.
“Well this is fun,” Nyx said.
I raised my head a little and noticed a speck of light show up a few yards away.
The end of the tunnel.
I tightened my limbs and braced for impact. In seconds, I shot out of the tunnel, and slid onto rough floor. I let myself roll a few times and came to a hard stop. I felt soft mud on my cheek, and realized the chamber I was in actually had damp mud covering it.
That’s interesting, I said, intrigued that I’d found a damp surface underneath a chamber this high up on a snowy mountain.
I heard a small growl from my side, and before I could turn I felt something dig into my shoulder. A sharp pain struck my arm, and I could feel that side of my body go numb. I pushed my free hand at whatever attacked me and pulled it off.
I felt the cold sensation of ice on my fingers as I pulled off my attacker and hurled it at the wall. I heard a shattering sound, but my mind didn’t register it properly in light of the bursting pain in my shoulder. I felt around my skin and found that there was something like an icicle still sticking into it. I quickly grabbed onto it and pulled out, just as I heard another growl from behind me.
Luckily for me, Freya came down just then, her handy ball of light already summoned.
And with it, she showed me everything I’d failed to see when I came down here.
A small group of ice imps stood around, their bodies made of pure blue ice, and their eyes of dark yellow glaring at us. A rumbling sounded from behind them, sending vibrations through the cave. A part of the wall broke down, revealing a tunnel on the other side. From within it emerged a massive beast made entirely out of ice, his heavy steps sending chunks of rock falling from the ceiling as he walked to us. He beat his chest and let out an explosive growl, sending shuddering tremors through the ground.
“Well that can’t be good.”
***
CHAPTER ELEVEN
At no point in your life do you want to be in a cramped chamber made of ice, facing off an army of ice imps and their giant ice leader.
And that’s exactly how I felt.
Until I remembered I could use the Fire Arts that is.
My thought process worked on auto-pilot the moment I realized that. I thrust my hand into the air as I always did, and the words left my mouth with no effort at all.
“Erkiela!” I yelled, and a surge of fire spread out from me, the wave of flaming fury sinking into the ice the way light does into the darkness. The ice imps in front of me collapsed to the ground immediately, dead. The ice giant stumbled from the attack and fell as well, a part of his shoulder shattering to pieces on the impact, his health almost depleted.
However, I’d forgotten one tiny detail. I was a level 521 who’d used a fire spell within a cave of ice. The moment my flames touched the icy walls, the ice melted into water, and rumbling immediately thundered through the cave, rocks and ice falling down from the ceiling.
“Run down!” I yelled at Freya, pointing to the only opening in the chamber, a dark tunnel that led further down the mountain.
Freya hesitated, but headed down the tunnel anyway and I charged in after her.
Or at least I was going to.
At the last moment something caught my leg, and I stumbled to floor, stuck fast. I turned around and saw the giant on the floor hold tight onto me with his one good hand. His body had already melted quite a bit from the previous heat burst, but he was still holding strong. I could see the glare within his yellow eyes, showing the anger he had towards me.
I’m sorry, I thought as I put my palm forward. “Oskis,” I said. A beam of red flames shot right at the beast, burning through it in a flash. Ice and snow condensed to water, and the grip on my leg existed no
longer.
However, the additionally attack accelerated the collapse of the cave, and big chunks of rock and ice started raining down on the chamber. I hastened my movements, picking myself up and heading down the tunnel just as a large boulder struck the ground, blocking the tunnel mouth and preventing anyone else from entering it after us.
“Zoran?” Freya’s voice came from a little further ahead.
“I’m here,” I said and walked forward. A familiar ball of white light showed up a second later, and I was welcomed by Freya’s worrisome eyes.
“Thank god, you’re okay,” she said. “I was just about to come back for you. What happened?”
“Just a small hiccup, nothing to worry about.”
She looked at me, but asked no questions. She turned her attention to the dark tunnel we were in. “Where do we go now?” she asked.
“There’s only one way forward,” I said. “Let’s just see where it takes us.”
And so, we followed the path, heading down the dark tunnel. The rumbling behind us quickly stopped, leaving us in the sounds of our own breathing. A part of me wondered why I’d even decided to use a fire spell in a place that was made entirely out of ice, but there was no point questioning that now. It was true however that using the fire spell had taken out those creatures a lot faster than anything else would have.
It wasn’t the safest way, but well, I had to use what I had for the moment.
“Where do you think this leads us?” Freya asked as we walked.
“I have no clue,” I said. “I can sense from the angle at least that we’re heading down, so probably moving closer to level ground. But other than that I have no bearing of where exactly we’re going.”
A light draft blew past my ear, tickling my skin. It grew stronger as I walked forward, turning into a raging gust a hundred yards down.
“What the heck is this?!” Freya yelled, but I could barely make out what she was saying.
“Not sure!” I yelled back, hoping I hadn’t heard her wrong. “We need to push forward!”
She nodded and we kept going, struggling a bit as the gusts turned stronger. Soon after, a flash of white shone from way in front of us, and I could tell immediately it was the sight of open land. We were close to the other end of the tunnel. The two of us pushed forward with new vigor, but the wind pushed back equally hard.
A few steps in however we hit the turning point for the gusts. The winds quickly slowed down, turning into but a gentle draft once again as we neared the end of the tunnel.
“That’s weird,” Nyx said. “Why would it be strongest in the middle of the tunnel?”
It wouldn't be the oddest thing that’s happened to us, I said.
“True,” he chuckled.
I turned my sights away from the tunnel I’d just exited and instead looked ahead of me. Bright light shone all around us, filtering through the walls of ice standing on all sides. It appeared as though this was direct sunlight filtering through multiple sheets of ice.
I could affirm from the shape of the tall chamber that we were definitely in some kind of mountain. So what I’d expected before had proved to be right. I still found it a little stunning that a chamber like this existed within a mountain though.
“...We will see what to do,” a voice echoed through the emptiness.
I immediately crouched, and Freya did the same. I perked my ears up, trying to figure out where exactly the sound was coming from. I heard another voice mumble something and I could tell immediately that they were actually below us.
I quickly realized, after looking ahead of me, that we were actually on a large ledge. I walked over to the edge, careful not to slip over the ice on the floor, and leaned over. A large floor lay beneath us, pillars of ice and stone standing around the rim. The first thing that struck me about the place though was the massive door embedded into one of the icy walls. It was a rocky structure of golden-brown and had a rustic look to it.
The next thing I noticed immediately after was the group of men standing right next to it. I leaned over a bit more and took a better look at them. I could tell they were the Knights of the Dark Alliance, but along with them were a small group of people I couldn’t place anywhere.
And then I did.
They were dressed in black as well, but they all wore cloaks over their armor, and on the breast of their robes was a hint of shiny silver, glistening in the light within the chamber.
“The Black Guardians,” Nyx said in sync with my thoughts.
“What the hell are they doing here?” Freya whispered from my side.
“I have no clue,” I said. “But if these two groups are working together, that just complicates everything else by a lot.”
“Why on earth would they even work together,” she mumbled. “It feels like there’s something big going on here and we don’t have the faintest clue about what it is.”
I nodded, not having anything to say in response to that. Was this why both Lazarus and Jelal implied something big was going to happen soon? I wondered.
“What do you want to do?” she asked. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to attack them upfront right now.”
“Agreed,” I said. “I tried to listen in on their conversation but I can’t pick much up unless the wind blows words my way. Either ways, attacking them is not an option. Now that we know the Dark Alliance is here, we can be assured they’re the ones that took Nazu from us, so at least we have this information almost confirmed.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I still don’t get why they’d take him from us. It makes no sense to me.”
“Well, it’s likely we’re going to find out why very soon.”
I turned my attention to the Knights ahead of me, trying to see if the gentle winds would help me listen in on anything they were saying. I couldn’t catch much, but my vision was good enough for me to see that they were all ecstatic about something.
And that’s something you don’t want to see.
If the two groups that really want you dead are both happy at the same time, that probably means something is terribly wrong.
“Well at least the Alliance of Light is not a part of this as well,” Nyx said.
That’s true, I chuckled.
A few minutes later parts of both groups left, heading to the side and disappearing, presumably through an entrance in the walls. About twenty men were left in front of the door, armed with swords and spears. A few of them stood alone, dressed in just long dark cloaks, no armor, and I could tell instantly that they were mages.
I wasn’t sure who was from the Dark Alliance and who was from the Black Guardians, but I doubted whether it would actually matter at this point.
“What do you think is behind that door?” Freya nudged me.
“Not sure,” I said. “But the fact that both groups want to guard it is indication enough that it’s definitely something important.”
“Yeah, I was thinking the same thing,” she said. “What’s the plan then? We’ve got a much smaller group to work against right now.”
“Well, we can risk taking those men out, but that’ll alert the enemy of our presence,” I said.
“But if we don’t, then we’re just going to have to sit here and wait for them to make an error before we make our move.”
“True,” I said, glancing at the group of men guarding the door. They seemed very capable, but I wondered if it’d be possible for just the two of us to take them all out.
“It won’t be too hard,” Nyx said. “You just need to be fine with using your more exotic skills.”
Ugh, I sighed. I’m reaaally not looking forward to that.
For the most part, my higher-tiered skills were extremely powerful and I didn’t really know how to use most of them. Moreover, it was possible I could lose control while using such a skill and I’d really prefer that didn’t happen. Honestly, I was worried using those skills would turn me into…him.
For the longest time, I’d been at odds with who I was now and who I w
as supposed to be. The Phantom Lord was supposedly this Evil Overlord who showed no one mercy and killed anyone who crossed him without a blink of an eye. I on the other hand was none of those things.
It was understandable that I was so different now given the me now had gone through an amnesia phase, and thus forgotten about what I used to be like. However, I couldn’t help but worry whether using my higher-tiered skills might trigger something in me and cause my personality to go back to who I used to be.
“Zoran?” Freya’s hand appeared in front of me, and I realized I’d dazed out. “Are you okay?” she looked at me, worry in her moonsilver eyes.
“I’m fine,” I sighed. “Let’s focus on taking those guys out. We can probably do it if we’re careful enough with how.”
“I have long range Light Arts spells that I can cast,” she said. “They’re like arrows with pretty good accuracy.”
“That works,” I said. “Let’s focus our powers so we’re laying a barrage of attacks on them at once. We don’t want any of them escaping alive. It’d be bad if the Dark Alliance or the Black Guardians find out we’re here.”
“Fine,” she said. “What do we do once we take them out though?”
“If we’re going to be involved with this, it’s inevitable the two groups find out about our presence here. That means it is no longer a matter of if they do it but when they do it. So we can risk taking down these men here since it’ll buy us enough time to see what’s behind that door they’re guarding so well.”
“Do you think Nazu is in there?” she asked.
“It’s possible,” I said.
“Fine then. Ready to attack when you are.”
I nodded, and looked at the men down there, at the movements they made. I closed my eyes, focusing my thoughts.
I will not change, I thought. Everything will stay the same. I am not him. I will never be him.
I slowly opened my eyes, and focused my attention on the group below. “I’ll land the first strike,” I looked at Freya. “That should give us enough of an initial distraction. Attack as soon as the first one gets taken down.”
She nodded, but in silence.
The Eternal: Dragonborn - A LitRPG Saga (World of Ga'em Book 2) Page 11