NOVEL NEXT Chapter 264: A Realm of Snow and Ice!
A swirling portal spat Aodhán out into a realm of ice and snow, the sudden drop in temperature causing him to shiver uncontrollably. He cratered into a pile of snow an instant later, and his body hissed with steam as the cold environment fought to regulate his heated skin.
Aodhán quickly picked himself up, core sense spanning out to scan his environment. The mental image he received, however, caused him to frown.
Static. So much static.
At first, he thought something might be wrong with core sense. But after another moment of searching, Aodhán realized it was the realm itself that was broken. The ambient energy within the realm was so chaotic that sensing anything clearly was nearly impossible.
Rather than the abundance of ice and cold essence he'd expected, the energy was a tangled mess of several affinities, none of which made sense together. Aodhán studied the anomaly curiously before deciding to reduce core sense's range to his immediate surroundings.
With less ground to cover, the ability worked perfectly, and a moment later, Aodhán had a clear image of the world around him. He grimaced at the forced constriction, but when he confirmed he wasn't in any immediate danger, he finally breathed out in relief.
"I made it," he whispered to himself, his chest rising and falling rapidly as adrenaline thrummed through his veins. The last twenty hours had been the worst of his life—from fighting monsters to nearly dying from his advancement tribulation, to being hunted by his fellow captives, to escaping a destabilizing realm—he'd barely survived it all.
It was nearly enough to make him miss the peace of the monastery back on Earth.
Letting out a deep exhale, Aodhán created a levitating storm platform and settled on it to catch his breath and think. They had made it out of the last level with about three minutes to spare, which meant it probably hadn't been destroyed yet.
Hopefully, Seojun would find his sisters and make it out before it finally exploded. However unlikely that seemed.
Sighing once again, he turned his mind to analyzing his immediate future. One thing was certain: not everyone would make it to the portal on time, which meant a few people would undoubtedly swear the oath, becoming cultists or at the very least, reluctant agents.
Whether they wanted to or not, these people would come for him, and he needed to prepare for that. Thankfully, anyone forced to become an agent would likely be weaker than he was—anyone stronger would have made it to the portal on time.
Nevertheless, Aodhán knew he'd be a fool to underestimate anyone. He needed to find his friends quickly. Traversing this realm alone, especially with a bounty on his head, was the stupidest thing he could do. But first, he needed food.
He'd been surviving on energy alone for the past few days, and though his body hadn't complained yet, Aodhán knew it was only a matter of time. He hadn't reached the stage where he could survive years without eating. Even if it was a disgusting salad, he had to put something in his stomach.
With that in mind, he jumped down from the floating platform and began walking toward the forest in the distance, scanning the array of towering trees—their green leaves coated in snow—for something edible.
There were no fruits in sight, nor any blazing cores to suggest monsters, but Aodhán didn't let his guard down. There was no way this realm could be void of creatures.
He'd only taken a few steps toward the forest when a beep suddenly chimed, and a crimson screen appeared before him. Aodhán tensed immediately, wondering what fresh hell the cultists were planning as his gaze fixed on the floating display.
WELCOME TO LEVEL TWO OF ABYSSOS.
LEVEL ONE HAS BEEN DESTROYED WITH EVERYTHING LEFT WITHIN IT.
ALL BOUNTIES HAVE BEEN ELIMINATED, AND THE USE OF ANY SKILLS WILL NO LONGER INCURE ANY DEBT.
[VIEW HARVEST SCREEN FOR MORE INFORMATION]
Aodhán stared at the floating screen with a mixture of relief and disgust, unable to move past the casual way the cultists had just announced the death of dozens of people and hundreds of creatures.
He couldn't even begin to imagine how much stronger Jethro had grown from all the skills and seals he'd stolen. With a grimace, he clicked on the wristband to see the current situation, and another screen appeared.
HARVEST 122
Name: Aodhán Brystion.
Affinity: Storm (High Priority)
Current level: 2—The Shivering Expanse
Duration: 60 hours.
Number of Harvests left: 96
78% Likability
0% Neutral
22% Detest
Total ratings: 36,426 votes.
MISSION: Gather as many abyssal pins as you can from all over the realm. Each pin is worth ten points. The more pins you gather, the more likely it is that you survive what is to come. Mission Duration: 48 hours.
NB: Abyssal pins are needle-like black crystalline spikes buried halfway into the ground, humming with power and shimmering with runes.
Aodhán's grimace deepened as he read through the harvest screen, the lines on his face deepening into a scowl as he reached the mission for the new level.
The first thing to disturb him was the number of people in the realm. Barely an hour ago, there had been fewer than eighty people in the entire realm, yet somehow, there were now ninety-six.
It was deeply unsettling, and Aodhán shuddered as he wondered what could have brought these people back to life—and whether they remained the same after their supposed resurrection.
The second disturbing detail was the timeline discrepancy. The level was supposed to last seventy-two hours, but the mission only gave them forty-eight. That meant something else was coming after the next two days. The second shoe would drop, and Aodhán felt bile coat the back of his throat at the thought.
Moving past the numbers, he focused on the mission itself. Just like everything the cultists had done so far, he'd expected another manhunt or horde survival scenario. Instead, he was faced with what seemed to be a simple resource-gathering task.
"What are these abyssal pins?" Aodhán asked himself skeptically, not trusting the cultists' motives for even a moment. In the last twenty hours, they'd proved themselves extremely cunning and intelligent, with ulterior motives hidden behind every instruction. He couldn't trust this apparent simplicity.
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Yet after staring at the mission for a long time, Aodhán couldn't find anything obviously wrong with it—which only made him more suspicious.
Scowling, he shuddered from the cold and rubbed his palms vigorously as he turned his gaze back to the forest. The pins could wait. First, he needed to find something to eat.
He expanded core sense again, his scowl deepening as the static of chaotic essence clashed in his mind's eye. This time, however, Aodhán refused to constrict the ability's range. He sent his senses into the forest and began running toward it, asking himself, "Why are there no monsters in this realm? What are these cultists planning?"
When he finally reached the forest line, Aodhán set his senses on high alert, eyes scanning the towering trees for any danger. With all the static core sense was receiving, he couldn't afford to rely on it alone.
He walked deeper into the forest; muscles tense as he scanned the forest floor for edible plants or fruits. Then his gaze landed on it—a shimmering black spike about a meter in height protruding from the ground. The spike shimmered with silver runes, completely impossible to miss for anyone with eyes.
Aodhán glared at the spike, then at the completely quiet surroundings, and shook his head. "No, something's not right here."
He hadn't been looking for the pins—he'd been searching for food. Yet here one was, perfectly positioned in his path like a gift.
This wasn't luck. This was... orchestrated.
What was the point of a gathering mission if the items would be practically impossible to miss?
He glared at his surroundings, waiting for a monster or horde to emerge and balance the scales. Yet nothing happened. He took a step closer, then another. Then another.
Still nothing.
"You must be fucking kidding me," Aodhán cursed as he bent down tentatively and grasped the spike. There was slight resistance before it came free, its silver runes dimming the moment it left the ground. Null essence billowed out of the earth in a small cloud before dispersing into the air.
Congratulations, you have gained 10 points.
Leaderboard unlocked: Click the leaderboard menu to see the top ten harvests with the most points.
Aodhán glared at the new screen, unable to shake the feeling that he was walking into a trap. Something was happening here that he didn't like. He wondered what they would eventually need all these points for, and was even tempted to check out the leaderboard, but before he could delve too deeply into it, his gaze jerked sharply to the left as a blazing core entered his range.
It was an ice core, still unstable from a recent evolution, but it wasn't Daruk.
Aodhán tensed immediately, not out of fear but from caution. He had sensed this core before, back in the silent dungeon, but the problem wasn't unfamiliarity. With the number of sleeper agents and resurrected agents roaming the new realm, Aodhán couldn't be too careful. He couldn't trust anyone, and as if that wasn't bad enough, he couldn't tell who was who either.
The resurrecteds, Aodhán suspected he might be able to identify. They would undoubtedly carry a faint aura of death about them, at least enough that he should be able to sense it with core sense. The sleeper agents, though, would be unidentifiable. Core sense wasn't advanced enough to detect the oath chains around a person's core.
Yet, even as the core drew closer, Aodhán refused to leave. The smart move would be to retreat, and observe from a distance, but he had learned the hard way that with the cultists, there was no point in running.
Gaze narrowing, he shoved the abyssal pin into his spatial pendant, and moved to stand behind a huge tree trunk, muttering silently to Varéc as he activated his stealth perk.
Pressing his back flush against the tree trunk, Aodhán waited, and a few minutes later, the ice awakened arrived, her luscious white hair pouring down her back in waves. The girl was young, barely a month over her seventeenth birthday. Her skin was pale, nearly as pale as that of Daruk, and half her face was etched in Theban scripts.
She held two abyssal spikes in her right hand, her expression just as wary as he felt, brows scrunched into a frown as she scanned the area fearfully. When she judged the area safe, she wiped invisible sweat from her face and cursed, "Blasted runes. They give me fuggin' ick."
Aodhán smiled at that, remembering how Unorians used Theban scripts in place of runes. His smile, however, morphed into an expression of confusion as the girl laid her abyssal pins on the floor and began drawing what seemed to be a ritual circle.
The circle was intricate, carved into the snow with practiced movements, creating a precise geometric pattern that pulsed with icy energy. The cold temperature dropped further, and Aodhán grimaced as rime spread outward with each line she traced.
When the girl finished, she placed her hands on the circle's edge and whispered an incantation in a language that sounded grating to his ears. Ice began to form within the circle, but this was no ordinary ice. It rose from the ground like a bed of frozen flowers, forming a perfectly smooth mirror that seemed to dance and swirl with a series of muddy images.
It wasn't just magic. It was sorcery.
It didn't take him long to understand what the girl was doing. She was trying to divine her future through the frozen mirrors.
The images spun faster, and the girl leaned forward, her gaze intent on the mirror as the images shifted and blurred. Her brows furrowed deeper with each passing moment, and frost began to gather around her temples as she concentrated.
"Come on," she muttered under her breath, pressing her palms harder against the circle's rim. "Show me something useful, you frozen bastards."
The mirror flickered, its surfaces becoming increasingly cloudy and indistinct. What had started as vague shapes and images dissolved into nothing but swirling mist. Her divination had failed.
"Bloody fucking hell," the girl spat, pulling back from the circle with obvious frustration. "Everything's muddied. Can't see a damn thing." She glared at the now-opaque mirrors as if they'd personally offended her. "All this interference—like trying to scry through soup."
Aodhán frowned at that, realizing that it wasn't just core sense that was experiencing static. Even divination abilities had been affected. Which meant, most likely, Sebastian would be hampered once again, unable to sense possibilities and parallel timelines accurately.
Unconsciously, Aodhán took a step forward, but that turned out to be a mistake because the girl's gaze suddenly jerked in his direction, and Aodhán realized he had stepped into a pile of snow.
"Oh shit," That was all Aodhán managed to get out before a cascade of jagged ice erupted from the ground beneath him, sharp points rising to skewer him to pieces.
A quick activation of {Lightning Body—Silver} saved him from getting impaled as the attack phased through his body. {Lightning Body—Violet} teleported him to the other side of the clearing, where no snow touched, but now that the girl knew she was being watched, merely teleporting to a place without snow wasn't enough to hide him from her.
The girl turned toward his new position instantly, and when she raised a hand, Aodhán felt a sudden chill that had nothing to do with the ambient temperature. His spirit groaned as cold began to penetrate it, dark frost coalescing around his fingers as the chill intensified.
Aodhán observed the hex in fascination as the frost crept over his fingers to his arms, seeking not just to freeze his body, but to slow his thoughts, numb his willpower, and leave him helpless.
It was a fascinating skill, an entirely different take on the ice affinity than Daruk worked with. While Daruk was more focused on the intelligent mechanics of paradoxical ice, this girl seemed to have gone for a more mystical part. Her methods reminded Aodhán of the witchcraft the monks had always spoken against, and he wondered if it was a weaker approach to power or something even more complex than Daruk's pursuit.
When the creeping frost reached his chest, however, Aodhán decided he had observed for long enough, and with a simple surge of willpower, he burned the invasive hex from his spirit before it could take hold.
The girl staggered from the backlash, and Aodhán finally deactivated his stealth perk.
"I don't want to hurt you," he said, his voice carrying clearly across the clearing.
"No, you just want to spy on me, you fucking creep." The girl responded, her eyes squeezed shut as she fought the backlash. She forced one eye open an instant later, disgust written across her features; however, as soon as her gaze landed on him, recognition flashed across her face.
"It's you," She breathed as she stumbled back to her feet, her aggressive posture melting into something approaching desperation. "You're him—the friend of that other ice awakened I saw earlier. The one with the snow-white hair and the blank expression."
Aodhán blinked in surprise. "You know Daruk?"
"Please take me to him," The girl pleaded, ignoring his question. "I need to meet him. I must meet him. You cannot even imagine how important this is."
"No, I cannot imagine." Aodhán frowned, concerned by the dramatic shift in the girl's behavior. "Enlighten me."
"I…" the girl began and then shook her head. "My name is Destra Mrazek, and my fate is tied to your friend. I've seen it in the ice, in dreams, in every scrying I've attempted since I got into this cursed realm. I need to find him. If I don't there… there'll be disastrous consequences."