Chapter 759: Act 113 – Eternal XIV
The intertwined ice cracks were deep and winding, like a giant beast’s blood vessels intricately spread beneath the glacier, yet there was no blood pulsating within, only deep darkness and silence. Water dripped from the several-foot-long ice stalactites, occasionally breaking the silence with a soft plink.
A sudden sound of footsteps intruded upon the dreamlike tranquility, stumbling and hurried, as if being chased or perhaps chasing something. A boy came into view, his dark skin contrasting against tattered clothes stained with blood, and beneath his long, disheveled hair, a pair of eyes shone with blinding brightness.
Aruta gasped heavily. Since entering the Frosted Forest, the sword injuries on his body had not healed, and a high fever lingered. The scenery around him appeared at times clear and at times blurry. When his condition worsened, the ice-blue columns even appeared double to him, but somehow, he could always see that figure, now near, now far.
It seemed like a person, yet there was always just a back, floating indistinctly before him for two weeks. It felt as if some kind of magic compelled him to cross forests and glaciers, forever trailing behind it until he arrived here.
But Aruta’s head was splitting, and he could remember little through the haze in his mind. Yet he still recalled his father, his sister, and the hunter who died outside the Frosted Forest: he had curled up beneath a coach, feeling the wound on his chest bleeding profusely, his body growing weaker, light and airy as if he were about to lose all consciousness.
A voice entered his mind; he only remembered it being a neutral, emotionless voice:
“Do you wish to live, mortal? Stand up if you want to survive.”
“Save me… help me…” Aruta remembered groaning in a daze, but received no reply. He coughed desperately, “You want to save me?”
“I cannot save you, but someone can.”
“……” Aruta opened his mouth, feeling as if he could barely breathe, let alone speak. But immediately, a cold breath spread from his heart, allowing him some clarity.
“You must come to me, to my side. Only by following my commands can you save yourself.”
“In the meantime, I will temporarily grant you protection, but your time is limited.”
A thread of power coursed through Aruta’s body. He barely opened his eyes to see a huge, pale blue apparition standing before him, resembling a ghost, yet he lacked the strength to lift his head to see its face, only catching sight of the flowing robe.
“Why do you want to save me? What about the others?”
“You and your sister may have some connection to the twelfth inheritance. But that’s not the key. You need my help, and I need yours.”
“Sister?” Aruta became excited upon hearing the word. “Is she still alive…?”
“She cannot die; someone will save her.”
“What about me? Will I see her again?”
“Do not worry, you will reunite with your sister, as long as you follow my commands—”
“But who are you, really?”
“I am Crystal; you mortals like to call me that, but I prefer my original name, ‘Luxis.’ However, what you see is not my true form, just a piece of information. It’s difficult for me to explain, but you only need to understand that you need my help, and I need yours.”
“You need my help?”
“Yes, I need you to come to my side.”
“Side? Aren’t you right before me?”
The blue silhouette did not respond but glanced down at him before slowly turning away. Aruta felt his body seemingly starting to recover, and a voice within him called out, guiding him almost involuntarily to follow.
They ventured deeper into the forest, seemingly unnoticed by anyone. He passed by the black knights under Anlek’s command, who remained oblivious. They traversed through the forest, the valleys, and across the snowfields and glaciers, encountering no monsters. Each night, the blue figure would reappear, walking slowly ahead, the distance fluctuating.
Day by day, Aruta lost awareness of his surroundings, even forgetting his hunger and cold, along with the passage of time. Gradually, however, the figure moved faster, and his time grew increasingly short.
“Aruta, you must speed up.”
“Your time is running out.”
The boy gradually realized this.
His body was becoming heavier; the sword injury never healed, like a painful scar always tugging at his nerves. His steps were no longer as light as when he first entered the forest; his thoughts fluctuated between clarity and muddiness. For most of the day, Aruta could only maintain limited calm, the world around him growing narrower, the surroundings dimming little by little, until finally, there came a moment.
He saw the blue silhouette in front of him vanish.
He felt his legs give way, and suddenly, he slipped along the side of the ice.
In the darkness, the sound of breaking ice rolling down came in a series, quickly returning to silence.
……
“Wake up, wake up, your time is running out.”
“Wake up—”
“I need your help.”
Brendel abruptly opened his eyes, his pale forehead glistening with beads of sweat. ‘What time is it—’ Confused, he lifted his head; the ice layer above remained a magnificent azure, and from afar echoed a howling known as “Jupiter’s Whispers,” the sound of cold currents passing through a northern gorge, at the end of which a massive glacier connected to the underground.
This sound was constant over the years, often leading one to mistakenly think a roaring beast was locked within the depths below.
Brendel eyed the depths of the cave suspiciously for a moment, his gaze deep as an unsolvable mystery. He adjusted the somewhat loose blanket, realizing he had been dreaming.
He had a strange dream, where many people crossed a sparkling snowfield, dressed in bizarre outfits with black and white robes, riding wyverns. Gradually, those immense, black, giant structures resembling obelisks appeared beside them, exuding a peculiar metallic luster, covered in a cobweb-like grid of crystals. Brendel recognized these as the remnants of Milos—reportedly, the deeper one went into the glacier, the more of such remnants there were.
What he saw in the dream was precisely this scene: those people traversed these ancient relics to the edge of a massive rift, where they held a grand ritual, pushing slaves into the valley and then throwing a large, shimmering box into the abyss.
Time moved slowly within the glacier, watching those people settle down, living next to the cave dwellers of the ice field. But suddenly, disputes arose among them, leading to division and conflict, splitting them into factions.
The defeated side continued north, while the others remained, good days gone; many elders froze to death upon the glacier, while the young attempted to leave the glacier for the forest but fell along the migration path one after another.
Only a few remained—
The person he dreamed of watched over the glacier day after day, witnessing his kin fall one by one, death spreading like a plague, ultimately befalling him.
Brendel vaguely remembered the last sunrise he saw in the dream, the sun rising from the west, large and red, painting the world crimson, as if foretelling something.
Brendel withdrew his gaze—
The cave was silent, all had fallen asleep. In the distant part of Brendel’s view, a faint light glowed, that was the campfire, and it must be midway through the night. Keeping watch by the fire were Medisa and Charles; he could even occasionally hear their quiet conversation drifting from that direction.
But Brendel had no intention of getting up. He quietly leaned against the darkness, somewhat confused about what his strange dream signified. Once he calmed down completely, he realized the scene he saw in the dream might have been what the Minren witnessed back in the day, and the people he saw most likely were the Minren who crossed the glacier.
The Minren were driven by Gilt toward the end of the Saint’s War, around the year Chaos 1024, before the Year of the Golden Hoof, even earlier than the Age of Runes and Swords. Soon after, the last great tide of magic occurred, according to historical records, during which nearly a third of the continent’s population was reduced.
That was the gravest disaster experienced by Vaunte following the Saint’s War.
He suddenly recalled the red, massive sun he had seen in the dream, remembering a line from the Black Prophecy: Blood fell from the sky; disasters ceased from west to east.
Wasn’t that describing the last great tide of magic?
But why would he suddenly dream of scenes from a thousand years ago? Brendel didn’t understand either; he just felt a strange feeling he couldn’t articulate. He remembered the box resembling the Ark of the Covenant that the Minren had thrown into the abyss in his dream. He faintly sensed that this dream might be related to that box, but he knew nothing of what was inside it, and there were no relevant records in history.
Brendel let out a quiet breath, that feeling of being watched again surged within him. He instinctively turned his head to look back, the surroundings silent, the ice cavern like within a slumbering giant, sometimes eerily quiet. But Brendel cautiously surveyed around, feeling distinctly that somewhere in the darkness, a pair of eyes seemed to be lurking.
‘Brendel, that cannot be the Guardian clan—’
He couldn’t help but turn his head toward Alorze’s sleeping direction, recalling the conversation between them earlier that afternoon.
……(To be continued. If you enjoy this work, please consider voting for it on Qidian (qidian.com); your support is my greatest motivation.)
