Chương 32: To the North ( Frost Legacy )

Five shapes moved as one across the snow-buried ground. Pale, thick fur blurred against whiter drifts, heavy paws striking the frozen earth in a single, perfectly synchronized rhythm. Breath steamed from their jaws in ragged, rising clouds behind them. At their center, hanging back just far enough to command rather than lead, a larger shadow tracked the smaller girl fleeing through the trees ahead of them. Her cloak whipped furiously in the northern gale.

Beneath the heavy fabric, one sleeve hung completely loose and pinned flat against her left flank. The predator moved with patient, unhurried steps. It was the stride of a beast supremely confident in the outcome, knowing its prey had nowhere left to run. [Echo-Mapping Active] [5 Hostile Signatures] [Attack Approaching: 5m... 3m...] One wolf broke from the pack first. Its hind legs coiled and exploded off a snow-covered rock, jaws wide before launching its lean body toward her back in a single leap.

Stelle didn't panic and didn't sprint faster. She simply pivoted on her heels mid-stride, her boots biting into the packed ice. With her right hand, she drew Cael's black curved blade, which cleared its scabbard with a crisp, metallic hiss. The motion was fluid. The wolf's head separated cleanly from its shoulders before its front paws ever touched the ground again. A fountain of dark crimson sprayed across the pristine white bank as the headless body collapsed into a heap, unmoving.

The momentum alone skidded it a few extra feet through the snow until it hit the roots of a dead pine. The remaining four wolves halted, their claws tearing through the snow. They fanned out into a loose circle, while the larger shape at their center slowed to a crawl. Its golden eyes tracked her with a sharp, calculating intelligence that none of its lesser pack members possessed.

[SYSTEM] [Snow Wolves (4)] [Alpha: Tier 1] [Pack Subordinates: 3 remaining] [Threat Level: LOW] [Pack Coordination: Moderate] One of the wolves from the left broke first, driven by animal instinct and the scent of blood. It lunged without warning, aiming low for her ankles. Stelle met the assault without needing to calculate complex trajectories. The sword felt weightless in her grip. She sidestepped the leap by a mere two inches, allowing the blade's natural arc to carry itself through the air.

She felt the subtle resistance of hide, muscle, and bone yielding to the sharp edge before the wolf's charge ended violently against the snow. The second and third wolves attacked simultaneously from opposing flanks—the classic, practiced pincer maneuver used by wild beasts to overwhelm a single target. She read the timing in fractions of a second. There was a half-beat delay between the left wolf's leap and the right wolf's spring—a flaw in their synchronization that she didn't waste.

She stepped directly into the gap between them. Shifting her weight, she brought her blade upward in a sharp diagonal thrust, catching the left wolf across the throat mid-air. Using the creature's own momentum to slide it off her blade, she spun on her right foot and met the third wolf before its paws could make contact with her shoulders. The black steel cleaved cleanly through its chest. It fell beside the second, dying before its body hit the drift. The entire exchange had taken less than thirty seconds.

Four wolves lay dead in the snow. Silence reclaimed the clearing. The final, larger beast stood alone at the edge of the treeline. It looked at the four motionless corpses of its pack, then raised its massive head to meet Stelle's impassive gaze. A low, guttural vibration rose deep from within its chest, rattling the icicles clinging to its muzzle. The creature didn't retreat. Driven by a volatile mix of alpha pride, territorial rage, and the loss of its pack, the beast rejected every instinct of self-preservation.

Its golden eyes flared with a desperate, furious light. With a deafening, raw howl that echoed across the frozen valley, the Alpha dug its heavy claws into the ice and charged. Snow kicked up in wild plumes behind its stride as it closed the distance in a desperate, blinding sprint. Its massive jaws were dripping with saliva, and its fangs emitted a cold mana. She held completely still, her right hand resting on the blade's hilt while her empty left sleeve hung motionless in the wind.

The Alpha launched itself into the air, its shadow falling across her. Stelle vaulted directly into the air toward the beast. Mid-flight, her body flipped fluidly upside down, her legs rising above her as she inverted in mid-air. As the giant wolf passed beneath her inverted frame, Stelle looked downward, locking her eyes onto the wolf's neck. Without a moment's delay, she brought the curved black blade down in a single, surgical stroke.

The dark steel bit deep through thick hide and muscle, cleanly severing the spinal cord at the back of its neck. The disruption to the beast's nervous system was instantaneous. The Alpha froze mid-air, its muscles locking into rigid silence before its lifeless weight crashed hard into the snowdrift below, skidding to a limp, unmoving halt. Stelle completed her flip, landing on her feet with a soft thud against the ground.

She stood alone in the clearing, her black blade held low, a single drop of blood clinging to the tip before sliding off into the white snow. She crouched beside the nearest carcass as her blade vanished into thin air. Her right gloved hand reached out to touch the dense, white fur. She initiated a deeper structural analysis out of curiosity rather than practical necessity. [SCANNING TARGET: Snow Wolf] [Vital Status: DECEASED] [Mana Output: Tier 1] [Elemental Affinity: Frost] Frost...

Stelle noted, her internal processor flagging the term. Unlike Awakened humans, a mana beast's elemental affinity was entirely passive. It's a biological byproduct of prolonged environmental saturation. Over generations, a creature living in the tundra's deep freeze continuously absorbed frost-aligned mana into its core. According to the book titled" Heart of the Ancient Dragon": A Mana Beast is not merely a wild animal born with magic.

It is an ordinary creature that has crossed an evolutionary threshold after reaching a critical density of internal mana. Carnivorous beasts advance their cores by devouring the condensed mana cores of rival predators. Herbivorous beasts draw their sustenance from rare, mana-rich flora, evolving through slow, patient accumulation. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

The wild obeyed a rigid hierarchy, slightly different from standard Awakened tiers or Core Ranks. At the bottom of the world lay the simple Beasts. They only circulate the mana in their body, never settling, never condensing. Once a creature crossed that invisible threshold and formed a mana core, it awakened as a Mana Beast, gaining the ability to consciously channel magic for its own survival. Beyond them were the Primal Mana Beasts.

Born from the union of two Mana beast, these beasts inherited a core from birth, granting them far more refined mana and potent abilities than their predecessors could ever hope to cultivate. Then Ancient Mana Beasts. These living relics drew upon deeply refined ancestral heritage, pairing monstrous physical attributes with a frightening, high-tier mastery of magic inherited from generations of apex survival. And at the absolute pinnacle, spoken of only in hushed legends, stood the Primordial Mana Beasts.

They are mythological apex entities whose mere presence was enough to reshape the world around them. They were the very first species of beasts to master mana. Every category shared the same baseline cap. A core development scale running from Tier 1 to Tier 5. Yet a creature's Tier was merely a measure of its current core maturity, whereas its Bloodline Rank dictated the actual quality, density, and destructive yield of its mana. The pure density of ancestral blood acted as an overwhelming force multiplier.

A newborn Tier 1 Primordial Beast, relying on nothing more than raw innate heritage, possessed enough structural mana density to rival a fully cultivated Tier 4 or 5 Awakened human. In the same vein, a Tier 1 Ancient Mana Beast could casually crush a Tier 3 standard Mana Beast because the weight of its bloodline rendered standard tier comparisons completely obsolete. Most mortals in lower realms lived their entire lives without seeing anything above a Primal mana beast.

Most Ancient and Primordial mana beasts only lived in the higher realm. Dragons, leviathans, world-serpents, and the great frost-wolves of the Fenrir line. Stelle closed the archive interface and navigated to another tab. Her eyes landed on the spatial inventory, where the items she had acquired from Corin rested. [SPATIAL INVENTORY] Preserved Rations (Sealed, ~2 weeks supply) Hand-Drawn Map: Northern Territories Purple Lantern (Mana-fed catalyst) Currency: 12 Gold Pieces...

She took only what was necessary, especially the map, which is crucial for reaching her destination. The rations are merely to keep Corin from questioning why she doesn't need food on a long journey. As for the purple lantern, she had simply asked for a way to start a fire, but Corin gave her a spare lantern instead. It turns out to be a device that consumes mana rather than ordinary oil. Finally, there is the gold, since money is useful everywhere.

Stelle's eyes then landed on the Light Thrusting Blade, and she retrieved it to inspect its physical integrity. The hairline fractures Cael's heavy strikes had carved into its surface during their duel were still clearly visible across the steel. He was strong. I only killed him because I took him by surprise. Back in the catacombs, she had sought Maren's assistance to conceal Cael's death from the gaze of Death itself. However, masking a corpse differs significantly from disguising the living.

While Maren can continuously mask a living person's soul for brief periods, deceiving Death regarding a deceased individual is limited. Maren warned that her trick was bound by time. In this realm, a soul lingers in the mortal plane for only forty days. Once Cael's soul reaches the Land of Souls, it will slip beyond her control entirely. Though she withheld the precise details of her plan for the remaining days, she assured Stelle that she would maintain the illusion that his soul still inhabited a physical body.

There is still time before I have to dispose of his body. Should I use Cael's core to create the real Light Thrusting Blade? In theory, she could now forge the blade using his core alongside energy from her own reserves, but... her new weapon was better suited to her current situation. It was compact, nimble, and far better suited to her limitations, given that she was fighting with only one functional arm. For now, I should focus on how to develop something to use in range.

His core will serve as the foundation for that. Adjusting her cloak to ensure her empty left sleeve remained pinned out of the way, Stelle struck out north once more. She ignored the main road, opting instead to trek directly through the dense, trackless timberland. A horse or wagon required cleared paths, but she wasn't about to waste any more time. She would take the shortest route available. By the time the weak northern sun began to dip beneath the western peaks, Stelle called a halt to her march.

She selected a shallow rocky hollow formed beneath a granite overhang. The natural stone shielded her against the prevailing northern wind while providing an unobstructed line of sight down the valley slope. It was a position chosen with tactical efficiency. Her body didn't experience cold in the human sense thanks to her core, nor did she strictly need cooked food to survive. Yet, she had gradually developed a distinct preference for warm meals, a habit picked up during her time in Oakhaven.

Vivid memories of shared meals drifted back to her. The cheerful chatter, the tales exchanged, the savory food, and the genuine kindness shown by those people. A quiet longing stirred within her, making her crave that warmth once more. In the stillness, a sudden, heavy realization struck. Did I make the wrong choice, perhaps? But she buried the thought, refusing to dwell on it, and quietly set about gathering a few fallen branches nearby.

Using the dry wood she had collected along the trail, she stacked a small, neat pyramid in the center of the hollow. With her right hand, she accessed her spatial inventory. [SPATIAL INVENTORY: RETRIEVE] [Item: Purple Lantern] The artifact materialized in her grip. It was an intricate brass apparatus, its glass panes tinted a deep, stormy violet.

Corin had handed the spare lantern to her before they parted ways without much sentiment, claiming it would serve her far better in the northern freezes than standard oil torches. Looking closely at the brass base, she observed faint, glowing runic circuits etched into the metal. With a specific chant and correct amount of mana, it would ignite wood with enough heat to maintain a fire. Too much, however, and the entire campsite would burst into flames. The lantern was far more than a simple utility.

Built with combat in mind, it was a weapon disguised as a light source. Stelle held the device and pointed it toward the small pile of firewood on the ground.

"Ember," Stelle spoke aloud. A faint trickling of energy flowed from her hand into the lantern. The runes flared with light. The single trigger word resonated through the brass housing. Instantly, a vibrant, violet flame burst to life behind the glass panels, emitting a steady, radiant heat that immediately pushed back the freezing air within the hollow. Within seconds, a modest campfire crackled in the dark, casting long, dancing shadows against the granite wall.

The flame slowly shifted from violet to blue, and finally to a warm orange as its thermal output stabilized. She retrieved a portion of her dried rations, heating the preserved meat over the fire on the tip of a clean pine branch. As she ate in silence, her eyes remained fixed on the dancing hues of the fire. She opened her system diagnostic panel, letting her memory logs review the travel metrics. [SYSTEM] Distance Covered: 729 Kilometers Average Pace: 11.

2 km/h Estimated Time to Dorkin: 48 Hours Current Reserves: 98. 4% Her pace was optimal. By cutting directly through the mountainous terrain rather than following the winding trade routes, she had cut the expected travel time to Dorkin in half. Three days had passed since she departed the catacombs. Moving through the dense woods in a near-continuous sprint, she easily brushed off the weak beasts and monsters that crossed her path.

Thanks to the remarkably smooth journey, the distant mountain peaks stood out with striking clarity in the silhouette. Only a few days until I reach the Village of Dorkin… I wonder what awaits me there. The forest outside the hollow grew pitch black. The wind howled through the bare pine branches with a mournful, rhythmic groan that sounded almost like distant music. Stelle rested her back against the cold stone, her right hand resting casually on the hilt of Cael's sword.

She stared up at the narrow gap in the rock overhang, watching the sharp, unfamiliar constellations of the northern sky twinkle in the bitter cold.... Two days passed in a quiet, relentless trudge. The forest eventually gave way to vast, open slopes of slate-grey rock and deep, untouched snowdrifts. Stelle reached the edge of a high, windswept ridge and came to a stop. Below her, nestled in the shadow of the mountain's towering base, lay Dorkin.

Smoke curled lazily from the stone chimneys of its low-roofed buildings, and tiny points of lantern light were beginning to flicker to life against the gathering gloom. She stood still for a moment, her dark cloak snapping softly in the mountain wind. Adjusting her grip on her cloak, Stelle began her descent down the slope.