Chương 48: The Frost Legacy

The world dissolved into absolute darkness once more. For a brief, suspended moment, Stelle felt nothing—no urgency, no fear, or struggle. Her fading consciousness drifted through the void until it reached a single, radiant point of light waiting in the distance, shining like a lonely star in the deep expanse of night. She reached out toward it. The instant her fingers brushed the light, her body was pulled inside of the expanding blinding flash. The excruciating agony tearing through her limbs was gone.

The crushing exhaustion, the feeling of being inside of someone's body, but the weight of the grief in her chest remained. Stelle slowly opened her eyes to reveal a vast, sky of striking azure blue. She was lying upon an endless, quiet expanse of white snow, beneath the massive milky clouds drifting lazily along the horizon. She sat up, then stood. The horrific wounds and dark corruption that had broken her body were entirely absent.

Instead, her form emitted a soft, ethereal luminescence, mirroring the translucent radiance Fira had carried as a wandering soul. She wore a simple, flowing white dress that stirred gently in the crisp, quiet wind of the clearing. Stelle scanned her surroundings, turning her head until her gaze settled upon the center of the domain. Standing alone in the vast white field was a single, towering frost tree.

Beneath its sprawling, ice-dusted branches sat a solitary figure, resting atop a thick root as if she had been waiting for a very long time. Step by step, Stelle did not hesitate. Her bare feet leaving soft impressions in the snow, she approached the maiden, coming to a stop a few paces away. The woman was striking, her features a living echo of the frozen statue at the mountain peak.

Her long white hair and soft silver eyes carried a warmth so complete, so genuine, that Stelle felt her lingering vigilance melt away entirely before the woman's gentle, welcoming smile.

"We finally meet," the woman said, her voice like the clear ringing of fine crystal.

"Although, in a sense... we have always been together."

"Are you… Lilian?" Stelle asked quietly. Her eyes studying the face of the woman.

"Yes, Stelle. It's me." Lilian, gentle eyes meet her eyes directly. Stelle took a moment before she looked down at her unblemished hands, then back at the vast horizon.

"What happened? Where am I?"

"We are inside your consciousness," Lilian replied softly.

"Your physical body is undergoing a transformation, but I took this brief moment to finally speak with you." Stelle paused, her analytical mind sifting carefully through the implications before.

"Transformation? Why?"

"Your physical body is dying. What stands before me right now is your soul—the very soul that no divine entity in this world could bind or destroy. The soul of a child born from another dimension." The woman looked into Stelle's eyes, she already recognizing the thousands of unasked questions within them.

"You must be so confused, child. But do not worry. When this is over, everything will become clear. So, let me answer your questions."

"Then… l will listen," Stelle tones even, though laced with quiet curiosity.

"Then sit with me," Lilian gestured gently to the cold massive root beside her.

"Let us take our time." Stelle stepped forward, sitting beside the ancient maiden. For a long moment, they watched the slow movement of the clouds in peaceful silence before Lilian broke it.

"You already know my story," Lilian murmured, a shadow of grief darkening her silver eyes.

"Fira told you of my life... my life as a failed savior." Stelle looked at her directly.

"But… You saved the north."

"We, me and my people saved the north," Lilian corrected gently.

"Yet I alone was remembered as a saint, while my mother's people were branded as monsters. They were punished by the very god whose power gave them hope, only for that power to betray them in the end." The memories rushed back to Stelle, a fragments from when she had been merged with the woman standing right before her.

"That God of Winter… claimed they broke an ancient law," Stelle said.

"Do you know what law it was?"

"No," Lilian shook her head slowly.

"The Snow Fae elders kept the truth hidden from the rest of our bloodline. I only know that it pertains to their blood and their souls… the true origin of their curse."

"Blood and soul..." Stelle pondered aloud.

"Then why weren't you affected the same way? You carry the blood of Snow Fae too. Even Malkor… who is only half-blooded—was transformed into a Blood Tribe."

"That..." Lilian's voice trailed off. She paused for a quiet moment, remembering old memories."... has everything to do with my father. I am a half-blood, yes, but the nature of my soul is fundamentally different from the rest. It possesses a quality that no native god of this realm can claim unless I willingly offer it. Because half of my soul belongs to a lineage from another world entirely." The words echoed in Stelle's mind before she snapped out and asked for confirmation.

"Are you saying… your father is from another world?"

"Yes. He was one of the summoned… a man taken from a different planet in another dimension," Lilian said, turning her eyes toward the sky.

"He rarely spoke of his past to us—not until his final moments, when he gave his life to protect me. Only then did he reveal the truth… that he had no family for me to seek in this world, since he was from another plane of existence entirely. It was his lineage that shielded me from the God of Winter's direct curse, allowing me to wield winter's frost without succumbing to its punishment. I learned much later that his home planet was called Earth... the very world where you, and the Sage, came from."

"What?" The revelation brought a sudden, startling clarity to the mystery. It made sense now why Lilian had never searched for her father's family, pouring all her devotion into protecting her mother's people instead—they were her sole remaining ties to this world. And beneath it all lay a staggering, surreal truth—her father and the legendary Sage were both children of Earth. The connection felt almost too heavy to carry, tangling their fates together across dimensions.

Lilian watched the clouds drift across the horizon.

"The Sage... The very man responsible for why you stand here."

"That Sage… who is he really?"

"He never revealed his name to me and only walk with that title Sage, an extraordinary man..." Lilian said softly.

"He fought beside the other Heroes to push back the darkness. When they reached our continent, I was at my lowest—desperate enough to beg them for a miracle. They didn't fight for me. Instead, seeing the divine bloodline I carried, they offered to let me wield Winter's authority myself. I took the burden gladly, completely blind… But the Sage... he was the only one who tried to stop me. The only one who warned me at that time." Lilian's expression softened with a faint, sorrowful smile.

"When I bound myself to the God of Winter, he offered to teach me how to wield his power. Together, we traveled beside the Heroes, battling to cleanse the darkness from this northern land. With every passing day, I came to understand him more… discovering that he, too, hailed from the same world where my father came from. Learning that made our bond deeper than any I had ever known, and through him, I came to understand a deep grudge against certain entities of this realm. This book is hosted on another platform.

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"He carried an ancient, burning hatred, directed not merely at the Darkstar, but also at the gods of this realm. He sought nothing less than the total eradication of the dark. Though he never truly revealed the source of his vengeance to anyone at that time... after all, he owed no responsibility to a world that had summoned him without his consent. At least, that was what I believed back then." Her silver eyes dimmed with sorrow.

"Our time together was short. The spreading darkness forced the Heroes to march back to the central continent, while I remained behind to protect the pass... where I ultimately met my end." Lilian turned her gaze to Stelle.

"I thought I would never see him again. But years after my people and I offered ourselves to save the north, he returned. He retrieved my remaining soul fragment from the frost and embarked on a journey to climb the Tower, seeking forbidden knowledge in the higher realm. He was relentless, willing to burn through anything to reach his goal.

It was during those travels that he revealed to me that he had bound himself to a supreme, nameless god—a being far beyond any god known to this world, possessing authority over Space and Time."

"A nameless god?"

"Yes," Lilian continued.

"I do not know how he earned the attention of such an entity. Perhaps it was simple curiosity on the god's part. But then I came to realise the full depth of his obsession." Lilian paused, letting the wind carry her words.

"When his preparations in the higher realm were complete, the Sage split his existence in two. One half remained in that realm. The other returned to Terra, eventually finding a path back to Earth." The woman's eyes narrowed in a subtle frown.

"When we arrived, it was nothing like the peaceful, advanced paradise his stories had painted. Earth was already dying, succumbing to the exact same abyssal corruption that the Dark Star brought to this world. The Sage didn't look surprised at all. Instead, he gave me the answer that shattered everything. Centuries ago, the gods of Terra attempted to cleanse a wave of dark malice by casting it across dimensions—spilling that ancient poison straight onto the surface of Earth.

They condemned an entire world of unsuspecting lives just to buy safety for this one." Stelle froze as the pieces suddenly fell into place, her mind frantically racing to something.

"That was why his vengeance ran so deep." A quiet sorrow settled over Lilian's voice..

"He had known, even before he was first summoned to Terra, that his home world was collapsing because of a war it never asked for.

"Stepping back onto Earth stripped him of his mana authority—there was no mana in that world to sustain his power. But it could not strip him of the vast knowledge his mind had accumulated. He accelerated human civilization," Lilian explained.

"He guided their technology decades ahead of its natural progression, working silently toward a single goal he shared with no one but my lingering soul fragment." Lilian leaned closer, her voice dropping to a sacred whisper.

"His goal was to create you, Stelle." Stelle remained frozen, listening intently.

"He wanted to create an entity whose soul was bound to nothing in this dimension except the supreme god of Time and Space. He understood that a life from another dimension carries a soul fundamentally immune to the divine laws of all realms in this Plane of Existence. A vessel capable of wielding unthinkable authority without being manipulated by the gods of these realms." Lilian reached out, her cool, gentle fingers touching Stelle's cheek.

"But creating you required nearly a century of technological advancement on Earth. The Sage was mortal on his home planet, and his body eventually failed him. Before he died, he established a secret organization to carry his research across generations. He encoded his knowledge from another dimension into subtle fairy tales, hiding the truth in plain sight, and sealed those records alongside a core where my soul fragments resides. Decades passed.

Earth decayed further, reaching its absolute limit as humanity fought desperately for survival. Yet, amidst the dying breath of the planet, a scientist named Alistair finally brought the Sage's vision to life... and successfully created you." Stelle stood motionless, silent. The drive to piecemeal the truth together dissolved into quiet surrender. She simply absorbed it all, succumbing to the weight of information that left her thoughts into a hollow stillness.

"As Earth crumbled beneath the weight of its own ruin," Lilian continued, her voice soft yet steady, "the gateway connecting our dimensions had already shattered into dust. But the Sage was prepared… he crafted a final safeguard before his passing—a sacred Rune Inscription inside your core, designed to activate once you drifted into the reach of the Nameless God.

When your pod launched into the dark, my soul fragment, carrying the authority of frost, shielded you from the absolute zero of the void until we reached once of that cosmic entity root. There, the runes finally ignited, swallowing the vessel and carrying us into this dimension and a timeline where only a thousand years passed when the sage and I left this world." Lilian stood up, stepping out into the snow before turning back to face Stelle. Stelle rose to her feet as well, standing a few paces away.

"Then you travel guided by my frost until you reach this place" Lilian whispered, silver eyes shimmering with the last embers of hope.

"To save my people. To free them at last, and sever the curse coiled around their blood and soul." Gazing down at Stelle, Lilian saw the exhaustion in her eyes. The girl was no longer struggling to process the truth before but had surrendered to it entirely, accepting her fate without question.

"I know what you must be thinking," Lilian murmured softly.

"You feel as though your entire existence is merely a tool built to fulfill the mission of a dead person. You feel as though your path has been dictated from the moment you were conceived." Stelle stared down at her glowing hands. She felt small, overwhelmed, and uncertain of where her autonomy ended and the Sage's design began.

"But that path ends here. The Sage sought only to grant you my legacy as a token of protection before your true journey begins. He wanted you to gain power, understand a glimpse of human emotion, and find a purpose to move forward. He was never a man to chain a soul to a predefined fate. Once you accept this power, the path you walk is yours alone." Around them the serene world began to dissolve, the blue sky fragmenting into soft streaks of light.

"It is time," Lilian whispered, her form growing translucent.

"I leave the decision to you when you awaken. I entrust my original power to you... to use it to end the beast, and grant my people the peace they have waited a thousand years to find. And you finally began your true journey." Lilian offered her fading hand.

"Are you still willing to take this last burden, Stelle?" A moment of hesitation held Stelle still as she looked down at that translucent palm. Yet, far beneath the doubt, a quiet warmth stirred within her chest, pulling her forward.

"There is still so much I do not understand… For so long, I felt nothing, had no choice, and had no path of my own to follow. But I now understand the weight of that pain—the suffocating despair of a world where free will is stripped away. I never want anyone else to endure that emptiness, even if I cannot yet measure the depth of what stirs within me now." Her eyes met the maiden's gaze with steady, unwavering focus.

"Only one thing is clear in my mind right now that every single one of us reaches for help when we carry burdens we cannot bear alone. So if I have the power to help… then let me carry it. Let me try to fulfill it… and save those in need with everything I have." She reached out, her fingers brushing against Lilian's fading hand. A deliberate nod Stelle gave was a solemn promise bound in silence—a quiet acceptance of a legacy that was hers to shape.

"I am sorry, Stelle, that you must bear a cross I should have carried myself," Lilian's voice echoed one last time, soft and sweet as a dying melody.

"You are our last spark of hope... Thank you. I shall carry your name through the heavens, eternally grateful. I will never forget this moment. So goodbye Stelle… May the stars guide your path, my child." The domain shattered, vanishing into nothingness. Stelle snapped her eyes open. She was lying upon the cold, frozen floor of the inner dome where the frozen Saint had rested.

But the sanctuary inside was empty—only glittering ice motes remained, dissolving upward toward the sky from the spot where the maiden had been kneeling the last time Stelle saw her. Saint Lilian's frozen body was gone. While Fira's ghost is also no longer anywhere. Stelle slowly stood up, and then an unfamiliar yet deeply instinctual sensation washed over her. She looked down at her left side, only to find a complete arm where the void had been—though it was longer and more sculpted than she remembered.

Her skin was smooth, pale, and entirely whole. She flexed her fingers, feeling the full, flawless movement of her new left hand. Catching her reflection in the sheer ice wall nearby, she paused. She was taller now, her frame noticeably matured into the slender, poised grace of a young woman. Her face had settled into a calm, composed elegance, and her pristine silver hair had grown past her waist, flowing like liquid frost.

The corruption had been completely purged, replaced by a deep, terrifyingly vast reserve of pure, refined energy.

A series of brilliant, translucent blue prompts materialized directly across her field of vision: [System Upgrade Complete] [Sequence 2] [New Utility: Overclock] [Elemental Manifestation Evolved: Frost Manifestation → Glacial Genesis] [Additional Utility Slots Unlocked: 3] [Utility Upgrades: Available] [System Core: Standard Upgrade ──> Adaptive Growth] [Growth Module Status: ACTIVE] [Core Capacity Expansion: +500%] Stelle swept the glowing interface aside with a quiet flick of her mind.

Lifting her left hand, she watched in still awe as a delicate plume of absolute-zero frost spiraled across her fingers—the power of Saint Lilian's divine authority, now pulsing in absolute harmony with her own core. Closing her eyes, Stelle allowed herself one final breath to honor the centuries of memory, pain, and hope that had passed in what felt like an eternity. When she opened them once more, every trace of doubt was gone.

She turned toward the dark passage leading out to the howling mountain peak, her eyes calm, cold, and absolute. Let's end this.