Chapter 86: Someone’s watching us?
The corridor was silent.
The Floor 3 portal pulsed with its normal pale blue light, its surface smooth and untroubled, as if nothing had happened. As if the crimson corruption and the wave of crushing stillness had been a shared hallucination. But the frost on the walls was thicker now, and the air felt heavier, and Nathan’s hand was still white-knuckled on Moonlight.
"Everyone. Status. Now."
His voice came out sharper than he intended. The party responded with practiced efficiency.
"No injuries." Garrett was still braced behind Volcan, the mace’s molten veins pulsing steadily. Red’s wool was fully armored, the Mad-Sheep’s four eyes fixed on the portal. "Red’s fine. Whatever that was, it didn’t touch us."
"Mana reserves stable," Elise reported. Her staff was glowing, the light reflecting off the ice walls. "No lingering magical effects that I can detect. The portal’s energy signature is normal—completely normal. As if the corruption never happened."
"Cloud Serpent’s spooked but fine." Dillon’s katana was still drawn, his usual humor absent. "What the hell was that? Some kind of prelude to a Tower Collapse? I’ve read about portal destabilization, but that didn’t look like any of the descriptions in the TCA handbooks."
"No." Elise shook her head slowly. "If it was a collapse, the Tower would have already destabilized by now. Collapses are immediate. Violent. That was something else."
"Holy shit," Garrett breathed. "That did not look good at all. Like the portal was... screaming. But silently. If that makes sense."
"It doesn’t," Dillon said. "But I know what you mean."
Nathan barely heard them. His mind was still echoing with that single word—Interesting—spoken in a voice that didn’t deem human, wasn’t the Tower notification, wasn’t anything he’d ever heard before. It had vibrated through his bones like a deep, resonant toll that seemed to come from a deep memory he couldn’t recall. And no one else seemed to have heard it.
"Wait." He looked at the party. "Did you guys not hear that? The voice?"
Dillon blinked. "Huh? Bro, what voice?"
"The voice that came through the portal. When it turned crimson. It said ’interesting’. You didn’t hear it?"
Garrett shook his head slowly. Elise’s expression was unreadable, but her eyes had sharpened. Dillon looked genuinely confused.
"Cross, there was no voice," Dillon said. "The portal went nuts, turned some kind of blood-red, made this weird pressure wave, and then went back to normal. That’s all I saw. That’s all any of us saw. Right?"
"I felt the pressure," Elise said quietly. "The silence. Like something was pressing down on my thoughts. But I didn’t hear a voice."
"Neither did I," Garrett added. "Just the pressure. And the cold. The cold got worse for a second."
Nathan turned to Kuro and Mirko. They were still in humanoid form, their dark and pink eyes troubled. They met his gaze and inclined their heads—the smallest possible nods. They had heard it too.
’The voice was real,’ kuro confirmed through the link, her mental voice quiet and careful. ’I heard it. You heard it. No one else did. This was not a broadcast, it was targeted. Meant for us, No. For you.’
’What does that even mean’ Mikro asked.
’It means something is watching us specifically. And it wanted you to know.’
Nathan filed this away. The Nemesis Court. The Shepherd. The censored Lord in his system. And now this—a voice in the ice that spoke a single word and vanished, heard only by him and his summons. So much mystery to solve, The connections were there, somewhere, but he couldn’t quite make them. Not yet Atleast
"Uh, never mind," he said aloud. "Must’ve been the wind. Or whatever it was, it’s gone now. And we still have a Tower to clear." He forced his grip on Moonlight to relax. "Let’s stay alert and watch for anything unusual. But we don’t stop. Agreed?"
The party exchanged glances. They knew him well enough by now to know when he was deflecting. But they also knew him well enough to trust that he’d share when he was ready.
"Agreed," Elise said.
"Yeah," Garrett nodded. "Let’s keep moving. I don’t like this place."
"First time I’ve agreed with that sentiment all day," Dillon muttered, sheathing his katana.
They stepped through the portal.
---
Floor 3 was a hall of frozen kings.
Nathan studied the corridor ahead. It stretched into the distance like the spine of some forgotten empire, its frozen walls lined with towering statues carved from ancient ice. Kings draped in ornate robes stood beside queens crowned with crystalline diadems, while armored warriors held frost-covered weapons aloft in silent vigil. Time had preserved every detail with unsettling precision—the creases of age, the scars of countless battles, the quiet confidence of rulers who had once commanded nations now buried beneath endless winter.
Nothing moved.
Yet as the party advanced, an uncomfortable sensation settled over them.
The statues were watching.
Within each hollow eye socket glowed a faint blue light, cold and lifeless, yet somehow aware. Their gazes shifted almost imperceptibly, following every step the group took through the corridor.
"The eyes are tracking us," Elise said, her voice barely above a whisper as mana gathered behind her pupils. She studied the frozen sentinels for a few more seconds before continuing. "Not all of them. Only the ones with active mana signatures. Those are the ones that will animate."
Nathan’s expression remained calm.
"How many?"
"Twelve," Elise replied. "At least, that’s all I can detect. They’re positioned at intervals throughout the corridor. They’re dormant for now... but the moment we cross into their activation range, they’ll wake."
"Then we don’t give them time to activate," Nathan ordered without hesitation. "Mirko, Frost Golem—take point. Garrett, Red—right flank. Dillon, Kuro—left. We break through before they can establish formation."
Acknowledgments came in quick succession.
The party exploded into motion.
Mirko led the charge, the Frost Golem’s heavy footsteps shaking the frozen corridor as it kept pace beside the rabbit guardian. Frost swirled beneath their feet, the ancient hall echoing with the thunder of their advance.
The nearest Frozen Sentinel stirred.
A towering king descended from his pedestal, an elaborate crown of ice resting upon his brow. A jagged spear condensed in his grasp, its crystalline edge radiating lethal cold. The instant his feet touched the ground, he lunged.
Mirko met him head-on.
[Impenetrable Fortress]
A translucent barrier materialized with a resonant hum, intercepting the thrust. The spear slammed into the shield with explosive force, cracks racing across the surrounding floor as frost erupted outward.
The barrier didn’t budge and that single moment of resistance was all the Frost Golem needed as Its massive fist crashed into the Sentinel’s torso like a falling glacier.
The frozen king’s chest caved inward. Cracks spiderwebbed across his body before the entire construct burst apart into thousands of glittering ice fragments that scattered across the corridor.
One down. The destruction of the first guardian triggered the rest, Blue light flared throughout the hall as dormant mana awakened in sequence.
Stone groaned. Ice fractured. One after another, the ancient rulers stepped from their pedestals.
A regal queen descended first, her crystalline crown gleaming beneath the pale light as she raised a staff sculpted from flawless frost.
Beside her emerged a broad-shouldered warrior clad in thick ice-forged armor, a greatsword of pale blue mana materializing in his hands.
Further ahead, a robed mage drifted silently to the floor. Arctic mana crackled around its skeletal fingers, weaving icy sigils that filled the air with biting cold.
Then more followed: knights carrying tower shields. Dual-blade duelists. Royal guards armed with halberds.
Each construct awakened in absolute silence, their hollow eyes burning with the same ghostly blue glow as they turned toward the intruders.
There were no battle cries. No commands. Only the grinding of ancient ice and the chilling certainty of twelve guardians fulfilling a duty they had guarded for centuries.
Dillon’s katana flashed. [Quick Draw] severed the mage’s arms before it could cast. Kuro materialized behind the queen, [Assassinate] driving into the back of its frozen neck. The queen crumpled. Garrett’s Volcan erupted against the warrior’s greatsword—the thermal pulse shattering both blade and bearer.
Nathan’s [Mana Arrows] picked off the stragglers. Each shot found a frozen skull or an icy core. The Sentinels were slow—their strength was in numbers and resilience, not speed—and the party exploited that ruthlessly.
The hall was cleared in minutes. The frozen kings lay shattered on the ice floor, their hollow eyes dark.
But the statues that hadn’t animated—the ones with no mana signatures, the ones that were just ice and old magic—still watched. Their eyes were dark now, lifeless. But Nathan could feel them.
[Floor 3 Cleared.]
