Chapter 88: The Frozen Depths (1)
The Floor 6 portal deposited them into an antechamber that felt less like a room and more like the inside of a glacier. The temperature drop was immediate and violent. The ambient cold had shifted from a harsh environmental hazard to a critical threat; it clawed at their skin and seeped into their bones. Even wrapped tightly in their Winterhart cloaks, the chill was suffocating, forcing the air out of their lungs in ragged, barely visible puffs.
"Five minutes," Nathan said, distributing warming crystals from the pouch Vex had given him. "Potions if you need them. We’ve got two floors before the boss."
The party settled into the antechamber, backs against the ice walls, weapons close. Red’s wool had softened to its non-combat state, the Mad-Sheep’s four eyes half-closed. The Cloud Serpent coiled around Dillon’s shoulders, its scales crackling with faint static. Elise’s Frost Golem stood motionless near the portal, drawing ambient cold into its crystalline body.
Garrett immediately dropped a cluster of ruby-red warming crystals onto the frost-rimmed floor. They hummed to life, projecting a weak but desperately needed sphere of heat. The party huddled around it, uncorking stamina and health potions to soothe muscles aching from the constant shivering.
Mirko and Kuro caught Nathan’s eye and drew him aside, away from the others.
’Master,’ Mirko said through the link—and then aloud, for emphasis, her pink eyes unusually serious. "We need to discuss the voice."
Nathan nodded. He’d been expecting this. "You both heard it."
’Clearly,’ Kuro confirmed. Her dark eyes were troubled, the white war paint tracing her cheekbones like frozen scars. ’You heard it. I heard it. Mirko heard it. Garrett, Dillon, and Elise heard nothing. This was not random interference. Something reached through the portal and spoke directly to us. To the three of us. Specifically.’
"Why us?" Nathan asked quietly. "Why just us?"
’Because we are connected to the system,’ Kuro said. ’Something has been watching us, and it chose that moment to make itself known.’
Mirko’s ears flattened against her hair, then perked back up with defiant energy. "Hmph! This Knight does not appreciate being spied upon by mysterious voices in corrupted portals! It is rude. And also unsettling." She paused. "Mostly rude."
Despite the tension, despite the cold, despite the lingering echo of that ancient, terrible voice, Nathan felt the corner of his mouth twitch. "Mostly rude?"
"The voice did not even introduce itself! It simply said ’interesting’ and vanished! That is the height of poor manners! When I speak to someone for the first time, I always introduce myself properly. ’I am Mirko, Knight of the Bunny Girl Legion, first summon of Nathan Cross.’ See? It is not difficult!"
’You also usually mention that you are a D-Rank Knight,’ Kuro observed dryly.
"That is an important detail! It establishes my credentials!"
Nathan held up a hand before the bickering could escalate. "We don’t have answers yet. But whatever that voice was, it wasn’t the Tower. It was something else. Something that’s been watching us—specifically us—and decided now was the time to speak." He paused, thinking.
’Then we are being watched by something ancient,’ Kuro said. ’Something powerful enough to reach through a Tower portal and speak directly into our minds. Something that finds us... interesting.’
"Then let it watch." Nathan’s voice was steady. "We’re not going to find answers by stopping. We clear this Tower. We keep climbing. Whatever’s out there...whoever’s out there... they’ll show themselves eventually. And when they do, we’ll be ready."
’Agreed,’ Kuro said.
Mirko drew her sword, the blade gleaming in the pale blue light. "Hmph! This Knight is ready! Mysterious voices and frozen butterflies alike shall fall before us! Let them watch! Let them see what we are capable of!" She pointed the sword at the Floor 6 portal. "Onward, Master! To victory and warmth!"
"Warmth is not guaranteed," Nathan said.
"Then to victory and the hope of warmth! Which is almost as good!"
---
Floor 6 was a catacomb of the frozen dead.
The ice tunnels branched and twisted like frozen veins beneath the throne room. Along the walls, ancient coffins of pale blue crystal sat in unbroken silence. Through their frosted glass lids, Nathan could make out the shapes entombed within: kings, queens, warriors, and priests. They were perfectly preserved in the eternal frost, their faces locked in eerie, peaceful slumber.
The air here had teeth. It was so cold that Nathan’s breath didn’t just mist; it crystallized, falling as heavy, glittering dust the moment it left his lips. Their cloaks were glowing visibly now, the enchantments whining as they were pushed to their absolute limits. Despite the thick thermal underlayer and the warming crystals wedged inside his boots and gloves, Nathan felt the frost clawing at his skin, trying to sink into his bones.
Master. Kuro’s voice whispered in his mind, sharp enough to cut through the creeping, heavy lethargy. The cold is affecting your cognition. Focus. We are not done yet.
Nathan squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head violently to rattle the fog from his brain. "Right," he muttered, his breath hitching. "What’s our opposition?"
The Frost Wraiths answered before [Hunter’s Insight] even triggered.
They bled out from the solid ice walls—spectral entities woven from pale blue light and arctic vapor. They didn’t walk; they drifted like smoke over a glacier, their shapes constantly tearing and reforming between humanoid silhouettes and ragged clouds. They carried no weapons. They didn’t need to. Their touch didn’t wound flesh—it smothered mana.
As the first one drifted too close, the ambient chill spiked. Nathan felt a jarring drop in his core reserves, the icy proximity threatening to seize up his skill activation entirely.
Mirko stepped up, slamming her boot into the ice to anchor herself as she invoked [Impenetrable Fortress]. The emerald barrier erupted outward in a concussive dome of hard-light. The Wraiths shrieked silently and recoiled, their incorporeal forms bouncing off the dense, mana-heavy shield.
"Hmph!" Mirko barked, her breath pluming. "Your ghostly tricks will not work on this Knight! I have waded through shadows and severed specters! You are nothing but winter mist with delusions of grandeur!"
One Wraith made the fatal error of condensing its form to lunge at her throat. Mirko’s counter-stroke was a blur of steel. She decapitated the entity before its icy claws even crossed the threshold of her shield, shattering its core into a burst of harmless snowflakes.
But the mist was thickening. Hundreds more were pouring from the crypts. Worse, the ice beneath their feet began to groan.
Rising from the coffins with the agonizing, grinding screech of fracturing glaciers were the Glacial Guardians. They were towering, brutish constructs of living crystal, encased in slabs of heavy, frosted armor. They lacked the speed of the Throne Guardian, but the sheer weight of their approach made the floor tremble. The ambient temperature plummeted even further as they moved, frost creeping like ivy across the walls in their wake.
Nathan’s mind snapped back into tactical clarity. "Garrett! You and Red—pin the Guardians down! Mirko, thin out the Wraiths! Dillon, Kuro—flank and keep them off balance!"
Garrett stepped into the breach, hoisting Volcan. The heavy mace thrummed, its molten veins casting a harsh, orange glare against the blue ice. Beside him, Red charged forward, the Mad-Sheep’s wool hardening into thick, overlapping plates of armor.
"Come on, then!" Garrett roared. "Let’s see how ancient ice handles modern heat!"
The vanguard Guardian swung a crystalline fist the size of a boulder, aiming to crush them flat. Red didn’t flinch. The sheep ducked under the crushing arc, its heavy horns scraped hard across the construct’s knee. A split second later, Garrett brought Volcan crashing down on the exact same spot.
The thermal pulse detonated on impact. The violent clash of extreme heat and ancient cold sent a shockwave of boiling steam through the corridor, shattering the Guardian’s knee joint into a thousand glittering shards. The behemoth toppled sideways, violently off-balance. Red capitalized instantly, driving its armored bulk into the construct’s chest and sending it crashing backward into a sarcophagus. With a deafening crunch, both the ancient tomb and the Guardian collapsed into rubble.
On the left flank, Mirko was a tempest of steel. [Quick Reflex] allowed her to read the subtle shifts in the air as the Wraiths tried to phase and flank. She didn’t wait for them to solidify; she anticipated the chill. Every time a Wraith attempted a lunge, her heavy blade was already carving through the space they intended to occupy.
"Too slow! Too predictable!" she taunted, spinning the heavy sword with one hand. "Does the Tower of the Frozen Throne not have anything with a spine?!"
"Don’t taunt the Tower," Nathan yelled over the din, drawing back his bowstring. He loosed a [Mana Arrow], the projectile streaking through the cavern and piercing a Wraith directly through its shimmering core.
"I am not taunting!" Mirko shouted back, cleaving another phantom in two. "I am providing performance feedback!"
Lightning suddenly strobed across the ceiling as Dillon launched himself into the fray. His [Thunder Edge] hissed as the electrified katana sliced through the vaporous Wraiths, the high-voltage arcs tearing their incorporeal forms apart. Overhead, his Cloud Serpent spiraled in tight loops, raining static discharge that chained between the lumbering Guardians, locking up their joints in spasms of electrified frost.
Beneath the flashes of lightning, Kuro was a ghost hunting ghosts. She slipped through the inky shadows cast by the coffins, her twin daggers finding the microscopic hairline fractures in the Guardians’ armor. She didn’t strike to crush; she struck to unspool the magic holding them together.
"Clear the center!" Elise yelled.
Nathan ducked as her [Mana Bolts] screamed past him, detonating like artillery shells deep within the swarm of Wraiths. Each impact ripped the freezing mist apart. Beside her, the Frost Golem lowered its shoulder and met the largest Glacial Guardian in a brutal, head-on collision. Crystalline fists battered against frosted armor, the impacts ringing out like a blacksmith’s hammer on an anvil.
