Chapter 89: The Frozen Depths (2)
Through the lens of [Hunter’s Insight], the chaotic battlefield reduced itself to a series of pulsing weak points and shifting aggro lines. Nathan called out blind spots, directed evasions, and fired Moonlight into the fray. The Tyrant’s Eye swirled in its socket, cutting through the thick, freezing haze to find the targets his allies couldn’t see.
The final Guardian fell to a flawless, unspoken sequence: Volcan’s searing heat cracked open its chest plate, Elise’s Frost Golem drove a fist into the exposed core to shatter it, and Mirko’s blade took the head before the construct even realized it was dead. The last lingering Wraith melted away under a blinding barrage of Dillon’s static electricity.
Quiet returned to the catacombs, save for the hiss of melting ice and heavy breathing.
[Floor 6 Cleared!]
Floor 7 was the antechamber to the throne.
It was a vast, circular hall, its walls a masterpiece of ancient reliefs. The carvings here were intimately detailed, depicting hundreds of robed and armored figures kneeling in total reverence. The entire kingdom, etched in stone and ice, bowed toward the center of the room.
And there, exactly where the carvings demanded, sat the Frozen Throne.
It was hewn from a single, flawless block of primordial crystal. Its surface didn’t just reflect the ambient light; it generated its own, a slow, bleeding aurora that was both breathtaking and terrifying. The cold it radiated hit them like a physical blow. Nathan felt his lungs seize up. His cloak was dimming, and the warming crystals strapped to his body sputtered and died, their heat totally consumed by the room.
The throne was empty, but it was far from unguarded.
Around the perimeter, elite Throne Sentinels stepped down from their alcoves. They were sleeker, deadlier versions of the constructs from Floor 3, their armor intricate and their weapons glowing with cruel, jagged runes.
But the real threat rose from the base of the throne itself: The Frozen Arbiter.
It was a towering, gaunt figure draped in flowing robes of solid ice that scraped against the floor. Its face was a terrifying blank mask of pale blue crystal, completely featureless except for two hollow sockets that burned with violent aurora light. In its right hand, it gripped a gnarled staff of twisted permafrost. In its left, a perfectly balanced scale forged of frozen gold.
When it spoke, it didn’t possess the malicious, ancient terror of the voice from the portal. It spoke with the dreadful, hollow certainty of a machine executing a centuries-old directive.
"You seek the throne," it intoned. The voice echoed like the terrifying crack of ice snapping over a deep, frozen lake. "You seek the judgment. You are not of the Frozen. You are not of the kingdom. Why should the throne permit you to pass?"
Nathan gripped Moonlight tight, stepping to the front of the group. "We’re not asking permission."
The Arbiter’s hollow eyes flared to blinding intensity. "Then prove your worth. Or join the architecture of the unworthy."
The Sentinels lunged.
Mirko didn’t wait to be swarmed. She charged the vanguard, invoking [Impenetrable Fortress] just as she slammed her heavy shield into the lead construct. The collision sent a spiderweb of violent fissures ripping through the ice floor.
"Hmph! We have proved our worth in the icy arenas of every floor before this!" she roared, shoving the Sentinel back. "You are not a judge! You are merely the next obstacle for this knight!"
The Arbiter slowly raised its gnarled staff. The air pressure dropped violently. With a sickening crunch, massive walls of jagged crystal erupted from the floor, completely fracturing the room. Sightlines vanished. The party was split.
On the other side of a newly formed glacier, two Sentinels pinned Mirko against the ice while a third moved in for a lethal flank.
"No you don’t!" Garrett bellowed. He swung Volcan in a massive overhead arc, smashing the heavy mace directly into the ice barrier separating them. The thermal explosion blew a hole straight through the wall. "Red, left!"
Red didn’t hesitate, surging through the breach and catching the flanking Sentinel’s frozen blade right between its heavy horns. The sheep dug its hooves in, halting the construct’s momentum cold. Garrett followed in the slipstream, bringing Volcan around in a brutal hook that caught the construct’s shoulder. The heat flash instantly super-heated the ice joints, blowing the Sentinel’s arm clean off in a shower of boiling water and shrapnel.
Garrett yelled. "You think a few ice walls are going to break our line?!"
Slowly, the Arbiter turned its faceless gaze toward Garrett. The golden scale in its left hand tilted downward, as if weighing the heavy-hitter’s soul.
"The shield," the hollow voice boomed. "You refuse to break?." It pointed the staff directly at Garrett’s chest. "Then you shall shatter."
A concentrated, blinding beam of absolute zero tore from the tip of the staff. It didn’t just freeze the air; it flash-froze the very mana in the room.
Elise screamed in exertion as she threw herself in front of Garrett, thrusting both hands forward to project a [Mana Shield]. The absolute-zero beam slammed into the barrier. The shield instantly frosted over, webbing with deep, violent cracks as the magic began to die—but it held for two agonizing seconds. Just long enough.
Garrett stepped through the shattering barrier and swung Volcan like a baseball bat, meeting the beam of cold head-on. The collision of primordial frost and volcanic heat triggered a massive geyser of steam, blinding everyone in a chaotic whiteout.
"Thanks!" Garrett coughed, staggering back.
"Don’t thank me yet," Elise snapped, her fingers already weaving the sigils for another barrier. "It’s not dead."
The Arbiter was a force of nature, but it couldn’t fight a war on all fronts. In the blinding steam, Dillon invoked [Flash Step]. The thunderclap masked his movement as he materialized directly behind the towering Arbiter. [Thunder Edge] came down in a blinding arc of electricity, slamming into the creature’s staff arm. The ancient ice cracked with the sound of a gunshot.
A split-second later, Kuro bled out from the Arbiter’s own shadow. Her daggers flared with dark energy as she triggered [Assassinate], driving the blades deep into the joints of the Arbiter’s back. The frozen robes splintered violently, staggering the giant.
Across the room, Nathan stood perfectly still. He had been holding the draw on his bow for one minute and thirty grueling seconds, funneling every ounce of his focus into the single point of Moonlight’s arrowhead. The arrow was no longer just metal; it was a blinding, miniature star of compressed silver light.
"Mirko! Now!" Nathan roared, his arm trembling from the sheer force of the constrained magic.
Mirko didn’t need to be told twice. Leaping off a shattered ice pillar, she brought her sword down in a devastating, two-handed [Unstoppable Force] strike. The blade crashed directly into the top of the Arbiter’s featureless mask.
The crystal cracked. The blinding aurora in its hollow eyes flickered, the entity momentarily stunned by the raw kinetic trauma.
Nathan released the bowstring.
The [Focus Shot] tore through the air, screaming like a jet engine. It punched dead-center through the Arbiter’s fractured mask, ripped through its skull, and buried itself deep into the ancient throne behind it with a resounding thud.
The Arbiter froze. Its hollow eyes flickered once. Twice. Then, the golden scale slipped from its nerveless, icy fingers and clattered against the floor. The towering figure slowly slumped, collapsing into a lifeless heap of ruined, ordinary ice.
Without their commander, the remaining Sentinels crumbled into dust. The massive ice barriers dissolved back into the floor. The chamber fell utterly, hauntingly silent.
[Floor 7 Cleared!]
[Level Up! Nathan Cross: Level 41]
[Level Up! Mirko: Level 38]
[Reward: Arbiter’s Scale (Rare Material)]
The party stood huddled in front of the portal to Floor 8.
The cold here had crossed the threshold from ’dangerous’ to ’lethal.’ It was far worse than the oppressive, suffocating heat of the Tower of Ash had ever been. The enchantments on their cloaks were doing little more than violently flickering, and their breath was freezing onto their own collars and eyelashes.
But beyond the swirling pale-blue vortex of the portal, the Ice Queen Butterfly was waiting.
"The boss floor," Nathan said. His jaw was tight to keep his teeth from chattering. "Everyone ready?"
Garrett hefted Volcan, stepping closer to the mace just to soak in the ambient warmth of its molten veins. "Ready. Red?"
The Mad-Sheep shook out its wool, the thick fibers instantly locking together into overlapping armored plates. It let out a low, bass-heavy bleat, pawing at the ice.
"Born ready," Dillon said, shivering violently. His katana crackled with residual static, offering a meager, nervous light. "Also incredibly, painfully cold. But mostly ready."
Elise gave a curt nod. Beside her, the Frost Golem seemed totally at peace, standing nine feet tall and practically humming with the ambient frost magic. "Let’s finish this."
Mirko confidently drew her sword, though her armored fingers were stiff. "Hmph! This Knight has shattered wyrms, cleaved wraiths, and humbled frozen arbiters! I will not be intimidated by a butterfly! I shall swat it from the sky like the insect it is! With my sword! Which is, practically speaking, an oversized swatter! Hehehe"
Overconfidence is not a strategy, Kuro observed smoothly, stepping out of the shadows in her humanoid form, her daggers twirling effortlessly in her hands.
"It is when I am the one doing it!" Mirko shot back, puffing out her chest. "My confidence is the strategy! The strategy of unyielding excellence!"
That is not a strategy, Kuro deadpanned. That is a personality disorder.
"An excellent personality disorder!"
Nathan couldn’t help but crack a small smile, the banter doing more to warm his chest than his failing cloak. He turned back toward the portal. The ancient, pale blue light washed over his face, silent, patient, and merciless.
"Let’s clear this Tower," Nathan said.
He stepped through the vortex. The party followed, marching into the absolute zero where the Ice Queen Butterfly awaited.
