ALL NOVEL Chapter 41: Icy Atmosphere
Another day passed with Matt, Liam and I sparring. Occasionally, Emilia and Marie joined in, but today was not one of those days. As always, the following march was gruelling, the pressure heavy enough to make it feel as though my knees would buckle.
But they didn’t. I kept pressing on and walking. The ground had become even rockier by now, and we were finally well within the area of the mountains. We had transitioned from walking on soil to hard stone, and the grass was finally growing more sparse.
Not that it wasn’t trying to grow, but there was simply no more space. The ground was now mostly made from smooth, rocky plates, the erosion making it look as though some giant had cut them to be smooth.
Additionally, a lot of the rock was covered by layers of snow and ice. It had grown colder again, and was probably far below freezing by now.
In the grassland, the snow hadn’t accumulated, since the plants hungrily absorbed the sun and kept the soil warm, despite it already being cold enough to snow there. Now, though, we were truly at the point where living creatures were not meant to withstand the winds.
Why anyone would build a monastery in these mountains eluded me, but nevertheless, I felt the string connecting me to that gateway whenever I closed my eyes. It was so close now, almost calling out to me.
During the journey, my gateway integrity had risen to 30%. I was hoping to keep it below 80 for my visit to my family. That should give me more than enough time to deal with any eventualities that popped up. But I suppose I’d just have to see how it worked out then.
For now, I needed to focus on not slipping. The rocks were horridly smooth, tilted, and covered in ice, so each step could be treacherous. Additionally, there were sometimes large cracks, hidden behind thin layers of powdered snow. Emilia usually warned us of those so we could avoid them, but she couldn’t exactly keep track of each and every one of our feet all the time.
Especially with the presence being even heavier here.
The air was already thin in these mountains, but having such a huge amount of energy weighing down on me made breathing hard. I needed to focus on repelling it by coating myself with golden Qi, while at the same time making sure I was still suppressing my mirror Qi.
It was an exercise that gave me a headache that only grew worse as the hours ticked by. When we camped at the end of our first day in the mountains proper, I was left with a terrible migraine. At least this was the shortest leg of the journey, only a few days left until we were at the monastery,
I slept well that night, Ann and I sharing warmth between us, with the exception of me needing to take watch once.
The next day was a crawl. All of us were tired by now, but the twins had it especially rough. They needed to constantly use techniques to buff themselves, since Divinity had the weakest natural reinforcement effect of the three energies, and their physical stats were also on the lower end of our group.
At least Ann could just levitate herself if push came to shove, but with the way it was, we occasionally had to help the two of them out.
It was possible to push your Qi into someone else, to a degree. That’s what we did. Liam, me, and Marie took turns supporting Reya, which involved at least some form of contact, while Emilia and Matt held Eric’s hand. Quite literally, too.
Apparently, the swordsman was fine with this more so than when Ann and I did it, because “there was nothing PDA about it.”
I shook my head at his antics and simply marched on, keeping my hand on Reya’s shoulder or back for the most part to give her some support.
This did mean that by the end of the day, we were all even more tuckered out. None of us had the energy left to spar, and instead, just holding watch became miserable.
At the same time, the goal was so close now, I could feel it. Just a day more.
And we endured.
There were monster attacks.
Ice elemental things, creatures of shambling snow with an aura so cold it seeped straight into your bones. They were cut resistant, too, their frozen bodies simply reforming by absorbing some snow from their feet, until Ann blasted them away with a couple explosions.
By the end of it, all of us were shivering, our lips discoloured from the frost. Ann had to summon a fire for us to huddle around to keep warm, and Matt caused a soft breeze to keep the icy winds away.
This one was especially horrendous for Marie, since she’d been stabbed through the shoulder by an icicle, and the attack had been imbued with frost energy that was trying to eat its way further into her body. It took most of her Qi reserves to stop it, and then a good chunk of both Reya’s and Eric’s Divinity to patch the wound back up.
Once the day was over, the three of them almost immediately fell unconscious, before Ann had even finished setting up the wards.
Each and every one of us was running low on resources, with Ann having spent the last dregs of her mana on the fortifications. It was up to Matt, Emilia, Liam and I to keep watch, and it was fucking dreadful.
The days were icy. The nights were freezing.
It was so far below freezing that I was pretty sure my breath didn’t just turn to steam, but into actual ice crystals that dropped to the floor with soft plinks. The tiny bits of sweat on my skin from marching froze into thin plates of ice, sapping my warmth further. I had to routinely shake them off.
At least I was able to use my mirror Qi within the wards. That allowed me to keep somewhat warm. I bent reflection to reflect my own body heat back at me. It was crude, and clumsy, and took a horrendous amount of Qi to pull off, but somehow, the ability listened after two dozen tries or so.
When morning came around, my party members looked like they’d been through hell. Exhausted, drained, and completely fucking weary. But the monastery was in sight.
It was a few pagodas, built into a large valley between two peaks. There was even a staircase to make it up the final bit of elevation towards it, even if said staircase was mostly rubble by now.
Getting there, though, was a different beast entirely. We were unlucky enough to be attacked by ice elementals, again, and for a second time, their frost auras sapped our stamina. By the time we’d repelled them, Ann had burnt through most of her mana once more, barely hanging onto her passive protection spells.
At least there were no more attacks until we reached the stairs.
And they must have been built by a fucking sadist.
Each step was too long or too short, and the steps themselves were so thin you could slip on each one of them. In fact, Eric did slip, onto me, and I barely caught him by making platforms out of Qi for me to stand on, rather than relying on the ground. Emilia was relying on her connection with the stone, Marie, Liam and Eric on their superhuman dexterity to just… walk up the fucking staircase.
The pressure in the air was so heavy now, just drawing breath was hard, only to then find that the air seemed to freeze the blood in your veins. It was horrible.
And I had one of the easiest times out of our party, with iron will active.
Eventually, after an annoying amount of climbing over destroyed bits of the staircase, making our way past and above boulders, and trying not to break our necks while freezing our asses off, we finally, finally made it to the top of the staircase.
In front of us stood a large, decrepit wooden gate. It was scratched up and damaged, long, thin gashes in the wood. But it still stood closed. I could feel the hum of Qi behind it, dozens of warding formations drawing in the ambient energy to keep this place free from monsters.
Emilia and I stepped forward, leaning against the door, bracing our feet into the floor, and pushing. There was a whole lot of resistance, with the thing being frozen shut, but with a few kicks into the middle of it from Matt, the ice covering it eventually cracked, and the doors suddenly swung open.
Behind it, a dozen weasels with scythes for arms turned to face us. It was not a good day.