Chapter 36: The Southern Range [3]
Alden put a hand on his chest.
"You scared the hell out of me." He exhaled. "What is it?"
Seris sat down beside him on the log. She looked at him for a moment first, the way she always looked at things.
"What were you thinking about so deeply?"
"Nothing. I’m just guarding."
One eyebrow went up. "Guarding?"
"Yeah."
"Alden." Her tone carried the patient certainty of someone who has already won the argument and is simply waiting for the other person to catch up. "You were sitting there grinning to yourself. I called you twice. You heard neither."
He looked away.
Alden clicked his tongue internally.
’In this entire world, the one person I’m trying hardest to keep at arm’s length is somehow the person who keeps ending up beside me.’
He knew exactly what Seris was. He knew what she was capable of when she chose to use it, even if she’d been keeping that part carefully out of view. And the problem was that she kept doing things that didn’t match the person he remembered designing.
Seris looked up at the stars.
"You should sleep, Alden. You’ve been awake this entire time."
He thought about it.
She wasn’t wrong. If he ran through the night and something happened in the morning, he’d be fighting on empty, and he’d already learned what that felt like in the underground chamber.
"Fine."
Seris immediately pressed her fingers to her lips.
"Oh." She looked genuinely entertained. "You actually listened without arguing."
"I was getting sleepy anyway," he said, which was partially true.
He moved to the log she’d been sitting on and lay down. Closed his eyes.
Seris remained where she was.
Her gaze moved across the camp. Nicholas and Roselle on the other side of the fire, Leon somewhere between them and Alden settled back on the person now apparently asleep in front of her.
’Of course. He moved as far from those two.’ She rested her chin against her hand.
’If that hostility can be used correctly...’ Her eyes held a quality that didn’t show up in her public expression. ’This guy could become quite useful.’
She looked at him a moment longer.
’If I can get him to my side first.’ Her expression shifted into something more thoughtful. ’Which might be harder than I expected.’
She kept watch. Alden’s breathing steadied.
______
Morning came with colder than the day before.
The temperature had dropped, the wind had sharpened, and the snow on the ground had added another layer while everyone slept. The group packed quickly and started moving again.
Seris sneezed.
Leon looked over. "Vice-President, are you cold?"
She rubbed her nose with one finger. "No. Dust."
Leon looked at the snow-covered mountain path they were walking through. He said nothing.
Alden glanced at her sideways.
’Dust? Out here?’
He also said nothing, but for different reasons.
They kept walking. There was a movement through the snow.
Alden’s eyes sharpened before his thoughts caught up with why.
’Rustle.’
Shapes emerged from between the trees on both sides.
Lots of mana beasts emerged suddenly.
"Holy—" Leon’s eyes went wide. "Where did they even come from?!"
"No matter from where they’ve come from." Seris’s scythe materialized in her hand. "Wipe them out first."
Nicholas was already moving, sword flashing, cutting through the first beast before it reached the group’s position.
Alden’s eyes swept the battlefield.
’Mana beasts this far out.’ His jaw set. ’The Helion Core thief must’ve noticed us and sent them to stop us.’ He clenched one hand.
’Let’s clear them first. Then—’ Something else caught his attention.
His gaze dropped to the Dragon page in Soul Library still open in the corner of his vision.
✔ Breath [Unlocked]
’I haven’t tried it yet.’
He focused on the Concept.
[Concept Equipped: Breath]
’Maybe dragon’s fire breath. So, it should come from my mouth. Probably.’
He considered the most direct interpretation. Open mouth, project heat, something destructive comes out. He didn’t want to open its description because he’d never understand even if he did.
He was about to do exactly that when a thought crossed his mind.
’It’s really cold out here.’
[Breath: Ice Activated]
"...What?"
Cold erupted from him in a wave.
Ice crystals formed in the air around his body, swirling outward, not from his mouth, from everywhere, gathering and accelerating and shooting forward in every direction like the air itself had decided to freeze.
The frost spread across the battlefield in a fraction of a second.
Every beast in its path stopped moving.
Crack!
Crack!
Crack!
One after another, they locked in place. Ice coating fur and claws and open jaws mid-charge, holding them in position like the world had paused around them.
"Wait what?" Leon stopped mid-spell. His sword was still raised.
"They froze?" Nicholas had lowered his blade slightly, looking at the row of frozen beasts in front of him.
Roselle stared in Alden’s direction. "It was his doing?"
Alden stared at his own hands.
’Ice. Not fire?’
He turned his hand over.
’The dragon used fire.’ Fire is what he expected.
’Did it come out as ice because I was thinking about the cold?’ He held that for a moment.
’Breath doesn’t have a fixed element. It responds to intent.’ His eyes sharpened.
’Then—’ He focused again. This time he didn’t think about cold or heat. He thought about something else entirely.
’...something like lightning?’
[Breath: Thunder Activated]
The ice shattered.
Blue-white electricity cracked along every frozen surface simultaneously, racing from beast to beast along the frost trails like they were conducting wire.
CRACK—
BOOM!
The thunder hit the battlefield in a wave. Lightning surged through every frozen form, arcing and splitting, the sound of it filling the mountain pass with a single sustained blast.
Then silence.
The snow continued falling.
Every beast was down. Not one left standing.
Leon’s mouth was open. His spells were still in the position it had been in when the ice appeared, which was a while ago.
Nicholas’s grip had gone loose.
Roselle was looking at Alden with the expression of someone who was deciding which question to ask first and couldn’t pick one.
Seris’s eyes had widened slightly.
Alden stood in the space where the battle had been, electricity still flickering in faint arcs around his arms. His eyes were moving over the results with an expression that had started as surprise and was turning into something considerably more excited.
’Amazing.’ He looked at his hands.
’The concept responds to what I’m thinking, to what I want it to be in the moment I activate it.’
Ice when he thought about cold.
Thunder when he thought about something fast and destructive.
’Then what else can I make?’