Unbound

“The Frostfather is our god. He of the ice and night, who’s power birthed our people,” Naberius said.

They were walking across the frigid plains, but most of the snow was hidden under the weight of bat corpses. The enemies kept on coming, even after the initial rush. He devoured their bodies as he listened to the Witches' explanations. To their credit, Naberius managed to hide her shock as clouds of smoky lights poured into Felix’s mouth. Her voice barely stuttered.

“Wh-when the first breath of winter arrived on the Continent, the Frostfather was there, shepherding it until it formed our home. The Hoarfrost. From the ice, he made us. The Risi, born to thrive in the lands of cold stone. To rule.”

“Wait,” Felix said, a wisp of Essence trailing from his mouth. “I thought the Mother had her hands in things. And that mortals pushed the Risi into the north.” He remembered that from his first interactions with the Frost Giants…and an instructive discussion with Grimmar. “But you’re saying you’ve always been here?”

Sitri clucked her tongue and her jowls shook. “Born of ice and stone, but with Spirits of fire. The Risi seek conquest. For a great many generations, we lived in the southlands. We claimed them.”

“And the Mother is…apocryphal. That one being created all the various monsters upon the Continent is foolishness bordering on blasphemy.” Naberius bared her teeth at the middle distance, as if remembering something foul. “It matters little, now. The Cult of the Mother is dead.”

Huh. They kept walking, albeit at a fast pace. Felix didn’t trust the footing, not with sheets of ice breaking apart hundreds of yards away, but he was also in a hurry. He would have flown if hadn’t acquired an audience. Ahead, the ground had been sheared through when several more spires had fallen during his battle, exposing more and more of the rotting ice and deep, dark water below. Felix half expected every rock they passed under to do the same.

Pit walked beside him, alert and eager. He’d earned two levels in that fight, and was still buzzing with the residual energy from all those stat increases. “Don’t worry about the Mother,” he said. “We killed her anyway.”

Silence met Pit’s words while confusion, curiosity, and disbelief spun in clouded circles around the Witches. He was happy for the quiet. Felix wasn’t going to explain that whole situation, even if they asked.

His thoughts drifted instead to the notifications he had received. The new Title was nice, and likely indicated he’d more than surpassed this first layer. That was good, since this was probably the place that needed the most culling. The Brumalbats didn’t offer a lot of Essence, but every ocean was made up of individual droplets of water. For now, he’d take all he could.

The second notification was the real issue. It indicated this Frostfather was a literal being, and not just some religious thing of the Frost Giants. Felix had no reason to believe some random god was fake, not with how his life had turned out, but it was still disquieting. Is he an Urge or an actual god? Or another Primordial?

The Mother of Monsters had another name, after all. Before he devoured her.

“The goal is to keep moving inward right? Through the layers?” he asked.

“It is. The exit lies ahead, at that glacial ridge there.”

“Got it.” Felix scanned ahead, noting colony after colony of glittering Brumalbats between them and the miles distant ridge. “Stick close, then.”

It was bloody work, slaughtering their way through the icy plains. Felix and Pit took to it with gusto at first, but it quickly grew tedious. After only a few more battles, the ice bats started avoiding their party entirely, fleeing on sight. Pit and Felix chased a few of them down, but the effort to catch, kill, and consume them swiftly proved futile. The experience and Essence they provided was meager at best, especially in the small quantities that they were able to capture at once. Felix considered lingering in the first layer to track them all down, but Naberius told him greater beasts were located at each successive layer. That sounded good enough to him.

Now they stood before a massive glacier that stretched across the entirety of the horizon. It was like a wall, vanishing into swirling clouds of snow to either side.

“Behold. The exit of the first layer and entrance to the second.” Naberius gestured to the craggy ice wall before them. It was riddled with crevices and ridges, but there was no cave or tunnel. Just solid ice.

“Okay,” Felix said, drawing out the word. “Is this something we have to climb?”

The Witches did not answer, and for once their Spirits were still. Felix raised an eyebrow. Clearly this was another test.

Pit looked up. “I think I can manage a climb,” he said.

“Don’t worry about it. Lemme check it first.” Felix scratched his friend’s ears, prompting his horse-sized back leg to stomp involuntarily. “Be back in a second.”

Cloudstep!

Adamant Discord!

Lightning surged upward and Felix rode atop of it. He’d made sure to cushion his leap with a Cloudstep, but the sharp sound of splitting ice followed him as he ascended. Whoops.

No time to worry about that now.

Felix continued to pull, hauling back with a huge amount of his Strength and hurtling upward at a ridiculous speed. The ice wall before him, however, never abated. He burst through clouds into brilliant sunlight and back into clouds again, yet the expanse of the glacier was endless. It had no top, which meant climbing it was a fool’s game.

He shot back down.

“No climbing,” he said as he landed, this time far softer than his takeoff. Felix glanced at the Witches. Foris was peering at him and then back up, Sitri had bundled herself in her robes, and Naberius simply watched with a faint smile on her angular face. “What do you think, Pit?”

His Companion was standing closer to the glacier, beak almost pressed against the ice. A crack had split some of the ground and taken a chunk out of the wall too, and he raised a talon and dragged it slowly against the ice. Chips fell off, and to Felix’s Manasight they smoked with an intense vapor.

“I think we have to break through,” Pit said. Without another word, he slashed his talons full force into the ice. A large section broke away, easily twice as big as Pit himself and forcing him to dance backward away from its collapse.

Hurricane Rasp is level 80!

Pit looked back at Felix, a big grin on his face and his golden eyes gleaming. “I got this. Dawn’s Advent!”

The tenku swung his paws forward again, and this time they unleashed twin crescents of brilliant golden energy that ripped across the air and into the glacier. Deep, angled cuts sizzled into the ice, billowing with steam. Pit crowed, a bugle so viciously happy that Felix couldn’t stop his grin. What followed was a frenzy of burning light, crackling lightning, and furious talon strikes into the glacier’s endless facade…until it broke apart entirely.

From beneath the ice, a perfectly formed archway led into a portal of brilliant blues, greens, and whites. Pit cheered. “Hah! Easy!”

“Great job, little man.” Felix peered through the tunnel, but it flickered strangely when he stepped closer than a few feet. As if it were a candle in the wind, threatening to gutter out. “Oh, I don’t think this likes me.”

“It is made for the one that breaks it open.” Naberius had also drawn close, and they were now looking at Pit in an entirely new way. “You have proven yourself worthy of this path, Pit of Nagast.”

Pit perked up, throwing out his chest as his triangular ear tufts wiggled. “Oh?” His bushy fox tail wagged furiously. “Of course I have.”

“You must proceed,” Sitri urged, motioning toward the lit tunnel with age-spotted hands. “The Frostfather will not wait.”

Pit’s ears wilted slightly. “Separately? Why can’t Felix—”

“The tunnel’s for you, man.” Felix smiled, though the idea of splitting from his friend when he was hurt was— “I’ll make my own way and meet you on the other side.”

“Oh. Alright.” He fluffed the feathers along his neck and back, casting off pieces of snow and ice. “Here I go then.”

He trotted into the tunnel and in seconds vanished into the light.

“Now you, Human,” Fortis said, drawing Felix’s attention. She gestured at the ice wall, and when Felix turned back he found Pit’s tunnel had vanished entirely. “It is time to prove your worth.”

Prove my worth, he grumbled to himself. Right. The ice wall was cold and extremely hard, but Pit had slashed it open with a few Skills. Which Skill though? Hm. Let’s just start with a simple strike.

Felix set his feet and reared back with a simple, clenched fist. No Skills. No magic.

He punched.

A ripple tore across the face of the glacier, wind ripping in its wake as ice was obliterated in a chaos of concentric circles. Ice exploded outward all down the horizon, spitting shards from the explosive fissures that tore open, while dust and snow plumed across the sky.

“Y-you have proven yourself worthy of this path, Felix Nevarre,” Naberius whispered.

“Yeah.” Felix looked from the destruction he’d wrought to the cavernous tunnel he’d bored with a single punch. It was filled with light. “I figured.”

“Eugh,” Felix said as soon as he stepped through the portal. His foot crunched on snow and ice, but it was far preferable to the feeling he’d just went through. “It’s like my insides took a cold shower.”

The Witches followed after, though they showed zero discomfort. “Such is the way of the Hoarfrost,” Sitri croaked. “It shall shatter your weakness and leave only strength.”

Felix ignored them and instead took in his new surroundings. He was still on an icy plain beneath a winter sky, but it was now later in the day—a perpetual sunset. Those spires of metal and stone were also way more prevalent in the second layer, filling up so much space that the plains were all but hidden beneath their bulk. A few hundred yards ahead, tunnels were cut through the nearest ones, perfectly round as if they had been melted. A herd of huge armored creatures ambled about near their openings, looking like a cross between a multi-horned rhinoceros and a many-legged beetle.

The creatures were rooting around in the snow where large patches had been dyed a dark blue color. I doubt that’s snow cone flavoring. With a trumpeting roar, one of the monsters charged into a tunnel, bashing full force into the side with its blunt head. The sound of ice splintering filled the air at first, but was swiftly supplanted by the chittering of a hundred familiar voices. Brumalbats.

Felix readied himself for another fight, but instead of attacking the bats scattered in all directions. It was soon apparent why, as the herd of rhino-bugs shot skewers of stone through their swarm. Brumalbats dropped by the dozen while the others fled, and the rhino-bugs gave several triumphant bugles before ripping into their meals.

He didn’t miss their razor sharp fangs or the way their cut-glass eyes caught the crimson sunset and reflected back fire like wolves in the dark.

Voracious Eye!

Name: Obelon

Type: Inferior Elemental

Level: 55

HP: 8700/8700

SP: 13420/13201

MP: 2734/3994

Lore: Born of stone and ice, the Obelon are mighty beasts known for durability and voracious appetites. They can remain stationary for long periods of time, burrowing into the snow to hunt in ambush while disguised as simple rocks. When food is plentiful, they are known for charging their foes and skewering them on their stone horns.

Strength: Tough hide.

Weakness: Poor maneuverability.

They were clearly physically powerful, and their poor speed was made up for by what looked like impressive Strength and Endurance for their level. Monster levels were a little misleading as a gauge, though, since Evolutions played a huge part in their growth cycle. Felix had no clue how advanced these Obelons were, only that his Voracious Eye ranked their overall advancement as a Tier III. Like with people’s advancement, the ranking was a feeling more than a System certainty, but he’d never been wrong before. A Tier III was equivalent to a high Journeyman combatant. Easy, in other words.

The Witches seemed to be unconcerned as well, though their Spirits betrayed them. Felix’s Affinity detected strains of eagerness above all others, and Naberius was clearly watching him with a steady, unabashed gaze.

Frankly, the moment he categorized their threat, Felix couldn’t have given two shits about the monsters ahead or the Witches behind. “Pit?”

I’m here. The answer came through their bond, the Etheric Concordance, words and sense images. Felix saw a brief vista that looked remarkably similar to his own, but definitely not the same.

Are you okay? Came through the portal without any problems?

I’m fine. These big…turtle bugs haven’t even noticed me.

You’re…south. I can feel you. Just over that icy ridge. Hold on, I’ll be over there in a second—

No! I said I can do this. I— Emotions tumbled through their bond, too knotted to be any one thing. I’ll meet you at the second layer exit, okay?

Felix clenched his jaw, but didn’t argue. Alright, bud. I’m here if you need me.

I know.

Their connection never faded, but Felix could tell when his Companion shifted his attention away. Toward danger. In the distance, he could hear the sound of thunder.

“Human. Why do you dawdle?”

Barely restraining a snarl, Felix forced himself to let the tension ease out of his shoulders. “The challenge is to just get through the layers, right? Or is there more to it?”

“This is not simply a trial of survival,” Naberius said, as if that was enough explanation.

“Fine.” This time he did growl. “Then let’s make this quick.”

He kicked off the ground, uncaring if he shattered the ice or made the Witches’ path harder. He was only focused on the obstacle in his way.

Stone Shaping!

Sliding to a stop right before the rhino-bugs, Felix let his Mana blast forth from him in a wave of dusty-brown. It crossed the final distance to the nearest Obelons and sank into the very rock of their bodies. Two dozen beasts roared in anger and confusion, their many eyes rolling as Felix grasped and twisted.

They exploded in a shower of vibrant silver viscera.

You Have Killed An Obelon (x24)!

XP Earned!

Beyond, the herd bellowed and charged him as one.

Rime Shaping!

Stone Shaping!

Dual Skills sounded within him, burrowing into the earth through the Mana Gates at his feet, before erupted in two monoliths of ice and stone.

“You’re in my way!” he shouted, and slammed his hands together.

You Have Killed An Obelon (x43)!

XP Earned!

All that remained on the field was a shattered column of frosty rock and pools of splattered silver ichor.

Chthonic Tribute!

And then even that was gone.

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