Third Person’s POV
Her gaze shifted toward the chaotic battlefield below for a brief mont before returning to the group.
"...when they always seem to fail at the most important monts."
As she spoke, her eyes moved toward Princess Arlene.
She gave her a small, playful wink.
The gesture caused Arlene to smile faintly in response, though her expression carried a hint of awkwardness and unease.
Despite being saved, she was clearly uncomfortable, as this woman was her aunt.
And for reasons she could not fully explain, Arlene had never felt at ease in her presence.
anwhile, the armored knight heard her words clearly.
His eyes flashed with suppressed fury and embarrassnt.
However, he did not dare to respond as he understood her status.
And more importantly, he knew that he had indeed made a grave mistake monts before, almost leaving the princess undefended and in grave danger.
With a low growl, he tightened his grip on his weapon and surged forward once more, charging back into the dense cloud of icy mist where the enraged serpent continued to thrash wildly.
Behind him, the group remained protected, standing safely behind the towering ice wall that the beautiful blue-haired ice mage had raised, the barrier standing firm as an unyielding shield between them and the chaos beyond.
The beautiful blue-haired woman descended slowly from the air, her movents graceful and unhurried as if the chaos unfolding nearby held no urgency for her at all.
Her figure drifted down like a falling snowflake before she finally landed lightly before the group of four.
A soft smile curved her lips as her gaze first lingered on Princess Arlene before shifting toward the young maid standing beside her, whose expression had already grown noticeably tense the mont the woman had approached.
All traces of the maid’s earlier liveliness and mischief had vanished without a trace.
Her face was now stiff, and her smile was forced and trembling at the edges as she lowered her head repeatedly, bowing with hurried and slightly unsteady movents.
"Claire greets you... m-mistress..."
Her voice faltered slightly despite her effort to maintain composure as it betrayed the unease that had settled deep within her heart.
Seeing this, the blue-haired woman’s eyes curved into delicate half-moon shapes, and a faint glimr of amusent surfaced within them as a soft, lodic laugh escaped her lips once more.
The sound was light and pleasant, and almost enchanting, yet, strangely, no one present found it comforting.
Neither Arlene nor the others dared to relax even in the slightest.
To them, that laughter carried sothing far more unsettling beneath its surface.
"Arlene greets you, Aunt... and thanks you for saving my life..."
Arlene spoke next, her tone polite and carefully asured as she offered a respectful greeting.
A faint and controlled smile rested on her lips as she t the woman’s gaze directly.
The blue haired woman turned toward her again, her eyes settling on Arlene’s face with a quiet intensity that seed to observe more than what was visible on the surface.
Arlene did not look away, though behind that calm exterior, her thoughts were anything but still.
Questions surged through her mind one after another like,
Why was she here?
Had her father secretly arranged for her to follow them?
Or had she co of her own accord?
None of it made sense to her, yet, despite the growing doubts within her, Arlene did not voice even a single one of them as she knew better.
She knew exactly who this woman was.
"Hehe... there’s no need to thank your aunt, Arlene. We are family, after all..."
The blue haired woman replied softly in her smooth and warm voice, her smile gentle and almost affectionate.
But Arlene did not believe a single word of it, not even for a mont.
There was always sothing hidden beneath that smile, sothing she could never quite grasp.
At that mont, the woman’s gaze shifted away from Arlene and drifted toward the center of the cavern, where the small island stood within the icy pond.
Her eyes landed on the frost soul orchid swaying faintly amidst the turbulent currents of cold air and scattered frost, its delicate petals shimring faintly even within the chaos.
Beyond it, the battle continued.
Within the swirling storm of snow and shattered ice, flashes of deep blue aura burst forth again and again, colliding violently with the massive serpent as shockwaves rippled outward with each clash.
The deep blue aura was clearly distinct from ordinary ice elental energy.
It did not carry the familiar chill or fluidity that one would associate with ice, nor did it resemble any of the natural elental attributes such as fire, water, wind, lightning, or earth.
Instead, it felt more refined, denser, and more absolute as it was not bound by any elental nature.
Rather, it was sothing that had transcended it.
Where elental mana relied on its inherent properties to exert power, this aura seed to have abandoned all such limitations after being refined repeatedly to a level where it no longer needed an identity tied to any single elent.
It was pure force born out of pure refinent of a mix of multi-attribute elental energy.
Watching this, the blue-haired woman let out another soft laugh, her lips curling slightly as a hint of amusent returned to her expression.
"Well... it seems he isn’t entirely useless after all..."
Her tone was light and almost teasing, as if she were casually comnting on sothing trivial rather than a life-and-death battle unfolding just a short distance away.
Throughout all of this, however, one thing remained particularly noticeable, and it was that she had completely ignored the presence of the remaining two mbers of the group.
Not once had her gaze shifted toward Uncle Caspian or his grandson, not even for a fleeting mont.
It was as if they did not exist at all for her, yet, despite such blatant disregard, Uncle Caspian did not show the slightest hint of dissatisfaction.
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