The surface of the ice vibrated like the taut skin of a giant drum. The hand beneath her pressed slowly, as if testing its resistance, as if feeling the heat of Kael's fla and instinctively responding to the stimulus.
Sylphie raised both hands, green mana radiating with urgency.
"Wait… don't let it break yet. If it breaks wrong, the guardian might erge from the wrong side and—"
CRACK.
A deep crack ford beneath their feet, racing like lightning under the dark ice. Irelia tugged at Kael by the collar, dragging him two steps back.
"Kael, this is the mont when any sensible person retreats a little!"
"I'm not sensible."
"Clearly!"
Alia raised her staff, tracing swift runes in the air. Each symbol she drew sank into the ice in the form of bluish light, reinforcing the edges of the fissures.
"I'm trying to keep this steady, but this thing is pushing like it wants to be born!"
Sylphie bit her lower lip, assessing the situation quickly.
"Kael, keep the heat, but don't break the ice completely yet."
Kael lifted the fla, now more concentrated and dense, as if it were a boiling core in the palm of his hand.
"It's up to you! Should we release it or not?!"
Irelia replied without hesitation:
"It depends. Can it swim?"
Sylphie closed her eyes for a few seconds, feeling the vibration of the mana trapped beneath the ice.
"…it doesn't swim. It crawls. And the sll I sll is…" She slowly opened her eyes. "…ancient. Very ancient."
Another thud from below shook the surface.
THOOM.
The shadow grew.
Fingers spread, scratching the ice from within, leaving deep marks that spread like sharp claws. Alia swallowed hard.
"This is bigger than it looked."
Irelia stepped forward, sword at the ready.
"If it breaks, it cuts your hand. If it pulls anything else up, it cuts that too."
"Sounds like a great plan," Kael muttered sarcastically. "Just don't let it pull you back down."
The cracks gathered in the center of the area Kael had lted.
The black fla reacted, growing taller, like a feline arching its back at the sight of prey.
"It's ready," Kael said, his tone serious. "Whatever it is, it's about to co out."
Sylphie opened her hands.
Green mana vines enveloped the area around her, solidifying the ice into a firm ring to prevent total collapse.
"This will direct it upwards. But I can only hold this reinforcent for a few seconds!"
"Seconds are all we need," Irelia said.
Alia murmured a final spell, and a violet glow surrounded the area. "Ready. If he gets out… he'll get out through the center."
Kael took a deep breath, stepped forward, and raised the fla as a final blow.
"Then let's unleash the damn thing once and for all."
And he lowered his hand.
The fla touched the frozen surface with a muffled roar, causing the ice to crack like lting butter under a hot blade.
The guardian reacted imdiately.
THOOOOOM.
The giant hand pushed with full force.
The ice finally shattered into shards.
The explosion of dark vapor and frozen fragnts rose like a column.
And sothing erged.
At first, only the hand: long, skeletal, ford of living ice that shifted texture, as if breathing. Then, the forearm, an irregular block that seed composed of several layers of ice forcibly piled up.
Irelia leaped back, perfect posture.
Kael stepped forward.
"Well… you're not one of the small ones."
The creature partially rose—its torso still trapped in the ice, but its upper part now free. The face erged last: a smooth mask, without eyes, without a mouth, only fissures that moved subtly, like cracks trying to reorganize themselves into expressions.
Sylphie shuddered.
"This isn't natural… it's not a spirit, nor an elental. It's… a construct."
Alia finished with horror:
"A cursed ice construct. Created. Not born."
The guardian finally let out a sound—not a roar, but the scraping of thousands of ice blades shattering simultaneously.
SKRRRRRHHH.
Kael gritted his teeth.
"I hate when they don't have mouths and still make noise."
The creature lunged forward with its hand outstretched, trying to crush him.
Kael raised the black fla and deflected, the energy ricocheting off the living ice and leaving a mark of deep heat that opened a fissure.
"Hit it! It feels it!" Sylphie scread.
Irelia was already running along the side, cutting the creature's tendon—or what appeared to be a tendon. Her sword slid across the ice, but not without difficulty.
"He's as hard as stone!"
Alia unleashed a burst of violet energy, targeting one of the arm joints.
The creature reacted, turning toward her.
Kael ran, leaped over a crack, and struck with fla gleaming like a blade.
The creature recoiled, its arm trembling, fissures spreading across its surface.
But when it fell to its knees…
…the ice beneath it trembled again.
Sylphie paled.
"There's more."
"MORE?!" Alia cried.
"No… not another guardian. Sothing calling him. Pulling him back!"
Kael plunged the fla into the creature's back, which let out an agonizing crack.
"He's not trying to kill us," Irelia realized. "He's trying to get back down!"
Kael pushed the fla further. "Well, it won't!"
The creature slamd its arm on the ground, opening a crater.
And the ice shattered around it, forming a vortex.
Sylphie stretched her mana to try and stabilize it, but the hole grew larger.
"Kael! We need to get out!"
"If I take away the fla, he'll co back!"
"And if you stay there, YOU'LL go with him!" Irelia shouted.
The ice shattered completely.
A deep, narrow black hole sucked the creature back into the depths of the frozen tunnel.
Kael grabbed the guardian's arm to try and pull—but the downward force was monstrous.
Sylphie stepped forward and grabbed his arm.
Irelia grabbed Sylphie.
Alia planted her staff in the ground and held her shield.
They were all connected.
The ground trembled.
The hole roared.
The creature sank.
And Kael scread through clenched teeth.
"I'M NOT FINISHED WITH YOU YET!"
The black fla exploded from his hand, opening a final crack in the guardian's chest.
The creature collapsed, crumbling into fragnts that were imdiately swallowed by the vortex.
The hole sucked in the rest.
And closed.
All at once.
Silence returned.
Sylphie fell to her knees.
Alia was panting.
Irelia slowly sheathed her sword.
Kael stood still for a few seconds, staring at the newly ford ice.
Sylphie was the first to speak.
"…this… shouldn't… be here."
Kael took a deep breath, his hand still trembling from the force he had exerted.
"If they put a guardian like that at the entrance…"
Irelia finished:
"…then the king isn't the only one trapped down there."
Alia whispered, a sudden awareness dawning on her face:
"They knew we were coming."
Kael finally looked at the three of them, his face as serious as a blade.
"Then let's go down… before they put another one to wait for us."
And he raised the fla again.
Ready to clear the way.
The ice trembled again—this ti more violently, as if sothing down there had finally realized there was an escape route. Cracks opened in jagged lines, advancing like veins beneath the surface.
Irelia adjusted her stance, sword in hand.
"It's coming."
Alia raised her staff, forming a circle of runes that swirled in the air like small, glistening shards.
"This isn't normal. Nothing that lives under the ice should wake up so quickly…"
Sylphie narrowed her eyes, placing her hands on the cracked ice and sending mana through the fissures.
"It's not waking up. It's reacting to you, Kael."
He didn't take his eyes off the shadow moving below.
"Then fine. Saves ti."
The black fla rippled above his palm, distorting the air. The light it emitted didn't illuminate—it darkened, as if pulling all the light towards itself.
A final crack cut the ice with an echoing CRACK—and the hand erged.
The frozen surface bulged upward and exploded in a jet of shards, launching pieces of sharp ice in all directions. Irelia raised her sword to block; Alia raised a barrier; Sylphie pulled Kael back by his cloak.
But Kael didn't back down.
He advanced.
A gigantic arm, made entirely of living ice, rose from the ground—fingers as long as spears, each pulsing with a dark blue light that seed to breathe.
Sylphie's eyes widened.
"That's… a Gélion!"
Irelia frowned. "A what?"
"An ice golem. They don't exist anymore, or at least, they shouldn't."
Alia struck her staff on the ground, activating three protective runes.
"Great! And soone decided to use one as a guard dog!"
The rest of the body erged: enormous, twisted, made of layers of compressed ice and ancient runes that glowed within the fissures of its chest. It had no face—just a smooth mask with a vertical hole in the center, like a single dead eye.
Kael took another step forward.
The black fla roared, answering the threat. "Kael!" Sylphie pulled at her cloak again. "This is no ordinary enemy! The fla won't—"
"It will."
He raised his hand—and the fla lengthened, transforming into a curved blade of black fire that cut through the air with a hollow sound.
The Gélion rose fully, reaching almost three ters in height.
It let out a deep sound—not a roar, not a voice, but the deep crack of shifting ice plates.
And it attacked.
The enormous arm descended like a hamr.
Kael moved quickly, dodging sideways, the impact of the blow sending snow and ice flying upwards in a wave that sent Alia three steps back. Irelia leaped onto a broken block, advancing with her sword.
"I'll distract him!"
"No!" Sylphie cried. "The normal blade won't—"
Too late.
Irelia's sword struck the Gélion's arm—and ricocheted, sending sparks flying. The warrior leaped back before the icy arm crushed her on the return.
"Damn! It's too hard!"
"It's ice compressed by ancient magic!" Alia shouted, activating another protective rune to block it for a second. "The only thing that can break this is—"
Kael rushed past the three, his black blade carving a smoking trail across the frozen ground.
"."
The Gélion turned toward him. Its single vertical "eye" lit up with bluish light.
Kael grinned—a short, almost defiant smile.
The guardian moved surprisingly quickly for sothing so massive, launching a horizontal attack that swept across the ground like a falling log. Kael leaped, rolled in the air, and landed on the creature's arm, gliding across the ice as if it were a smooth surface.
"Kael!" Sylphie scread.
But it was too late to stop him.
He lunged at the guardian's arm—and struck.
The black fla blade cut deep, opening a massive fissure in the icy arm. The Gélion let out another cracking sound, this ti sharper, like ice breaking under extre pressure.
Kael fell to the ground at the end of the blow and rolled to cushion the impact. The creature recoiled, its arm now visibly cracked and pulsing with blue light.
"That works!" Alia exclaid, relieved.
"It works," Irelia agreed, "but he works too."
The guardian raised both arms—and slamd them into the ground.
Sylphie's eyes widened.
"Kael, GET OUT OF THERE!"
Too late.
Waves of ice spread across the ground like stalactite serpents, surging toward Kael with brutal speed.
He tried to leap—but the ground beneath his feet froze so quickly that it pinned him in place for a critical second.
It was enough for the attack to reach him.
"Sylphie!" Irelia cried.
The elf was already in motion—gliding forward, green mana dancing around her arms. She raised a natural barrier that sprouted from the ground like crystallized roots.
The ice attack collided with the barrier—cracking it completely, but the ti it gained was enough.
Kael freed his foot, staggering backward.
Sylphie rushed to him.
"Are you alright?"
Kael smiled, still panting.
"I'm fine. He's just… bigger than I expected."
"What do we do?" Irelia asked, dodging yet another attack. Alia unleashed a burst of runes that slowed Gélion's advance for a few seconds.
"Kael, if you're planning on doing sothing stupid... do it now!"
User Comments
0 comments from readers