CHAPTER 335: THE STRANGE LAKE

Victor crouched behind an icy boulder and watched with a keen gaze. He noticed her wings spreading wide as if preparing for something.

That was when the air trembled.

A shrill roar tore through the icy wilderness, loud enough to make Victor’s heart pound against his ribs.

From the shadows of a frozen ridge, another creature covered in black rough fur emerged. It stood on four legs like a wolf, but its body was long and sinewy and its eyes emitted a deep amber glow.

It was the first time Victor was seeing a dark colored beast in this region.

The ground quaked as the two beasts clashed.

Victor ducked lower with widened eyes.

Frost exploded into the air as the serpent whipped her tail against the beast’s side, sending shards of ice flying like daggers.

The wolf-like monster lunged back with savage speed, biting deep into her wing. The serpent’s hiss echoed like thunder, shaking loose cascades of snow from the cliffs above.

The fight turned incredibly violent, resulting in a clash of primal dominion.

Victor watched, barely daring to breathe.

The serpent coiled, then unleashed a wave of icy mana from her body. The blast spread outward like a freezing storm, turning the nearby ground into a crystalline wasteland.

The wolf creature had no doubt built up resistance against frost since it lived in this region but for some reason, its movements still slowed.

The serpentine winged beast proceefed to whip of her tail against the ground, causing the ice to shatter.

The ground caved in around the wolf like beast and it fell through.

Puchiii~

A loud flesh tearing sound rang out and Victor eyes widened again upon realizing what had just happened.

The serpentine winged beast didn’t just shatter the icy ground to create a pit, she also used magic to conjure icy spikes at the bottom of the pit.

So the moment the wolf like beast fell through, it got impaled to death.

Victor exhaled slowly. "Remind me never to piss off a mother..."

The serpentine winged beast lingered there for a few moments before turning and slithering away again northward.

Victor slowly pushed up from behind the ice boulder and followed, forcing his aching body to keep moving.

Seconds turned to minutes and minutes soon turned into hours.

The terrain began to tilt as the ice ahead turned into a steep incline angled to the left. The slope seemed so deadly that even the serpentine beast seemed to move carefully, using her wings for balance as she ascended.

Victor tried to follow but quickly realized he was in trouble. His boots slipped. His fingers were numb. Every time he tried to dig his hand into the ice for leverage, it crumbled beneath his grip.

"Come on, come on..." he teeth clattered as he hissed.

Halfway up, a heavily concentrated gust of wind hit him. The world spun and suddenly he was sliding.

He hit the ground hard, tumbling through the snow before slamming against a frozen ridge. His vision went white for a moment as pain radiated from his shoulder.

When he finally staggered to his feet, panting and dazed, the serpent was gone.

There was no trail in the sky or on the icy sloppy grounds... no way of telling whether to turn East, West or keep going North.

He cursed under his breath.

"Perfect. Just... perfect."

Now he was alone. No trail. No direction. Just endless snow.

He turned slowly, scanning the white void. Every direction looked the same. Left or right, up or down... it was all identical.

Victor clenched his fists. "Looks like I’ll have to take a gamble."

He chose a direction at random and started walking.

The hours blurred together. The wind howled like a living thing, whispering through the icy plains. His body felt heavy and sluggish. His throat burned from thirst. His qi reserves were at an all time low and he didn’t dare circulate it too much which made the frost bloom layer across his body much more thinner than usual.

Just when he began to think he’d gone in circles, something changed.

He heard faint, rhythmic thuds in the distance.

Victor crouched low, peering through the mist.

He noticed dark bulky shapes moving in the fog with horns poking from their heads.

Victor realized it was a herd of beasts, trudging slowly through the snow. They were each the size of a house, marking them as gigantic creatures.

It seemed like they were heading somewhere.

Victor narrowed his eyes. "Guess I’ll follow you then..."

He shadowed them from a safe distance, using what little qi he had left to keep circulating frost bloom. The beasts seemed to be moving with purpose as if drawn to something.

Minutes turned into an hour, and then finally, he spotted something in the distance...

A glimmer of color amidst the endless white.

He blinked.

It was a body of water that cut through the frozen landscape, centered between massive ice peaks.

This shouldn’t have been possible because everything in this region was frozen solid and yet this lake was unaffected.

Victor’s heartbeat quickened. "Found you..."

He crouched behind a rough outcrop of ice, waiting for the herd to move away.

From what he had noticed so far, this was a very violent region where magical beasts of different species attacked each other upon contact. It was a dog eat dog world.

And he wasn’t about to start any trouble when he barely had any qi left.

He stayed still, barely breathing, until the last of the beasts disappeared into the distance.

Only then did he step forward.

The closer he got, the warmer the air felt.

Steam rose gently from the water, curling upward like smoke. He knelt by the edge, staring at his reflection.

"Man I look like a corpse..." Victor noticed he looked extremely pale and exhausted with sunken eyes but what drew his attention the most was something else.

"Hmm... my hair... it barely has any black on it..." he took notice of his hair which was much longer than before, reaching his upper back and almost completely white.

"What’s up with that?" He wondered out loud but didn’t have enough energy to give much thought to this particular issue.

He proceeded to dip his fingers into the lake and was surprised to find out that It was warm.

"This is no ordinary lake..." he whispered and slowly allowed the frost covering the hand he dipped in to disintegrate.

However, the moment it did, the lake’s water turned bone-chilling cold.

"Woah woah... what is with that change..." Victor was apalled and circulated his frost bloom to cover his hand again.

The lake turned warm once more and he immediately understood.

However, he couldn’t scoop any water if he let his entire body remain covered in frost so he let only the layer surrounding his palm disintegrate.

The first sip of water sent a ripple of life through his veins, banishing the dizziness that had been creeping in for days.

His cracked lips finally loosened, and his dry throat stopped scraping with each breath.

"Ahh... nectar of the heavens," Victor muttered before wiping his mouth with the back of his trembling hand. "If anyone asks, I fought ten beasts for this water."

After sipping many more palm full of water, he crouched beside the lake and tore off a section of his half-shredded academy uniform.

The cloth was stiff from frost, but he managed to twist it into something like a pouch. Scooping carefully, he filled it with water until it sagged under the weight. "Portable hydration," he said proudly. "Who needs a spatial pin when you have survival instincts and poor fashion sense?"

He tied the cloth shut and was about to turn away when a faint glowing flash caught his eye.

It came from the heart of the stream like moonlight refracting through ice. It vanished almost as soon as it appeared like a light bulb that was turned on and off instantly.

Victor frowned. "...Did that stream just wink at me?"

He stared for a moment longer, debating on whether to take action ot not. His curiosity itched, but he was in no shape to indulge it.

His qi reserves were paper-thin after surviving the encounter with the Dreamweaver and everything else in this frozen region.

Whatever lay beneath that water could wait. He needed to move and find a place to recuperate before the cold decided to turn him into a Victor-shaped popsicle.

He had barely turned when a deep, slicing sound cleaved through the silence.

Flap—flap—flap!

His head jerked up. Over the icy ridge to the east, a massive shadow swept across the terrain, blotting out the pale sunlight.

The creature’s wingspan could have swallowed a house whole. Frost trailed from its wings, and its screech tore through the frozen stillness like lightning through glass.

"Oh, perfect," Victor groaned while bursting into a sprint. "Another winged beast. Because of course I’d run into one. Heaven forbid I meet a bunny."

The beast scales glittered like diamonds of death as it dove downward.