"The canyon’s perfect—we’ll use it to forge a garrison for the echoes."
[Domain: Region of Death has been copied]
"Let’s save the Apex Belial for the main course..."
[You’re using Wind Manipulation]
A cold smile crept across Northern’s face. The surrounding wind surged. The cocoon of darkness opened like a blooming flower, revealing his fluttering white hair and cold blue eyes. His clothes—a simple black shirt, black coat, and trousers—whipped violently as the wind intensified, countering the pulling force.
[You’re using Wind Embrace]
Northern hung suspended in the middle, and for a mont the space resembled an inverted vortex, the wind warring against itself.
[Eclipse Step has been used]
He materialized soundlessly on the nearest cliff edge while the inverted vortex spiraled into a hurricane that tore through the canyon.
Northern walked forward, entering the layered rings of the cliff. The mont he stepped onto the stone, he sensed monsters stirring, scurrying to reach him. Yet Northern moved with the bearing of soone utterly at ease—as if he either didn’t know about the treacherous monsters lurking in these hollows or simply didn’t care.
He felt the soft pulses of the wall as he passed through the narrow, winding pathway after descending into the first ring. The place was practically alive—had a beating heart rising and falling with a soft, undisturbed rhythm.
"Fascinating. They built their clan here? Either their ancestors were completely insane or ridiculously powerful."
From the side, sothing slithered out of the darkness, mouth gaping wide as it lunged toward Northern. Without a glance, Northern leaned back, letting the massive serpentine body glide past and slam its maw into the wall.
[You are using new Frost Heart Talent Ability: Heart of Winter]
The creature dug its vestigial limbs into the stone and wrenched its jaws free to pursue Northern, who had already moved ahead. As it slithered forward, frost raced up its body. Five steps later, it stopped. The creature froze solid.
[You have slain a Hazardous Maelstrom, Slag Serpent]
[You have gained five talent fragnts]
Around it, a blizzard stirred. As Northern walked forward, he left a swirling wake of snow and wind in his path—rising into a fog that followed behind him, freezing the walls and encasing anything foolish enough to chase him in ice.
Within a minute, the entire level of the cliff vanished beneath a thick, white blizzard that froze everything in its path and fed Northern talent fragnts.
The white-bodied serpents spat fireballs into the blizzard. At first, they sensed a threat prowling among them but soon enough they were as good as blind, deaf, anosmic. They communicated through heat, and most of their abilities relied on it.
By absorbing heat from the ground, for example, they could heal themselves and convert that absorbed heat into the fla projectiles they launched from their mouths.
Which was why Northern had chosen to exploit their weakness. He spread the blizzard across every corner, freezing the entire region and starving them of heat to absorb. He let the cold do the work while he shoved his hands into his coat pockets and ventured deeper into the canyon.
A loud, threatening screech ripped through the air—a thousand voices clawing at the edges of the sky. The sound hit him like a shockwave. Northern stopped.
"Was I wrong to underestimate it?"
With his eyes, he’d analyzed every monster that dwelled here, so he knew the best approach for each. He’d expected this tactic to work even against the strongest monster in this section—a Devilish Behemoth nad the Slag Wyrm.
"Well, devil-level monsters never play by the rules."
They were resilient by nature—the type of monsters that challenged order itself. They and Abyssals were rare, but if any monster could surprise him, it would be a devil-level. His experience had drilled that lesson into him, so this twist didn’t catch him completely off guard.
The ground beneath him trembled. Hot steam began seeping from the cracks.
Northern glimpsed a soft magma glow rising from the depths.
’Terraforming? Even overpowering Heart of Winter?’
[Essence Manifestation has been detected]
His eyes widened. Then his lips curved.
"Of course... it had to be."
His grin sharpened.
"So the bastard can terraform... I thought this was supposed to be soone else’s domain."
[Corrupted Domains can serve as common habitats for more than one monster, which is why it is not a Soul World but a Corrupted Domain]
"Geez, Aoi, that was rhetorical."
[...]
Northern’s gaze shifted from the system to the growing turbulence at the center of the snow blizzard. The snow evaporated at a horrifying rate, releasing hot steam that spawned violent gales and hurricanes, shoving the blizzard back toward Northern.
He stood straight, weight on one leg, hands buried in his pockets, watching the approaching heat hurricane with lazy eyes and a small smile plastered to his face.
"You know, Aoi, I’ve never been hit by a storm of heat before. I wonder how that would feel?"
[Due to Sun Legacy’s talent ability: Pyreheart Ascendant, your heart burns with eternal fla. Immune to all heat and fire. Your blood is liquid fire. Your body temperature can lt steel. Radiate heat that turns your surroundings into a furnace]
[Due to Frost Heart’s talent ability: Frozen Veins, you are immune to cold and ice. You can lower your body temperature to Absolute Zero and not feel harm]
[Hence, you cannot be hard by thermal attacks at either end of the spectrum]
Northern clicked his tongue.
"Tsk."
[Rhetorical?]
"Sarcasm, Aoi."
[...]
The raging storm of heat slamd into him at last. Through the hurricane of vapor, Northern locked eyes with the Slag Wyrm.
The creature resembled the others he’d seen—just ten tis larger. A massive serpentine body coiled forward, vestigial limbs tipped with crude, brutal claws. Thick, armored hide layered in overlapping scale plates—pink-red along its dorsal ridge, gray-black across its belly. Its eyes were molten pools, no pupils, just liquid fire. The head bore a distinctive cobra-like hood lined with jagged rock formations.
The Slag Wyrm’s body stretched over a hundred ters long with a diater of ten ters.
It lumbered forward, savagery blazing in its eyes, determined to tear a chunk from Northern’s skull.
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