The fireball from before had obliterated one end of the underground passage, forcing Jenkins to take the other route.
He could pinpoint Dolores's location through her aura. Had they been on the surface, they would have t within minutes. But down here, they were in a complex, maze-like network of tunnels. Jenkins had assud it was the Parliant's ergency shelter, but the sheer size of the place suggested otherwise.
He hadn't taken ten steps down the corridor before reaching a crossroads, presenting him with three different paths. He paused, pulling a coin from his pocket, but before he could flip it, a frantic cascade of footsteps echoed from the corridor to his left.
Glancing to his left, Jenkins saw a young man with a deathly pale face erge from the shadows of the corridor. The stranger lacked any kind of magical monocle, so he didn't spot Jenkins until he rounded the corner.
"Behind ... behind ! Run...!"
The stranger jumped, startled, but seeing what appeared to be a normal young man, his panic gave way to a sliver of relief. He shouted the warning between ragged gasps for air, then, without a second glance, scrambled down the corridor Jenkins had just erged from.
Jenkins stood his ground, eyes narrowed as he stared into the foreboding corridor. A layer of white frost crept along the walls, spreading out from the darkness ahead. The temperature plumted, and a low, guttural roar, like that of a wild beast, rumbled from the shadows.
Jenkins saw it then—a hulking, humanoid creature charging out from the depths of the corridor. It stood at least eight feet tall, its powerfully built fra covered in shaggy white fur, giving it the appearance of an albino gorilla. As it erged, the frost spread even faster, racing toward the crossroads.
"Raaaargh!"
The creature must have had so form of dark vision, for it spotted Jenkins from down the hall, lowered its head, and charged.
"A yeti?"
Jenkins thought, puzzled. He casually raised a hand and t the creature's head, halting its charge with surprising ease. A mont later, flas erupted from his wrist. The beast shrieked, trying to pull back, but the fire had already coiled around it.
Within seconds, it dissolved into a pool of lted snow, and the temperature around them ceased its downward plunge.
At that mont, the man who'd run into the dead end reappeared, scrambling back in a panic and clutching a rock as a makeshift weapon. He hugged the wall, tiptoeing forward, only daring to erge from behind the corner after confirming the creature was gone.
His fear was now directed at Jenkins, as flas still danced around Jenkins's hand. The mont Jenkins's gaze fell upon him, the man collapsed against the stone wall, his limbs twitching uncontrollably.
Jenkins wasn't sure what about him was so terrifying, but that aura of intimidation proved useful in quickly extracting the information he needed.
Just as Alexia had surmised, King Salsi II had received a warning before the two cannonballs struck. A man in a sergeant major's uniform had rushed forward, interrupting the king's speech in the square with a loud shout, announcing that an attack was imminent.
When King Salsi II beckoned him closer to report, the man pulled a pistol from his pocket and opened fire on the king. The crowd, having witnessed the assassination attempt, erupted into total chaos. Minutes later, the two cannon blasts reaped the lives of nearly everyone present.
"Salsi II is dead?"
"I don't know. I don't know anything," the man stamred. "My father and I... my father is Count Fran... we were swept inside with the crowd. Soone shouted that there was an underground shelter down here..."
The young nobleman fought to control his fear, his voice trembling as he spoke. He fumbled at his pocket, trying to produce sothing to prove his identity, but discovered it had been torn open in the chaos, and was now empty.
Still, a torn pocket was a small price to pay. He was undoubtedly lucky to be alive. He had worn an exceptionally elaborate set of formal attire to attend the king's speech, and the cumberso outfit had slowed him down. If Jenkins hadn't appeared when he did, the yeti would surely have killed him.
"Then what was that creature?"
"Not long after we got down here, soone supposedly went mad and started tearing off their clothes. I didn't see it myself, but I heard their skin started to rot, and they turned into... that thing. Anyone who gets caught by one of them becos one, too. I lost my father in the chaos... I was running and ran right into it..."
There were no lies in his words, yet Jenkins discerned a different ssage.
"Contagious... like a yeti," Jenkins mused. "But wasn't the Yeti Legion stopped at the great northern ice cap? And they convert humans through incomprehensible rituals and the legion's own power, not through so kind of biological contagion."
The clues he had were insufficient. He needed to investigate further, which ant pressing on. The young noble clearly wasn't going to accompany him, so Jenkins could only advise him to find a place to hide on his own.
From their exchange, Jenkins also confird that the destroyed corridor was an exit to the surface; the man had been trying to escape back to ground level.
He continued down the corridor, which felt more like a tomb passage with every step. Using the lingering layer of white frost on the walls as a guide, Jenkins followed the trail back to the yeti's source. Five minutes of walking brought him to a large hall. The scattered bodies of several victims, clearly trampled to death in a stampede, lay strewn across the floor. Torn scraps of clothing and mismatched shoes littered the ground.
This had to be the place the young nobleman had described—the spot where the first yeti had appeared.
The hall was not empty, however. Floating in the dead center of the chamber was a massive, ice-blue crystal. Jenkins could faintly make out a rolled-up parchnt scroll sealed within its core. The object radiated a brilliant aura, so intense it nearly illuminated the entire cavernous space.
"Don't tell that's the contract Alexia was talking about," Jenkins thought, incredulous.
He took a single step forward, intending to enter the hall, but the instant his foot crossed the invisible threshold, a blast of extre cold shot up from the floor, surging through his body.
"Damn it, I let my guard down!"
He froze in place, utterly paralyzed as the frost raced up from his foot to consu his entire body. With a series of sharp, crystalline cracks, a thick layer of ice encased him. The translucent block took on a human form, and within it, Jenkins was faintly visible, his face locked in an expression of shock, forever facing the crystal in the center of the hall.
Fifteen minutes passed. The sound of frantic, disorganized footsteps echoed from the distance, punctuated by sporadic gunfire that spoke of sheer panic.
A group of people rushed into view from the far end of the corridor. Leading the charge, guns at the ready, were two well-trained guards. They stopped short, startled by the human-shaped ice sculpture at the passage's entrance, but then let out a collective sigh of relief when they found no sign of any yetis.
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