It didn’t take them long to find the frozen lamp.
Honestly, it was hard to miss—a boulder-sized mass of ice right in the middle of the street.
Not carved, not designed, not even masked. Just raw, blunt, unnatural frost, glaring like a wound in the warm, polished heart of Region-1.
Art whistled low, hands in his pockets, amusent flickering in his eyes. "See? Didn’t take us a while."
Zyon’s lips twitched. "Yeah. But now cos the annoying part."
The frozen lump sat right in front of a shady alley—one that was unmistakably guarded.
A group of ten n, dressed in cobbled leather and dark layers, lounged near its mouth, but there was nothing casual about their eyes.
They were watching everything. Tense. Shifty. Their stance cracked slightly when they saw the duo approaching.
Art’s eyes glimred, and his grin turned jagged. Like a shark who’d scented blood in still waters.
’They’re definitely hiding sothing.’
Without missing a beat, he strolled forward, his steps lazy, grin widening by the second. A devil wearing the face of a boy.
"What are you guys hiding?" he asked, voice deceptively light, almost playful.
The question dropped like a hamr.
The delinquents froze, just for a beat, before rallying. A bulky man near the front straightened and stepped forward, face hardening.
"What hiding?" he barked, voice rough. "This is our territory. Why the hell would we hide sothing in our own space, huh?"
Art chuckled, eyes never leaving him. "You tell that."
The grin didn’t fade. It twisted.
Sothing about the way he was standing, the way his voice carried—too confident, too calm—began to gnaw at the group. They weren’t dealing with ordinary kids.
Zyon, anwhile, wasn’t even looking at them. His gaze swept over the surroundings. His senses, honed sharper than most, twitched like antennae.
The cold.
There was more of it.
Not just the obvious boulder of ice in the street, but a subtler chill, laced into the alley. Like thin frost running under the skin of the world.
’There’s more ice. A lot more. Sowhere close.’
His eyes narrowed.
Back at the standoff, none of the guards spoke. Their silence was answer enough.
Art sighed, exaggerating the sound. "Alright then. If you’ve got nothing to hide, get out of the way. Simple, right?"
He started walking forward.
The reaction was imdiate. One of the n, eyes wide, stepped in front of him and shoved a hand to Art’s chest.
"Oi! Back off, brat," the man growled. "This isn’t a playground."
The contact wasn’t hard. But it was enough.
Art’s smile vanished.
He didn’t say anything. Didn’t raise his hand or make a move.
He just looked at the man.
And everything in the alley seed to freeze—not from ice, not from magic, but from him.
The air turned heavier. Dense. Sharp.
The man who’d touched him—older, broader, stronger by all visual counts—suddenly felt like he was drowning.
His hand, still gripping Art’s shirt, began to tremble. Sweat trickled down his temple. His knees locked. His breath caught in his throat.
The pressure wasn’t magical.
It was Art.
His gaze wasn’t the glare of a child.
It was the gaze of soone who’d broken n far tougher than this. Soone who knew exactly how to kill without lifting a finger.
For a split second, the man understood—deep in his bones—that he’d made a terrible mistake.
But he couldn’t back down now.
He was already in too deep.
The Opalcrest gang had given him one job. Keep outsiders out. No exceptions.
If he let these two through, they’d gut him and hang his entrails from the market roof. But the kids—he had thought they were just curious nobles’ brats.
He was wrong.
Now, staring into Art’s eyes, he wasn’t sure which side scared him more.
Still, he forced himself to growl, tightening his grip.
"You don’t belong here," he said, voice rough. "Turn around and leave. While you still can."
Art tilted his head slightly, sothing cold and cruel dancing at the edge of his mouth. "Is that so?"
Zyon, sensing the shift, finally spoke. "Art."
His voice was quiet but firm.
Art didn’t look back, but his grin softened slightly. He gave a small nod.
Then he looked at the man holding him again, and this ti his voice was quieter. "You really think you’re protecting sothing? That they’ll thank you for it?"
The man didn’t answer.
He couldn’t.
Because behind him, further into the alley, ca a sound—a faint crack like frost fracturing glass. Several of the other guards glanced back, panicked. And Zyon didn’t miss it.
’There. That’s where the ice is leaking from.’
Zyon’s eyes narrowed, and he stepped closer, speaking calmly. "We don’t want to burn down your hideout. We’re not here to kill anyone. We’re just looking for soone. A girl. If she passed through here... then we’re going in, whether you like it or not."
The leader of the group looked torn, hands twitching. His eyes darted to the others, then back to Art’s grin, then to Zyon’s eyes—calculating, composed, assured.
And finally, the fear won.
He stepped back.
The rest of the guards hesitated, then parted.
Art dusted off his shirt, flashing a brilliant smile. "Good decision."
Zyon was already moving, heading toward the deeper shadows of the alley, where the cold grew stronger with every step.
...
Soon enough, they found it.
A trapdoor, half-buried beneath loose gravel and cracked stone, resting at the farthest end of the alley.
The source of the creeping cold. Ice curled out from beneath its edges like veins of frost trying to escape confinent.
Even just being near it made the air turn stiff, sharp, like winter’s breath whispering against their skin.
Art crouched beside it, brushing his fingers across the frost-lined rim. "This is the place."
Zyon didn’t need to be told twice. The trapdoor felt unnatural. Every part of it scread sealed, and not just by physical ans. He reached for the handle, tugged once—and grunted. It didn’t budge.
The tal creaked slightly but held fast. The underside was caked with hardened ice, almost like it had been subrged in a glacier.
Zyon frowned. "It’s frozen solid."
Art exhaled. "Tch. Move."
He stepped forward, lowering himself to one knee. He placed his hand against the ice—and then, with a soft snap of his fingers, sothing changed.
No burst of fla. No blinding light.
But the ice simply vanished. Disintegrated. One mont it was there—crusted and clinging—the next it was gone.
As if it had never existed at all. Not a drop remained. No mist, no condensation, not even a wet patch on the ground. Like the world itself forgot the ice had been there.
From behind them, the n who had been watching sucked in a collective breath. Even Zyon glanced sideways.
Those guards—just monts ago, so sure they’d been coerced by foolish kids—were now staring slack-jawed.
So of them had tried for days to open that very trapdoor. Others had even called in favors, tried breaking the ice with tools and low-grade spells. Nothing had worked.
And yet, this boy—this Art—had undone it like it was a party trick.
Zyon clicked his tongue and muttered under his breath, "You sure that didn’t trigger a trap?"
Art smirked, standing back up and dusting his hands. "I’m sure. There were so faint fla glyphs layered beneath the ice—soone tried to mask them. I snuffed those too."
Zyon narrowed his eyes. "You’re saying...?"
"There’s a high chance Alia’s inside," Art interrupted, already descending the revealed stairs.
Zyon blinked. "Wait, how the hell do you know that?"
Art just shrugged, not even glancing back. "I don’t know. Just a hunch."
Zyon didn’t buy it. Not for a second. But Art had always been like that—speaking in riddles, relying on instincts that made no damn sense yet sohow always turned out right.
So, with a quiet sigh, he followed.
The descent was steep. The staircase was narrow, damp, and riddled with rusted tal fixtures, cobwebs, and loose stone.
The further they went, the colder it beca—not from magical chill this ti, but from absence.
An absence of warmth. Of life.
It felt like they were walking into a tomb.
Art hissed slightly. "Too dark."
He flicked his fingers and summoned a flickering fireball, small and elegant, orbiting lazily around them.
The light it cast flickered off chains bolted into the walls, old torture instrunts, and long-forgotten crates. It wasn’t enough to see far, but it was better than nothing.
They kept descending.
The stairs ended at a collapsed archway, leading into a much larger underground chamber. When they stepped inside, the fireball’s light barely scraped the edges of the vast space.
Art groaned theatrically. "Fine."
He puffed out several more fireballs with a grin and a sharp exhale. They drifted upward and outward, illuminating the area in full.
The sight stopped them cold.
The room was massive—far larger than expected. Probably an old cellar or dungeon. But now... it looked like a battlefield.
Webs of cracks spidered across the floors and walls. Entire sections had collapsed. Blood had long since dried in sared patches.
Burn marks. Scorching along the edges. Craters from explosions. And amidst the destruction—
Bodies.
Dozens of them.
Twisted, broken, frozen in horrific ways. So still clutching weapons. Others burned black. There was no mistaking it.
Sothing had raged here.
Sothing powerful.
And right in the center of the chaos, slumped against a crumbling section of wall, was a girl.
She was motionless. Pale skin dusted with frost. Crimson eyes closed. Long white hair tangled over her shoulders.
Alia.
Zyon was the first to move.
He ran, crossing the distance in monts, kneeling beside her. "Alia! Alia!"
She didn’t respond.
Zyon’s hand trembled as he brushed her cheek, checking her breathing. She was alive—barely. Her skin was cold, but not stiff. Her chest rose, faint and slow.
"She’s alive," he whispered. "But—"
Art walked up slowly, eyes scanning the wreckage around them. His voice was low, bitter.
"This place... it was a trap. All of this was made to contain her."
Zyon clenched his fists. "Why isn’t she waking up?"
Art didn’t answer imdiately. He walked a slow circle around Alia’s body, eyes glowing faintly with a dull gold hue.
He was analyzing the surroundings—tracing the lingering remnants of energy that clung to the air like smoke.
Then his expression darkened.
His tone dropped like a stone. "She’s in a comatose state."
Zyon turned sharply. "What?!"
Art’s voice was edged with fury. "They overloaded her. Magical feedback—too much mana forced through body. Probably combined with that trap. And maybe... maybe sothing inside her reacted."
He didn’t say what.
Zyon looked down at Alia’s expressionless face. His throat tightened.
"We need to get her out of here."
Art nodded. His hands clenched at his sides. "Fast."
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