685: Chapter 49 Cracked Ice Surface_1 685: Chapter 49 Cracked Ice Surface_1 Right behind the running individuals, the smooth cavern and the icy surface split apart without reason, accompanied by tremors beneath their feet.
It was as if a giant beast made of frost had opened its huge mouth.
The crevices revealed a pitch-black abyss, and the ice walls on both sides were full of broken layers of ice.
These layers were sharp, like multiple keen blades.
If anyone were to fall in carelessly, they’d likely be sliced into countless segnts by these icy blades before they even hit the ground.
The rupturing ground spread quickly.
Cracks on the ice layer spread radially like a spider web, tearing large chunks of frozen snow under the power of the Earth.
The chunks plumted quickly into the abyss, crashing onto protruding rocky sidewalls, producing a series of dull thuds.
The scene before them was as horrifying as Doomsday.
The ground trembled beneath their feet, and the earth was rumbling, with even the fog on both sides rolling.
No one could predict that this kind of terrifying event would suddenly occur on the seemingly tranquil ice fields.
Despite the running, the mbers of the adventure team maintained their formation.
Catherine was leading at the front as always, responsible for navigation and driving.
The years of experience she had played out well.
The female knight didn’t fall into confusion due to the pursuit of the cracks and the loud noises.
While running at full strength, she still had enough energy to look back.
After confirming the path of the cracks, she led everyone to sidestep and started running in an almost perpendicular direction to the cracks.
Instead of running, everyone seed to be rolling and sliding on the ice.
They seed to have found a thod to move quickly over the snow and ice, which was to simply squat or sit on the ice and use a weapon in hand to prop themselves up.
Their arm strength pushed them forward on the ice.
The tily change in direction finally paid off.
After a seven to eight-minute run, everyone finally got out of the range of the opening ice surface.
The rumbling sound was gradually fading away in their ears.
However, no one dared to stop.
No one could guarantee if the ice near the newly ford crevices could still maintain stability after such a massive disturbance.
If they stopped now, they might survive the large-scale rupture but be caught in the aftershock due to negligence.
Therefore, even after escaping the pursuit of the rupturing ice, the six of them continued to run for another five to six hundred ters before finally stopping, looking back fearfully.
Behind them, the ground seed to be returning to calm, and the sound of ice cracking was getting fainter.
The place where they had just passed had been swallowed by crevices.
Had they not managed to escape in ti, they would have undoubtedly fallen down the newly ford abyss with no exceptions.
“What was that?” While sitting on the ground, Lina’s thick overcoat was covered in snow and ice.
Even though she wouldn’t usually feel overly tired after running such a distance at full strength, the sight just now was too astonishing.
The imnse psychological pressure made her expend a lot of energy, so she now had to take her ti to regulate her breathing.
Despite this, she couldn’t help her curiosity and asked fearfully, “How could the ice layer suddenly rupture, and be so fierce at that?”
“It’s probably a natural phenonon.” Catherine didn’t sit down to rest.
Instead, she instructed Ava to guard the two resting spellcasters in case of sudden incidents.
The female knight awkwardly protected her front with a shield, her eyes vigilantly scanning the fog.
She didn’t forget to answer Lina, “Before we ca here, I went through all the information I could find on the Perpetual Icefield.
It did ntion that occasionally there are ground fissures on the ice field for unknown reasons.
However, they don’t occur frequently.
The fact that we encountered such a phenonon just ans our luck is exceptionally good.
Huh, where are Pannis and Vivian?
They were here just a minute ago, and now they’re gone all of a sudden?”
“They didn’t fall, did they?
Um, I’m just joking.” Everyone knew Freya was joking, no one believed that Pannis, a Demigod, would fall into the crevices while they, the Legendary Rank professionals, escaped.
However, even though they knew the truth, Catherine still glared at Freya.
Freya was reinstalling the tal equipnt in her boots and casually waved at Catherine, “Don’t be so tense.
I saw Pannis a few dozen seconds before we stopped.
He was right behind us, so it’s impossible for him to fall.
Don’t worry.
And even if he was really chased by the crevice, don’t forget that he still has his Inherent Psychic Domain.
The power of the Domain is more than enough for him to escape.”
“Well, I can already hear Vivian’s footsteps.” Catherine nodded, staring at the deep fog behind them.
Not long after, Pannis ca out of the fog with Vivian, rubbing his waist with one hand, looking pitiful.
Seeing Pannis in this state, Catherine’s mouth, wrapped in a thick scarf, curled up slightly, but she suppressed a laugh and asked, “Why are you so slow?
And you look like you’ve been beaten up by a gang.
What happened?”
“Don’t remind .” Pannis walked back to the team with Vivian before he began to adjust his hat that was about to fall off.
He grumbled, “I guess none of you noticed the ice chunks flying towards you.”
Pannis was right; as a result of so unknown changes, the ice was not only forcibly torn apart but also constantly colliding with one another.
These clashes generated an imasurable force.
Under the impact, the broken ice pieces were pushed away at high speed in all directions.
Their hardness and velocity were enough to create significant damage.
Previously, Pannis had been carrying Vivian on his back, trailing at the very end of the team.
When he sensed nurous ice fragnts flying towards them from behind, he had no choice but to adjust the mage girl’s position.
He held her in front of him with his left hand while swinging the one-handed sword with his right hand, trying to strike down the incoming ice chunks.
With the strength of a Demigod, dealing with these ice chunks wasn’t difficult.
The densely packed ice was knocked down one by one, no longer posing any threat to the girls running ahead.
However, the tragedy happened at this mont.
Focusing too much on the ice chunks flying towards him from behind, Pannis finally experienced the malice of the ice field.
He slipped on the smooth ice layer and rolled down a small slope with Vivian.
He stopped rolling at the bottom of the slope, dusted off the freezing snow from his clothes, and pulled up Vivian, who was happily mocking his plight from the ground before they laboriously returned to the top of the slope and followed after Catherine and the others.
“How pitiful.” Catherine covered her mouth to stifle her laughter and went over to pat off the chunks of ice on Pannis’ clothes.
She said, “Thanks for your hard work,”
“Since I worked so hard, is there any reward?” Pannis’ voice imdiately took on a sleazy tone.
He said laughing, “There should definitely be a reward.”
“Sure there is.” Catherine raised her eyebrows.
Knowing that Pannis couldn’t see, she said in a teasing tone, “Next ti you act pervy, instead of killing you outright, I’ll leave you with a breath to spare.
How about that for a reward?
Aren’t you satisfied?”
“I was wrong, I truly was wrong.” Pannis hung his head low and sobbed, “Please, by all ans, spare more than one breath.”
“Stop ssing around, and let’s focus.” Catherine rolled her eyes, punched Pannis on the shoulder, and pointed at the newly ford rift and said, “That should be the Ice Layer Displacent Phenonon ntioned in the records, have you encountered it before?”
“I haven’t been so lucky.” Pannis vehently shook his head in denial and said, “This thing only occurs once or twice every ten years in the Icefield.
Generally, the scale is not large enough for us to co across it easily.
Who would’ve thought that the Icefield would welco us with such a grand gift.
However, it’s good news that it didn’t cause any damage.
For such a catastrophic natural phenonon, even frost spirits would likely revert back to their elental core state, or even have their elental cores destroyed, let alone beings made of flesh and blood like us.”
“The frost spirits would die too?” Catherine asked surprisingly, “Aren’t they made of ice?
Even if they fell, they wouldn’t be hurt.
How could they die?”
“Because so Ice Layer Displacent Phenona don’t end that simply.” Pannis explained, “Sotis, there are two stages to the displacent.
What we’ve witnessed is the first stage where the surface ice layer was twisted and torn.
Generally, after the first stage, the frost spirits would suffer heavy exterior damage, but their cores would be unhard.
However, sotis there’s a second stage.
The torn layers of ice would quickly approach each other.
After the collision, they would further grind and rub against each other.
That kind of force could even crush a demigod into powder, completely destroy the core of a frost spirit, and their long life would, thus, co to an end.”
“Wait.” Lina suddenly interrupted Pannis’ explanation and carefully asked, “Did you just say there might be a second stage?”
“Yes.” Pannis nodded.
He said, “I heard this from the frost spirits.
Nobody can predict when it would happen and when it wouldn’t.”
“I don’t think where you heard it from is important.” Lina shook her head and said,”There’s only one key problem.
If the ice layers were to collide back together with giant force, many places would collapse and shatter, right?”
As Lina posed her question, an eerie silence fell among the six of them.
They looked at each other and after a few seconds of eye contact, they simultaneously picked up their gear and headed quickly in the direction away from the newly ford rift without looking back.
It was as if there was an army wielding weapons chasing them at full speed, and they feared that any delay would get them caught.
(To be continued.
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