Chapter 101: Mana Circuit Freeze
With her decisive blow gone to waste, Margaret’s face twisted in frustration.
Meanwhile, the High Spirit struck by [Ignite] burned away without leaving so much as a trace.
And in that moment.
[⧉⍎⚸⸄⟁⧌⫷⟅!──!]
Having watched the High Spirit vanish, the Spirit King suddenly showed a strange reaction. With a scream-like screech, it began to surge up into the sky.
Margaret frowned.
’Is it planning to run?’
She had no intention of just standing by and watching, so she immediately readied a skill for an interception.
But just then.
Flap! Flutter!
The remaining High Spirits, too, soared up into the sky all at once, following the Spirit King.
And that wasn’t all.
The Frost Spirits that had been caught in the shadow and illusion skills, attacking one another, abruptly stopped fighting and shot up into the sky as well.
’What are they trying to do?’
The spirits gathering around the Spirit King.
She couldn’t tell just from looking, but somehow an uneasy feeling came over her. Her instincts seemed to whisper that she couldn’t leave it be.
So she shouted urgently.
"Damon! Julie! The spirits..."
"My skill’s still active!"
"B-but it’s not working anymore!"
What came back were panicked voices.
Just as they said, the skills had never stopped and were activating normally. Yet the spirits had suddenly freed themselves from the confusion on their own.
What in the world was going on?
Margaret frowned.
And then.
’Wait, don’t tell me that screech earlier...’
Had it carried an effect that nullified skills?
That was the most likely possibility.
The spirits had started behaving that way right after the Spirit King let out its screech.
That was when it happened.
"M-Major!"
"Over there, look over there!"
Frantic shouts rang out.
When she reflexively looked in the direction Julie was pointing, she saw a blue haze swirling wildly around the Spirit King.
Margaret’s face hardened.
"A mana convergence phenomenon...!"
Normally, mana is invisible to the eye.
But there were a few exceptions, and one of them was the mana convergence phenomenon.
A spatial distortion created when high-density mana converges into a single point. The mana leaking out through it could be observed by human eyes.
Like the aurora over the Arctic.
’It’s preparing something!’
The instant she spotted the mana convergence phenomenon.
Margaret instinctively sensed the danger.
If she left it as it was, there was no telling what horrific disaster might occur. Biting down hard on her lip, Margaret poured out all her mana and launched into the offensive.
"Attack it! Right now!"
At her frantic shout, Damon and Julie also stretched their hands toward the sky.
And they hurled attack skill after attack skill at the Spirit King surrounded by the spirits.
KRAKAKAKA! Bang! BWOOM!
Brilliant, many-colored fireworks studding the sky.
Countless Frost Spirits were struck and plummeted to the ground, but the Spirit King itself showed no sign of coming back out.
In the meantime, her mana drained rapidly.
And then.
[Warning! Warning!]
[Mana is at or below 10%.]
[Mana deficiency symptoms manifesting.]
[Severe nausea and dizziness occur.]
[Physical abilities are reduced by 50%.]
Along with the warning of mana shortage.
Margaret dropped to her knees. Then, with ragged breaths, she coughed up blood.
"Hah! Haah... Cough! Cough!"
"Major!?"
"A-are you okay?"
"...Yes, I’m fine, so hurry..."
Attack the Spirit King first.
That was what Margaret meant to say.
But in that moment.
Thump! Thump-thump!
Pitter-patter-patter-patter!
The Frost Spirits crashed to the ground.
First one, then two, then dozens, then hundreds.
Like late-summer cicadas dropping limply to the earth after fulfilling their duty to propagate the species.
The Hunters were stunned by the sight.
"Wh-what is this?"
"The spirits, why all of a sudden...?"
A sudden anomaly.
What’s more, every spirit that fell shattered to pieces and turned into shards of snow and ice. And the same was true of the High Spirits.
Crrkk! Crack!
Cracks ran through the bodies of the High Spirits that had been shielding the Spirit King at the closest range. Then, just as before, they turned into ice fragments and vanished.
As she watched that sight.
An inexplicable, ominous feeling washed over her.
And then.
Ding!
-----
[Warning! Warning!]
[The Spirit King has successfully grown.]
[Growth Form → Complete Form]
-----
"...What?"
Her unease became reality.
Along with a notification of hard-to-believe, no, of unbearably hopeless content.
"H-how did it grow into its Complete Form...!?"
"There shouldn’t have been any mana left for it to absorb..."
The Spirit King grew by devouring mana.
But the mana the spirits had stored up in the Frost Crown Stone as an offering was already gone. So naturally they’d judged that its growth would be difficult.
Yet the Spirit King had grown.
The moment she put this result together with the mana convergence phenomenon she’d seen a moment ago, Margaret realized why the Spirit King had grown.
’It absorbed the spirits!’
The thousands of Frost Spirits.
And the High Spirits too.
The Spirit King had devoured its own kind to force itself into its Complete Form.
’But I heard that spirits cherish their own kind tremendously...’
She’d heard as much from the community, and from her brother Liam too. So she’d naturally assumed they would never do something like devour their own.
But her expectation was off the mark, and the worst possible reality descended before her eyes. Just as Margaret gritted her teeth, a powerful wind pressure whipped through the surrounding area.
Fwooom! KRAKAKAKAKOOM!
The fragments of spirits piled up like a mountain on the ground burst out like bombs. And then, at last, the Spirit King revealed its true form.
A colossal frame over thirty feet tall.
A geometric, many-faceted crystal of ice, its whole body bristling with enormous horns and spikes. It looked almost like a sea urchin carved out of ice.
[Warning! The temperature is plummeting.]
[Current temperature: -121°F]
In that instant, the surrounding temperature dropped fast.
It had to be an environmental change brought on by the Spirit King turning into its Complete Form. As she braced against the sudden cold, an additional warning message appeared.
-----
[Warning! The Frost Spirit King is enraged.]
[All beings within the influence of the Permafrost are afflicted with the ’Slow’ effect.]
[Action Speed]: -75%
[All Resistances]: -50%
[Physical Abilities]: -50%
-----
Right after she saw the warning message.
Her body quickly grew heavy, and a fierce cold bore down on her. It had to be because all her resistances had dropped.
"Krrgh!"
"M-my body..."
Margaret resisted with everything she had.
Squeezing out the very last 1% of her mana to release heat, she fought against the terrible cold. But the resistance couldn’t last long.
[Warning! Warning!]
[The mana in your body has been depleted.]
[Your mana circuits are freezing over.]
[All skills and traits are deactivated.]
Mana circuit freeze.
For a Hunter, it was as good as a death sentence.
Once you fell into this state, you couldn’t recover mana for 24 hours no matter what you did. And the penalty of having your skills and traits sealed was steep too.
Flare! Fsssss...
In the meantime, the flames that had been circling her went out.
No more heat was released, and Margaret and the two Hunters were instantly exposed to murderous cold below -121°F.
Watching her vision turn hazy.
Margaret’s lips trembled faintly.
’...Where, where did it all go wrong?’
At first, it hadn’t been bad.
She’d poured out overwhelming firepower and, for a brief moment at least, overpowered the Spirit King, and she’d even located the core.
So she’d thrown her decisive blow to break the core, but failed. And from that point on, every plan had begun to unravel.
’If I’d just been a little more careful...’
If she hadn’t carelessly spent [Ignite], if she’d dealt with the High Spirits first and then approached the Spirit King to use [Ignite].
Would the outcome have turned out differently?
As regret took hold and she felt the sensation slowly draining from her whole body, she saw the Spirit King approaching from far away.
’I have to fight, but...’
Her body had frozen and wouldn’t move.
She couldn’t use her mana, couldn’t use her skills.
She looked back at Damon and Julie, but the two wore expressions stripped of any will to fight, as if consumed by fear.
The shadow of death drawing slowly nearer.
Beyond her blurring vision, the face of her brother, who had left to clear the Antarctica gate, rose to mind.
’One more time, just one last time...’
She’d wanted to see her brother.
As she clung to that wish that could never come true.
The Spirit King, now right in front of her, stretched out a long Ice Spike. The Ice Spike hurtled at high speed, aimed straight for the spot between Margaret’s brows.
Whooooosh!
The whistle of air being torn apart.
Sensing her end, Margaret closed her eyes.
And then.
CLAAANG!
Instead of the agony of flesh tearing and bone breaking.
The sound of ice slamming against ice struck her eardrums. When she reflexively opened her eyes, what she saw was a broad back.
A reliable back that called to mind her brother, Liam. Blinking her wide-open eyes, Margaret murmured in a daze.
"L-Liam...?"
"I’m not."
What came back was a familiar voice from her memory.
That firm tone yanked Margaret’s hazy consciousness back into reality in an instant.
Blinking blankly, she finally recognized who it was that had blocked the Spirit King.
"You...!?"
The guide for the Spirit King extermination operation.
The man who had finished his entire role with that alone and left this place long ago.
It was none other than Walfred.