Chapter 44: The Crystal Remembers
A horrific pain, like his head was splitting open.
His vision flickered white, and the scenery before him twisted violently. A short while later, when the headache faded, what he saw was a massive cavern.
’Where is this...?’
A space covered on all sides by ice.
A place that felt somehow familiar.
After a moment, Walfred realized this was the spot where the ice crystal had been just earlier.
But something felt off, so he looked around, and soon noticed something strange.
’This place isn’t reality.’
This appeared to be someone’s memory.
Because right now, Walfred wasn’t in his own body. He was looking out from inside the ice crystal.
In that case, there was only one answer.
’Is this the baby dragon’s memory?’
That was Walfred’s conclusion.
But why was he suddenly seeing the baby dragon’s memory? Was it because of that notification he’d glimpsed right before the headache hit, the one saying "resonance is beginning"?
Just as the question began to form.
Boom! Boom!
Suddenly, along with a tremor that shook the ground, something enormous appeared. Giants whose entire bodies were made of ice. They were Ice Golems.
Each of them approached the ice crystal carrying something on their shoulders. The moment they set those things down on the ground, Walfred’s expression hardened.
’Those are people?’
Most of them were already frozen corpses, or people on the verge of death. The golems laid the people out neatly around the ice crystal.
Then, a short while later, blue cold air burst out from the ice crystal and enveloped them.
Hsssssss! Crrrunch!
Bodies froze in an instant.
Soon a bluish light slipped out of their bodies and seeped into the ice crystal.
And in that moment.
’...!’
Walfred’s eyes went wide.
The instant the bluish light merged with the ice crystal, a flood of countless memories poured in.
The lives of those people. The memories and recollections of the world they knew, and even their language. The ice crystal absorbed all of it and passed it on to the baby dragon.
’Is it collecting information about the outside world in advance, preparing for the day it eventually wakes up?’
Or maybe it was for some other reason.
Meanwhile, the people whose memories had been absorbed by the ice crystal turned into ice statues.
The golems carried the ice statues off somewhere else, then went back to bringing in more people, over and over.
As this process repeated, the ice crystal grew larger and larger, and along with it, the White Dome visible far in the distance kept expanding, widening its territory.
’I see. So the reason the territory expanded whenever people entered the White Dome was because of...’
This was the reason.
As he watched this scene, feeling a long-held question being resolved, a familiar face suddenly appeared in the landscape of the baby dragon’s memory.
[Huff! Haah!]
A man gasping for breath, surrounded by Ice Golems. The moment Walfred saw him, his eyes went wide before he could stop himself.
’H-Hector...?!’
The ruler of the Newark Galleria Shelter.
B-rank hunter Hector.
Why was that man in a place like this?
As he stood bewildered by the appearance of someone he never expected, a sudden guess flashed through his mind.
’Don’t tell me he chased after us and ended up inside the dome?’
There was no other explanation.
The Newark Galleria Shelter where Hector was based wasn’t close enough to get caught up in the White Dome’s expansion.
In other words, the shelter hadn’t been swallowed up.
[Aqua Spear!]
[Damn it, it’s not working!]
[B-behind us too! They’re coming from behind!]
[This is insane! Where are they all swarming in from?!]
Meanwhile, Hector fought against the Ice Golems alongside the subordinate hunters who’d been with him.
But it wasn’t enough.
The Ice Golems were far too numerous, and the matchup was terrible. On top of that, the White Dome’s ferocious cold affected the battle too.
And as a result.
[Aaaaagh!]
[Please, please...! No! Gah!]
Before long, Hector and his hunters were surrounded by the Ice Golems. Every one of them was overpowered and dragged before the ice crystal.
Hssssss!
The blue cold air washed over them.
The expressions of Hector and his hunters froze, twisted with terror. And just like the others before the crystal, they turned into ice statues.
Watching this scene through the baby dragon’s memory, Walfred finally understood the situation.
’So the reason the White Dome suddenly expanded was because Hector entered here?’
The timing lined up perfectly too.
As the ice crystal that absorbed Hector and his hunters grew, the White Dome must have expanded along with it.
But there was no point in dwelling on the cause now that everything had already happened, so Walfred focused on the baby dragon’s memory again.
A while after that.
Something strange happened in the once-peaceful space.
Craaaash! Boom!
One day, the ceiling made of thick ice suddenly came crashing down. Enormous chunks of ice and debris rained down all around the crystal.
The ice crystal was hard enough that not a single scratch appeared on it, but the surrounding area became absolute chaos.
’What the? Why all of a sudden...?’
Walfred looked beyond the collapsed ceiling.
After a moment, the view above the ceiling came into sight through the hazy smoke. What followed was a vortex swirling violently in midair.
[Gate]
Anyone could see that was a gate.
To be precise, it was an entrance leading to a gate.
But that vortex wasn’t blue like an ordinary gate. It boasted a brilliant crimson color.
Seeing it, Walfred’s expression hardened.
As far as he knew, a red gate entrance meant only one thing.
’A gate breach...!’
Just like when the Crown Heights gate had been breached, the gate itself must have been buried deep within the ice mountain, so no one had been aware of it.
And then.
Countless monsters poured out of the breached gate. Snow Wolves and White Boars and more.
It was a legion of hundreds of monsters.
Crunch! Boom!
In that moment, the Ice Golems moved.
The golems formed a defensive line as if to protect the ice crystal where the baby dragon slept. And they fought against the monsters pouring out of the breached gate.
Just as the sudden battle began.
[Kyeeeeek!]
Along with a spine-chilling shriek, an enormous shadow emerged from the breached gate.
The one who had dragged Walfred all the way here.
The A-rank Elite Monster, the Bone Drake.
’Is that thing the gate boss?’
It was highly likely.
Elite Monsters were often gate bosses. Meanwhile, the Bone Drake that emerged from the gate ignored the Ice Golems and charged straight for the ice crystal where the baby dragon slept.
Kraboom! Crash!
A collision strong enough to shake the ice mountain.
But the crystal didn’t budge.
The Bone Drake then bit at the crystal with its massive jaws and clawed at it, but not even a scratch appeared on the ice crystal.
[Kyaaaaaah!]
When its attacks didn’t work, the drake, as if enraged, smashed all the surrounding Ice Golems, then tore straight through the ceiling and flew up into the sky.
The path the Bone Drake passed through became an enormous hole that stretched all the way up to the sky.
’Ah, so that hole was made at this moment.’
It was the moment the secret behind that hole, the one that had stretched endlessly from the summit of the ice mountain all the way down, was revealed.
Meanwhile, the Bone Drake circled the sky a few times, then, with a shriek, led the monster legion out of the ice mountain.
The direction it headed was northeast, with the ice mountain at the center. That was the direction of Prospect Park Station.
’To think the Bone Drake was the culprit behind the monsters pouring out of the White Dome too...’
Through the baby dragon’s memory, Walfred felt the scattered puzzle pieces of his questions clicking into place one by one.
In that case, did that mean the reason it deliberately brought him all the way here was to resonate him with the baby dragon and shatter the ice crystal?
For now, that hypothesis was the most plausible.
And at the same time, a question arose.
’But how did that thing know about that?’
The conditions required for resonance.
And the fact that the ice crystal would shatter if Walfred and the baby dragon resonated. The drake would have had to know all of it for the hypothesis he’d just come up with to hold.
But he decided to set this question aside for now.
For the moment, he had no clues at all.
’Either way, I’ve figured out what its goal is.’
The Bone Drake was after the baby dragon.
There was no other reason for it to deliberately bring Walfred all the way here. He didn’t know what it was trying to gain through the baby dragon, though.