Chapter 232: My Second Spirit Gate Experience

’What in the world are these people?’

The wind vortex intensified, blazing all around us until even we had to back off. The sheer force of it pressed against my chest, hot and wild, carrying grit that stung exposed skin.

Milo’s coat fluttered and whipped around him, flying like the cape of a superhero against the turbulent winds. He stood at the center of it all, utterly unbothered, one hand raised and the other holding that massive tome like it weighed nothing.

Finally the wind calmed and a large glowing circle materialized in the air. It pulsed once, twice, then shot out a projectile of compressed wind with explosive force. The projectile arced across the sky, a streak of distorted air, diving down toward the southern plains.

It landed with another thunderous crack that rolled back toward us across the open ground, but there was no explosion, no devastation. Just the sound, and then silence.

Then Milo slammed the book closed and adjusted his glasses.

"That should do it."

’Of course it should!’

The casual way he said it, like he hadn’t just hurled enough force to level a building. I was starting to understand why Milo said the words he said back then. These people operated on a different level entirely.

Milo surveyed us all, his expression settling into something more businesslike. "We’ll be dividing into three teams. The first team dives to the center of the gate through the three o’clock position, while the second team enters through the nine o’clock. The third team takes the center. This approach ensures speed and prioritizes the effectiveness of the excavators."

He glanced at each of us in turn, and I got the sense he was making calculations we weren’t privy to.

"Odelia, you and Cressida move in from the center." He paused, something flickering across his face, then turned to Cressida. "Actually, I think you two should station here for a few minutes and cover our backs. After that, you can move in."

Cressida’s expression didn’t change, but I caught the slight tension in her shoulders. She didn’t look like she liked having to wait behind and cover others, but she also looked like she understood.

He turned his head to Ophelia. "Ophelia, you and Nish—"

Nisha’s voice cut in, smooth and unhurried.

"How about I just go with Cade instead? I think it’ll be more effective that way."

The words hung in the air. I kept my face neutral, but internally I was already running through the implications. She’d positioned this carefully, waited for exactly the right moment to interject. Classic Nisha.

Milo looked at her. Skeptical, yes, but there was something else in his eyes too. Something I couldn’t quite read. Frustration, maybe. Or resignation. After a moment of silence, he closed his eyes and sighed.

"Alright. You and Cade then. I’ll take nine o’clock with Ophelia, while you take three."

Nisha allowed a small smile and nodded. The smile of someone who’d gotten exactly what they wanted while making it look like a reasonable suggestion.

Cressida looked at everyone with a downcast expression as we fell into our groups.

"I want to go with Cade too. I want to see the Villainess."

Her voice came out smaller than usual, and I felt a pang of something. Guilt, maybe. It wasn’t my fault Nisha had maneuvered things this way, but Cressida didn’t know that. All she knew was that she was being left behind while someone else got the opportunity she wanted.

It was something even Milo had been aiming for, a chance to see my summon in action. Nisha was stealing that opportunity from him, not that she needed it. I knew she had her own selfish reasons. She always did.

And it seemed Milo couldn’t turn her down. Whether that was politics, history, or something else entirely, I didn’t know. But the dynamic was clear enough.

After the exchange, we all took our separate paths. For several minutes after I departed with Nisha, we walked in silence. Just our footsteps against cracked stone, the occasional skitter of loose gravel.

The canyon system stretched out around us, walls of fractured earth rising on either side, unstable stone pillars jutting up like broken teeth. The air here was dry, carrying dust and something else. Something faintly metallic.

Her voice finally broke the quiet.

"Are you okay?" she asked, her tone light. Casual. As if we were just two colleagues on a routine assignment.

"Yes, pretty much. Why?"

She shrugged, her hips swaying with something a little more than casual movement. I kept my eyes forward.

"I just wanted to know. You’re in Recimiras now, which means you have reached a kind of home here... do you feel relieved?"

I glanced at her before considering the question. Her face gave nothing away, but that was the thing about Nisha. Her face never gave anything away unless she wanted it to.

"Do I feel relieved?"

’Since when did you care?!’ Of course, this remained inside my head.

Truth was, I didn’t know if I wanted to give her any information about how I felt. Not after what I’d discovered. It wasn’t right to invest in another man’s woman. Whatever game she was playing, whatever angle she was working, I wasn’t going to be part of it.

"I’m fine. I like it here, everyone is nice here." I gave her the uncomplicated version.

"That’s the uncomplicated version."

I stopped mid-stride the moment I heard her say this. The coincidence was too suspicious. Those were the exact words I’d thought. The exact phrasing.

I narrowed my gaze at her. She stopped and looked back at me, one eyebrow slightly raised, waiting to see what I’d do.

Before she could speak, her own gaze sharpened. Almost simultaneously, my enhanced senses, which I’d spread outward like a net across the canyon, spiked with warning.

My composure settled. The tension between us evaporated, replaced by something more immediate.

’They’re coming...’

Nisha dropped into a crouch and summoned a pair of blades that looked like butcher’s cleavers, their edges gleaming with faint essence. I summoned Frostfang into my hand, feeling its cold hilt bite against my palm, the familiar weight calling my attention into focus.

I channeled more essence through my body, reinforcing my movements to wield the weight bracelets properly. My muscles tightened, ready.

Then the sound hit us: hooves scraping against stone, galloping. Dozens of them. The rhythm was wrong, too heavy, too fast. Nisha turned toward the left, toward an open mouth of the canyon where the walls split apart. That was where they were coming from.

I raised the sword and settled into a ready stance. A fog of dust rose and swallowed the canyon ahead, billowing toward us in a wall of brown and gray, but I didn’t let it blind my senses. I leaned into the essence instead, as I had for weeks now, letting it paint the world in shapes and movements I could track even through the haze.

As the first shapes emerged, massive bodies with thick frost-white wool and horns that spiraled like frozen waves, I swung my sword and channeled white flames through the blade. A line of white fire exploded between us and the charging beasts, rolling toward them like a wave crashing onto shore.

Loud bleating erupted in chaos. The flames consumed their front ranks and scattered their charge, turning organized momentum into panicked disorder. Some of them leaped sideways and slammed against the stone pillars, trying to smother the fire and its gruesome burns. The white flames clung and ate into wool and flesh alike, indifferent to their thrashing.

Their disarray bought us a moment of reprieve.

Nisha spun her cleavers and dove into the gap the flames had cleared, moving low and fast. One hand flew forward, tearing through a thick coat of frost-white wool with the ease of wind through grass.

She drew no blood. Just wool, falling away in clumps.

She frowned, confusion flickering across her face, but there was no time to process. The beast she hadn’t wounded shoved back a step, gathered itself, then exploded forward with a devastating headbutt. Its horns spiraled toward her like frozen waves given violent intent.

Nisha twirled clear, feet dancing over loose stone, but she was flanked. Another stocky ram was already where she turned, positioned as if it had anticipated her dodge. Head lowered, ready to drive its horns into her and hurl her away.

White chains flew from my hand, wrapping across its neck and yanking it into the air before the blow could land.

I slammed it down into the masses with enough force to crack stone. Bodies scattered and dust exploded upward. A ring of fire flashed out from me at the same moment, burning and hurling back the ones that had been rushing toward my position.

I shifted my weight as another charged through the chaos, turned and slashed downward with everything I had.

The sword hit something that felt like stone, even as it cut past the wool. The impact jarred up my arm.

’Oh... hell no.’

These things had hides like armor underneath all that fluff.

The bastard shifted its head to headbutt me from below, horns driving upward toward my chest. I raised my leg and drove it down onto its forehead with all the enhanced strength I could muster, crashing its skull into the ground. Stones scattered, spider-webbing cracks out from the impact point.

’Who the hell do you think you’re fighting?’

I raised my sword, poured more power into it until the blade hummed with concentrated force, and drove it down into the beast’s neck where wool met exposed flesh. This time the blade found purchase, sinking deep. Blue, putrid blood flowed out like water from a burst dam, steaming where it hit the cold stone.

The creature shuddered once and went still.

[You have killed a Bestial (+++++) Tier Spirit Beast: Huallapen]

[You have gained Glacier Horn Fragment]