Chapter 500: Aftereffects

“Hold me tight!”

“Eh?”

Faced with Celicia’s sudden demand, Muen couldn’t help freezing for a moment.

Hold... we’re in the middle of rolling up our sleeves for a fight, doing something like that doesn’t seem very appropriate.

“I said, hold me tight.”

“Oh.”

Seeing that icy gaze of Celicia’s, Muen seemed to realize something. He stopped talking, painstakingly shifted his body, and turned to wrap his arms around Celicia’s slender, handful-sized waist.

Her waist was soft, her body fragrance faintly intoxicating, and the sensation of the girl in his arms was indescribably wonderful. With this position, Muen happened to be able to bury his face into those endlessly surging waves.

Celicia shot Muen a sidelong look, not sure if he was doing it on purpose or just deliberately enjoying a “face wash.” At this critical moment, she still didn’t say anything more, letting him be.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t touched them before anyway.

Celicia lifted her gaze, feeling the killing intent surge toward them again.

Since that last strike hadn’t managed to kill Muen outright, King Yintuo naturally wouldn’t give up so easily. His vacant eyes landed on Muen, who was now striking that strange pose hugging Celicia, and he actually began to slowly rise from the meditation cushion.

Just now, whether it was facing Muen’s storm-like ferocious offensive or counterattacking after being wounded, King Yintuo had remained seated on that cushion, as if he were fused with it.

And ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) now, he was standing up.

Which meant the storm would become even more terrifying!

“Hoo...”

Facing the pressure, Celicia let out a shallow, fragrant breath.

Her gaze swept once more over that inconspicuous wound in King Yintuo’s palm, then she seemed to come to a decision. Her lake-like pale-blue eyes suddenly turned deep.

As if that body of water were freezing from the surface all the way to the depths—solidifying into ice completely!

As her pupils deepened, her silver-white hair billowed upward. Wind and snow gradually descended inside this spacious room.

A howling, swirling, rampaging blizzard!

In just an instant, the entire room seemed to be placed within a world of pure white. The raging snowstorm swallowed everything within.

At that moment, Muen finally understood why Celicia had wanted him to hold her. He could clearly feel the surrounding temperature plummeting—almost like falling off a cliff.

It was hard to imagine just how low the temperature around them had dropped. All he knew was that the air he exhaled instantly crystallized into frost-flowers.

And that was still within the area Celicia was deliberately controlling, where the temperature hadn’t been allowed to fall too drastically. Even so, his battle-hardened body still couldn’t stop shivering.

King Yintuo, who had been slowly rising, grew solemn. He seemed to sense something too, and his movements suddenly sped up.

With a terrifying crash like a landslide, the moment King Yintuo raised his hand, the wind and snow around him were torn open by an overwhelming force.

His five fingers spread and clenched toward the two of them, who could no longer move. Space twisted in his palm, as if he were about to pinch two insects to death.

But suddenly... his movements grew slow again.

This was not temporal delay, nor was it his intention to slow down.

It was because...

White frost spread along King Yintuo’s fingertips, rapidly crawling outward at a speed visible to the naked eye.

If it were only ordinary freezing, King Yintuo could have dismissed it with contempt. The ice prison from earlier hadn’t caused him the slightest trouble. But this time, he clearly felt that what was freezing was not just the surface of his body. Even the blood within him had begun to be affected, gradually congealing under the extreme cold.

This was the ultimate form of the Divine Favor bestowed by the Snowstorm Goddess—freezing all things.

The terrifying extreme cold poured madly into his body through that tiny, negligible gap in his palm, freezing him completely into an ice statue.

“Huff... ha... huff...”

Shivering violently, Muen turned his head with difficulty—and just happened to see King Yintuo, entirely frozen.

“D... did we... get him?”

Muen’s eyes widened in shock. He had not expected an arrogant Crowned One to actually be defeated by Celicia’s Divine Favor.

That strong?

Back then, Anna’s Divine Favor didn’t seem anywhere near that brutal!

In the midst of the extreme cold, Muen’s fingers trembled as he gripped his blades. He wanted to take advantage of the old bastard’s immobility and give him a few follow-up strikes.

If he couldn’t turn him into minced meat in three seconds, he’d consider his finishing technique still not practiced enough.

But just as he forced out a breath and was about to move—

“Go.”

A weak voice echoed in his ear.

“Hurry...”

Muen’s expression tightened. Without a shred of hesitation, he sheathed his twin blades, scooped Celicia up into his arms, and dashed toward the door.

The door blocking their way was kicked open with a single blow. The metal door that had once been solid was now incredibly brittle after being subjected to the extreme cold.

Muen vanished into the darkness in short order.

And within not even two seconds of his silhouette disappearing—

the ice statue in the room suddenly twitched.

The frost on its surface slowly shattered under a slight tremor, and the stiffened body gradually regained movement.

A terrifying wind-pressure abruptly spread outward in all directions. The countless ice spikes in the room all crumbled instantly into powder and grit.

King Yintuo silently watched the wide-open door, and the darkness beyond it.

His foot lifted slightly, as if he intended to pursue.

But then, as though something had suddenly occurred to him, he lowered his eyelids again and sat back down on the meditation cushion.

Everything returned to silence.

...

...

Gray mist churned.

This shadow city had no stars, no moon, and certainly no such thing as bright lights.

Yet in a certain remote corner at the end of a street, a faint, faint glow suddenly appeared.

After waiting a while and confirming that King Yintuo was not pursuing, Muen finally dared to kindle a sliver of light, enough to make the surroundings just barely visible.

This was the outermost edge of this fragment of the Shadow of Belrand. Muen was holding Celicia, hiding inside a house that had been sliced in half by gray mist.

“You all right?”

Muen carefully set Celicia down onto the bed in the room, the mattress padded with the blanket he had brought himself.

“...I’m fine.”

Celicia gave a slight shake of her head, then curled her body up and hugged her knees.

Muen noticed that she was trembling nonstop. Under the faint glow, her complexion was unnaturally pale.

There were even specks of frost clinging to her silver-white hair and eyelashes, and the fragrant air she exhaled had turned into tiny flakes of ice.

“Are you really all right?”

Muen kept his face stern as he asked again.

“......”

Celicia fell silent for a moment, then said softly:

“I’m... a little cold.”

“Cold...”

Someone using the Divine Favor of ice and snow could actually feel cold?

He didn’t need to think about it to know this was definitely the aftereffect of that move just now.

He hastily patted himself down, only to realize that while he had plenty of tools, he didn’t have anything that could be used to light a fire.

He couldn’t just grab an alchemical bomb, blow something up, and see if that could ignite a fire.

“Can you use fire magic?”

“What do you think?”

“......”

All right, sounded like she definitely couldn’t.

Muen quickly circled the area again, but truly couldn’t find any way to start a fire. His own magic was nearly drained as well, nowhere near enough to concentrate the illumination spell to a temperature high enough.

When he returned to the room, Muen found Celicia already wrapped tightly in the blanket. Yet her delicate body still shivered uncontrollably.

“Sigh. For the record, I’m not trying to take advantage of you here.”

Muen let out a soft sigh, then suddenly sat on the bed and wrapped Celicia into his arms.

Celicia’s icy gaze slid over to him, but this time Muen did not back down. Instead, he actually sounded rather firm as he barked quietly:

“Don’t move.”

Muen kept another magic stone in his mouth, restoring his magic as he circulated his battle-qi, trying to raise his body temperature as much as possible.

Celicia’s trembling body shifted once, but ultimately she did not struggle any further. After holding out for a bit, she quietly leaned her small head against Muen’s chest, seeking the warmest place.