401 Lowway To Hell
Once more, bursts of experience flowed into Skullius as the more than a dozen Trolls died horrific deaths, their mana flowing into the atmosphere without pause.
The cold sensation of abundant mana over his body made Skullius’ sockets flare wildly and he emitted a chuckle.
“Perfect…”
Hurriedly, the Penetrator absorbed the Null Life Essence from the corpses, getting a haul of 55 points for each.
After that was done, Skullius took the opportunity to use [Elevated Mana Manipulation] to scout the area some more and further explore what else he was capable of.
He made sure to ‘squint’ once again in order to not invite more creatures to the party and took quick steps ahead into the dark forest.
Since this was the territory of the Burdened Ice Trolls, there were many more of the beasts scattered around, with some quickly approaching his previous location where the harrowing screams had echoed.
With his superior senses, Skullius also discovered certain things about this forest. Perhaps the same principles had applied to the Tremur but he just hadn’t been sense them at the time.
“Wow, just within range of my [Elevated Mana Manipulation] to a far right, the mana keeps getting thicker. Then again, I purposefully avoided going through what looked like the centre to this place in case I met powerful monsters,” Skullius said as trudged on while making sure he was aware of the position of everything that breathed.
To his right, where he felt the cascading waves of mana get a tinge of spice as they turned from being pure to gaining a heavy frosty influence, the trees only grew larger, their moist trunks starting to grow what Skullius could only call ice branches.
Further away, as Skullius focused his vision, he could even see white trees that grew from the snow, on their branches… blue fruits that looked like pineapples but with a blue colour over them hanging from high branches.
‘Hmm… that’s right, I have things like this in my Cluster world. Maybe I should investigate them,’ Skullius thought.
He quickened his pace as he descended down the slope, leaping over fallen threes and rising over small icy hills.
The Discount Human didn’t want to waste any time as just like he said, he was on a time crunch. Since this was the shortest straight stretch from the cliff to the waters at the end of the area of recession, he had gladly taken it for said purpose.
Luckily, the creatures he met even after exiting the Troll territory were not that strong and he killed them all with the same trick he had used to kill the ugly mugs before.
With each time he did this, he refined his control of condensed mana, taking a few moments to feel the texture of mana in some enemies just for practise before killing them faster so that they didn’t call others to the disco, gig, slaughter fest… whichever was fine.
When Skullius had crossed over half of the way…
‘Hmmm… Did it just get colder?’ he thought to himself.
Before him was big trough that led into an area populated by more ice rather than snow.
Within it, Skullius sensed a few presences, much of them being Tier 3 with the rest being Tier 4.
‘Jeez, are there any weak creatures in this forest at all? It’s ridiculous how each one is Tier 3 or above. At this point I’m half expecting a Tier 8 to just pop for the fun of it,’ Skullius thought while shaking his head.
The Penetrator in his hooded cloak crossed over the trough while making sure he didn’t get dragged off by gravity to tumble on as a result of the descent which grew steeper.
Twenty more some presences instantly appeared in Skullius’ senses, their body shapes confusing a freak out of him.
Along with this came a weird phenomenon, one that he saw.
Snow flakes.
Not ordinary ones but ones infused with vast amounts of ‘spiced’ mana.
They flew overhead in clustered that curled and climbed up the atmosphere with a sense of patterned flow that would make one go, ‘Aww’.
But for Skullius who had been waiting for the catch to this halfway point in his journey, this was was from enough to fool him.
Instead of powering through…
‘Ferex… I have a bad feeling about this. Let’s go with the emergency plan,’ Skullius sent his intent to the Apostle around his neck who promptly nodded and manifested his large body covered in Unliving thread.
Over the thread, a shaggy hide of brown with glowing white marks appeared.
Ferex doubled in size before opening his maw where Skullius jumped in.
The two were using the same trick they had used to sneak back into Inhone City after the defeat of the Galemonger back then.
Ferex’s presence vanished and he moved forward with his mouth slightly open for Skullius to see ahead.
After they had travelled a distance, the two were faced with a clearing made of ice, where Skullius saw the creatures he had been sensed.
‘That’s… weird…,’ he thought.
One word.
Snowmen.
Twenty six snowmen, with three layers of balled up snow in descending order from the bottom were moving over an ice platform within a depression surrounded by snow covered trees!
Rather than simply moving, they were sliding, their wooden hands waving around with glee. On the smallest ball of snow, which was their heads, joyful faces could be seen with gouged out sockets as eyes and traced curves at the bottom to resemble smiles.
Crooked sticks were planted in the middle, acting as the nose, completing what a man looked like. Definitely.
‘So stupid…’ Skullius remarked as he watched the creatures have fun. ‘Hmmm?’
Once more, snow flakes with unbelievable bursts of mana within them streamed above in a calm manner, but this time, there were many of them swirling above the playing snowmen!
‘Ferex, stop!’ Skullius commanded to which the Apostle immediately came to halt.
He had sensed something from a distance!
A massive presence that had suddenly shown up from the blue!
It was so massive that Skullius withdrew his prying mana senses to a limited range to ensure that nothing went wrong and…
FWOOOOO!
The air gushed outwards as the streaming snow flakes spun over the ice platform within the depression, a massive figure spontaneously bursting into existence as it levitated high up!
A massive snowman that was…
It had the exact same features as the smaller ones on the ground but with a six meter mass as well as… a hat?
A wooden one!
The fun came when guessing what Tier it was, and Skullius didn’t even need the guidance field for it as even at a rough estimation of power, this thing had the same presence as the Galemonger!
‘Tier 8… Great!’ Skullius thought as he skull palmed.
Evidence that this thing was bad news came from the fact that around it, the space seemed to turn into rhombus shaped ice plates that glowed, reflecting an unseen shine for over three meters give or take. The complexity of whatever shit was going on there was just as complex as things like Spatial Lightning and Stagnant Space.
Skullius didn’t want a piece of that.
‘Let’s just wait until it leaves. I’m not taking any chances,’ Skullius thought.
Thus the wait begin.
A wait of four hours!
The cold, hat wearing, white covered bastard watched the masses of snow below it endlessly perform a dance the whole time!
Skullius seethed with fury.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t do anything to daddy snowman and when the thing eventually left, he waited for a few minutes just in case.
He and Ferex finally went past these creeps, with Skullius having to half a mind to kill these snowmen out of spite but no, it wasn’t worth it.
The two crossed the distance while avoiding any clustered cuties as Skullius reassumed his [Elevated Mana Manipulation] to its maximum range.
It didn’t take long until Skullius and Ferex finally reached the edge and looked over the waters that had hints of the fog spilling from the fall far to the right.
The water wasn’t frozen but it was horrendously cold.
Fortunately, no creature from the forest wanted to dance with these temperatures, which was great for Skullius who didn’t want anything more than to get on with finding what he needed right now.
On the other hand, Skullius noticed something in the water.
It was faint but it rubbed him the wrong way.
A chilling energy.
He decided to ask Sila who had grown so used to being cut off by him that he developed a habit of going quiet on his own.
“Do you remember anything else I should be aware of?” Skullius asked.
‘Hmm… let me think. Hmm, that’s right. You cannot enter that place in this form. Monsters are not tolerated after all, especially if they look like undead,’ Sila said.
“Right…” Skullius said as immediately activated [High Cosmetic Body]. “I should probably wear my new gear for this too.”
The Discount Human had begun taking out the item he referenced from his spatial storage ring, Staff in hand, when Sila suddenly recalled something else.
‘Ah, there’s another thing. To think I’d forget this…’ Sila said.
“What?”
‘This place… I’m sure it’s within a powerful beast’s Territory. A Majestic Territory.’
—
[Author’s Note]
I wanted to try and complete Win-win this month but I have a tight schedule. Mondays remaina a one chapter day. Weekends man.