Chapter 82 THE ICE WALL AND THE CRY OF THE DEAD
They left the Goliath behind, looking like a metal headstone half-buried in grey ash. They had no armor now. No engines. Only their loyalty to one another, hanging by a thread.
When the valley of ash ended, the sight before them took their breath away. A massive, bluish-white wall stretching to the heavens: The Eternal Glaciers.
This wasn't just cold; it was a geography where even time stood frozen. The wind didn't blow here; it bit.
Dorian led the way. With Lyra in his arms and a supply pack on his back, he trudged through the snow. The cold did not affect him; it was impossible for a dead body to feel a chill. But the others—Kael, Lukas, Valeria, and even Atlas—shivered beneath layers of fur.
Valeria was cuffed to Kael's arm and stumbled with every step. "We have to stop," she said, her teeth chattering. Her lips had turned a deep purple. "A storm is coming. Look at the sky. This isn't an ordinary blizzard. This is 'White Death.' If we stay under that cloud, we won't freeze—we’ll crystallize. Our blood will shatter like glass."
Dorian stopped. He saw the white vortex spinning on the horizon. "A cave," he said, pointing to an ice fissure ahead. "We must reach it."
They quickened their pace. But running on the glaciers was like dancing on a razor’s edge.
Just as they reached the fissure, the ground beneath them shook. A cracking sound came from deep below.
CRACK.
The thick layer of ice beneath them tore like paper. A massive, semi-transparent hand shot up from the rift and grabbed Lukas by the leg.
"Lukas!" Kael shouted, swinging his rifle off his shoulder and firing.
The bullets ricocheted off the ice hand, chipping away only small fragments. The thing rising from the rift wasn't an "Ice Golem." It was an abomination of flesh and ice, formed from the fused corpses of travelers, soldiers, and creatures who had frozen to death here centuries ago.
There were hundreds of frozen faces on the creature's torso. All their mouths were open, and all were screaming silently.
Lukas screamed as he was dragged down toward the dark, frigid water below. He clawed at the ice, but it was futile.
Dorian placed Lyra gently but quickly on the snow next to Serra. The connection thinned for a second; Dorian’s knees buckled and his vision blurred, but he did not fall.
With inhuman speed, Dorian leaped onto the creature.
He seized the massive ice wrist with his bare hands.
In that moment, the ancient magic of the North collided with the "Void" within Dorian.
Black smoke billowed from Dorian’s hands. This smoke didn't melt the ice; it rotted it. Black veins spread through the ice, destabilizing the creature’s structure. The ice turned from blue to a sickly grey.
The creature groaned. A metallic, agonizing wail from thousands of dead voices echoed through the valley.
The ice blackened, softened, and sloughed off as a foul liquid. The fingers holding Lukas’s leg decayed and broke away. Lukas was freed, crawling away across the ice, gasping for air.
But Dorian didn't stop. He plunged into the creature's chest, into the midst of those frozen faces. He sought the core, the magical heart within.
"Dorian, get back! It's going to blow!" Serra shouted, shielding Atlas with her body.
Dorian thrust his hand into the creature's chest and gripped something.
BOOM.
The creature exploded from within. Sharp shards of ice scattered like shrapnel. Kael shielded Valeria, throwing himself over her. Atlas instinctively formed a purple shield in his mother’s arms.
When the smoke and ice dust cleared, Dorian was standing. Not a single scratch marked his face. In his hand was a pulsing, fist-sized crystal glowing with blue light. The creature's heart.
Dorian crushed the crystal in his palm. It disintegrated into dust and vanished into the wind.
The storm suddenly ceased. The sky cleared.
"There is no storm anymore," Dorian said expressionlessly. He picked Lyra up again. The moment he touched the baby, his color returned. "They are waiting for us."
At the top of the ice wall, hundreds of meters above, figures in white robes with unseen faces appeared. The Silent Priests. They were watching, and they had opened their gates.