As the darkness intensified around her, Elizabeth's mind finally began to clear.
"How long has it been...?"
The lights that seep in during the day through the small crevices of the precipice had disappeared many times.
"Has nightfall arrived already?"
Yet, Elizabeth didn't know how much time had passed. The darkness surrounding her is the only thing she's completely sure of at the moment, and aside from that, everything feels so perilous and uncertain.
"It seems to be getting colder... So it's already night, right...?"
Indeed, when night falls, the temperature in the Frozen Peaks drops significantly. However, that wasn't the real reason why Elizabeth felt so affected by the cold of those mountains.
"It doesn't seem interested in coming after me..."
She shivers as the barrier of warmth around her body adjusts, not to keep the cold from reaching her, but to merely keep her alive.
"Maybe I can... leave now..."
The lack of mana had already started to be a problem, but soon it would intensify even more, as it's been not just a few hours since Elizabeth entered that precipice.
Constantly surrounded by darkness, her sense of time has been severely affected, as well as her mental state. By the end of the first day, she thought only a few minutes had passed, at most an hour.
Images kept appearing in her mind, as if something were constantly approaching her, other times as if that creature were already lurking beside her.
She felt her breath, the cold air touching her neck amidst the darkness. Yet, it was all an illusion created by her own distorted mind.
On the third day, during a brief moment of clarity, the idea that the creature had no interest in her even crossed her mind. However, she could still see the red glow amidst the darkness; she could hear its claws constantly scratching the ice walls around her.
As the fourth day gave way to the fifth, her mind was much calmer, she could even think normally. But that only lasted until she heard the creature's claws approaching with the emergence of a shrill sound.
During the seventh day, the eyes and claws were completely gone, leaving only darkness and a fear so great that it prevented her from even getting up.
"Yes... Staying here won't help."
By the ninth, the fear remained, but her mind was no longer lost at all.
"I have to... get out of this place..."
Elizabeth rose slowly, leaning on the ice walls around her. Her mind was no longer severely affected by the sudden encounter with that terrifying creature, but the fear still remained intact.
The image of that being constantly appeared in her mind, making her reconsider her decision several times in such a short time. Less than a minute had passed since she finally decided to leave that place, but she had thought about giving up that decision around fifteen times.
Her body trembled, not only from the influence of the cold but also from the fear that consumed her.
A step forward was taken, leaving Elizabeth in contact with nothing but the ground. Looking up, she could see the faint light entering the precipice.
"The light may be faint, but it doesn't seem like moonlight. So, maybe it's still daytime..."
After a leap, the approach of the light was quick and disorienting. The intense glow blurred her vision and made it difficult for Elizabeth to climb the surface.
After spending so much time in darkness, it took some time for her eyes to readjust to the light.
Covering her eyes with one hand, Elizabeth slowly exposed herself to the intense sunlight. For a brief moment, a burning sensation could be felt, but it soon passed.
"What place is this? Did... I descend the mountain?"
Initially, her fear upon seeing the creature was so great that it caused her to run desperately in the opposite direction, but that didn't make her leave the Frozen Peaks. She delved even deeper.
"No... am I in another one?"
Looking around, not just one mountain, but two. Elizabeth could see two mountains of the Frozen Peaks around her.
The precipice where she was before is a huge hole between two of the massive peaks of the Frozen Peaks that seems to outline their division.
Perhaps because it's closer to the center where the lake of the Frozen Peaks is located, or maybe because she's between two of the mountains, in fact, it doesn't matter, the fact is that for some reason it was even colder in that place.
Even with the heat barrier activated, albeit to a lesser extent, as she stood still in that place, slowly her body began to stiffen.
Instinctively, Elizabeth ran to the second mountain, fearing to return to a place near where the creature is.
It wasn't like the other times, where different parts of her body, at some point, started to freeze slowly. All at the same time, without exception. Every part of her body was losing its movements just because she was in that place.
While she ran, a pair of yetis appeared in her path. She had no mana; magic couldn't be used.
It was strangely natural, especially if you stop to think about what she went through in the last few days by not being able to bear seeing blood. Drawing her sword in an instant, in less time than a blink of an eye, Elizabeth easily cut those creatures in half simultaneously.
[Congratulations]
[You leveled up]
"How..."
She herself didn't understand. How did she do that? Why did she do that? It was so instinctive and natural that it even startled her.
Elizabeth looked at herself, at the blood on her hands, arms, belly, and what was left of her clothes; "Why, unlike before, doesn't this affect me as much?"
Seeing blood still caused her discomfort, after all, the memories of that day still come to her mind. However, this is nothing compared to how she reacted some time ago.
"I was planning to do this slowly, increasing exposure to blood a little at a time, but that won't be necessary anymore?"
After approaching the dead creatures and crouching next to their bodies, Elizabeth reached out her hand to the blood dripping onto the snow.
"Touching blood still causes a certain strangeness, maybe even a chill, but that's not a problem. I think this had a name, it was... recontextualization?"
Elizabeth stood up and looked at the Kingdom of Camelot. There was no reason for her to stay in that place anymore; her goals had already been achieved, gaining strength was the main one, getting rid of her problem with blood was just an idea that would possibly be put into practice at some point.
"To basically make me ignore the fear of blood... Seeing that creature was something 'traumatic' to this point...?"
For a brief moment, the image of the red eyes watching her came to her mind. Her body shivered immediately, and instinctively, Elizabeth crouched down quickly.
Her eyes widened instantly, wandering around every corner of that mountain as her body trembled on the ground.
"Okay..." Elizabeth said, after taking a few minutes to calm down. "It seems there's no need to doubt this..."
The idea of descending the mountain with a simple jump seemed to be the fastest, but not the most viable. At the time of the jump, a tremor came followed by a complete paralysis of her body; it didn't move a single centimeter even after she spent a few minutes trying.
"Maybe walking down isn't such a bad idea after all... I might end up leveling up a few more times..."
And so it happened. As she descended the mountain, Elizabeth came across a large pack of wolves. There were thirty in total, and since it only took killing three wolves to level up, she ended up leveling up ten more times before leaving the Frozen Peaks.
However, despite the change in her decision regarding how she would descend the mountain, her body only stopped trembling when she was almost reaching the beginning of the mountain.
[Name: Elizabeth Berseba
Status
Level: 205
Mana: 1015
Strength: 796
Resistance: 793
Agility: 800]