"They're coming! From behind!" Lee yelled, creating hundreds of ice spikes that covered the walls and floor.
I sensed the danger myself, so the enemies who broke through another passage in the ice didn't take me by surprise. A swing of the sword, and the enemy split into two halves. But instead of dying, as it should, the creature stirred and grinned with snow-white fangs. Worms. Who would have thought that I would have to fight an army of giant toothy worms... But how well it all started.
"Beginners are lucky," I chuckled at the third hour of the patrol. "We didn't even meet a failed harug."
The guys and I walked among piles of snow and ice in search of lost creatures. As they told me, the work is more tedious than truly dangerous. Strong spiritual beasts are afraid to approach the castle, considering the surroundings to be the territory of other strong predators, and any weak creature that is barely sensitive to spiritual power usually possesses little of this power. There are exceptions, of course, but that's why they are exceptions.
"What kind of harug is this?"
"A giant white rat. Almost all the animals here possess ice Qi in one way or another. My advice to you is, when Master So Yun is going to assemble an expedition to the Grove of Frosty Plum, make sure to sign up. You will not find such beauty anywhere in the outside world. And they give a lot of points for expeditions."
"Is there a grove here? With real plants?" I was surprised.
"Of course. You probably thought there was nothing but ice here?" He laughed. "There's a lot of stuff here. It's not always pleasant."
"There are very kind spirits in the grove. They told me a sad story," Ryu added.
The guy continued to stare at nothing for most of the way. I would have considered him a little crazy if it wasn't for his rather powerful aura and a strange feeling that I couldn't interpret properly. It was as if someone else was constantly circling around him. Maybe it really was perfume. Alas, there were huge gaps in my education.
"We're going back," Lee said an hour later. Unfamiliar stars were already shining in the sky, and my teeth were chattering from the cold.
As soon as we walked literally a hundred or two meters, the ice began to crack under our feet. I immediately drew my blade, and my companions instantly activated their techniques. Hmm, is this full-fledged ice armor?
"This is... I don't understand. The spirits are silent!" Ryu said. The next second, the ice finally broke, and we fell down.
"Ugh," I blurted out from the impact. If it wasn't for the strengthening from the spiritual force, I probably would have broken all my bones.
"Ryu! Wake up!" Lee shouted, leaning over his brother. The guy had landed badly and was now lying unconscious on the floor of an ice cave.
I was about to rush to help when my gaze caught some kind of movement. Throwing a tiny flame there, I saw a sight that made the hair on my head stand up. Most of the cave was covered with a layer of moving flesh. It was only thanks to my improved senses that I was able to understand that these were worms. Huge, toothy worms, the size of a dog. And they were crawling towards us pretty fast.
"What is this place?" I blurted out, activating the acceleration technique. That's just the spiritual power I had left at the bottom — I had nowhere to replenish it, and naturally this process has been going on for too long.
"An incubator," Lee replied after a moment, his face pale. "The fucking worms ate the ice! We have to run! Quickly!"
But there were problems with that — we couldn't fly, and the sheer walls consisted entirely of slippery ice.
"Watch out," he shouted, and I jumped back. An ice worm crawled out right where I had been standing. This hose with teeth screeched hysterically and suddenly shot its body forward briskly.
"Weak," I grimaced, watching as the monster's halves continued to writhe at my feet. "But tenacious."
"There are legions of them here! These creatures are the weakest, but we will simply be swept away by the crowd!" He shouted in panic, forming a technique. The spell spread forward in a wave of sharp ice fragments, from which a terrible screech arose.
"Can you make a ladder?" I nodded at the wall. Our ugly opponents were already swarming around it.
"I'll try," he nodded, hoisting his brother onto his shoulder. "Make sure that the creatures don't get to us."
I didn't need to be told twice. I met the first wave of opponents with a wide swing of my blade. And again a nasty squeal, as if hitting right into the brain. Maybe these worms are also telepaths? I'll ask about it later.
We slowly retreated to the wall, and even successfully forced our way through, but another unpleasant surprise was waiting for us. The whole cave was eaten by worms. Literally everything! A new batch of enemies climbed right out of the wall at us. And we couldn't see the end of them.
"Are you kidding me?!" Lee shouted as the ladder he was forming crumbled and toothy hoses came out of it. "Where would an incubator come from right next to the Fort?"
Alas, no one was in a hurry to answer us. But the number of opponents increased dramatically. They were literally crawling over each other's heads, trying to get to our warm flesh. Everything that was happening was like a scene from some cheap horror movie. At some point, I ran out of spiritual power and the acceleration technique dissipated, leaving me with a heavy feeling of heaviness and inner emptiness.
"They're coming! From behind!" Lee warned me, and I automatically slashed with the blade. Worms were increasingly crawling towards us from the walls, the floor and even the pieces of the ceiling that had not collapsed. Is it my karma that everything around me is trying to kill me?
"The spirits say we need to go down," Ryu's weak voice suddenly rang out. He's awake! And I had inadvertently decided that the guy was dead.
"Brother, did you hit your head? We urgently need to get out!" Lee barked, conjuring an icy sickle.
"Spirits don't lie," he whispered. "We need to go downstairs."
"Kai, back to back!" Lee grimaced and an ice spear formed in his hand. Is his reserve of strength coming to an end? Or?
"I need time to prepare the equipment. Brother, do you mind participating in the battle?"
Ryu drawled and stared in surprise at the half of the worm at his feet. I had just finished it off and was now cursing at the two of them.
It seems that he finally understood what was happening, and his power began to move. Immediately, thousands of tiny pieces of ice rose into the air and swirled around us. The flow of enemies subsided slightly, and I was able to exhale a little.
"Now, hold on," he said on an exhale and sharply struck the floor with his spear. The weapon disappeared from his hands, and there was a crack. The ice opened up under our feet, and we fell down.
"Couldn't you have struck out of the way?" I blurted out when I caught my breath after the fall. We fell into another cave. Except this time it's a stone one. There was barely enough light to see the floor underfoot, but there were no worms here. Except for a couple who came down here with us, but I immediately swung my sword, sending them into oblivion. And the spiritual power in this place was kind of strange. It seems to be cold, but different. More dense, more... alive?
"I didn't think of it," he said, embarrassed. "Come on, it seemed like it turned out well, didn't it?"
"Not bad? Are you serious? Why did you even listen to him? We could have gone upstairs!" I began to boil.
But I didn't have time to hear the answer. The next moment there was a slap. One second.
"These creatures are coming after us!" he shouted, but I already guessed it myself. There's no mistaking that brain-piercing squeal. "Brother, what do your spirits say, where do we go now?"
"That way," he replied, obviously pointing in some direction.
The next moment, pale lights flickered in the air. Clearly the work of one of the brothers. They didn't give much light, but it was better than nothing. I couldn't even do that right now.
There was indeed a dark tunnel ahead. I didn't want to trust any spirits, but I had no choice. The worms kept coming. But now they couldn't chew their way through the rock — the stone was too strong for them, and I suspected that Qi was involved in their ability to move inside the ice arrays.