I dove towards the ice wraith, intent on jamming my blade as deep into its icy skull as I could. My blade dug deep into the ice of the tunnel wall, fractions of a second after the wraith retreated into the ice. I growled in annoyance, casting about with my senses, trying to locate the slippery enemy. It was still nearby, its presence unseen but felt. I could feel the effects of the ice wraith's [Permafrost] dropping the ambient temperature even further. Soon enough, it would progress far enough to begin slowing Kels' team and me, according to the System description of the Skill. At that point, if nothing was done, it would become a death spiral that ended with us too slow and fatigued to fight effectively any longer.
Another series of ice spikes whistled past me, this time Vipera batted several out of the air with her scale-armoured tail with an angry hiss. I growled, turning to find the wraith poking out of the opposite wall. I leapt at it once again. I had to keep it focused on me; if it turned its attention to Kels and his team, things would spiral quickly. The wraith vanished back inside the ice wall of the tunnel while I was still in the air. As I fell back to the ground, snow wyrm emerged unfurling from the wall, I planted my boot on its sinuous body with as much force as I could muster from my position. It let out an angry hiss as its body was slapped back against the tunnel wall like a wet noodle flung at the wall. I didn't give the worm a moment to recover, twisting in the air, my dagger came whipping around like the end of a bullwhip. The follow-through saw the wyrm's head spinning through the air.
I glared around the area, searching for any trace of the wraith. I tracked its signature through the ice with [All-Seeing Eye], cranking my focus wide open to the point of pain flaring behind my eyes. I let its peculiar mix of aura and mana imprint burn itself onto my vision. The difference between the wraith’s signature and the ambient mana was gossamer thin, but it was there—a refraction, a crack in the usual gradient. It was coiling through the wall, maneuvering for a better angle, probably preparing to strike at one of the others.
At the far end of the tunnel, it phased half out of the wall, jaws yawning wide as if in mockery. [Edge Glare] flashed out then slammed into the wall behind it, but the blade of force missed by a hair and fractured a stratum of blue ice, sending up a blast of frozen dust as the wraith vanished into the ice once again. I channelled the frustration into another mad dash, ignoring the razor chill from [Permafrost] gnawing at my skin. I could feel the slightest edge of numbness settling into my fingers and lips, like a first frostbite warning.
The damn thing would always let me get close, then vanish into the ice like a trick of the light. We pushed on through the tunnels, ever harassed by more snow wyrms peeling themselves off the walls, and the damn wraith popping its head out to take pop shots. Always only from places where I wouldn't be able to reach it before it could retreat. As if it were afraid of closing with me physically. It was an endless frustration that I vented quite readily on the snow wyrms whenever they crossed my path in my pursuit of the wraith. Growling in frustration at my inability to close with the wraith, I triggered [Gaze of Bane] while I glared at it from further back in the tunnel. I grinned with absolutely feral satisfaction when the wraith hissed in pain, and I watched some of its icy bones discolour. I had my answer; two could play the game of a spiral into attrition.
I turned my attention to the snow wyrms. The wraith problem would solve itself over time. Every time it emerged, I would have it suffer more stacks of [Bane] until it grew desperate enough to emerge fully from hiding. Grinning like a madman, I threw myself into the battle with the snow wyrms like a man possessed.
You have obtained a new Skill [Dagger…
I barely glanced at the System screen; I could guess its contents. The moment it had appeared, I felt it. The familiar dagger clenched in my hand suddenly had more weight to it, yet felt more like an extension of my arm. As I used it to bite deeply into the neck of a snow wyrm, it felt more like a conductor's baton than just a mere blade. My strikes felt more sure than ever before, almost as if I could feel the lines and simply cut along them for the best results. Suddenly, there were no more partially severed heads when I struck; every slice became neat and clean, as if practiced for dozens upon dozens of hours. It wasn't a total mastery of the weapon in my hands, but it was a step forward. An advancement from novice to intermediate, perhaps adept. I could feel that there was more road to travel, much more if I wished to truly master the dagger as a weapon.
I swiveled, letting the flow of battle become almost mechanical. The dagger led my hand, instinct built on layers of muscle memory and now edged by the System's own guiding hand. Every time a snow wyrm dared breach within a meter of my team, it lost its head in an arc so clean I could feel the flicker of air cascading outward as the blade parted flesh, cartilage and bone with new ease. I made it a point to harvest every ounce of momentum, redirecting from kill to kill with a rhythm that became a pulse in my body. If before I had been a blunt instrument, now I felt like a crowbar—still not yet elegant, but I could slip into cracks and lever monsters open well enough.
The air cracked with the whine of projectiles, Felix ahead of me screaming oaths at the appearing wyrms. Every second volley from his rifle set off a chorus of little blue detonations, the rounds punching through three or four worms before lodging themselves deep and disgorging clouds of freezing vapor. We were making progress, with Kels and Angus in the lead, battering down the wyrms with brute force. Every time the wraith reared its bone head, I handed it another dose of [Gaze of Bane], adding to the ever increasing amount of [Bane] stacking up on the monster that it had no way to cleanse.
For all that we were making progress, it came at a cost. Dozens of small wounds stacked up on all of us as we took glancing blows from the wyrms or the wraith’s projectiles. This had become a war of attrition between us and the dungeon monsters of this icy hell. I was shambling toward full-on tunnel vision—head pounding in rhythm with every pulse, fingers starting to lose dexterity, the little shakes that haunted every movement.
It'd start at the extremities: fine motor control would dip, maybe a half-step lag behind intent, but that would compound with every second of continued exposure. I slashed another snow wyrm from the air, the motion as natural as blinking, but I felt it that time—the edge of clumsiness that meant I was a step closer to disaster. [Pain Mitigation] was likely the only reason I felt as good as I did. I had to imagine the others were feeling ragged and raw by this point unless they had some way to mitigate it. If nothing changed soon, I would have to recall Vipera into myself so I could utilize her [Root Regeneration] to sustain myself. My [Totem of regrowth], the amulet I'd looted so long ago in the Soul-Sheer. Continued to help, nearly forgotten in the background, but at this point, it wasn't enough on its own.
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Then the wraith made a mistake.
We emerged into a larger chamber between tunnels, and the wraith emerged from the floor in the center of our formation. It was going to breathe icy death all over us; it sought to finish this battle in one fell swoop. Without a thought, I dove on the wraith hands, gripping at its strange, icy bones. I could feel my skin freezing just being in physical contact with the dam thing, but I refused to let it go. Digging in against the ice, I refused to let it retreat, muscles locked in a snarl of rage as inch by inch I dragged the wraith from its icy retreat.
"VIPERA!" I bellowed, and the serpent erupted from the wraith's far side. She wrapped the wraith from the other side, jaws locking into its icy bones. I released the wraith with one hand, keeping the other firmly locked on its skull. I left behind skin and blood as my frozen flesh tore. My dagger came to hand, and I slammed the blade home, over and over, the icy monster thrashing and hissing on our grip. The in slumped down limp, with a sound that reminded me of nothing so much as falling icicles. I wanted rest, but there was more to be done. Running purely on instinct, I activated [Spirit Forge] as I rose to my feet, peeling my other hand of the wraith's cold corpse.
The golden light flashed in my vision, not so much bright as it was sharp—like the afterimage of a welder’s torch, searing the chill darkness. I staggered back, cradling one hand as the feeling returned in painful lances. The reward for unmaking the wraith was a misshapen orb, jagged and glassy, half-fused ice and threadlike veins of frozen blue. It pulsed in my palm like a cold heart. I stashed it in my [Inventory], already knowing it was something I’d want to examine in depth once we were out of this dungeon.
My hands shook with the adrenaline of sudden violence, but also relief: without the wraith, the pressure of the [Permafrost] began to recede. The tunnel was still frigid, the floor blue with frost, and the air full of dead wyrm stink, but at least I could feel my fingers again. I flexed them, noting the sluggish return of bloodflow, the tiny pin pricks of feeling.
I turned my attention to the rest of the team. The emergence of the snow wyrms had slowed, but there were still more to be dealt with. Vipera slithered up my legs and vanished, returning to my soul where her [Root Regeneration] could help speed my recovery. My dagger vanished into my [Inventory] as well. Gripping it would be a problem until my hands healed. For now, I could still assist the other as they finished clearing out the snow wyrms.
Signe's lightning cut through the dark, flaring pale blue over the slick walls and carving twin snow wyrms into twitching, spasming halves. Behind her, Felix weaved and muttered, working the bolt of his rifle even as he spat arcane invective at the wriggling bodies that carpeted the ground and waved in the air. The air was thick with gore, rotten fish stink, and more than a little ozone. Kels and Angus were back to back, hammer and sword working in a brutal rhythm—a pulped wyrm every third beat of my heart until finally there were none left.
The others stood battered and panting, sluiced with blood and ichor. Exposed skin was streaked raw pink where frostbite had bitten through gloves or thin plates of armour. No one was dead, which meant this wasn't an utter disaster, but there was that look in everyone's eyes: the knowledge that next time, one mistake would be enough.
Kels looked like he wanted to punch a glacier in half. He checked the walls around the chamber, giving the corpses a wide berth, then nodded at me. "You good?" The question was as much a challenge as it was a concern.
"Hands'll work. Enough." I grunted, flexing my hands, showing off the raw red flesh that had healed where it had been peeled off. The wounds had closed up but weren't quite fully healed yet. I wandered the chamber tapping corpses with my boot, just enough contact for [Spirit Forge] to work. "Fortunately, the exit isn't far," I jerked my head in the direction of the far side of the chamber. The exit was less than a hundred meters away. No one made a move towards it. None of us were ready to move to the next chamber and face what came next just yet.
Finished with the corpse tagging, I activated [Spirit Forge]. I should have waited.
Surrounded by the golden energy, I didn't see a second ice wraith emerge from the floor behind Felix until it was too late. The wraith's icy fangs sliced out from the floor in a blur, the rest of its body snapping after, jaws distending impossibly wide, plunging into Felix's back between his shoulder blades. His eyes bulged in shock and horror, Felix fell to his knees, arms flailing wildly, mouth open and gaping in a silent scream. The wraith's jaws kept going, pushing through cloth and bone until it burst out through his chest in a rain of frozen flecks of blood and shredded Kevlar. He barely had time to shriek.
A direct hit from a monster several levels above you—if he hadn't been wearing serious armour, it would've cut him in half. Hell, it might still have. I watched the whole thing unfold in slow motion, my body still sluggish in the aftermath of the previous fight, unable to reach him in time. Everyone moved at once—Signe and Angus, Kels, even me—but it was too late, the wraith ripped itself the rest of the way through Felix's body, eviscerating the man with its bony ribs, sharp like knives made of ice, emerging like a bloody icicle. The ice wraith was obliterated under a series of attacks from each of us, but that was cold comfort in the face of Felix's sudden death.
The ice wraith's death filled the cavern with a roar of icy anger as more ice wraiths began emerging from the floor and walls. Shaking off my remaining stupor, I took in the situation around us: a dozen ice wraiths, too many. I could feel that they were individually weaker than the one I had killed, but that was still too many for our exhausted group to battle.
"GO! Go!" I barked at Kels, grabbing him by the shoulder and physically turning him to face the exit. I withdrew my dagger from my [Inventory], gritting my teeth against the agony. He fought me for a moment, eyes wide and bloodshot. I could feel his aura roiling in agony at the loss of his friend. Just a moment, it seemed he would dive into the group of ice wraiths headfirst, seeking vengeance.
Just a moment before cold, cruel logic reasserted itself in his mind. He didn't need further encouragement. Kels took the lead, barreling toward the tunnel mouth with Signe and Angus in a wedge behind him. I dropped to the rear, covering our retreat with an overcharged [Edge Glare] that momentarily left me staggering as my mana reserves ran low again. The world narrowed to a single point—a kill zone of rippling ice and the strobing of our spells and Skills. The wraiths were relentless, pressing in from every surface, jaws snapped, and claws raked, but I kept them at bay, slashing and burning holes through them with every means I had left.
Every kill left my hands colder, my head pounding in time with my pulse.
"Almost—" Signe gasped out, voice strangled with exhaustion.
We hit the far end of the chamber with the last of the wraiths on our heels. I roared overcharging an [Edge Glare] so far I thought my eye would burst from the strain. As we stumbled through the exit into the stone corridor, the spell went off, an arc half a dozen feet wide ripped through the space, utterly decimating the ice wraiths. All that was left in the tunnels was the tinkle of crackling ice. I clutched a hand to my eye as it throbbed, growling in agony, stumbling along behind the others deeper into the stone corridor.
