The blizzard howled like a hungry beast, and Frostveil Chasm loomed before Su Mengtian's team, its jagged cliffs cloaked in a thick shroud of snow and ice. The sun, obscured behind gray clouds, did little to warm their frostbitten faces as they stood at the threshold of the expedition's most dangerous descent yet. The air was thin, charged with an ancient energy that made even seasoned scouts flinch.
Mengtian gazed down into the narrow crevice that split the landscape like a wound. Blue light pulsed faintly within, distant and haunting, like a heartbeat beneath the glacier. Every step forward whispered of buried secrets and dormant threats. Yet his expression remained steady.
Behind him, the group was composed of mixed talents from the Hall of Ironblood, the Hall of Aegis, and the Hall of Echoes, each handpicked for resilience and loyalty. Yan Qian, his icy-eyed strategist from the Hall of Aegis, adjusted her fur-lined coat and stepped beside him.
"The descent path is stable for now," she said. "But there are fluctuations in the ambient mana fields below. Something's shifting."
Mengtian nodded. "This is no longer about exploration. We may be walking into a graveyard—or a nest."
He looked over his shoulder. "Fan out. Formation Epsilon. Stay within visual contact. The moment someone feels pressure in their core, they report. No exceptions."
With practiced precision, the team prepared their climbing gear and began the descent into the icy maw.
The inner walls of the chasm were embedded with frozen crystal veins that emitted pale, rhythmic pulses—resonating faintly with the deeper cores of those who possessed awakened bloodlines. Several among the team began feeling a low-level hum at the edge of perception, not painful, but persistent.
Mengtian's own blood stirred.
As they descended into the crystalline abyss, a sound began to echo—like chanting, but hollow, and not born of any human tongue. It slipped between the layers of wind and ice, ancient and unearthly.
At the 60-meter mark, the path widened into a natural frozen cavern, where the air grew impossibly still. The floor was a smooth plate of transparent ice, beneath which was a frozen lake of sealed mana. A perfect, tranquil blue. But even more terrifying was the creature sleeping beneath.
"Report," Mengtian whispered.
"We've confirmed signs of dimensional seal fractures," said Yan Qian, her voice barely audible. "The beast below... it's not native to this realm."
Mengtian's eyes narrowed. "So it begins."
Just then, the icy floor beneath them flickered—once, then twice. The sleeping creature stirred. Its silhouette was that of a serpentine leviathan, layered in crystal-scaled armor. Multiple eyes opened beneath the lake of ice, staring up at them.
The seal cracked like thunder.
"Evacuate the upper squad!" Mengtian barked. "Everyone else, defensive array Delta!"
He leapt down as mana surged through his limbs, activating the enchanted circuitry laced into his frost-cloak. His presence became like a beacon—commanding, grounded, unshaken.
The leviathan breached the surface of the lake with a roar that shattered the ice above. Spires of mana-hardened frost shot out in all directions. Several scouts were flung backward, screaming.
Yan Qian raised her hands and activated the Aegis Array, a wide shield formation that covered their retreating squads. "Contain it! Buy us five minutes!"
But Mengtian wasn't retreating. He charged.
"Commander, fall back!" cried one of the soldiers.
"No. It awakens here," Mengtian said coldly. "It dies here."
He raised his arm and clenched his fist. A thin seal etched into his right wrist glowed with golden light—restrained, unawakened. For a brief moment, it pulsed violently, resonating with the mana of the chasm.
Yet he held it down. Not yet.
Drawing his twin glaives from the sheath behind his back, Mengtian danced forward like a hurricane, ducking under a swing of the leviathan's tail and slicing along the beast's underside. Blue blood hissed as it hit the cold air.
The battle turned chaotic.
Elementalists from the Hall of Echoes amplified the terrain's resonance, creating harmonic disruptions to disorient the beast. The warriors of Ironblood drove mana-forged stakes into the ground to anchor the collapsing cave. Yan Qian coordinated the deployment of emergency runes.
"Seal its movement! Cut off its sensory field!" she ordered.
Mengtian delivered another series of rapid strikes, his body a blur of motion. Each movement flowed with honed precision—an echo of his past life's battlefield instincts now wielded by a seventeen-year-old prodigy.
Then the beast shrieked.
A pulse of corrupted mana exploded from its core, threatening to engulf the team. The runes flickered. The shields cracked.
Yan Qian turned toward him. "Commander!"
He landed on one knee, coughing blood. His core was beginning to tremble. It was straining to keep his power suppressed.
Damn it. If I awaken here, there's no hiding it...
The golden seal on his wrist blazed again, this time nearly snapping open.
Then he saw them—his team—injured but standing their ground. And Yan Qian, shielding three rookies with her own core flaring dangerously low. Her lips were turning blue.
He grit his teeth. "You bastards... think you can harm my people and live?"
But just as he prepared to break the seal, a second pulse erupted—but not from the leviathan.
It was from the deepest part of the chasm.
The entire cavern rumbled. The leviathan stopped. Its body quivered and recoiled.
"Something's coming," whispered one of the scouts. "Something ancient... even the beast fears it!"
The ice beneath them began to glow with silver runes. And then, a sound—like a chime echoing across time—reverberated through the chasm.
Mengtian stood tall, his blood roaring.
"Retreat!" he ordered. "We'll collapse the shaft behind us."
"But—"
"Now!"
With synchronized movements, the team retreated while Mengtian and Yan Qian coordinated the final rune collapse. As the last of their squad reached the upper ledge, Mengtian slammed his palm into the cliffside.
The rune matrix detonated.
The entire lower chasm collapsed, burying the leviathan under tons of enchanted ice and silencing the glowing runes with a flash of light.
Panting, wounded, but victorious, Mengtian emerged at the surface alongside his team. The blizzard had quieted, as though the land itself had acknowledged their survival.
Yan Qian approached, her breath steaming in the cold. "It was going to awaken, wasn't it?"
He nodded. "And something worse lies even deeper."
"Will it awaken too?"
"Not today."
As the team assembled to begin their return march to the Crimson Sky Academy, Su Mengtian looked up at the sky. The golden seal on his wrist had dimmed, barely holding together. The choice to awaken had come within a breath.
But he had endured.
For now.