FROST-Chapter 128: The Ruin in the Human Realm

A deafening silence blanketed the chamber—thick, taut, and unnatural. The only sound was the rhythmic hum of the containment orb, faint yet growing. Then, like the surface of water disturbed by breath, the orb rippled.

Every sorcerer and healer in the room froze. Even the groans of mana exhaustion and the faint tremors from those near collapse vanished into stunned awe.

Theo’s hand, which had been trembling as he pushed healing currents into the barrier, stilled. A whisper of power flickered across the surface of the orb—and then it began.

Silvermist’s hair, once tousled swirling by the force within the orb shimmered as though kissed by moonlight. Slowly each strand turned completely silver—brilliant and pure, like liquid starlight melting down her back. It lengthened up to her thighs, smoothed, and swayed despite the still air.

Her skin, once mottled by bruises and slashes, now began to glow faintly as every mark faded beneath the tireless, fevered work of the healers. Wounds stitched themselves shut as if time had been rewound, bones set without touch, and blood vanished from her lips as if the body itself no longer welcomed pain.

Gasps filled the room, soft but unanimous. Sleep-deprived sorcerers stood straighter. Healers who could barely breathe inhaled sharply, every sense sharpened by the strange, impossible beauty unfolding before them.

And then—the ripple turned violent.

The orb thrashed, its once-gentle waves becoming a storm. Silver streaks raced like veins across the sphere, cracking the delicate equilibrium the sorcerers had woven to keep her sealed. Mana lines snapped and hissed. Two healers stumbled backward, their hands burned.

Another cried out, "It’s destabilizing!"

Cloud stepped forward, expression calm but eyes gleaming with something familiar—hope. His voice, though quiet, rang with authority.

"Hold your ground."

But even Theo, ever loyal, hesitated. "Your Majesty—! The mana thread inside, it’s not hers. It’s not Miss Evermore’s... something else is resonating. It could be—"

"I know," Cloud said softly. His eyes never left the orb. "Trust me, Theo."

Theo met his gaze, hesitated—then nodded. With a swift hand gesture, the sorcerers obeyed.

As the final sigil dropped, the orb released one final pulse—deep, resonant, like a bell tolling from another world.

And then—it melted.

Not shattered. Not exploded. Melted.

It dripped like ice dissolving under gentle heat, cascading down in slow, translucent streams that shimmered like moonlit dew. Silvermist’s body descended with it—not dropped, not thrown—but lowered, like something sacred. Her silver hair floated gently, pooling like silk beneath her as she came to rest on the cold floor. She landed with no sound, no weight—just stillness.

She lay face-down, unmoving, as if resting after a long journey. Around her, the remnants of the orb pooled in glowing rivulets, slowly soaking into the ground like ancient tears.

The sorcerers didn’t breathe. The healers gripped their robes. Magic lingered in the air like fog—but no one dared speak.

They were waiting.

And at the center of it all, Cloud stood, staring at her—at the woman who had waged war inside herself for something bigger than survival. His lips parted slightly, a breath caught in reverence.

He was hoping.

Hoping she had made it back.

Hoping she had chosen not just to win—but to return.

And beneath his steady gaze, the silver-haired woman didn’t stir—but something shifted in the air, almost like a heartbeat. A hum, ancient and forgotten, reverberated through the walls. A promise not yet spoken. A presence reborn.

The chamber held its breath.

And then—gently, fluidly—she rose.

Her movements were slow, as though gravity no longer applied, her limbs weightless and silent. Her head bowed at first, silver strands cascading like a veil across her face. Then, with a subtle tilt, she looked up.

Gasps rippled through the chamber once more.

Her eyes—once topaz brown, warm and rich like sun-soaked earth—had become something entirely otherworldly. The blue of distant skies, of glaciers and storms, of oceans in rebellion, stared back at them. But within that breathtaking hue, there was no light. No spark. Just a stillness that froze the breath in every throat.

Her lashes matched the silver of her hair now, long and ethereal. Her lips—once full of color and warmth—were pale, kissed with the faint hue of frost. And when she exhaled, the air misted, as though her very breath carried the memory of winter.

Cloud took an instinctive step forward, his voice unsteady. "Silvermist?"

Her lashes fluttered.

Once. Twice.

As if Cloud’s voice had echoed through a distant fog, drawing her back. She blinked slowly, turning toward him—and for the first time, she truly saw him.

But her first words were not a greeting.

"Where is Frost?" she asked, her voice hollow but not empty. The kind of voice one hears in dreams, or in places where time forgets to move.

Relief broke like a wave over the room—shoulders slumping, breath returning—but it was short-lived. Her question snapped Cloud back into urgency.

He stepped forward again, now closer, his ivory eyes shadowed with guilt and desperation. "Frost... is missing and we could never trace his mana thread as though he had completely disappeared."

The chamber darkened at his words, as though even the light flinched.

Cloud swallowed hard. "But we believe you’re the only one who can find her, Sil. The only one who still shares the bond."

He faltered for a heartbeat, then whispered with quiet, aching hope, "Can you?"

Silence followed, stretching out like a blade between them—until it was broken only by the soft sound of Silvermist’s breath, frosting the air once more.

Meanwhile, in the farthest reaches of the Academy—so distant it nearly bled into the edges of the Guardian Realm—the apprentices stood atop a jagged cliff blanketed in thick, undisturbed snow. Their silhouettes were carved against the pale gray sky, cloaks snapping violently behind them in the relentless wind. The cold bit into their bones, but none of them moved. Not yet.

Some clung to the massive branches of frost-covered trees that rose like silent sentinels around the cliff, their feet carefully balanced, gloved hands gripping bark slick with ice. Every gust threatened to unseat them, but they held fast—because what lay ahead was worth watching.

On the broad mid-branches, close to the cliff’s edge, perched Levi and Cullen. Wind tousled their hair and tugged at their cloaks, yet they remained still, their eyes fixed on the city far below. The city cloaked in shadows and snow—the one they once called home.

Cullen exhaled, his breath misting out like smoke before the wind snatched it away.

"Ahh~ We became Guardian apprentices," he muttered, voice half amusement, half melancholy. "Learned all this ancient magic, battled nightmares, survived trials... and still, we ended up back in the same city."

He let out a soft chuckle, shaking his head as his gaze swept over the frozen rooftops, the flickering streetlamps, the silent streets wrapped in winter’s grip.

Levi didn’t say anything. He couldn’t. His eyes were fixed on a particular rise in the land, where two grand estates stood—one draped in moonlight, cold and proud, the Ashenfalls’; the other burning faintly from within, like embers refusing to die, the Emberlights’.

There they were.

Two houses separated by generations of blood, pride, and power—and by him.

His breath hitched in his throat, but he masked it, jaw tightening. The snow caught on his lashes, but he didn’t blink. He just stood there, watching . A place that now felt more like a scar than a sanctuary.

The Ashenfalls’ manor was poised like a frozen crown on its hill, stoic and untouchable. The Emberlights’ was no less regal, but warmer, more erratic—like the woman he once loved within it. Or still did. He couldn’t tell anymore.

He had spent years holding them together—patching up their politics, silencing whispers, swallowing pride, mending hearts that refused to stay mended. All to keep the fragile peace. All to make them feel like one family.

And yet... here he was.

Just a shadow on a branch.

A stray caught between two legacies he could never truly claim, no matter how many times he bled for them.

He glanced down to his right, where Gail stood beside Amethyst. Her arms were crossed, eyes narrowed on the glowing city below—not with nostalgia, but with something far more sour. Contempt. Regret. Maybe even grief. Levi understood.

It was a battlefield dressed in lamplight and cobblestone—every corner carrying the weight of things left unsaid.

Just like him, Gail bore wounds that had never fully scarred. Whatever ties they had here were frayed and bitter.

Then, in a sudden whirl of snow and pressure, East appeared—without fanfare, as always. One moment the air was still, and the next, he was standing dead center in the group like he’d been there the whole time.

His hair whipped behind him in the biting wind, his coat billowing like a cape stitched from nightfall and frostbite.

"Alright, apprentices," East muttered, as if this was just another Tuesday grocery run. "It’s time to move. Your first mission as apprentices... and as a whole." His eyes swept across them, that rare, faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Go. Fly high, my angels."

A heavy silence followed.

Then came the collective grimace.

It wasn’t the inspirational line they were hoping for.

Cullen actually gagged. "Fly high? Why does that sound like we’re about to die and he’s giving our last rites?"

Ayumi, standing close to Riruka, Ericka, Ayumi, and Kenji, made a face. "Did he just... call us angels? Are we ascending now?"

"Feels like he’s about to open a funeral speech," Kenji mumbled.

Ayumi muttered under her breath, "Pretty sure my grandmother said those exact words at my uncle’s burial."

East raised an eyebrow, clearly hearing every word, but chose to ignore it with the divine patience of someone who expected nothing less from them.

"Go on then," he said coolly, gesturing dramatically toward the darkened horizon, where wind howled and danger lurked.

The apprentices shared one final, collective sigh of doom before bracing themselves.

If they were angels, they were about to crash headfirst into hell.

"But Grandmaster," Riruka raised a hand hesitantly, her brows furrowed beneath the fur-lined hood of her cloak, "where are we going to start with this mission anyway?"

East turned his head slightly, the usual glint of mischief in his eyes, and then he grinned—not at her, but at something beyond the mountains. He slowly turned around, not facing the city behind them, but instead tilting his gaze upward toward the roiling, darkened sky.

The clouds churned like a boiling cauldron, and suddenly, a violent gust of wind blasted across the cliff, nearly knocking a few apprentices off balance.

Several yelped, gripping tree branches and each other as their cloaks snapped like sails against the tempest. The snow around them lifted into a cyclone of white, dancing with specks of silver mana as if the world had inhaled sharply.

And then they saw them.

Suspended in the air above them—four cloaked figures, completely still despite the chaos around them. Their black hoods concealed most of their faces, but their presence bled into the atmosphere like a spreading ink stain. The wind itself seemed to come from them. They didn’t float... they stood—as if there were an invisible platform in the sky that bent reality to their will.

Then—crimson.

Crimson eyes flared from beneath each hood like coals in a dying fire, emotionless and cold. The air turned colder still, biting at skin through layered furs and enchanted coats. A bone-deep pressure settled over the apprentices.

A strangled gasp came from someone behind Levi. One apprentice dropped to a knee, unable to bear the weight of their gaze. Another stumbled back, eyes wide, lips moving in a prayer. Riruka clutched the end of her cloak. Even Kenji, normally carefree, froze mid-chuckle, his expression gone stiff with dread.

Gail muttered under her breath, "W-Who the hell are they..."

Amethyst’s eyes were narrowed, focused. She didn’t speak. Her breathing had slowed—not in calm, but preparation.

Before anyone else could move, three flashes of light streaked across the air and in an instant, West, Sebastian, and Ezekiel had teleported from the sides of the formation directly in front of East, mana already crackling on their palms.

West summoned a sword in sheer mana which crackled with stormlight, Sebastian’s light tendrils curled like a beast preparing to strike, and Ezekiel stood poised, one hand raised, fire simmering at his palm and barely contained.

They formed a barrier between East and the apprentices, their positioning perfect. It was instinctive. Practiced.

"Protect the Grandmaster," West growled without looking at his comrades. "And don’t let any of them get close to the city."

Ezekiel didn’t respond. His eyes were locked on the cloaked figures above.

Then, a voice broke the silence—smooth, amused, and undeniably arrogant.

"Ahh... I didn’t know you’d immediately disperse your precious apprentices raw, Your Highness," one of the figures said, his tone laced with mockery.

The figure stepped forward and slowly lifted his hood. The air tightened. Snowflakes froze midair.

Beneath the hood was a man with pointed ears, sharp cheekbones, and glowing crimson eyes—an elf. But not just any elf.

The elf that Professors Cedric and Bramble had encountered a day ago.

"Well," the elf said, tilting his head, his smile both elegant and vicious, "looks like the game starts now."

Behind him, the three remaining figures remained still, like statues carved from darkness itself. And above them, the sky cracked with the promise of war.

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