FROST-Chapter 131: He Who Unmade Sanctuary

East’s hand was already mid-air, reaching toward the trailing remnants of mana—but it was gone.

The signature had vanished. Not faded, not scattered—wiped clean, as though Periwinkle had never been there. No trace left behind. frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓

Not even the faint hum of residue that usually lingered after teleportation. She had twisted her mana so thoroughly that even a Guardian would find only sterile air where she once stood.

East’s jaw tightened, teeth grinding together as he took a slow, calculated breath. Snow swirled around him, catching in the folds of his cloak. He didn’t move. Not yet.

He had expected her to grow strong. Had even once believed she could surpass him—her talent had always been unnatural, blooming far too quickly for her age. But strength was one thing. This was something else entirely.

She had changed too much. Even her appearance. If it’s not for her mana or her bright purplish-pink hair, he would blink twice to make sure it’s her.

Periwinkle—their Periwinkle—was the youngest of the Lunar King’s thirteen children. The one who used to cry when her petals didn’t bloom right, who once begged Tim to freeze the time during the first snow just so she could touch them mid-air.

The one who called Cloud puffy bear and gave Zephyr pollen-induced migraines with her overly enthusiastic periwinkle storms.

But everything shifted the moment the Moon chose Frost—once Nix, the prince who has a questionable soul, a Guardian by favoritism not by merit as what Periwinkle calls it. To name him the Winter Guardian while overlooking Periwinkle’s talents and innate skills, in her words, like betrayal from the heavens themselves.

And so, she disappeared.

Not a whisper. Not a petal left behind. One morning, her room was empty—her bed undisturbed, her robes still folded neatly on the sill where the moonlight kissed them. No signs of struggle. No mana signature. Not even the faint, cloying fragrance of the periwinkle blossoms she always conjured to soothe herself to sleep.

She was simply gone.

For weeks they searched—scouring ley lines, interrogating the winds, consulting old Seers and scrying pools. Guardians, knights, even the Lunar King himself had dispatched scouts beyond the known Realms. The Guardian Towers pulsed night and day with locator spells. The bloomstones were rung until they cracked.

The entire kingdom looked for her. But there was nothing. Then, a year later—she reappeared... Finally. But not as the lost little sister who had once giggled at moon moths. Not as the blooming Lunar princess who was hopeful. But someone they do not recognize.

She returned with a master.

The Sandman.

The Sandman’s apprentice. A title that sent ripples of dread through even the ancient arcane orders—those who had watched cities rise and fall, who had lived through plagues and divine wrath, who wielded runes etched in the blood of gods. Even they flinched at his name.

Because no one truly knew what he was.

The Sandman—if that was truly his name—claimed no kingdom, no lineage, no divine mark. He was not of the heavens, nor of the infernal realms. He simply... appeared. Whispered into the realms like a dream no one remembered having.

Some say he emerged from the black sands that fell after Asmaros, the Demon King, was defeated by the Lunar King. Others believe he was never born—that he was the echo of some forbidden wish made at the edge of death. Whatever his origin, his arrival rewrote the rules of magic. His very presence broke sacred wards, distorted natural laws, and silenced divine oracles.

His first act was not subtle.

He stood on the threshold of the Lunar Kingdom, draped in shadows and silver dust, and whispered a single chant.

"Omnes dolor meus sciant."

And just like that—the Guardian Realm shattered.

It had not even been fully formed then, only a nascent sanctuary conjured by the Lunar King to raise and protect future Guardians. But under that chant, reality buckled.

The land twisted in on itself like paper in flame. Buildings collapsed in silence. Crystalline mana conduits snapped. Skyward towers bent backwards. And in the stillness that followed—the screaming began.

Hundreds of sorcerers and mages died that day, their souls caught in a web of unraveling space. Those who lived were either maimed beyond healing or touched by something dark and untraceable. To this day, some still wander the outer territories, murmuring that chant under their breath like a curse they cannot wake from.

Afterward, the Sandman vanished.

He left no armies. No declarations. Only silence and a Realm that had to be rebuilt from ash and memory. It was not clear to what he wanted to tell—but the Lunar King had a hunch that the Sandman is linked to an old tale the Titans used to whisper.

So when Periwinkle reappeared—draped in folds of pastel and dusk, her mana warped beyond recognition, bearing the mark of him—the kingdom understood:

She had not merely defected.

She had joined the darkness.

Something that devours light.

Something that remembers pain like prayer.

Since that revelation, Periwinkle had become a scourge across the Realms, a dancing phantom of mischief and malice. She played games with the Guardians, poisoned the minds of sorcerers, and misled the Healer Orders with false visions. She corrupted rituals, bent mana sigils to feed herself, and worst of all—she found her.

Silvermist.

East’s knuckles went pale as he clenched his fists. How she’d uncovered Frost’s apprentice—that was a mystery no one could answer. That knowledge had been buried deeper than most royal bloodlines for the High Circle not to rub their noses against that matter.

Since then, the Guardian Realm had named her a parasite. Not just for her betrayal—but because of what she became. She slipped between boundaries like wind through cracks, leeched energy from the ley lines, fed off forgotten wells of magic, and vanished before retaliation could even form.

No barrier held her. No enchantment caught her. She returned to the Guardian Realm time and again to replenish herself, to taunt them, to take more.

How did she do it? How did she bypass their wards, their seals, their collective might?

That was the worst part.

They didn’t know.

And that uncertainty—it choked East.

"Alright, then..." East exhaled slowly, pressing a hand against his temple. "First things first."

His voice was low, measured, but his presence shifted—he needs to focus. He led the apprentices here, he can’t be moved now. He turned on his heel and faced the apprentices. More specifically—him.

Ezekiel.

"Will you start remembering, Kiel?" East’s tone was not harsh, but it was cutting.

It is true that Ezekiel is one of the strongest apprentices in the Moonstone Academy, but he’s way too far from his original self. Before Tim intervened, pulling Ezekiel’s dead soul backward along the thread of his own existence. A perfect recalibration of cause and effect. Yet the consequences were inevitable.

Ezekiel returned younger—physically reborn into a version of himself that had not yet learned what his older soul remembered. His body had shed years, but the cost was steep: fragments of memory lost to the folds of time, instincts dulled, mana sealed.

Half of his power now slept beneath a temporal lock, suspended in the age he left behind. And no matter how fiercely he trained, it remained unreachable—as if the magic had not yet caught up to the body that now held it.

But East understood.

Once Ezekiel’s body remembered—once his muscles remembered the way his older self moved, once reflex aligned with intent—that seal would shatter. The magic would return. It was just his hunch and his hunches are almost always right.

It was only a matter of time.

And time, ironically, was slipping through their fingers.

"If we can awaken all of you before the solstice, before the realms begin to merge, we may still stand a chance," East muttered to himself, then fixed his eyes back on Ezekiel.

East then turned away, sensing the line between pushing and breaking. He inhaled, grounding himself. The wind was rising again, heavy with warning.

The sky above was a churning chaos—gray clouds that’s warning everyone of another snow storm.

Of course snow storms are keep going to happen now that Frost’s staff ain’t just broken but so he is and his apprentice.

With it, the cycle of seasons had unraveled—spring bleeding into frostbitten days, time stumbling in fits. Plants bloomed and withered in the same breath. Rivers froze without warning. Nature moved out of rhythm, gasping for stability.

Entities had begun slipping through the cracks—creatures who belonged to the shadow-realms and forgotten thresholds. Spirits. Revenants. Wraiths that drifted with the stormwinds.

But elves?

Elves hadn’t crossed into the human realm for over three centuries. Not without ancient rites. Not without an invitation carved in blood and pact-bound symbols.

This wasn’t a mistake.

This was planned to mess with the Guardians and the apprentices in order to disrupt the Human Realm. For what purpose?

Definitely war or something more.

East’s jaw tightened as he raised his hand, touching the amber ring on his finger. The metal pulsed faintly with his magic, and ghostly peonies bloomed into view—glimmering threads of magic linked to each of the apprentices across the realm. Their life-forces thrummed softly through him, one by one.

"None of them are hurt," he whispered, relief laced with caution. "Yet."

Each petal carried a heartbeat.

Each bloom, a name.

The spell was delicate, easily severed by interference—but still intact. For now.

East let the ring fall back to his side and raised his gaze to the sky once more. His mana rippled around him, barely contained. The pressure building was unnatural, the sky itself a held breath before collapse.

He exhaled, slowly.

Then, almost beneath his breath, his voice cracked through the silence.

"Frost... where are you?"

He didn’t need comfort.

He needed answers.

Was the Winter Guardian still alive? Was he still whole, or had Periwinkle’s poisoned truth already taken shape in the cold? Was it even Periwinkle’s doing or the Sandman? Or were they merely a trigger and the real poison is within Frost?

The wind whispered nothing in return. But something stirred behind the clouds—ancient.

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