FROST

Chapter 141: Do You Wanna Build a Snowman?

"So, is this how you’re going to awaken those kids?" Sun spoke from behind East, his voice tight, almost spitting with restrained irritation. His arms folded, breath misting against the icy wind.

He honestly could not understand anything East planned and has been planning. He was clearly playing with fire—and with death—now that the Earth’s seasons kept tilting out of balance.

All around them, the world bore the signs of strain. Storm fronts clashed unnaturally in the skies, clouds folding over one another like breaking waves.

Far below, near the frozen city, the sound of explosions cracked like thunder, accompanied by the unearthly screech of Asmaros’ power. The other Guardians were out there pouring their very souls into maintaining balance, struggling to keep the fragile fabric of the world from splitting apart—while he and East stood atop a lonely snowy cliff, like passive spectators.

Sun’s fists tightened. "Aren’t you putting too much trust in West when he could clearly blow the entire city apart if he stays in Asmaros’ form?" His voice rose with every word, sharp with urgency.

But East remained still, his azure cloak billowing behind him in the blizzard. His eyes never left the chaos below.

Truly, this had become a part of his plans since he learned West could use Asmaros’ magic in his will. Drawing Asmaros out of West... a dangerous, unspoken gamble. None of the other Guardians knew of it. Only the Lunar King—and Cloud—had been made aware and now Sun. The boy had his nose attached on East since their last meeting. They had agreed, though reluctantly, even knowing the risks.

Finally, East’s lips parted, his tone calm but heavy, like stone dragged across the ground.

"This is the only reasonable path I could see..." he murmured. His gaze didn’t waver, fixed somewhere past the horizon as though he could see the shape of disaster waiting. "West has freely drawn upon Asmaros’ mana, bypassing the seal I placed. If my hunch is right, it was Asmaros himself who kept feeding him without destroying him and West is aware of it."

"Then what do you call that!" He pointed Asmaros who has been flicking and slamming Ezekiel, Elrond, and Sebastian to cliffs. "Man, you can’t be telling me Asmaros is kind of a good creature after all, ah? After the war?! And now he’s killing Sebastian and the others?!" Sun’s nose crunched, disbelief twisting his features.

When East did not immediately answer—his silence stretched, deep and calculated—Sun’s brows rose higher.

At last, East exhaled, a sound dragged from the depths of weariness. "Asmaros has been sealed inside me for years," he said slowly, each word measured, "yet never once has he tried ripping me apart from within." His voice thinned, carrying both weight and danger. "He has teeth. He has fire. And he is incredibly strong in par with the Lunar King. Stronger even. But he keeps himself sheathed," his eyes slid to the side, locking on Sun, who had stepped close enough to stand shoulder to shoulder with him.

Sun froze under that look. For a heartbeat, neither spoke, and the silence carried a pressure that made the air itself feel brittle. Then his throat worked as he swallowed, and his head shook in denial. He knew what East was edging toward—too well.

"No." His voice cracked low. "No, don’t you dare. Don’t tell me you’re hoping for that demon to side with us..." His hands clenched against his thighs, the words trembling as if even speaking them might summon ruin. "All of this—on a sheer hunch?"

Below, another explosion shook the valley, scattering snow from the cliffside. Ezekiel, Sebastian, and Elrond were thrown like ragdolls through shattered trees. Asmaros—West’s body no longer his own—threw his head back and laughed like a mad beast.

Sun’s patience snapped. "C’mon, East! Cut it off! You’ll get those kids killed!" His fists curled so tightly his knuckles cracked, and when he turned to East for a reaction, his breath hitched.

Nothing. No concern. Only that maddening composure.

"FINE!" Sun roared, his aura bursting into molten gold. "If you won’t help them, then I will—"

But before he could leap forward, East’s arm shot out like iron, barring his path. His touch was deceptively calm, but the pressure of his mana slammed Sun in place like a wall.

"Just a little more time, Sun..." East’s voice carried no urgency, no fear—only that unyielding certainty that made Sun grind his teeth.

"Little time for what?!!" Sun bellowed, straining against his hold. His aura flared, his heart hammering.

And then—it struck. A surge of mana so violent it ripped the breath from Sun’s chest. The air itself shuddered, snow exploding outward in a storm of frost and ash. The cliff trembled beneath their feet, cracks running jagged through the ice as if the mountain itself wanted to recoil.

Sun immediately snapped his head toward the source, eyes widening as a column of dark crimson aura erupted from the far side of the forest. It writhed upward like a pillar of fire and blood, bending the treetops, burning the snow to vapor.

"W-What the hell is that..." Sun’s voice broke into a groan. For a moment he stood frozen, stunned by the sheer malice pressing against his skin, before instinct shoved him back into reality. His gaze darted to Sebastian, Ezekiel, and Elrond—and his heart clenched.

They were suddenly there, gathered at East’s side, though none of them had the strength to stand on their own.

Sebastian was half-kneeling, his arm dangling uselessly at his side, shoulder torn open and slick with blood where Asmaros’ blast had gouged deep into flesh. His once-proud armor was scorched black, plates cracked and curling like charred paper.

Ezekiel swayed with a broken rhythm, his breaths shallow. Bruises and burns mottled his face, one eye swollen shut, and a gash split across his temple where blood had frozen into brittle streaks down his jaw. His blade was chipped, trembling in his weak grip.

Elrond was the worst of them, his chest rising unevenly, as if each breath clawed through broken ribs. His robes were shredded, stomach marked by the ragged burn of corrupted mana, skin blistered and blackened around the wound. His lips were blue, and a thin string of blood hung from the corner of his mouth.

Sun blinked, heart twisting at the sight, then tore his eyes back to Asmaros. The demon had gone unnervingly still, his head cocked toward the storm of crimson energy.

For a heartbeat, he grinned—an expression sharp enough to cut—before dragging his tongue across his blackened lips. And then, with Wrenalthor at his side, he vanished into the air as if the violent mana itself had summoned him away.

Sun’s head whipped back to East. The man hadn’t even moved, hadn’t lifted a hand—but Sun knew. Knew down to his bones that it was East who had pulled the battered trio from the battlefield and placed them at his side in an instant.

East’s eyes lingered on the three youths with something heavy behind them—a flicker of remorse that hardened into steel. His jaw tightened as he raised a single hand above their broken forms.

At once, a soft glow pulsed into being, golden-orange and warm, washing over their bodies like sunrise through frost. The light threaded into torn flesh, sealed ragged burns, and smoothed away bruises until skin gleamed whole again. Bones shifted beneath the radiance with muffled cracks, setting themselves into alignment.

Sun could only gape, his breath catching as the mangled, half-breathing figures before him knit themselves back together in seconds. Too stunned to speak, he clapped a hand over his mouth. He had seen East wield power that could split mountains—but this...

"Y-You can heal people?" he managed to choke out.

East’s gaze did not lift from the spell. "Recreation spell," he murmured, voice low and deliberate. "Arcane branch. Once belonged to the titans."

Sun’s hand dropped from his mouth, his eyes narrowing. "B-But those are forbidden."

East said nothing. His silence stretched across the snow, broken only by the hum of the spell’s light. It was not until Ezekiel’s swollen face cleared, Sebastian’s shredded shoulder reformed, and Elrond’s blistered skin smoothed back into unbroken flesh that East finally exhaled. His hand fell, and his golden eyes turned toward Sun at last.

"Not unless the caster uses it properly," he replied, the faintest shrug betraying how little explanation he cared to give.

Sun turned back to the trio, eyes scanning their forms in disbelief. Perfect. Flawless. Not a scar, not a mark. And yet—none stirred. None breathed with strength. Their chests rose, shallow but steady, their mana signatures faint as dying embers.

"I... I have no words," Sun muttered, his voice trembling with both awe and unease. "But why aren’t they awake yet?"

"I’ve only healed their wounds," East said evenly, his gaze already flinging back to the storm of violent mana still clawing at the heavens. "Not their exhaustion."

Sun’s fists curled, his stomach twisting. "What is this now?" he groaned, snapping his head back at East. "Do you have something to do with this too?"

East didn’t answer at once. Instead, he gave the unconscious three a brief glance, then gestured toward them with a tilt of his chin. "Take care of these three."

Before Sun could bark another word, East’s form blurred—and vanished into the frost and wind.

"EAST—GOD DAMN IT!!" Sun could only scream to practically no one around.

Meanwhile, far from the human realm, within the shadowed halls of an unknown part of the academy, a silence just as heavy lingered. Adeline and Mila stood perfectly still, their backs pressed against the frosted stone wall, their eyes still fixed on Silvermist.

For what felt like an eternity, she had not moved. She stood in the center of an intricate array scrawled across the floor, her slender fingers drifting in arcs that mapped invisible lines through the air.

Symbols glowed faintly beneath her touch—icy blue sigils that pulsed, then sank into the surface like frost seeping into cracks. Whatever she was doing, it was beyond their comprehension.

And then, it ended. The glowing marks dimmed. Her hands fell still.

Adeline and Mila sucked in sharp breaths when Silvermist’s gaze suddenly lifted—her ocean-blue eyes cutting directly to theirs with a precision so sharp it felt like a blade at their throats.

She had not moved. Not a step, not a sound. And yet—before they could blink—her figure was no longer across the room.

Silvermist stood before them.

Adeline nearly yelped. Mila slapped a hand over her mouth to stifle the cry that almost tore free. Their hearts thundered in their chests. It hadn’t been movement—it had been something faster, something unnatural, as though she had folded the distance itself.

The sorcerers assisting her earlier—hooded figures pouring mana into channels of the spell—did not falter. They only glanced up briefly at her sudden shift, then returned to their work, as though this kind of apparition was nothing unusual.

Adeline and Mila were not so composed. Their throats dried instantly, their bodies locking in place.

Silvermist did not need to speak. Her very presence was a storm. The air around her bit at their skin, prickling like frozen needles. Her breath spilled from her lips in faint white clouds, and even that mist carried weight, curling like phantom frost across the ground.

Her eyes—gods, her eyes. They were no longer simply like Frost’s. They were Frost’s: the same deep, glacial blue, but stripped of warmth, stripped of soul. The faintest shimmer of light crossed her lashes, like snow catching the last rays of a dying sun. Her hair, pale as falling sleet, clung to her shoulders, and even the skin of her hands looked drained of human warmth.

Her robes—a sweeping white hanfu—gleamed faintly under the hlight. Mila’s gaze caught on the trailing hem, where the fabric glittered as though stitched from thin ice crystals. For an instant, she swore she heard the faint crackle of frost spreading whenever Silvermist shifted.

Adeline’s jaw clenched so hard her teeth ached. This was no longer the woman she had once known that it made her young heart ache.

"Have you located Frost, Sil?"

The voice that broke the silence was Cloud’s, smooth yet weary. He stood off to the side, his expression calm, though his eyes betrayed the faintest trace of unease. Adeline and Mila realized then that they had been so consumed by Silvermist’s aura they had forgotten anyone else was present.

They turned toward Cloud instinctively, desperate for something familiar, something grounding.

Silvermist’s head tilted only slightly, her gaze sliding toward him like a predator acknowledging prey. Mist escaped her lips with her reply, wrapping her words in frozen breath.

"I have found his body," she said.

The words struck colder than ice. Her voice carried no warmth, no rise or fall of tone. It was serene, like the stillness of a frozen lake—but beneath it lurked an unnatural depth, a resonance that made Mila flinch.

Cloud’s brow furrowed, his calm demeanor cracking just enough to reveal his unease. "What could that mean?"

Silvermist blinked slowly. "Whatever has taken over Frost’s body has hidden his soul elsewhere," she murmured, her tone rolling like an echo from beneath thick water. Mila cringed, unable to shake how her words slithered like a siren’s call—beautiful, but wrong.

"However, knowing him... he might have even chosen the place himself."

Adeline’s lips parted in disbelief, a quiet tremor escaping her throat. Mila pressed her palm hard against her chest, as if the chill of Silvermist’s words had seeped into her heart.

And then, Silvermist chuckled.

The sound was soft, breathy, but it struck them like a thunderclap. Adeline stiffened, every hair on her arms rising. Mila squeezed her eyes shut, but the sound still crawled under her skin.

"That idiot is still sulking, I see..." she muttered, dragging pale fingers across her chin in thought. Her eyes glinted with something unreadable, something both mocking and affectionate in equal measure.

Her attention shifted at last. Turning her body fully, Silvermist faced Cloud, her gaze flicking briefly to Theo before returning back to Cloud.

The storm around her quieted, but only in the way a blizzard rests for breath before returning tenfold.

"I have already set a forcefield around the city near the battlefield," Silvermist continued, her voice calm but edged with frost. "No humans will hear nor feel anything wrong—until I will it."

Cloud’s lips pressed together. "You learned fast, Sil," he murmured.

Silvermist only shook her head. "It wasn’t me," she whispered, lifting a hand as though examining the unfamiliar changes written into her very skin. Faint glimmers traced across her pale fingers before fading. "This is merely a borrowed magic, destined to vanish once consumed."

Her gaze darted back to Cloud, steady and cold. "So, I suggest we use it while it lasts. Please—tend to the balance of the seasons... and let me—let us—handle the rest."

The moment Cloud nodded, Silvermist turned back to Mila and Adeline, grinning. "Do you wanna build a snowman?"