So could this thing really be called the Holy Sword. This lump of a thing. It had none of the brilliance described in stories or epics tied to the Chosen Hero, and even the wildest histories never painted it as this plain. But having read the books, she knew that this sword truly was the Holy Sword.
Naturally, Fei'er Li could not pull it out. When she tried, there was no strange feeling or surge of power, just the sense that it was stuck too firmly and she was not strong enough. Then it was Icelis's turn.
At the very least, she proved that in the one regard of being impossible to pull out, it really was the Holy Sword. She looked soft and weak, and although she was a Mage, her strength was enough to fling a row of grown men away with one hand. She even puffed out her cheeks in anger and used brute force to try to move the sword.
The already-ruined temple was nearly torn apart by her, yet the sword remained exactly where it was, still joined to its pedestal. "Hah… fine, I admit it," Icelis said while panting, "this sword really does have some kind of rule or fate nonsense to it." She then vented her frustration by roughly rubbing the head of the dog from Dort beside her.
"Looks like that's really how it is," Fei'er Li said, now understanding the situation. The Holy Sword probably did have a destined owner, only drawable by the Chosen Hero, or perhaps it required certain qualifications, which amounted to the same thing. Before that person appeared, no one could draw it, a rule or fate as fixed as fire being hot and water being cold.
Only the Chosen Hero could pull a sword embedded in a pedestal like this. To achieve something like that, perhaps only destiny could explain it, or perhaps a god. After confirming that the sword was useless for now, Fei'er Li began searching the other halls of the ruined temple.
If she could at least find something useful, the trip would not be wasted, especially since the methods of the Abyss Church were never humane and holy light worked best against them. As expected, the results were deeply disappointing. She passed through the preaching hall, with rows of tables and chairs, scattered prayer ribbons, and burnt-out incense for petitions, its ruin making the former splendor even more shocking.
There was nothing there. At the highest podium lay a holy scripture, but the moment her fingers touched it, it crumbled into ash. She found nothing at all.
"Did you find anything?" Fei'er Li asked as she exited the hall and saw Icelis coming from the other direction, where there seemed to be a prayer room. In her hand was a small object, an amulet carved with the face of a goddess, already worn and looking commonplace. "Yeah, this seems to be a holy relic."
"A holy relic!" How could an ice spirit say something that hit so hard. Fei'er Li hurriedly caught the amulet that Icelis tossed over without care, finding it icy to the touch and rather rough. The goddess figure was crudely carved, with what looked like angel wings, more like a careless child's craft than a divine relic.
Amulets were usually used to show one's identity as a believer, worn on the body or held during prayer. Once it was in her hand, she realized it was not just that it looked wrong, it felt wrong inside as well. Aside from not knowing what material it was made of, there was not the slightest trace of strange power or holy light.
"Is this really a holy relic?" A holy relic was something shaped by divine power, its very existence a sign of a miracle, with strength far beyond the ordinary. In the Cathedral of Eternal Day, rare holy relics were stored, endless holy light making it an eternal day that rejected night and kept all creatures tied to darkness away.
The three major branches each possessed holy relics symbolizing their gods, and even in stories they appeared only rarely. Finding one would greatly improve their chances against enemies hiding in the dark, and if abyssal corruption appeared, it would at least be a safeguard. Yet the amulet in her hand looked completely ordinary.
She examined it from every angle and decided that she was simply too weak to see what was special about it. Perhaps it would look different in the eyes of an Ice Spirit. "I can't break it, so it should be a holy relic," Icelis said.
The answer was as infuriating as ever, yet it oddly made sense. If even Icelis could not destroy it, the material alone was probably not simple. No, she had to stop herself from being led astray by that kind of thinking.
"It's more like a gut feeling," Icelis added. Fei'er Li decided to accept it for now and stuffed the amulet into her backpack. This was the only thing they gained from searching the temple.
There was nothing else left among the ruins. They had hoped to find something infused with holy light to deal with the Abyss Church, but that plan had to be abandoned. Next was the climb to the upper half of Snow Mountain, to look for the place where Icelis had once been sealed, which probably held nothing, but it was like taking a child to an amusement park.
"You said the sealed space was completely closed, so how did you get eaten by a dragon," Fei'er Li asked, "and where did the dragon even come from?" The two rode on the back of Dotleivy, the white wolf carrying them swiftly toward the peak. The higher they went, the colder it became, and Fei'er Li held Icelis from behind, using the faint trace she left as a guide.
She was curious because Icelis insisted that her seal had been forcibly broken by a Black Dragon that then swallowed her, leaving her with lingering fear. In all this time in the the Northlands, there had been no sightings or information about a Black Dragon, though there was one report of a White Dragon. Having seen Icelis's strength, Fei'er Li found it hard to imagine any creature capable of swallowing her fragments and even melting and digesting them in return.
No matter how much she asked, Icelis only darkened her expression. She did not know either, and having just escaped only to be beaten up right away, she remembered no details. The girl and the dog continued upward, enjoying the rare sight of a spoiled child being thwarted.
When they reached the spot, Fei'er Li felt that Icelis's story might indeed be true. At first, there was nothing there. Only after the two of them cleared away the ice did it appear.
Before her was a massive tunnel, dozens of meters across, plunging deep into the mountain, with a cold, wailing wind blowing from within. The rock walls were solid and frozen, impossible for Fei'er Li to chip even with all her strength, yet they were covered in terrifying claw marks, along with traces of explosions and melting. They were clear enough to imagine how the original the Lord had charged straight through with unmatched and unstoppable force.
Going deeper into the tunnel, the cold grew even more intense. The rocks were coated in deep, saturated ice, and the temperature dropped to something colder than the poles. "This is it, right here," Icelis said.
It was a huge cavern filled with marks of devastation. The walls were covered in Rend marks, as if some dreadful explosion had occurred. Looking down, Fei'er Li saw that although the ground had frozen over again in recent days, a massive claw print was still clearly visible beneath the ice.
So it was real. "Hmph… damn it!" came a more noticeable sound from above, the frustrated shouting of an indignant child. When Fei'er Li climbed up, she saw Icelis on the ground, puffed up like a pufferfish, and a Ice-Blue Shard placed on a black pedestal.
The shard radiated icy cold similar to Icelis's, yet there was an absolute difference. Her fragments were essentially pure Elemental Crystal filled with power, but this shard was not pure, something else mixed within it. "What is this, your fragment?" Fei'er Li asked.
The question only made Icelis angrier. Grinding her teeth, she said, "This is the leftover residue of my power after that dragon swallowed me." She snorted. "There's probably that dragon's Magic mixed in too. Who is it trying to insult by spitting something this disgusting here?"
"When I restore my full body, I'll hunt you down across the entire continent and settle this," she declared. Ignoring the tantrum for the moment, Fei'er Li looked down at the black pedestal. This was the core of the seal.
The pedestal itself was a creation of spatial Magic. In stories, spatial Magic was considered extremely rare and lofty, nothing like the cheap abundance of space rings in lesser tales. In the Otherworld, even the smallest spatial item was priceless.
Space was not an element or a tangible thing, but an abstract concept beyond elemental Magic, a law-level existence and part of the world's foundation. Even a Gold Rank grand mage might study for a lifetime without touching its threshold, and it also required insight. It was like an apple tree anyone could walk up to, yet few could gain anything from watching the apples fall.