But for Belial, that was enough information. Leaving aside whatever the template installation package might still drop for him, he picked out the key detail from the mess. 0/1 was all he needed to see.
Then a small red dot appeared on the System Map. When he looked closer, his head turned toward the frozen depths of Canyon, where the red marker was still moving. The Great Dragon opened its fierce mouth and spread its wings.
"Looks like I have to go check it out after all."
Inside Canyon, the one person and one wolf that had nearly been wrecked by the earlier rampage of Icelis stood on either side, staring at the unconscious Fei'er Li on the ground. She was holding a blank book filled with empty white pages, but an ice-blue mark had appeared on it and was glowing faintly.
Elemental spirits were natural rulers of their elements, and human Magic was little more than a toy to them. However, there was one kind of Magic that was special. A contract.
Just like Vann and Dotleivy, humans could form contracts with spirits and use the mark as a channel to borrow power. Fei'er Li had now formed a contract with Icelis, something Icelis had taught her earlier. She was the weakest in the group, and if something went wrong one day, the contract could save her life.
At the time, even training desperately had not given her enough points to unlock the skill. After all, the target was a top-tier great spirit. Recently, however, she had finally saved enough.
Contracts with spirits were not something ordinary people could handle, but Phil could use a book as a medium. As long as the points were invested properly, the skill could be learned directly. Communication through a contract mark was two-way, and with Icelis clearly unstable, there was a chance to reach the sleeping Icelis and pull her back from the rampage.
It was extremely dangerous. The gap between a mortal and a great spirit was vast, and the spirit's current state was abnormal. No one knew what would happen once contact was made. But there was no other option, and she was the only one who could do it.
After handing the glowing goddess amulet to Vann, she entered deep communication. It was said that this might even allow her to see the other side's memories.
When Fei'er Li woke up on the level of spirit and will, the first thing she felt was heat. It was something she had not felt in the Northlands for a long time. That was not strange, since flames were burning everywhere, reaching from the ground to the sky.
The temperature was extreme, and even without touching the flames, just looking at them made her feel weak. "This is… the fire of decay?" she muttered.
She looked at her hand, seeing a thin layer of light wrapping around her body and keeping the flames at bay, though she did not know how long it would last. She had to find Icelis quickly. This was supposed to be the impression space of an Ice Spirit, so how could it be filled with the vicious fire of an outer evil god?
Those fragments had not just been tampered with, they could actually cause this. "Even great spirits can be corrupted by evil gods? I really did not know that," she said, forcing herself onward. "I have to bring that girl back."
Fei'er Li did not know how time here compared to the outside, nor how long Vann and the others could hold on. But as long as she could awaken the true the Lord form of Icelis, there was still hope.
Where was she? The environment was nothing but flames, nothing like snow, and visibility was terrible. Protected by holy light, Fei'er Li carefully searched for paths she could still step on.
In the fire, she saw many things. Strange buildings in unfamiliar styles, massive machines she could not understand, and charred human bones. If this place was built from Icelis's memories, were these things she had once seen?
"Icelis!"
Her pupils shrank, and the surrounding flames surged upward. In the distance, a mountain-like figure flapped its wings, and under the sea of fire, a pure white meteor crashed to the ground.
At the impact point, blockbuster ice and snow extinguished the flames, bringing back a familiar cold. Strangely, the surrounding fire burned even more fiercely instead. Fei'er Li rushed forward and saw a tall, slender girl lying in a scorched crater, a six-pointed snowflake shape on her back.
She looked like an older version of Icelis. Her body was covered in marks like burned brands of decay, as if ice and fire were clashing directly within her at every moment.
When she saw Fei'er Li, her pupils contracted. She thrust out a hand, and massive ice spikes shoved Fei'er Li away. She immediately took flight and turned around, and in the next instant, a huge flaming claw slammed down, mercilessly extinguishing the last patch of ice in this world of fire.
That was the being she had been fighting. Its towering form tilted its head slightly toward the tiny newcomer on the ground, and its eyes burned brighter than the flames, revealing nothing at all. A mortal who looked directly at it would be affected by its authority, but the faint light around Fei'er Li made it narrow its eyes.
What was decay? It was the aging of life and the rot of civilization. It was the expansion of a sun after swelling, until only heat remained and the universe dispersed like a bubble. Everything would be driven toward an unavoidable end.
As for small obstacles along the way, there was no need to care. They would be cleared away without distinction.
Icelis turned in midair, grabbed Fei'er Li from the ground, and immediately sensed how she had entered this place. Her expression turned ugly. "Get out now. This is not somewhere you can come."
"I came to take you out. This is your memory. Outside, you are…"
"I know."
Her voice was heavy. She knew she had been tricked, and she knew her real body was rampaging because of the battle in this space. She was losing ground here, and the real body was gradually being controlled by the one gaining the advantage.
"This is not a memory," she said, looking back at the massive burning figure. "I have to stop it here. It is using my memories to erode me."
"It is using my body and Laws as a springboard to come out from the rift I froze before. If I fail here, then what you fight in reality will not be me. It will come out."
Through constant clashes, she had figured out its intent. Though it manifested as fire, its core concept was decay, not directly opposed to ice Laws. Her real body was being eroded by that concept, and even her ice Laws could be used by it.
After absorbing the fragments, the power hidden within them became a fulcrum in a large ritual covering all of Canyon and shaking reality itself. Her rampaging body was also drawing on countless resentful souls from monster attacks in the Northlands, reshaping itself into a vessel for its descent.
The fire of decay projected its will onto Icelis, launching a frenzied and merciless erosion. If she lost here, then what appeared in reality would be the fire of decay itself. As an Ice Spirit, it would then break the seal on the Northlands with its own hands and release its true body.
Even worse, it was gradually taking over her ice Laws. Completing the fragments outside would not help. This was a deeper clash on the level of consciousness, where raw power meant little. Completing the fragments might even backfire, since the fire of decay would gain more Laws.
Her real body was another battlefield entirely. Damage there would affect her here, because control over the body the Lord was still barely in her hands. Outside, she had to endure the ritual's erosion while also guarding against the hidden moves of the Abyss Church.
"I…" Fei'er Li's expression grew heavy. This was far beyond what someone as inexperienced as her could handle. Even staying here would not help. She was too weak.
She had to face reality. From beginning to end, she could do nothing.
"So you need to leave right now, while there is still time…" Icelis said, then suddenly clutched her head with a groan. She almost fell from the air, and Fei'er Li immediately cried out, "Icelis, are you okay?"
Icelis could not answer. It felt like someone had punched her head several times. Behind them came a roar from the fire of decay, and when Fei'er Li looked back, she saw the massive pursuing figure crash face-first into the ground.
Then a tiny blue-white beam suddenly shattered the six-pointed snowflake wings behind Icelis. A roar echoed faintly, something that made her feel an instinctive fear.
It felt familiar, but she could not place it.
As she hastily formed an ice staircase to catch herself, she realized something was wrong. A portion of her Laws felt missing. That loss caused her tall, older form to shrink back toward her original size, and a sharp pain spread through her chest, as if pieces of her were gone.
"My fragments outside… impossible!"