Cipher and her group pressed forward, encountering fragments of armor at regular intervals: helmets, arm guards, shoulder plates, breastplates, and more.
Cipher could almost picture the Forging Priest being driven back under relentless attacks, his armor shattering and exploding piece by piece.
"It's unimaginable what kind of assault this Priest must have endured to be reduced to this state," Douglas remarked.
Each Priest specialized in different areas. Douglas, as a War Priest, excelled in frontal combat and group warfare. Life Priests specialized in healing and support, while Death Priests excelled in stealth and ambushes. Forging Priests, however, specialized in defense and equipment enhancement.
To put it simply, a Forging Priest was like Ornn from League of Legends: an incredibly tanky juggernaut capable of fortifying his allies' gear.
The tank aspect needs no explanation. As for equipment enhancement, if an ally's gear was already decent, the Forging Priest could imbue it with Divine Magic, further enhancing its effects.
If a teammate's equipment was subpar, a Forging Priest could even craft an entirely new set for them, then imbue it with Divine Magic.
In other words, if a team had a skilled Forging Priest, no one's gear would ever be lacking!
As the group collected more fragments, the armor pieces gradually pieced together. Cipher noticed that the assembled greaves were remarkably short. Feidric explained, "That's not surprising, because... achoo!"
Rubbing his nose, he continued, "Because this Forging Priest Hero was a Gold Dwarf."
Just as humans have different races like Black, White, and Asian, Dwarves also have distinct races. The Gold Dwarves are the rarest branch, often considered the Royal Family of the dwarf race. Their potent bloodline grants them a significant advantage, making nearly every Gold Dwarf exceptionally strong.
The four adventurers pressed onward. For some reason, Cipher now felt like they were a group of rats, with the scattered armor fragments on the ground serving as cheese, luring them forward.
The surrounding temperature steadily dropped, yet the blue mist, conversely, grew increasingly thin, eventually vanishing entirely.
To be honest, this was quite strange. The Blue Mist had been so dense at their initial landing site, yet as they successfully landed and ventured deeper, it gradually thinned out. What principle could explain this?
"Hey Cipher, aren't you cold at all?" Douglas exhaled a puff of white breath, shivering involuntarily. If he was feeling this cold, Feidric must be faring even worse; his lips had already turned a faint shade of purple.
Cipher shook her head. "I'm doing okay. Maybe it's because... Catfolk are more resistant to the cold? After all, I have significantly more fur than you guys!"
Douglas immediately retorted, "No, no, no! You only have fur on your tail and ears! The rest of your body is just like a human's! That little bit of fur clearly can't provide any warmth!"
Just as they were bickering, Feidric suddenly announced, "We're here!"
Hearing this, Cipher looked up and gazed ahead. If the underground cavern had seemed vast during their journey, it paled in comparison to what lay before them now. The previous cavern had felt like a mere tunnel, while this was the true heart of the place!
Cipher stood before a colossal semicircular chamber, its radius stretching well over a kilometer. To be honest, her first thought upon seeing this terrain was of a Boss battle from a soulslike game, and it seemed she wasn't far off. In the very center of the chamber, a massive white dragon lay coiled, resting.
The dragon was surrounded by a dense ring of conical ice pillars, forming a protective barrier around it. Even more striking was the intensely vibrant Blue Mist, several times denser than the fog they had descended through earlier. These mist-like particles, resembling floating blue ice crystals, swirled around the dragon like a celestial aura.
No wonder there was so little Blue Mist along the way—it had all converged here!
Whoosh—
A long, deep exhale echoed through the chamber. The dragon was alive!
"So this is the source of the 'Extreme Cold' phenomenon in this city—the origin of all the Blue Mist?" Cipher murmured softly. Knowing that the Extreme Cold was a manifestation of the Demon Lord's power, she wondered: What exactly was this dragon?
Was it the Demon Lord himself? Or perhaps some kind of pet he kept?
Cipher glanced at Feidric. Sensing her gaze, Feidric said without being asked, "In the Legend of the Demon King and the Hero novel, when the Demon Lord was on the verge of defeat by the Heroes, he unleashed a dark power to enter his second phase, transforming into a Demon Dragon."
A Boss having a second phase was perfectly reasonable, but Feidric continued, "But this shouldn't be happening. According to the book, the Demon Dragon should be crimson-black, and the Demon Lord should already be dead. Logically, if the Demon Lord were still alive, how could the two Heroes have made a Triumphant Return?"
Yet, no matter how illogical it seemed, the reality was undeniable: here stood a colossal white dragon wielding the power of Extreme Cold!
Just then, as if having overheard their conversation, the White Dragon's eyes snapped open. Vertical pupils, green and bloodshot, glared in the direction of the four.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The White Dragon slowly rose to its feet. This seemingly ordinary act—akin to a human standing up—sent tremors through the entire cavern. The massive ice blocks encasing the dragon shattered, crashing to the ground with thunderous explosions.
Cipher had initially been unable to see clearly because the White Dragon had been curled up. Now, however, she realized that everything below the dragon's abdomen had vanished, replaced by massive ice blocks sealing the wound. These blocks seemed to be anchoring the dragon to the spot.
Supported only by its two foreclaws, the White Dragon unfurled its sole remaining wing and violently flapped it toward the four humans.
Whoosh!
The gale-force wind stirred up the dense blue mist swirling around the dragon, sweeping it toward the group. Seeing this, Aria decisively stepped forward. As before, the blue mist inexplicably dissipated as it approached her, creating an abnormally clear "vacuum zone" within the swirling fog.
Feidric's first instinct was to raise his hands to cast a spell, but he found his hands already frozen stiff, making any movement excruciatingly difficult. As a Wizard, being unable to perform hand gestures meant he couldn't cast spells at all.
Whoosh!
Amidst the howling wind, another sound seemed to mingle with the gale. However, the thick blue mist obscuring their vision made it impossible to discern what was happening.
Douglas braced against the gale, strode forward, and positioned himself at the head of the group. "Something's flying at us!" he shouted. "Get behind me!"
Turning his back to the oncoming wind, Douglas shielded the back of his head with both hands. In the absence of a shield, his plate armor served as the best available defense. He was clearly prepared to use his own body to shield his teammates from the unknown attack.
The dense fog surrounding them reduced visibility to less than five meters, leaving them with virtually no reaction time should anything emerge from the mist. In this situation, Douglas's actions were theoretically the optimal solution.
Less than two seconds later, basin-sized ice cones shot out from the blue mist, hurtling toward the group. Clearly, Aria's strange "ability" hadn't deflected them. Moving with blinding speed, the projectiles reached Douglas's back in the blink of an eye.
But at that very moment, a deep purple figure surged from the mist to the side of the group. With a downward slash of her scythe, she cleaved the nearest ice cone in two. It was unmistakably Castorice.
After safely landing by enveloping herself in a Styx Water Sphere, she maintained a discreet distance, tailing Cipher and her companions until the White Dragon flapped its wings, unleashing a massive wave of blue mist.
This time, Castorice pondered briefly before deciding on a different application of the Styx. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and allowed the Styx Water to coat her entire body like a second skin-tight suit. This granted her both protection and offensive capabilities, as demonstrated now.
After blocking the first Ice Cone, Castorice swung her scythe. With ringing metallic clashes, she intercepted and shattered every incoming Ice Cone in mid-air. The massive blade danced fluidly in her hands, carving graceful arcs through the air. The scene resembled less a battle and more a performance.
Of course, this wasn't due to some sudden enlightenment or mastery of the scythe's secrets. It was simply because... she was cheating.
Remember, she was currently blindfolded, her entire body submerged in Styx Water. She couldn't see a thing, but Cipher could—just like the Six Paths of Pain in Naruto. Since both of them were essentially the same person, they naturally shared a visual perspective. Cipher then secretly activated Divine Speed, causing all the ice cones to appear incredibly slow in her eyes.
Although Castorice couldn't enter Divine Speed State herself, because she and Cipher were the same person with shared consciousness, she still benefited from "half" of the effect. This meant that while her own thought speed remained unchanged, both Castorice's and her "enemies'" movements appeared extremely slow.
Given Castorice's robust physique—after all, she possessed a Demigod's Body—she could still move with relative ease in this slowed world, albeit at a somewhat reduced pace. The rest was simple.
Castorice merely needed to "slowly" swing her Scythe, systematically knocking down each of the nearly "motionless" ice cones one by one!
If Castorice were to evaluate her own "sword"smanship, she'd admit it was far from elegant. It was simply a relentless series of normal attacks linked together. However, due to her extremely fast strikes and pinpoint accuracy in intercepting every Ice Cone, to Aria and Feidric, who were observing at normal speed, it looked impossibly cool.
Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!
In Castorice's perception, she might have been slashing for two or three minutes, but in reality, only two or three seconds had passed. She had completely blocked the attack.
Hearing the commotion behind him, Douglas slowly lowered his hands from protecting the back of his head and looked up to glance behind. There he saw a strange, purple figure. To be honest, his first reaction to this sudden apparition was one of alarm.
But soon, the Styx Water coating Castorice's body gradually peeled away, flowing to the ground and revealing her flawless, pale skin beneath. It went without saying that when Aria, Douglas, and Feidric recognized her as Castorice, they all breathed a sigh of relief, a profound sense of security washing over them.
What could be more reassuring than having a demigod as your teammate?
Unlike Aria and the others, Cipher felt a strange awkwardness as she watched the other 'self' slowly drip 'hot chocolate' down her body.
In truth, Castorice had experienced this sensation herself earlier when the Styx Water splashed onto her and trickled down. However, witnessing it now through Cipher's third-person perspective made the experience even more vivid.
Castorice opened her mouth, ready to declare, "Don't worry, I'm here!" But the moment she opened her mouth, she sneezed. "Achoo!"
Rubbing her slightly reddened nose, Castorice stiffened her resolve and repeated, "Don't worry, I'll protect you all!"
However, that single sneeze completely shattered her heroic entrance, instantly transforming her aura from cool and reliable to overwhelmingly cute and approachable.
Aria murmured, "Sister Castorice, you're... so cute!"
Douglas nodded in agreement. "Indeed."
Her attempt at showing off having backfired, and hearing the genuine admiration from the two, Castorice's cheeks and pointed elf ears flushed crimson. A wisp of steam seemed to puff from the top of her head.
Mm, she looks even cuter now.
However, while Feidric found Castorice overwhelmingly adorable—scoring her a perfect ten out of ten (or even an eleven out of ten, if that were possible)—he also noticed the deep purple liquid flowing from her body.
The liquid exuded an overwhelming aura of death, far beyond what could be described as mere "Negative Energy." Compared to this liquid, the Necromancy Feidric had witnessed before was like the difference between a firefly and the sun. This liquid... it was death itself!
Even more bizarre was that Castorice was completely unharmed despite being enveloped in this lethal substance. Feidric couldn't help but recall her self-introduction and murmured inwardly, Demigod of Death... is that what she meant?