NOVGO.NET Chapter 899: Roommates
Chapter 899: Chapter 899: Roommates
The violet-grade Frost Fire Phoenix beat its wings, shrieking as streams of cerulean and white fire poured down from above. The Abyssal below writhed and screamed, its molten fissures frosting over and then exploding outward under the extremely cold flames.
Finally, with a scream that shook the heavens, the monstrous Abyssal’s armour-like exterior cracked. A rush of shadowy corruption erupted from its form—a dense black tide of abyssal energy ready to infect everyone in the vicinity.
The frostfire bird’s flames dimmed for an instant, its feathers shuddering as the corruption sought to crawl inside it.
The next moment, it released a blast of azure-white fire so intense that the sky itself turned white.
Everything was covered in a white even more pure than the snow-covered landscape. Only this white was scalding and where ever it touched getting severe frostbite was the best case scenario, instantly turning into a ice and then disintegrating was far more common.
The earth, the snow, the blackened tides of lesser abyssals, even the closest parapets—all were potential targets for the phoenix’s merciless brilliance.
The shockwave instantly destroyed the nearby contracts who had been contaminated, not even leaving a body behind for their tamers to claim.
On the wall, tamers felt their connection to their contracts snap, felt the sudden, terrible emptiness where a living bond had been. Several coughed blood and collapsed, hands clawing at the air where their partners had disintegrated, trying to catch even a handful of what remained of their partners.
One young woman sat trembling on the cold stone, clutching a single green feather that was all that remained of her contract. Another young man stared off into space as if his soul had been snatched.
However, despite the devastating impact this attack had on their own, no one dared to complain to the 8-star tamer. They could feel the invasive taint crawling into the threads of their contracts the instant the Abyssal died. They understood with a clarity that left no room for protest: without the bird’s purge, their contract would have been turned into the enemy—and they too may have turned through the contract’s connection if the abyssal taint is strong enough.
Unfortunately, killing their contracts before more damage could spread through their ranks was the only solution.
Or so they thought. For their own peace of mind Kain decided not to disclose his ability to withdraw abyssal contamination with no harm to the host quite yet…
’Ugh—’
Suddenly, a heavy pressure hit him with the force of a speeding car. As one of the strongest there it was hard even for him to remain standing, some of the ordinary people nearby had their heads explode in a rain of blood and brain tissue without warning.
A deep, suffocating weight settled on the battlefield as if the sky itself had fallen. Warriors shuffled to their knees; even the massive spiritual beasts bowed their heads, muscles locked in sudden, helpless tremors.
Panic spread through the ranks as a cold, hollow dread crawled up spines. Kain felt it like a clamp around his heart: a hollowing despair that stole the will to move, a sensation that his life was no longer his own but being pulled by some indifferent hand. Just when he thought he’d lose consciousness—
“Humph”
From the direction of the fortress’s central tower a cold, mocking scoff rolled across the battlefield.
The pressure snapped as if a cord had been cut, and Kain instantly felt the weight lift from his shoulders.
Men staggered, blinking slowly, trying to catch their breath. The hum faded until it was only a memory.
No one saw the two beings that had just exuded so much pressure on the field with their mere presence, but instinctively they all knew that both must have been at a level above the violet-grade Frost Fire Phoenix and the Abyssal it fought.
And the cold voice that seemed to effortlessly save them from a fate of being crushed by pressure, had likely been either a Demigod-level spiritual creature or a 9-star beast tamer.
Soon the battlefield had returned to a grim equilibrium as the abyssals continued to attack and humans returned to their posts. The horde pressed once more against the walls, like an endless ocean, but there was no immediate risk of a breach.
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The guide eventually escorted Kain and Serena away from the battlements and through the winding inner corridors of the fortress. The air smelled faintly of metal, smoke, and disinfectant.
The inner corridors were narrow and dim, lit by lanterns that sputtered against the wind creeping through the stone. The smell of iron, smoke, and boiled meat hung in the air; the scuff of boot leather and the distant murmur of chanters maintaining wards echoed through the halls. A medic bent over a wounded handler in a shadowed alcove, stitching and murmuring, while further on a pair of tamers argued softly about ration priorities.
Their quarters, when they reached them, turned out to be a small stone room—bare except for two simple beds and a single desk.
And that was when the two realized that they would be sharing a room…
“At least there are two beds,” Serena murmured, her cheeks tinged pink from the cold—and perhaps something else.
The guide bowed tiredly. “Rations are distributed at dawn. Rest while you can.” He left them to the awkward silence that followed.
Kain sat on his bed, Serena on hers, neither daring to look directly at the other. they sat on their separate beds like two strangers sharing a cramped boat. The silence stacked between them—stiff, awkward, charged with a strange tension that they both didn’t dare to dwell on. Kain tried to think of something to say to break the silence—anything. Maybe something tactical—which walls seemed to have the weakest wards, where stores were kept. Maybe something personal—like Gabriel nagging him to bring Serena home more often. But every thought dissolved into difficult to grasp bubbles as soon as he made eye contact with her.
Finally, Kain exhaled. “I’m going to look around the fort—see if I can find any clues about what Amos left behind.”
Serena hesitated, her gaze fixed on her hands. “Go ahead. I’ll… stay here.”
Nodding, Kain rose and slipped out.
The fortress was alive even at night. Lanterns flickered across the walls, healers rushed between tents, and the distant roars of beasts echoed against the cold stone. Kain wandered through it all quietly, taking in the layout, memorizing the routes, the faces, the defenses.
He could sense multiple presences far stronger than his own—at least half a dozen at the 8-star level. And he could also sense a couple dozen strong auras at around the indigo grade level. One, deeper within the fortress, radiated power so vast it made his skin prickle. A demigod-level aura. The thought made him cautious.
If such beings were stationed here, he couldn’t risk being reckless. Bea, in particular, had to restrain herself.
Back in the Azure Serpent Kingdom’s refugee city, he had let her run wild—forming splits using the Pale Thought Field to allow her coverage to spread into every corner of the city, infiltrating thousands of minds. The network she created there had been vast, feeding her insights that brought her closer to forming her domain.
Even now, she hadn’t withdrawn those splits at his suggestion to see if there is any distance limitation once a split has been formed in a target. Usually they travel only within the eastern region of the Celestial empire, but this multi-kingdom trek across the eastern continent was a rare opportunity to get that information.
Thankfully, it seemed as though Bea’s potential was greater than he’d hoped, stimulating many possibilities in his mind for her future uses. Even now, she could still feel them—thousands of distant thoughts murmuring faintly through the link. The immense distance dulled their clarity, but it was undeniably still there. It was proof of how far her consciousness had stretched.
If she could do the same here, she might finally reach the threshold of a true domain.
Unfortunately, with so many powerful beings gathered in this place, even she knew better than to try.
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Far from the din of the wall, deep within the central tower, a quiet room glowed with a soft amber light. Steam curled from a cup resting on a table of Black Adamantine Steel—one of the hardest metals known to man. A large, rough hand reached for it, yet when the fingertips brushed the rim, the cup splintered soundlessly into glittering dust.
The figure did not flinch. A tired sigh escaped instead. And then with a wave of his hand, as if carried by magic, a cupboard containing hundreds of such cups, that must have cost a fortune, opened and another cup floated toward the seated figure. Clearly, the insanely hard cups shattering like brittle glass was an everyday occurrence.
A soft knock followed. “My lord, the eighth battalion reports stability at the northern breach,” came a nervous voice.
“Good.” His tone was calm, distant. “Continue observation. I will only act if another ’large bug’ dares to act up again.”
The servant’s footsteps retreated quickly down the hall, leaving silence behind. For a long moment the man simply sat, the faint pressure of his aura curling through the room like invisible waves, making the metal fixtures groan just from his mere breaths. Then he rose and turned toward the window.
Beyond the glass, the snowstorm howled over the battlefield, the sky tinted faintly by the afterglow of frostfire. His eyes narrowed slightly.
“So,” he whispered, the corners of his lips lifting faintly. “The one foretold in the prophecy… has arrived.”