Warlock Apprentice

Chapter 2242: Chapter 2243: Glacial Dominator

"We’ve arrived." Frostbite lazily lifted its pure white paw and pointed towards the distant outline hidden within the frosty mist.

As the Gondola sliced through the white sleet, the outline within the frosty mist revealed its true form.

It was a series of undulating ice mountains shrouded in thick white steam.

Each ice mountain wasn’t particularly tall, but they were packed densely together, like frozen waves.

However, this so-called "not tall" only applied above the water’s surface. The shadows beneath the water loomed like lurking ancient beasts, and just gazing from afar was enough to make those with thalassophobia tremble.

"This is the Malaya Ice Mountain," Frostbite said, and after speaking, it elegantly rose from the bow of the Gondola, lifted its head high, and with a forceful leap, descended gracefully from the sky. Piercing through the layers of clouds and mist, Frostbite landed smoothly atop the ice mountain.

Angel then slowly lowered the Gondola, finally stopping it upon the chilly ridge.

After settling down, Angel first looked into the vast distance and then turned his gaze towards Frostbite.

His original plan was for Frostbite to lead them to Frost Iser’s palace, but when he looked back, he realized Frostbite had already found a spot on the mountain’s edge and lazily sprawled out.

When Angel looked over, Frostbite was yawning, with an expression that seemed to say, "I’m going to sleep, don’t disturb me."

Seeing this, although Angel felt the probability of Frostbite leading them was low, he still had Lobal try to test the waters.

Sure enough, Frostbite refused without hesitation: "No, I flew so far to get here, I’m exhausted. I need at least two days to recover my strength."

Angel: "..." Are you sure it was you who flew all the way here?

No matter if Frostbite’s perception was off or not, it was clear that it didn’t want to leave.

Angel couldn’t force it, so he decided to let it be.

Just as Angel was about to raise the Flying Boat again, Frostbite suddenly said: "As a farewell, though the area of the Malaya Ice Mountain is not prohibited from flying, many ice creatures have a strong sense of territorial awareness. If you walk on the ice, given Lord Lobal’s presence, they won’t make a big deal of it; but if you fly over their territory and are detected, they’ll be quite angry. Frost Iser feels the same way."

When Angel heard the first part, he thought, "At worst, I’ll use the Illusion Technique to conceal," but after hearing the last part, that Frost Iser had a similar sense of territory, Angel decided against using the Flying Boat... after all, no one knew how vast Frost Iser’s territorial awareness was.

After this, Frostbite lay back on the ice, its eyelids drooping, and in the next second, it fell asleep.

Angel glanced at the spot where Frostbite was sleeping, right on the ice mountain’s edge, with the vast sea just behind. If the edge portion of the ice mountain were to collapse, it might drift back to the Outer Sea.

However, even if it did drift away, there was no need to worry. This place was a paradise for both Water System and ice creatures, after all.

...

Stowing away the Gondola, Angel turned away from the sea and headed towards the frozen mountains.

While it was called walking, the speed wasn’t slow at all, because Angel’s steps were aided by the wind of the Speedy Spirit. With the assistance of Speedy, he almost traversed hundreds of meters in a single bound, like flying low.

After just a few minutes, Angel sensed a peculiar icy aura.

He could clearly discern that this aura undoubtedly came from an ice creature, though looking out into the distance there was no sign of any creature, yet its presence enveloped a region.

At this point, Angel roughly understood that this icy aura was what Frostbite referred to as "territory awareness."

In the sky, the aura was chaotic and hard to distinguish, making it easy to intrude into others’ airspace. But walking on the ice, the aura was pure, making it easy to identify the boundary of the icy aura. If one didn’t want any interaction with its owner, simply bypassing could avoid unnecessary disputes.

Angel didn’t want to waste time, and he didn’t need an ice creature to guide him now because Lobal had been to Malaya Ice Mountain before. Although Lobal didn’t know the exact layout of the ice mountains, it knew the general direction of Frost Iser’s palace.

With a path to follow, there was no need to interact with the ice creatures on the outskirts, so Angel chose to skirt around the bounds of the icy aura and continue deeper into Malaya Ice Mountain.

He walked for half an hour.

Along the way, he encountered five ice creature territories. Though Angel chose to take detours, he was spotted by the creatures in two of those territories.

Yet to Angel’s surprise, these ice creatures paid little attention to him and his party, merely raising an eyebrow to glance their way, which was the extent of their concern.

This gave Angel the impression that "as long as you don’t enter their territory, they really don’t care who you are."

This was the first time since arriving in the Tidal World that Angel had encountered such a situation.

In other areas, elemental creatures, while not as heavily fortified or trapped as in the Baya Desert, remained very alert to outsiders. Upon entering their territory, whichever path you took, there would invariably be guards to obstruct you and inquire about your intentions.

Given past experiences, seeing the unique situation at Malaya Ice Mountain was quite distinct for Angel.

He had previously learned that Frost Iser was a formidable invader and assumed the rules at Malaya Ice Mountain would be very strict, but reality was entirely different from his expectations.

In this case, it’s beneficial, avoiding disputes and saving time from having to explain intentions to every ice creature encountered.

However, Angel couldn’t always detour, as some places simply couldn’t be avoided.

Just like now, Angel reached the crossing of an ice river.

A few meters ahead, there was a thin layer of ice, and beneath this ice was a river that hadn’t frozen over. Standing at the bank, one could hear the gentle sound of water flowing beneath the ice.

The ice river was very wide, its end invisible at a glance, stretching far into the distance.

The reason Angel stopped at the ice river’s edge was that he could clearly sense the dense water system aura where the ice river extended.

There was undoubtedly a powerful water creature entrenched in this ice river.

A detour was next to impossible.

Angel pondered for a moment and decided to step into the creature’s territory.

According to Frostbite’s earlier statement, walking on the ice, even if entering another’s domain, should be met with leniency in light of Lobal’s presence.

With this in mind, Angel stepped onto the ice river.

This was Angel’s first step into the territory of an elemental creature on Malaya Ice Mountain, completely different from previous detours. As soon as he entered the territory, an overwhelmingly dense water vapor locked onto him.

The ordinary mist lingering on the ice surface seemed to have turned into molten iron sludge, making it feel like walking with a thousand-pound burden on the feet.

This change was evidently caused by the water elemental creatures hidden within the glacier.

Angel lightly tapped his foot, and the mist surrounding him was thrown off, the heaviness he felt earlier vanished.

After freeing himself from the mist, Angel did not choose to move forward but stood quietly on the thin ice surface. Because he sensed a very dense water elemental aura swiftly heading in his direction.

A few seconds later, the ice surface not far away suddenly shattered open, and a white column of water surged out from the rupture.

Within the water column, the head of a woman with deep blue hair emerged from the section of the water column.

She initially had her eyes closed, and only opened them when the outline of her features became clear, revealing ice blue pupils.

"Oh, it’s her... Sir, she is Troisa." At this moment, the wind carried Lobal’s voice to Angel’s ear.

In the wind, Lobal quickly introduced the background of Troisa.

Within the Malaya Ice Mountain, there were three main glaciers: Moto, Xiqin, and Meina. Each main glacier housed a powerful elemental creature. These glaciers circled the central palace, guarding Frostbite’s honor.

If compared to a royal family in reality, the elemental creatures in these three glaciers were akin to the king’s guards, the strongest peak guardians.

Lobal had previously seen this glacier but did not associate it with the three main glaciers because it was quite far from the core area, thinking it was just an unremarkable small glacier.

However, when the woman’s face emerged from the water column, Lobal confirmed that this glacier was indeed one of the main routes.

Troisa was the ruler of the Meina Glacier.

The above was the intelligence brought by Lobal.

The only pity was that Troisa’s level was very high, comparable to Hurricane at Storm Ridge. So, although Lobal knew Troisa’s name, he had never interacted with her and was unaware of her temperament.

While listening to Lobal’s voice, Angel scrutinized Troisa.

Ignoring the external appearance, solely from the water elemental aura she emitted, she was extremely powerful. Definitely among the top-tier of the water system transcendental beings Angel had encountered. However, she was still slightly inferior to the Pannas Charm Demon met in the Abyss back then.

"Outsider..." Troisa’s ice-blue pupils scanned the ice crowd, lingering on Dangross for a moment before finally resting on Speedy and Lobal.

"Lobal." Although Troisa did not recognize Speedy, she was not unfamiliar with this potential sage, Lobal.

"Lady Troisa." Lobal respectfully lowered his head.

Finding it wasn’t Lobal’s main head replying, a trace of doubt flashed in Troisa’s eyes, and she thought to herself: Has the tail head really taken over? If this is true, the possibility of Lobal becoming a sage is even greater.

Suppressing the doubts in her heart, Troisa watched Lobal: "We haven’t received any messages from Hurricane lately, Lobal, why are you here? Moreover, bringing outsiders."

Lobal stepped forward and briefly explained his purpose to Troisa.

"This outsider wants to meet Lord Frostbite?" Troisa glanced at Angel and slowly said, "Alright. I can even transport you directly to the entrance of the palace through the glacier, but I have a condition."

Angel: "What condition?"

Troisa’s upper body leaned slightly, emerging from the water column, raising her white arm, and pointing at Angel’s shoulder: "Give it to me."

Although Toby was on Angel’s shoulder at the moment, the object Troisa was referring to wasn’t Toby but Dangross holding the Bloodnight Sanctuary Bead tightly.

Since arriving at Malaya Ice Mountain, Dangross had been trying hard to keep a low profile, afraid of being noticed by others, yet unexpectedly, he still got noticed and was used as a bargaining chip.

Dangross felt his mind go blank, anxiously looking at Angel: "No, I don’t want to!"

In Dangross’s eyes, a plea resided. However, this plea also secretly hid some uneasiness—although its relationship with Angel had been increasingly harmonious, even somewhat intimate during this time, the time spent together was still too short; this affection was like a rootless drifting duckweed. Whether Angel would refuse or agree with the other party, it had no confidence.

Dangross couldn’t help looking towards Toby, hoping Toby would say a few words for him in consideration of all the flattery he had done these days.

However, Toby held his head high, seemingly indifferent.

Dangross felt a chill in his heart.

"How about it? As long as you agree to give me Dangross, I will directly transport you to the outside of Lord Frostbite’s palace and ensure that Lord Frostbite will see you."

Angel did not immediately answer but pondered for a moment, a period that felt like a year to Dangross.

After a while, Angel spoke, still not directly answering Troisa’s question but rather asked, "Do you know Dangross?"

"Yes." Troisa nodded and then continued, "Have you made your decision?"

Angel pondered for a moment: "I’ve decided."

"And your answer is?"

Angel was about to answer when Toby suddenly chirped softly. Angel glanced at it, finding that Toby wasn’t looking at him, instead bowing its head, grooming its feathers as if it hadn’t chirped earlier.

Angel chuckled softly, turned to Troisa, and said, "I refuse."

He had actually considered agreeing because Troisa admitted that she knew Dangross. Knowing Dangross’s identity implied that Troisa couldn’t harm Dangross.

After all, Dangross was born from the ashes of Kalomchis. Even if Troisa didn’t care whether Dangross was an elemental sprite, she wouldn’t dare lay a finger on Dangross for Kalomchis’s sake.

Angel could agree to let Troisa take Dangross for the time being, then meet Frost Iser. Once trust was gained, he would definitely be able to get Dangross back later.

However, Angel ultimately decided not to.

Although Dangross usually misbehaved, at least they spent a considerable time together, just handing it over like that—let alone Mister Magu’s attitude—Angel felt embarrassed himself.

Moreover, Angel still hoped that in the future, Dangross would help him persuade Kelonkcro to come over.

So, to avoid hurting the naughty child’s fragile glass heart, Angel chose to refuse.