I don't know how long had passed beneath the deadly silence of the ice and snow.
"Cough cough..." Fa struggled to move her fingers, the cold snow pressing against her body, darkness and suffocation assaulting her. But the cable around her waist was taut, holding her firmly in place without being swept away. She sensed faint tugs and vibrations through the cable—Rex confirming survivors! "Communications... attempting connection..." Rex's intermittent electronic voice came through the armor's built-in comms, the signal extremely weak.
"I'm... here..." Fa managed to respond.
"Arya..."
"Kayla..."
"Yuyuer..."
One by one, weak responses sounded. Miraculously, thanks to Rex's ice anchors and cables fixing them in place, along with the precious time and buffer bought by Salsa's undead legion, the entire team survived! But they were all deeply buried under the ice and snow, the situation critical.
"Lin Ya... please..." Fa said with difficulty through the comms.
"Vitality... spreading..." Lin Ya's faint consciousness transmitted. Even buried deep, he stubbornly released life energy. Emerald green mycelium spread upward along his roots through the cold snow layers, arduously seeking air. At the same time, the mycelium wrapped around everyone, delivering meager oxygen and warmth.
"Tisk... melt through... above..." Fa instructed.
"Leave it... to this old man!" Tisk's muffled voice came through, carrying the ruthless vigor of a survivor. His position was closer to the edge. The runes on his lava hammer lit up again with ice-fire glow. "Forge Blast · Directional Excavation!" He compressed his power to the extreme, aiming the hammerhead upward, and erupted fiercely! Boom! A shockwave mixed with high-temperature steam and ice shards burst upward, forcibly melting a narrow tunnel through the thick snow layer! Cold air instantly rushed in!
Like moles in the snow, everyone followed the tunnel carved by Tisk, dragging each other with the cables, struggling out from the tens of meters deep avalanche burial. When they finally breathed the cold but free air again, everyone collapsed on the snow, panting heavily, coughing, bodies chilled, in utter disarray. Lin Ya's glow had dimmed to the extreme, cracks deepening on his branches. Salsa's mechanical cat shell was damaged in multiple places, her soul fluctuations weak. Tisk's hands were burned by the high-temperature steam. Everyone was greatly depleted, injured.
The ice platform had vanished, along with the ice waterfall above changing its appearance. The only good news was that the narrow ice ridge leading higher up still remained.
"Rest... half an hour." Fa wiped the blood and ice water from her face, her voice hoarse. "Then... continue." She looked upward, the storm clouds seeming within reach. Time was running out.
Storm Summit: The Final Sprint and the Empty Mountaintop
The next three days were a true hellish journey. The team climbed along that narrow, slick ice ridge with abyssal drops on both sides. Gale winds like giant palms threatened to hurl them off at any moment. The thin air made every breath like pulling a bellows, heads pounding. The low temperature continuously eroded stamina and will. Injuries healed extremely slowly in this environment.
They encountered more perils: flocks of "Ice Soul Demon Birds" that spewed soul-freezing cold breaths, barely dispersed by Kayla's thunder roars and Arya's explosive arrows; "Ice-Devouring Worms" disguised as ice surfaces, detected in advance by Lin Ya's roots and Yuyuer's ice crystal probes; a massive frost giant bear with fur like ice spikes and paws carrying destructive force, defeated under the team's combined efforts, severely depleting everyone's stamina. The worst were the omnipresent "Extreme Cold Turbulences" that could instantly freeze people into ice sculptures, evaded perilously time and again thanks to Fa's essence repulsion field and the rune goggles' warnings.
Before dawn on the sixth day, the darkest hour. The storm reached its peak, lightning exploding overhead as if the sky roared. Each step weighed a thousand pounds, ice axes requiring full force to nail into the eternal profound ice harder than steel. Kayla and Tisk practically relied on brute strength to drag the weaker Yuyuer and injured Lin Ya upward.
Just as they were exhausted, wills on the brink of collapse, the blizzard ahead suddenly cleared!
They finally set foot on the summit of Frostblade Snow Mountain!
Here was a relatively flat, massive ice cap spanning hundreds of meters. The raging storm clouds rolled right overhead, lightning snakes dancing, deafening. Yet strangely, the wind on the summit platform was much milder, but the oppressive feeling in the air reached its peak.
Everyone supported each other, gasping for breath, scanning the surroundings.
Dead silence. Aside from the eternal unmelting hard ice, howling gales, and the oppressive thunderous clouds overhead, there was nothing.
No legendary radiant, magnificent dome constructed of countless light feathers. No trace of the Winged People. No glow from star fragments. Not even any architectural remnants, or a single obvious artificial object. Only endless ice, snow, and storm.
"This... is the summit?" Kayla panted, her bronze face full of astonishment and fatigue, the arcs on her thunder claws weak. "Where's the Light Feather Dome? Not even a single bird feather in sight!"
Tisk leaned on his lava hammer, his stout body trembling slightly, whether from exhaustion or anger. "Damn it... climbed for six days, nearly died several times, just to see this snowy, barren mountaintop?!"
Arya supported the weakened Fa, her star-like eyes filled with confusion and worry: "How could this be... Karim said the place is here..."
Yuyuer's face was pale as paper; he struggled to raise his crystal ball, trying to sense something. "Something's off... the spatial fluctuations here... are strange. This place... has very powerful illusion and spatial magic traces... and very ancient... not like the crude ice seals from the Cold Silence Ice Palace before... this is a... more sophisticated concealment... or disguise?" The scene in the crystal ball was chaotic, ice crystal storms swirling madly, unable to resolve any useful information.
Rex's electronic eye scanned the entire platform: "No large architectural structure energy reactions detected. No life signs found. Environmental mana concentration extremely high, spatial disturbance index exceeded. Speculation: Target may be hidden by high-level spatial magic or illusions."
"Hidden?" Zhamisi frowned tightly, her snake tail irritably slapping the ice surface. "Do we have to dig up this mountaintop?"
Just as everyone was at a loss, exhaustion and disappointment beginning to spread.
"Shh—did you hear something?" Kayla's beastman hearing was extremely sharp; she suddenly turned her head toward the area on the other side of the summit shrouded in blizzard, her beast-like keen senses capturing a trace of unusual energy fluctuations.
"I heard it too..." Salsa's mechanical cat shell's electronic eyes flashed wildly, her soul emitting weak fluctuations, "It's... fighting sounds... and... residual echoes of energy explosions... very faint... masked by the blizzard..."
Everyone immediately became alert, their exhausted bodies tensing again. Fighting sounds? Had the Doomsday Rebirth organization's people already arrived? Or were other forces also targeting the star fragments?
Fa looked toward the ice rock pointed out by Yuyuer, then toward the direction sensed by Kayla and Salsa, her gaze sharpening. Whether the Light Feather Dome was hidden or not, whatever that fighting sound was, they had to go investigate.
"Move! Let's check it out!" Fa commanded in a low voice, the glow of her right eye's star pupil like a guiding star in the violent blizzard, firm and bright.
The companions didn't hesitate, dragging their exhausted bodies, stepping forward once more toward the direction of the faint fighting sounds, into the deeper blizzard of the summit. Waiting for them was the hidden Light Feather Dome, or a trap set by the Doomsday Rebirth organization? All unknown, but they were ready to face it together.
Doomsday Rebirth's Variant Winged People
The ice cap of Frostblade Summit trembled under the eternal storm's roars. Fa's group, dragging their utterly exhausted bodies, mustered their spirits due to the anomaly sensed by Kayla and Salsa. They crouched low, like snow leopards hugging the ice surface eroded with countless gullies by the wind, stealthily advancing toward the source of the sounds without a trace. Fa walked at the front, her right eye's star pupil flowing with ghostly light; she tightly restrained the power of her cold silence essence, forming only a nearly undetectable repulsion field around her body, pushing aside the most lethal snow fog and ice crystal turbulences that could slice steel, barely maintaining a narrow visible path.
Bypassing an ice rock jutting toward the sky like a giant beast's fang, the scene before them made everyone hold their breath.
In the area where the blizzard had slightly subsided, an intense and brutal battle was unfolding.
Hovering in the center of the battlefield was a tall, imposing dual-winged female Winged Person. Behind her spread four distinctly different wings—one pair devil-like black leather wings, edges sharp as knives, tips with ferocious bone spikes; the other pair pure black feathered wings, feathers flickering with eerie dark light, emanating an angelic majesty yet tinged with ominous aura. Her face was coldly beautiful, eyes like cold abyssal blue sapphires, clad in a set of lightweight dark silver battle armor that outlined her exquisite figure, wielding a long spear wrapped in dark purple energy, exuding powerful oppression.
She was not alone. Beside her were thirty bizarre-looking variant Winged People. These creatures were evidently the twisted life creations of the Doomsday Rebirth organization, combining Winged People traits with various beasts: some with eagle talons and raptor heads, yet bat-like fleshy wings; some with bear-like burly bodies, yet insect-like compound eyes and translucent cicada wings; others with snake-like torsos, yet bird wings and sharp teeth. Their skin showed sickly gray-green or dark red, eyes flickering with violent red light, movements carrying inhuman hisses and savagery.
These thirty variant Winged People were launching a fierce attack on fifty Winged People.
The fifty Winged People were clearly divided into two types: one with devil wings burning with sulfur flame patterns, muscles bulging, wielding flaming flails or giant axes, roaring in fury; the other unfolding pure white or pale gold angelic wings flowing with holy halos, movements agile and swift, wielding light-forged spears or staves, chanting wards and attack spells. They used the summit's rugged ice pillars and crevasses as cover, desperately resisting.
The battle was extraordinarily brutal. The variant Winged People ignored pain, rampaging with violent power and eerie animal organs. A crocodile-headed variant charged through several light spears' piercings, its massive maw opening to an unbelievable angle, biting a dodging devil-wing guard in half at the waist! A mantis-armed variant's blade light fast as lightning, instantly slashing the throats of two angelic-wing warriors attempting to flank it, blood spraying brief hot mist in the cold air. A giant ape variant leaped up, its heavy feet stomping down ruthlessly, crushing a shield-holding devil-wing warrior along with the shield into meat paste, the ice surface cracking into spiderweb patterns. A scorpion-tailed variant slyly flicked its tail hook in the melee, deadly venom precisely shooting into an angelic-wing priest's eye, the latter screaming as they fell, body rapidly corroding and rotting.
The Winged People guards' resistance was nothing short of heroic. Devil-wing warriors roared, swinging flame weapons to scorch the variants' shells and flesh; angelic-wing mages joined hands to raise holy light shields, blocking energy impacts while firing dense light arrows. An angelic-wing elder with four radiant light wings, evidently elder-level, raised his staff high, summoning a scorching holy flame torrent that instantly engulfed two variants charging at the front. However, the variants' brutality and fearlessness of death, plus the dual-winged female's eerie power from her dark purple spear, quickly tilted the battle.
The dual-winged female hovered at the battlefield center, like a cold commander. The tip of her dark purple spear flashed purple, an invisible mental shriek instantly spreading! Several angelic-wing mages chanting spells stiffened as if struck heavily, eyes glazing over. Seizing this instant gap, several variants pounced, tearing them apart. When a devil-wing brave burned his life essence, turning into a meteor crashing toward the dual-winged female, she merely glanced disdainfully, her four wings vibrating slightly, her figure instantly shifting several meters at an unbelievable angle, while the dark purple spear thrust back. A condensed, shadow-tinged ink-black beam struck later but arrived first, precisely hitting the brave's forehead. The brave's charge halted abruptly, flames in his eyes extinguishing instantly, the corpse falling limply to the ice.
"Hold on! For the Light Feather Dome!" The angelic-wing elder shouted hoarsely, the light on his light wings noticeably dimming. Responding were the falling figures of the guards and desperate wails.
Fa's group held their breath, watching, hearts pounding. The Doomsday Rebirth organization's minions had arrived first, displaying such terrifying combat power! Those variant Winged People were evidently the experimental subjects Salsa had seen in the underground lab when infiltrating Champagne's consciousness!
"Where's the Light Feather Dome... entrance?" Arya whispered, her gaze anxiously scanning the empty ice cap battlefield. Aside from the battling sides, still no trace of any structure.
At that moment, the battlefield situation took a sharp turn. As a devil-wing warrior guarding the angelic-wing elder was dismembered by three variants, the remaining dozen or so Winged People guards' morale completely collapsed.
"Retreat! Fall back to the sanctuary!" The wing elder roared in grief and fury, his staff erupting with final strong light, temporarily repelling the encircling variant monsters. However, he didn't follow the surviving Winged People in retreat; instead, he stepped forward fiercely, holy flames on his light wings surging, turning himself into a dazzling barrier across between the pursuers and his retreating kin! "Go quickly! I'll hold them off!" His voice carried resolute will.
The surviving Winged People, whether angelic or devil-winged, turned with tears, dragging injured bodies, desperately rushing toward a seemingly ordinary massive ice rock at the battlefield's edge.
A bizarre scene occurred!
When the first Winged Person touched the ice rock's surface, he vanished instantly like a water drop merging into the sea! Followed by the second, the third... The hard ice rock surface rippled like water waves, "swallowing" the fleeing Winged People guards one by one!
"Spatial entrance!" Yuyuer whispered, the crystal ball reflecting intense spatial distortions in that area, "That's it! Powerful illusions and spatial folding magic!"
Exposure and Confrontation
After the Winged People retreated, the dual-winged female's cold face showed no surprise, only a hint of mockery. Her four wings slowly folded, hovering in mid-air, her gaze suddenly turning coldly sweeping over the battlefield's edge—toward where Fa's team hid. Her perception was abnormally sharp, as if piercing through ice rocks and blizzard, directly at the hidden observers. She slowly floated up, her four wings gently flapping, stirring a cold wind.
"Come out, peepers!" Her voice was cold and majestic, carrying an unquestionable command, piercing the blizzard straight into everyone's eardrums.
Fa's team was startled, not expecting to be discovered so quickly. They exchanged glances, then Fa took a deep breath, stood up, and led the team out from the ice rock's cover. Her right eye's star pupil flickered with ghostly light, calmly gazing at the opponent.
"We're not peepers," Fa said in a low voice, "We're here for the Light Feather Dome."
The dual-winged female sized up Fa's team, a flash of contempt in her eyes. "So it's you," she sneered, "Heard there's a bunch of self-righteous folks probing the organization's intel; looks like it's you."
Fa frowned, not responding directly, but secretly observing the other. The dual-winged female emanated an abnormally powerful aura, far surpassing any enemy they'd encountered, even faintly carrying a cold pressure.
"I have no time to tangle with you," the dual-winged female waved her hand, spear pointing to the ground, "'Claw', 'Bonebreaker', 'Venomgland', 'Digger', 'Heavyhammer'!" She spat five cold names, like naming livestock in a slaughterhouse, "Stay behind, clean up these self-righteous people. The rest, follow me into the Light Feather Dome, seize the star fragments!" She didn't see Fa's group as a real threat, not even bothering to act personally.
The five named variant Winged People immediately detached from pursuing the remnants, turning around, five pairs of eyes filled with brutality and hunger staring dead at the ice rock where Fa's team hid. Their features were:
"Claw": Arms mutated into massive mantis blade arms, blades flickering with high-frequency oscillating ghostly blue light.
"Bonebreaker": Lower limbs giant ape legs, upper body covered in thick bone plates, head like a rhino, topped with a metallic chilling ramming horn.
"Venomgland": Spine extending a sturdy scorpion tail, tail hook ink-green, constantly dripping venom, hands like chameleon tongues, able to shoot sticky venomous needles.
"Digger": Relatively slim build, forelimbs mutated into massive, chitin-armored mole-like digging claws, mouthparts insect-style compound jaws.
"Heavyhammer": The tallest and sturdiest, right arm completely replaced by a massive, spike-covered metal heavy hammer, left arm a rough bone shield.
The dual-winged female didn't glance this way again, her four wings vibrating, leading the remaining twenty-three variant Winged People like vultures pouncing on prey, plunging headfirst into the giant ice rock rippling with spatial waves, figures vanishing instantly. The ripples on the ice rock surface quickly calmed, as if nothing had happened.
The battlefield instantly left only the five variant Winged People emanating ferocious auras, and Fa's group forced out from hiding. The cold air permeated with blood scent and thick killing intent.