The Wolfrezon's severed arm crashed heavily into the snow.
Thud.
Fresh blood splashed across the white ground.
For a heartbeat...
Everything froze.
The towering beast slowly lowered the Snow Monarch Deer from its remaining arm.
Its crimson eyes stared blankly at the empty shoulder where its right arm had once been.
Then—
Pain arrived.
ROOOOOOOOAAAAARRR!!
The entire forest trembled.
Snow cascaded from the towering pines.
The Wolfrezon staggered backward, clutching the ruined shoulder as dark crimson blood poured onto the frozen earth.
Its furious gaze locked onto the lone human standing before it.
Zekai calmly twirled Null Drakular once before resting the blade against his shoulder.
"...Sorry."
"I wasn't aiming for your arm."
"I was aiming for your neck."
The Wolfrezon's lips curled back, exposing rows of razor-sharp fangs.
Blue light began gathering deep inside its throat.
"...?"
Zekai's smile faded.
"What now?"
The light intensified.
It wasn't Grave Energy.
It felt different.
Colder.
Denser.
"Holy..."
The Wolfrezon's jaws snapped open.
BOOOOOOOOOM!!
A brilliant sapphire beam erupted from its mouth.
The snow beneath it vaporized instantly.
"Oh, crap!"
Zekai barely raised Null Drakular in time.
SHHHHHHHHHHHH!!
The beam slammed into the white blade.
An explosion of blue light engulfed him.
The impact pushed him backward across the snow.
His boots carved two deep trenches through the frozen ground.
The laser split around Null Drakular like a raging river crashing against an immovable cliff.
Blue energy scattered in every direction.
Trees behind him exploded into frozen splinters.
Chunks of ice rained through the forest.
"...This thing has a laser?!"
His arms trembled beneath the pressure.
"So that's your real weapon!"
The beam finally faded.
Steam rose from the blade.
Zekai exhaled sharply.
"My hands..."
"...are numb."
He had barely finished speaking—
The Wolfrezon disappeared.
"...!"
A violent gust crashed over him.
Instinct screamed.
He ducked.
A massive claw sliced through the air above his head.
WHOOOOSH!!
The force alone split three pine trees behind him.
Zekai twisted.
His boots skidded sideways through the snow.
The gigantic claw continued past his face by mere centimeters.
"...Too slow."
Using the momentum—
He planted one hand against the ground.
His body rotated beneath the Wolfrezon's remaining arm.
Snow exploded around him.
Within a single motion—
He slid behind the beast.
"Heh..."
"You thought..."
"...I'd stand still?"
The Wolfrezon tried turning.
Too late.
Null Drakular flashed.
A silver crescent cut through the snowfall.
SHHHHK!!
For a moment...
Nothing happened.
The Wolfrezon remained standing.
Its crimson eyes widened.
Then—
A thin crimson line appeared around its neck.
Blood erupted skyward.
Its enormous head slowly slid from its shoulders.
THUD!!
The gigantic skull rolled across the snow before coming to rest beside the half-eaten deer.
Its body remained standing for another heartbeat.
Then collapsed with enough force to shake the clearing.
Silence returned.
Only drifting snow remained.
"...Oof..."
Zekai rested both hands on Null Drakular.
"...That was..."
"...way stronger than I expected."
He looked toward the massive corpse.
"So you're definitely not the weakest monster around here."
Behind him—
A weak groan echoed.
The Snow Monarch Deer. It struggled to stand. Its breathing remained shallow.
Deep claw wounds covered its body.
Blood stained its once-pristine white fur.
"...Easy."
"I'm not your enemy."
The enormous stag slowly raised its head.
Its icy blue eyes met Zekai's.
There was no hostility. Only caution.
Then...
Something unexpected happened.
A pale blue glow spread across its entire body.
The wounds slowly began closing.
Broken flesh knitted together. Blood disappeared beneath newly formed fur.
Within seconds—
The Snow Monarch stood once more. Healthy. Majestic.
"...You're kidding."
"You can regenerate?"
Zekai glanced toward the Wolfrezon's corpse.
Then back at the Snow Monarch.
"...If you can heal..."
"...then how did you almost lose?"
The ancient stag remained silent.
Yet the countless scars hidden beneath its white fur quietly told the answer.
Its wounds had healed...
Again.
Again.
Again.
Every regeneration demanded a piece of its own life.
Against overwhelming strength...
Healing alone could never claim victory.
The Snow Monarch slowly walked toward him.
Each step was graceful.
Its crystal antlers shimmered beneath the winter sunlight.
But something about its movements had changed.
It no longer walked like a king returning victorious.
It walked like an old guardian carrying a burden only it could understand.
Its ancient eyes lingered on Zekai for far longer than necessary.
Not with gratitude.
With concern.
Zekai tightened his grip on Null Drakular.
"...You're not planning to fight now..."
"...right?"
The stag stopped only a few meters away.
For several silent seconds...
Neither moved.
Then—
The Snow Monarch lowered its head.
A gesture of respect.
Zekai blinked.
"...Uh..."
"No."
"You really don't have to do that."
"I only interrupted because..."
"...well..."
"...he was kind of a jerk."
A faint smile appeared.
The stag slowly lifted its head again.
Its crystal antlers suddenly ignited with gentle azure light.
"...?"
The surrounding snow began swirling around Zekai.
Tiny frost particles floated through the air like glowing stars.
"What are you doing?"
The light condensed. A single stream of icy-blue energy flowed from the antlers...
Straight into Zekai's chest.
His body shivered.
Not from cold.
From warmth.
The feeling spread through every muscle.
Every ache from the battle disappeared.
The numbness in his arms faded completely.
"...Whoa."
A familiar electronic sound echoed.
Zzzzsup!
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ARCANA STATUS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Special Blessing Received
Source:
Snow Monarch Deer
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Skill Acquired
Frost Heal
Rank : Rare
Type : Blessing / Support
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Effect :
• Continuously regenerates physical injuries.
• Restores damaged muscles, bones, and internal organs.
• Greatly reduces fatigue and accelerates stamina recovery.
• Grants exceptional resistance to cold environments.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Zekai slowly opened and closed his injured hand.
The numbness had already disappeared.
Even the deep claw marks across his forearm were knitting together before his eyes.
"...That's..."
He blinked.
"...fast."
His broken muscles no longer ached. His breathing became lighter.
"...So this is..."
A grin spread across Zekai's face.
"...real regeneration."
He looked toward the stag.
"...Thank you."
The Snow Monarch quietly stared at him. It slowly lowered its head once more.
Then...
Its gaze slowly drifted past Zekai.
Toward the deepest part of the frozen forest. Toward a place hidden beyond countless snow-covered trees.
Its crystal-blue pupils suddenly contracted. Its entire body became still.
For the first time since Zekai had seen it...
Fear appeared inside the eyes of the ancient monarch.
Not fear of death.
Not fear of battle.
Something else. Something far older.
Far deeper.
As though it had sensed the presence of a predator that even a king of this forest dared not challenge.
The fear lasted only a heartbeat.
Then...
It quietly disappeared.
The Snow Monarch looked back at Zekai one final time.
Its expression softened. Almost...
Like it was entrusting something precious to him.
Without another sound—
It turned away.
Its enormous body began running across the frozen plains.
Snow swirled behind it.
Within seconds—
The white forest swallowed it whole.
Only drifting snow remained.
"...Guess that's goodbye."
Zekai never noticed...
Before disappearing into the endless white, the Snow Monarch looked back one last time.
Not at him.
At the same distant forest. As though silently praying...
That the blessing it had given would be enough.
Zekai sheathed Null Drakular halfway before looking around.
"...Alright."
"Now..."
"Let's see what else this place has to offer."
He casually raised one finger.
"Arcana Status."
Zzzzsup!
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
ARCANA INTERFACE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Authority Title: The Fool
Authority Level: 32
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Authority Bearer: Zekai Krystan
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
HP : 100% AP : 100%
STR : 15 AGI : 17
DEX : 16 VIT : 14
PER : 19 WIL : 25
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Authorities
Armament
Arcana Path
Unbroken Ledger
Condition
Records
Observation
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Zekai studied the floating interface.
"...Interesting."
"My stats only went up a little."
His finger drifted toward the lower options.
"I still haven't explored half of these."
"I wonder what—"
Instinct exploded.
His entire body moved before his mind could react.
He threw himself sideways.
BOOOOOOM!!
A gigantic pine tree crashed into the exact spot where he had been standing.
Snow erupted skyward.
"...What?!"
The earth trembled.
THUD.
THUD.
THUD.
Heavy footsteps echoed from every direction.
The forest...
Was waking up.
✦ Chapter 54 — The First Pack ✦