Chapter 35: Accidental Embrace in the Snow Realm!

A voice came from behind him. It was nothing like the high, small tone of her usual lizard form. Deeper, resonating from deep within a chest, like water flowing beneath sheets of ice.

Cecil spun around.

He saw a dragon. Her blue‑and‑white scales glowed softly amid swirling snow, each plate the size of his palm, fitted tight and even. Her body stretched roughly two meters long, powerful limbs anchored in the snow, her tail tracing an elegant arc behind her. She curved her neck to meet his gaze at eye‑level. Those blue eyes — Cecil recognised them instantly — belonged to Gwendolyn, only magnified dozens of times, like sapphires embedded within this white world.

"...Gwendolyn?"

"Who else would it be?" There was that familiar lazy mockery in her voice, yet her massive form lent it low, regal weight. "Don’t just stand there. The snow is deep; your feet will go numb."

Cecil did not move. He stared at her for a long while, tracing from the tips of her horns down the scaled ridges of her neck, the faint silver markings across her shoulder‑blades, all the way to the tuft of icy‑blue mane at her tail’s tip. A smile tugged unbidden at his lips.

"You’re adorable."

Gwendolyn’s eyes flew wide. The great dragon froze completely, locked in place for two full seconds. Then her tail swept hard across the snow, sending a spray of ice crystals flying.

"...Pervert." The imposing gravitas in her tone cracked, revealing the familiar, faintly irked undertone he knew so well.

Cecil let out a short laugh, tension melting away from his weariness. "Alright, alright, no more jokes. Where exactly are we?"

Gwendolyn lifted her head, sweeping her gaze over the endless white expanse. "Our bond has grown stronger. We’ve entered our Resonance Realm."

"Resonance Realm?"

"A small space rooted deep within our linked souls. Before, we could only touch it in fleeting fragments.Now it has stabilised into this snowfield. This place exists for us to grow together. No outside interference, almost no passage of outside time. We can practise our coordination and abilities here without interruption."

Cecil looked around. Nothing but snow stretched to the distance, where faint crystal landforms loomed: wind‑carved boulders and half‑ruined remnants of structures. The sky was pale cyan, no sun, no clouds, yet light shone bright and even.

"How do we train?" he asked.

Gwendolyn lowered her head and scraped her claws across the snow. Two rows of silver script surfaced, nearly identical to the skill tree on Cecil’s system interface.

[Spirit Beast Skill Tree · Gwendolyn]

‑ Frost Breath (Basic) — Mastered

‑ Single‑Target Ice Shield (Basic) — Mastered

"You already know both of these," Gwendolyn rumbled, "but your control is still rough. Your ice spheres hold uneven shapes, your ice armour covers inconsistently. You need repeated practice within this controlled space."

Cecil nodded. He raised his right hand, cold energy gathering in his palm. In the real world compressing frost into a sphere cost him effort, yet here within the resonance realm, magic flowed astonishingly fast. Barely had the thought formed before a fist‑sized ice orb materialised in his grasp.

"It forms much faster," he noted.

"This environment aligns perfectly with my affinity," Gwendolyn explained. "Your frost power is amplified nearly two‑fold here. Now." She stepped back, putting ten paces between them. "Shoot ice spheres at me."

Cecil blinked in surprise. "At you?"

"I will dodge," Gwendolyn replied. "You sharpen accuracy; I hone evasion. We both improve."

Without further hesitation, Cecil launched his first ice sphere. It streaked forward in a straight white line, far quicker than it would be outside. Gwendolyn twisted aside. The orb grazed her shoulder scales and burst into a cloud of icy mist across the distant snow.

"Half a foot off‑target," Gwendolyn said. "Again."

Second. Third. Fourth. Though vastly larger than her lizard form, Gwendolyn moved with breathtaking agility. Every lean, every shift of her claws, every dip of her head was precise. Ice orbs whistled past her, none landing a direct hit.

"Your shots are growing closer," Gwendolyn called mid‑evasion. "But your prediction is lacking. You aim for where I stand, not where I will be the next instant."

Cecil paused to catch his breath. Stamina drained slower here, yet casting over a dozen ice orbs still made his arm ache. He readjusted his stance and summoned frost once more, watching for the tiny tell in her posture: her tail flicked slightly opposite the direction she intended to dodge. Subtle, yet crystal‑clear inside this realm.

He loosed the next orb. Gwendolyn leaned left as expected, but Cecil’s shot locked onto the spot she would reach half a second later. Mid‑dodge she realised the orb was already waiting for her. She jerked to alter course, momentarily losing balance, and the ice sphere skimmed the tip of her foreclaw.

"...You predicted my movements." A trace of undisguised surprise coloured Gwendolyn’s tone once she steadied herself.

"Your tail flicks before you move. Whichever way it swings tells where you will dodge."

Gwendolyn glanced down at her tail, then lifted her gaze toward him, her blue eyes brightening. "Very well. Next: Ice Shield."

She swept a claw through the air. A translucent ice wall rose before her, one man tall, two men wide, thick as heavy glass. Pale‑blue light shimmered across its surface, fine frost patterns drifting along its edges.

"Try shattering it with ice spheres. Strike the exact same spot repeatedly."

Cecil conjured ice orbs and hurled them toward the wall’s centre. The first impact left a shallow crack. The second widened it. The third sent fissures spreading palm‑wide toward the edges. On the fourth —

The ice wall shattered. Shards drifted through the air, refracting pale‑cyan light like snowfall in reverse.

"Four strikes to break a basic ice shield," Gwendolyn stated. "In reality you would need six or seven. And you have found its weakness: the lower‑centre point, naturally less dense when the ice forms."

Cecil committed that position to memory: lower‑centre.

"Final exercise," Gwendolyn said. "Summon and disperse ice armour upon the body."

She stood still before him. "You form it. I will break it. Show me how long you can maintain the armour while I dismantle it."

Cecil closed his eyes and channelled frost. Ice armour began forming over his shoulders, a translucent woven shell spreading down his arms, chest and waist. Its thickness was far more even than in reality, fitting snugly with no obvious gaps.

"A solid start." Gwendolyn’s claw tip tapped lightly against the ice covering his forearm. A crack bloomed instantly, and a chunk of armour flaked away.

"Mend it with frost as you go. While building, watch for where it breaks."

Cecil poured cold energy to seal the fracture. Gwendolyn tapped his shoulder; another crack appeared. He mended it again. She struck once more. After seven or eight cycles, Cecil matched her pace. When she split the ice over his left ribs, he flooded the spot with frost in the very same moment, sealing the rift before it could spread.

Gwendolyn’s claw hovered over his ribs and stopped.

"...You’ve got it," she said, her voice softer now.

Cecil glanced down at the translucent ice armour flowing over his frame. Repair marks lingered, yet overall coverage was smooth and well‑fitted. He lifted an arm; the shell flexed with his motion without hindering his joints.

He looked up at Gwendolyn. The great blue‑white dragon stood amid snow, tail swaying slowly, her blue eyes reflecting the pale glow of his ice armour.

Within seconds, Gwendolyn’s form collapsed like a deflating balloon. Scales receded, limbs shrank, her tail shortened, her neck narrowed. A burst of blue‑white light erupted, and a figure tumbled down from mid‑air.

Cecil stretched out his arms and caught her.

She weighed far lighter than he expected — about the build of a girl of seventeen or eighteen. Long hair spilled across his arms and chest, ends tousled like wind‑tousled snow blossoms. Her skin was almost translucent, faint pink tinting her nose and ear tips. Those same blue eyes stared wide open, long dense lashes casting soft shadows over her lids.

Her whole body stiffened.

Cecil froze as well.

They hung suspended in the snowfield. He held her in his arms, their gazes locked, the air so still it might have frozen solid.

"..." Gwendolyn’s mouth opened, closed, then opened again. Colour flooded her face in less than two seconds, deep crimson creeping from her ears all the way to her forehead, far richer than the faint pink on her nose, as though crushed peach blossoms had been smeared across her cheeks.

"Put me down." No regal weight, no mocking bite remained in her voice, only a trembling note caught between embarrassment and flustered anger.

Cecil did not set her down. He looked down at her, a smile spreading across his face that he could no longer hold back.

He smiled and crouched down, gently setting her onto the snow. Her feet sank into the snow‑covered ground, her skirt spreading out across the white drifts, her pale‑blue‑and‑white little boots sinking half an inch deep.

The moment she steadied herself, she stepped three paces backward. She raised the back of her hand to cover the lower half of her face, leaving only her bright‑blue eyes fixed sharply on Cecil.