Chapter 512 – Hellish frost [18]

With a plan in mind, I decided to put it into action. I’ll admit, it wasn’t exactly a brilliant plan. To be honest, whenever I start feeling a little lost about what to do, my first instinct is usually to destroy something and figure out the rest afterward.

But can you really blame me for that? Most of the time, my powers basically boiled down to two options: destroy something without making too much of a scene, or destroy something in an extremely spectacular fashion. The middle ground would be my Golden Dimension. From the perspective of someone watching from the outside, it looked like I was simply teleporting from one place to another.

In reality, though, it was much simpler than that: everything that entered my golden field became absurdly slow compared to me. To someone on the outside, I disappeared and reappeared somewhere else. To me, I was simply moving through a world where everything seemed to have been put in slow motion.

It was incredibly useful. But aside from the ridiculous advantage my field gave me when it came to thinking and acting in extreme situations, the Golden Dimension didn’t exactly have any firepower. It didn’t blow things up, shoot lightning, or turn my enemies into ashes. At the end of the day, it was still just a tool that gave me more time.

Anyway, with my next steps already in mind, I slowly made my way toward the statue. I kept my field of vision constantly moving, avoiding focusing solely on the path ahead of me. Every so often, I glanced toward the enormous statues scattered throughout the area, making sure none of them had changed position. Say what you will, but I definitely wasn’t going to fall for the classic living-statue trap.

You know the one. Someone looks at a statue, decides it obviously isn’t going to move, and a few seconds later ends up getting crushed because the damn statue decided to take a step the moment nobody was looking. Nope. Not me. Considering everything I’d already seen involving anomalies, blindly assuming something was just a statue would practically be asking to die in the stupidest way imaginable.

Besides, there was one particularly important detail: this entire castle, including these gigantic ice statues, had been created by an anomaly. An anomaly that, for some reason, had also turned practically the entire city into an anomalous area covered in snow.

So honestly, if these statues suddenly decided to start moving, I’d probably just sigh and accept that this was another normal day in my life. It wouldn’t even come close to being the strangest thing I’d ever seen an anomaly do. Still, there was no harm in taking a few precautions. After all, as they say... better safe than sorry. Especially when the alternative was getting crushed by a building-sized ice statue.

With my wide field of vision, I continued forward cautiously. At least for now, the statues seemed to be exactly what they appeared to be: just statues. None of them moved. None of them tilted their heads in my direction. Not a single limb showed the slightest sign of movement and, most importantly, none of them made any suspicious attempt to kill me.

For now, everything seemed peaceful. I kept my eyes on the statues as I advanced, watching each one out of the corner of my eye, alert for any change that might reveal this was all just an act. Only after I finally reached the lowest part of the throne did I allow myself to slow down a little.

I gave the area one last look. Nothing. I then focused my attention on the ice sculpture sitting on the throne. Well... it definitely didn’t look alive enough to be responsible for maintaining a snowstorm of this size. Still, I had absolutely no idea what else I could do.

So why not start by destroying the sculpture? If that didn’t solve the problem, I’d simply keep destroying other things inside the castle until I figured out what was sustaining the storm. It was a simple plan. Maybe a little too simple. But considering I didn’t have a better idea, it would have to do.

I raised my hand, activating my thermonuclear anomalous power. Energy began gathering in my palm, condensing into an increasingly intense point as I prepared to fire. Then, just as I aimed my hand at the sculpture, ready to destroy it, I heard a tremendous crash.

BOOM!

The sound was accompanied by a heavy, grating noise, as though something enormous and rigid were being forced to move, scraping against its surroundings. I frowned and turned toward the noise. That was enough to make me wish I’d simply fired without looking. Something was falling directly toward me.

I didn’t even have time to process what was happening. My brain had barely registered the approaching mass before my body reacted on pure instinct. I activated my other anomalous power. My golden field expanded violently around me, engulfing a considerable portion of the surrounding area. The next instant, everything inside it began to slow down.

The object falling toward me, the fragments scattered through the air, even the dust suspended around me seemed to lose all momentum until everything appeared to be practically frozen in place. Only then was I able to breathe again. I let out a long sigh, trying to calm my racing heart. From the outside, my face probably remained as calm as ever.

On the inside? I was freaking out. For one brief moment, I genuinely thought my time had finally come. After calming down enough, or at least on the inside, I finally turned my attention back to the situation around me. And then... Oh, shit. The statues really were moving. The last two, at the edge of my field of vision, took their final steps before colliding with the invisible boundary I had created.

The moment they touched it, they simply stopped, remaining completely motionless as though they had turned back into ordinary sculptures. That was, at the very least, reassuring. Especially because the thing that had nearly turned me into a thin layer of paste a few moments ago had come from one of the knight statues closest to my position.

The sword this thing was holding was still partially raised, and I couldn't help thinking that its size and shape seemed to have been carefully designed to turn anyone into paste with a single swing, provided they were standing close enough to the throne. I wasn't sure whether I should find that ironic or simply disturbing.

Probably both. Anyway, I pushed that thought aside and turned my attention back to the real elephant in the room. The ice sculpture. What the hell had I done to make this happen? Had I activated some kind of mechanism? Was it simply an automatic reaction? Or was getting too close to the statue itself the trigger? The more I thought about it, the more questions came to mind.

And, unfortunately for me, I still had absolutely no idea which one had the right answer. I managed to calm myself down again without too much trouble. The fact that all these statues were trapped inside my golden domain helped quite a bit. After all, I didn't have to worry about one of them suddenly coming after me and trying to kill me.

That said, I still needed to figure out what was going on. Putting aside the enormous and terrifying statues that had been completely motionless until a short while ago, the only thing I had done was approach the sculpture sitting on the throne and try to destroy it.

Thinking about it that way... That sculpture was definitely the reason all the others had started moving. They were trying to protect it. Once I reached that conclusion, deciding what I needed to do became much easier.

I took a step forward, approaching the sculpture on the throne once again. Then, without making any unnecessary movements, I gathered my strength and threw a controlled punch directly at it.

CRACK!

The sculpture shattered almost instantly, cracks spreading across its surface before its entire body broke apart into countless pieces. The fragments, however, remained trapped inside my golden field, completely frozen in time. Perfect. I began striking them one by one.

BAM!

BAM!

BAM!

It didn't take long for the larger pieces to be reduced to smaller and smaller fragments as well. I kept going until only tiny pieces remained scattered through the air, so insignificant that they barely looked like they had once belonged to the enormous sculpture from before. A small sense of satisfaction welled up inside me.

Good job. It wasn't exactly an epic battle, but I had dealt with the problem quickly and efficiently. That had to count for something. I stepped back, naturally keeping a safe distance, far enough away that I wouldn't get hit if something happened once time started moving again.

Finally, I deactivated my golden field. The world started moving all at once. The tiny fragments of the sculpture remained suspended in the air for a fraction of a second before beginning to fall. Now all I had to do was wait. Just as expected, the sword came crashing down onto the ground.

The impact shook the entire area, kicking up a small cloud of dust and sending several loose chunks of ice rolling across the floor. I didn't pay much attention to it. I simply kept watching the fragments of the statue as they fell one after another, shattering even further when they hit the ground and breaking down into smaller and smaller pieces.

Amid the wreckage, an ice crown also rolled across the floor, sliding for several feet before finally coming to a stop. Strange. I hadn't noticed that crown before. But whatever. It didn't seem particularly important at the moment. I remained silent, watching the entire scene unfold until the last fragment of the statue hit the ground.

Then I waited. Maybe the castle would start melting. Or falling apart. I don't know, something along those lines. After all, it made sense, didn't it? If all of this was connected to the statue, then perhaps destroying it would also mean the end of this frozen structure. But nothing happened.

No sign of melting. No cracks spreading across the walls. No sudden changes. Instead... I felt dozens of pairs of eyes staring at me. My body stiffened for a moment. Slowly, I turned my gaze toward the enormous statues scattered throughout the area and began examining them more carefully.

Well. This definitely hadn't gone the way I'd expected. The statues weren't melting. The castle wasn't melting either. And, as far as I could tell, there was another small detail I'd apparently overlooked: The giant statues definitely did not look happy to see me.