Chapter 844: Surrender or die

The transition from the scorched crags of the intermediate threshold onto the glacial permafrost of Floor Twenty-Two struck the air with an immediate, sharp drop in atmospheric pressure.

The sky overhead was a perpetual vault of dull gray slate, churning with heavy, low-hanging blizzard clouds that dropped dense curtains of dry, needle-fine snow across the frozen horizon.

The wind howled through ancient glacial passes, carving deep grooves into colossal spires of blue crystallized ice that towered hundreds of feet into the air like the bare ribs of a shattered world.

The ground beneath their boots was solid, unyielding permafrost, so dense that the iron studs in Rhys’s boots scraped against the blue sheen without leaving a mark.

Every breath Rhys drew pulled sharp, biting cold deep into his lungs, the freezing moisture threatening to coat his throat with frost.

His breath billowed outward in thick, pale clouds that were torn away by the gale before they could dissipate.

He adjusted the fastenings of his leather armor, feeling the stiffening hide press against his collarbones, his knuckles turning white as his fingers tested the mobility of his wrists within his vambraces.

Beside him, Mira stepped onto the frozen plateau without a sound.

Her crimson wavy hair caught the pale white light reflecting off the glacier walls, framing her sharp, porcelain cheekbones.

Her vacant amber eyes swept across the vast, frozen valley, entirely unaffected by the biting wind. Her arms hung loose at her sides, the dark leather suppression gloves encasing her hands from the fingertips up to her forearms, keeping her skin from direct contact with the air.

As a sudden squall swept down from the upper peaks, driving hard-packed snow across the open flat, Mira raised both hands to the level of her chest.

She did not strip her suppression gloves. She focused a thread of dark crimson fire through her meridians.

Eight spherical wisps of dark crimson fire ignited in a wide, hovering circle around their perimeter. The flames burned with concentrated, steady heat, rotating slowly around Rhys and Mira like an orbital barrier.

The intense thermal field met the descending snowdrifts, flash-melting the snowflakes into harmless, warm vapor before a single icy particle could touch Rhys’s coat or blind his line of sight.

Within the boundary of the fire wisps, the air remained calm, dry, and warm, allowing Rhys to maintain his rhythmic breathing without burning his lung tissue against the ambient ice mana.

Rhys settled his weight onto the balls of his feet, his heels clicking against the permafrost as he felt the thermal balance stabilize.

His jaw unclenched, the tension across his upper back easing as he looked down the long, winding path that cut between two massive shelves of blue ice.

"Maintain the perimeter veil," Rhys said, his voice flat and even. "The heat must not waver while we navigate the gorge."

Mira offered no spoken reply. Her amber eyes remained fixed on the horizon, her chin tilting a fraction of an inch as she adjusted the rotation of the fire wisps, matching her stride precisely to his as they advanced into the frozen canyons of Floor Twenty-Two.

The landscape rose sharply into the Glacial Sanctuary, the ancestral seat of the Frost Demon clan.

The canyon walls narrowed into a massive corridor of deep blue ice where the ambient ice mana was so dense that visible ribbons of azure light pulsed through the walls like living veins.

The air here carried a faint, ringing vibration, a high-frequency resonance born from ancient permafrost under immense tectonic pressure.

Perched atop the high glacial ridges were watchtowers carved directly from massive blocks of crystallized ice, their parapets lined with towering sentinels holding heavy polearms that caught the gray light from above.

As Rhys and Mira crossed the threshold into the wide, bowl-shaped courtyard of the central sanctuary, the valley’s silence broke with the sharp, rhythmic pounding of iron-shod boots against the permafrost.

From the arched gateways of the surrounding ice bastions, dozens of Frost Demon sentinels poured into the arena.

They were massive, three-meter-tall behemoths with thick, pale-blue hide that resembled chiseled marble.

Their skin was unbroken by the weeping cracks of the Blight Clan, and their physiques were broader and heavier than most demons.

They wore heavy plates of dark iron strapped across their chests and thighs, while four sweeping horns forged from solid crystallized ice curved forward from their heavy brows like barbed crowns.

Their amber eyes burned with fierce, territorial malice as they formed interlocking shield walls, their four-meter-long ice glaives locking into position to bar the intruders from advancing toward the sanctum.

They did not speak.

They let out a unified, guttural war-chant that rattled the frost from the canyon walls, their heavy boots slamming against the permafrost in unison to generate a localized shockwave of ice mana meant to crack the footing of any challenger.

Rhys stopped ten paces before the front line of shields.

He did not reach behind his back for the twin daggers sheathed at his spine.

He did not drop into a low stance or draw upon the kinetic acceleration of his wind magic.

He stood perfectly upright, his feet shoulder-width apart, his chin raised, his eyes locking onto the center of the defensive formation with cold detachment.

"Lower your spears," Rhys said, his voice quiet, yet amplified by a subtle layer of wind mana that carried his words directly into the ears of every demon present. "I have not come to negotiate territorial borders or listen to the declarations of sentinels. I am here for two things: the head and core of your Clan Leader, and the God’s Blood Tree."

A low, mocking rumble of laughter rippled through the front rank of Frost Demons. The lead sentinel, a hulking brute with a jagged scar splitting his azure jaw, stepped forward and rested the heavy blade of his ice glaive against the permafrost with a dull thud.

"A mortal boy steps into the Frost Sanctum and speaks of claiming our Lord’s life," the sentinel said, his deep voice grinding like stone against stone. "You stand upon sacred permafrost, outsider. Your flesh will freeze, your blood will turn to glass, and your skull will adorn the gates of the sanctuary before you take another step."

Rhys met the giant’s stare with an unbroken, expressionless gaze.

His hands remained steady at his sides, his fingers resting loosely against his outer thighs.

"You speak of freezing my flesh," Rhys said, stepping forward until he was three paces from the tips of the leveled glaives. "Yet you have forgotten who forged the martial foundations of your entire lineage. Pho, the Deathfrost Sentinel and your former Supreme Warlord, trained me. I carry his techniques, I command his forms, and like him, I have no qualms about slaughtering every single warrior in this valley to take what I came for."

The moment the name of Pho left Rhys’s lips, the atmosphere in the glacial canyon seized.

The mocking laughter died instantly, choked out by an overwhelming wave of ancestral dread.

The sentinels in the front rank visibly stiffened, the iron plates on their shoulders shifting as their grip on their heavy glaives slipped.

Their amber eyes widened, darting between Rhys’s calm posture and the faint green contractual markings glowing along his forearms.

To this clan, the name Pho was not merely that of a former ruler.

It was the name of the butcher who had executed three generations of clan elders, carved their martial hierarchy out of blood, and bound their entire race to himself before leaving to claim floor twenty-four.