Chapter 22: Deadly Ice

"I see. So the seal is cracking..."

My fingers tightened slightly around the glass.

This needed to be resolved soon. If a disaster like this happened, it would devastate the entire noble district.

"And Lord Voulstridge is looking for a sealing mage, but he hasn’t found one yet?"

Sealing mages were rare in this era. Every kingdom used to have at least one, but such talents hadn’t been seen for centuries. Finding one took time and a fortune in gold coins.

"That is true, Young Lord," Victor replied, his voice barely a whisper as he stared blankly into the water of his cup. "Every sealing master we encountered in the kingdom or beyond—either refused or failed to stabilize her condition. The seal was designed to last five years at most, and Lady Arielle’s emotional state is fragile. Every time she grieves, the spirit inside her awakens a little more."

I took a sip, letting the cold water soothe my throat while my mind raced.

A spirit that reclaimed its power by consuming its host from the inside out...

Spirits didn’t possess human emotion or empathy. A human body was merely a vessel to them. Like a sponge that had absorbed water, once the vessel showed signs of cracking, the spirit simply reclaimed its assets, leaving behind a cold corpse.

This would happen to Arielle if she couldn’t control it. She was just a child, and her body and soul weren’t ready to tame a spirit. It would tear her apart from the inside, ending her life and wiping out the ice spirit’s blessing from their lineage forever.

"Victor, I—"

Before I could finish, a sudden, violent drop in temperature hit the room.

The ground shook for a moment, then stopped.

Ping.

The glass resting on the counter suddenly shattered into hundreds of pieces. The spilled water froze instantly against the surface.

The air turned frigid. A white cloud of breath bloomed before my face, despite the warm sunlight streaming through the windows.

"N-no..." Victor gasped, his skin turning pale as he stumbled backward. "No, no, no! Not again! It... it’s happening again!"

The cup he was holding slipped from his hands, shattering across the floor. His hands trembled with terror, as if waiting for a monster to awaken.

"Calm down and stay here!" I shouted.

Without waiting for his response, I kicked off the marble floor and bolted out of the kitchen, my boots slipping on the ice rapidly blanketing the hallway.

"Fuck!" I cursed, my heart pounding faster than usual. "Did she lose control already? No, she wasn’t angry when I left her. She was just feeding the chest with mana!"

As I sprinted down the corridor, the temperature continued to plummet. Frost swept across the walls, creeping over the golden chandeliers and oil paintings.

CRACK! BANG!

The supply room door vibrated violently against its frame. Heavy impacts echoed from inside, accompanied by the roar of howling wind.

"Arielle! Where are you?!"

BOOM!

The door burst open.

A gale of pure white mana blew me backward. I grabbed the doorframe to steady myself, then forced my way into the room with heavy steps.

The supply room was completely unrecognizable. The broken piano, the cabinets, and the rusty chandeliers had been shredded into thousands of pieces, spinning in an icy tornado.

Arielle floated at the center of the vortex.

Her small body was enveloped in wild, unrefined mana threads, her hair floating around her, and her skin a deadly pale.

She turned her head toward the door and locked her gaze directly onto mine.

My heart hammered against my ribs, my breath hitching in my throat. I couldn’t move a single step.

"Holy shit..." It creeped the hell out of me.

Her blue eyes were gone, replaced by two glowing orbs of frost.

"Help... help me..."

The voice didn’t come from Arielle’s mouth. It echoed from the air itself.

Below her, the ice chest reacted violently, completely encased in thick frost.

The white mana threads connecting Arielle to the chest were no longer smooth and synchronized; they had transformed into jagged tendrils tearing the room apart.

’What the hell is going on?!’ I screamed internally.

I shielded my eyes with my forearm as needles of ice grazed my skin, drawing tiny drops of blood that froze instantly.

I narrowed my eyes and triggered my skill without hesitation.

Locksmith’s Eye.

The chaotic room instantly dissolved into a world made purely of mana threads and locks.

Through my altered vision, the truth revealed itself.

The ice chest wasn’t just a container—it was a trigger. The late Lady Voulstridge had forged it using her own mana, creating a unique frequency lock matched to Arielle’s mana signature. Normally, it would have unlocked cleanly, but Arielle didn’t just inherit her mother’s magic—she possessed the sleeping Ice Spirit.

’Fuck! The ice spirit recognized an ice user’s mana from the chest!’

The spirit had awakened prematurely and was forcibly smashing the chest from the inside out. It was pumping more power into Arielle to crush it! If this continued, Arielle’s mana pathways would shatter, and the spirit would detonate like a mana bomb.

"Hey! Little brat!" I shouted, taking a heavy step into the room.

I tightened my grip on the wall as the biting wind shattered the floorboards.

"I know you can hear me, kid! Stop feeding it! You’re going to blow yourself up!" I yelled, forcing another step forward.

"I... I can’t... It’s too cold... Mother... it hurts..." Arielle’s glowing eyes stared at me. Her face lacked expression, but her words betrayed her agony. I hated it.

"Of course it fucking hurts! You’re trying to open the chest using a killer’s mana!"

As I drew closer, I saw tiny wounds and bruises covering her body. Her white dress had been reduced to a bloody rag, and her fingers were turning gray.

Blood began to flow from her eyes like tears.

I gritted my teeth.

Damn it! This is my fucking fault. If I knew this would happen, I should have opened the chest myself.

I reached for her right hand through the swirling vortex.

The moment my skin made contact with hers, a wave of frozen mana threads surged into my body.

"Ahhh...!"

The thermal shock almost made my knees buckle. It felt like a liquid nitrogen was being injected directly into my veins. My vision blurred as my own mana instinctively flared up to protect my internal organs.

’Master Key... or whatever power gave me this Locksmith’s Eye.. don’t fucking fail me now!’ I growled internally.