Chapter 76 The Most Suitable Gift (2)
[Bone Spear]
At the same time as Samiel was casting several 1st Level Spells from the Necromancy Arts, he at the same time was also using the [Winter Ruler] Ultimate Ability in order to boost up the attack potency of the Bone Spears, which he fired at the incoming Snow Wind Apes in a small barrage.
In response to the incoming attacks on the Bronze-Tier Snow Wind Apes, they used their thick arms to cover themselves and defend themselves against the incoming barrage of Bone Spears by defending themselves. It was only a pipe dream that a 1st Level Spell would be able to hurt Bronze-Tier Snow Wind Apes, though that was only under normal circumstances and there were no such ones.
However, Samiel's variants were much more deadly than the average 1st level spell; they were highly effective. As a result of his extensive knowledge of the Basic Necromancy Arts, as well as the fact that he incorporated the use of the Winter Ruler into the Bone Spear, their destructive power was already comparable to spells at the third level, resulting in the Snow Wind Apes suffering a variety of injuries.
Some of the weaker Snow Wind Apes or, the more unlucky ones, which were hit in their weak spots, even died due to the barrage of the Spells that were unleashed by him on the Magical Beasts.
"Yvraine, are you ready for the dance?"
Samiel asked Yvraine, who was now standing next to him like an entirely changed person, as she eyed the Snow Wind Apes dangerously while taking out their dual swords. He wondered if she had some kind of switch where she could choose to turn between her bloodthirsty persona and cold persona instantaneously.
Silvermoon Crown Princess grinned as she nodded and disappeared in a flash. At the same time, she rushed at the Snow Wind Apes, appearing behind the nearest Snow Wind Ape, and beheaded it in one swift slash.
The blood splattered high in the air, as one severed head rolled on the ground while the headless corpse of the Bronze-Tier Snow Wind Ape fell onto the ground, as the ground shook slightly when the heavy corpse fell. Snow Wind Apes were heavyweights; one adult Snow Wind Ape could easily weigh over one tonne.
At the same time, Samiel began spamming Void Magic spells from the 3rd level, Void Strike, one after another, aiming at the nearest Snow Wind Apes; upon contact with the weakest Snow Wind Apes in the branch, their heads exploded in a mass gore of blood and flesh, and they were killed instantly.
His methods of killing were extremely bloody and brutal, as they left pieces of flesh everywhere, and he himself was drenched a bit in the blood of the killed Snow Wind Apes, but the efficiency of the killing was something else, even way higher compared to that of Yvraine.
Unexpectedly, the numbers of the Snow Wind Apes started falling down, one after another, as they were killed either by Yvraine's swordsmanship while the heads of the Snow Wind Apes were flying high in the air.
And on the other side of the battlefield, Samiel was using the combination of the Void Magic Spells together with some Necromancy Arts as he was killing Snow Wind Apes en masses, not really wanting to use his Undeads in this type of enviroment. They were fighting in a relatively narrow place; there were was not a lot of space for maneuvers or tactical moves, which would be required if he used his Undeads to fight.
It took them only twenty minutes to exterminate around 50 Bronze-Tier Snow Wind Apes, while Samiel stored their corpses in his Dimensional Ring, as he intended to resurrect them as Undead in the future. The corpses of the Snow Wind Apes served as a good base material for the Undead Creation, not only because of their strength when they were alive but also their size.
They would be perfect to create some tanks that could rampage through the battlefield unhindered and kill as many of enemies as possible.
"And that should be the last one."
Samiel heard Yvraine say as she pierced the skull of the last Snow Wind Ape that was crawling on the ground, severely injured from fighting her. With the death of the last Snow Wind Ape, the entire band of the magical beasts was killed off, and they could continue their journey to search for the treasure.
"We can probably continue to our destination."
He then looked at the higher part of the Snowrose Peak, and Nefertari, who was god knows where, flew back to him as she landed on his shoulder, carefully avoiding the spikes on his armor, to continue her favorite activity, sleep.
Yvraine just nodded in agreement as they continued their small journey towards the top cave in Snowrose Peak; when they exited the cave where they were right now, suddenly, a very strong snowstorm descended down.
Snowstorms were a pretty common occurrence here, and they took the lives of countless people who were brave enough or foolish enough to enter the Frostridge Mountain Range.
"Dammed storm."
Right now, even Samiel cursed at the snowstorm, but in the end, there was nothing they could do because the snowstorm wasn't that strong, truth to be told. And even if it was, it was impossible for them to do anything about the snowstorm, as the weather manipulation was out of their reach.
After more than one hour, after Samiel listened to Yvraine's complaints and other things, they finally managed to reach the place where the inheritance was supposedly located. For that, he was glad because, right now, he was regretting a bit that he had taken the Silvermoon Princess with him on the trip.
"Now we have finally reached our destination at last; you can stop complaining already."
Samiel said to Yvraine, who just huffed at him, while they entered the small cave, which was located near the top of Snowrose Peak. This cave was relatively different from the previous ones they entered when they were crossing through the entire Frostridge Mountains or the Snowrose Peak.
This one had an extreme concentration of Mana, just as if something was here, which was artificially increasing the Mana Density in this cave. Also, it was very well hidden because it was very hard to find it; it seemed like someone purposely recreated this so that he could hide something here.
"Wards."
A few moments later, Samiel remarked as he detected the presence of some powerful Wards. He was not a Ward Master, despite the fact that he was always very interested in the directions of Wards, and even more advanced Wards known as Bounded Fields.
Still, his basic knowledge of the Warding was pretty good, and he could recognize one when he saw it. When it came to good Wards made by experts, not talking about the Bounded Fields, which were a category on their own, one wouldn't notice their existence until it was too late.
"There is a very powerful Ward here almost approaching the level of the Bounded Fields, but... it is greatly weakened over the passage of time, so right now, as long as we find even one Wardstone and destroy it, then the entire Ward will fall down."
Samiel stated as he examined his surroundings, doing the analysis of the Ward which was protecting this place.
A powerful Ward was protecting this cave, but unfortunately for the Wards and fortunately for him, they were extremely old, and nobody had recharged or repaired them for countless centuries possibly. While the Wards got more powerful as they got older, they still needed a certain level of maintenance because there could be some malfunctions or outside effects that were damaging the entire integrity of the Ward.
So, they have been in a state of decay for a very long time already, and thanks to that, they could be broken with little to no effort if somebody knew how to do it. And even if not, then the brute force was always an option for breaking through the old, decayed Wards.
"I think I have found something..."
Suddenly Yvraine said to him, as he went to the place where she was searching and saw that she was looking straight at one stone, which was pulsating with Mana like it was alive. Samiel recognized this little stone as one of the Wardstones.
With his keen senses, which were especially sensitive towards the Mana, he was able easily to confirm what it was and instantly cast one Void Strike, which shattered the Wardstone into the pile of dust and smaller parts, as the entire Ward around the cave started falling apart.
"Come on."
Samiel said as Yvraine followed him deeper into the cave; after the protective Ward was destroyed, they entered the inner parts of the cave, which the Ward previously hid. Everything here looked relatively clean, aside from dust and other things that fell from the ceiling, but that was common.
Soon enough, they arrived before huge doors made entirely from the Ice; Samiel felt something familiar when he looked at the Ice, and he could tell, just by looking at the Ice Doors, that this Ice had been here for a very, very, very long time already.
In the middle of the double doors made from Ice, there was a symbol of a Snowflake engraved in it, which Samiel didn't recognize, but he could guess that it was the Crest of either some Family or faction; only several seconds later, it came to him back, and he had it.
"Frozen Court."
Even Yvraine could not help but be intrigued by this since this was indeed the Crest of the Frozen Court, which meant the person who died here or was buried here must have been some high-ranking member of this very reclusive faction of the ice users.
The supposed strength of the person who created this place is, at the very least, an average Legendary, so it would be logical to conclude that it should be someone very important in the Frozen Court, most likely one of the Winter Mages or even the Lord of Frost, but that was highly unlikely.
"Try touching that Symbol and use your ability on it... it should open."
Yvraine proposed as Samiel nodded, did exactly what she said, and put his palm directly in the middle of the Snowflake Crest of the Frozen Court and used Winter Ruler, as suddenly the Ice Doors started shaking and opening.
When it opened, both of them could see a small room; it was entirely empty, aside from the skeleton of someone who presumably created this entire place, holding a Grimoire in his hands; the skeleton didn't have anything, not even the Dimensional Rings or anything.
The entire room was frozen, gloomy and cold, but it was surprisingly very clean, without a spect of dust, as only snow and ice were filling it. Even the skeleton who was holding the Grimoire was in a top-notch state, just like he was frozen only yesterday.
Just the Grimoire was present.
The skeleton was entirely frozen, and by its structure and appearance, it belonged to some human subspecies or some evolved human, but that wasn't really important to him, as his eyes were sticked to the Grimoire which the skeleton was holding.
"Lux Brumalis."
The moment Samiel read out the title of the Grimoire, Yvraine grabbed his shoulders and her face was filled with disbelief as he read the title of the Grimoire aloud. It was clear that this Grimoire was not so ordinary as it seemed.
"What did you say?"
She questioned him, pretty distressed.
"Lux Brumalis... the title of the Grimoire... can't you see that?"
He repeated the title of the Grimoire once more, as he didn't understand why Yvraine couldn't see the title of the Grimoire, only to realize that the Grimoires were sentient to some extent, so if the Grimoire didn't want to be known to someone, then it won't.
"So he ended here... oh my god... this could be bad, though fortunately we have nothing to fear, or more specifically, you have nothing to fear."
She muttered several times again, not believing what they found right now. He looked at Yvraine, whose expression was changing between disbelief, shock and happiness at the same time when she was looking at the book he was holding in his hands.
"What is going on?"
Samiel asked, not really understanding the happenings and the course of things. While he was pretty much studying everything about the Tower and Cosmos since he became a member of the Hall of Kadath, there were many things he needed to learn, and he didn't really touch the topic of history yet too much.
In truth, right now, Samiel had other things to focus on rather than learning about long-forgotten things or everlasting grudges between various species and factions of the Cosmos.
"Frozen Court actually could have been one of the 13 Gates, but several thousand years ago, they lost their most precious artifact, which would have allowed them to cultivate even more Perfect and probably even Holy Legendaries, but then, one day, it vanished."
She then paused as wheels in Samiel's head were spinning at the top speed. Perfect Legendaries were practically the limit of the Legendary Level; it was the pinnacle of the Mortal Life, while the Holies were those, who were almost stepping into the Transcendence, or failed their Transcendence and managed to survive or they used other means to achieve the "status" of the Holiness.
They were something in between Mortal Level and Transcendental Level; they were neither. Of course, this didn't really mean that they were automatically stronger than Perfect Stage Legendary, but it was not that far from the truth.
"And it was due to one man, named Thefgror de Labrair, who somehow managed to steal the artifact, the Grimoire Lux Brumalis. After he stole the Grimoire Lux Brumalis, the Frozen Court searched everywhere in the Tower and searched through thousands of worlds across the Cosmos; they even put a tremendous bounty appealing to even some Transcendents as a reward for the de Labrair's head, but it was all to no vail."
Now Samiel understood the meaning behind her words, but as she said, he was okey. Even if the Frozen Court somehow found out about the existence of Lux Brumalis and that it was in his hands, due to his status as the Holy Son of the Hall of Kadath, they couldn't do anything about it.
At least openly.
"So, still, it would be for the best not to show this little thing openly because even though they wouldn't dare to do anything against me openly, in shadows, I could probably await countless assassins or other unsavory individuals that would be tasked by the Frozen Court to bring this back to them."
Samiel said while petting the Grimoire Lux Brumalis, as Yvraine nodded with his evaluation of the situation.