Chapter 773: Unintended Consequence

The ice that covered Laz body seemed to be freezing him at an incredible pace. He circulated his energy with everything he had, but even the energy in his body seemed to be freezing as his blood turned to ice in his veins. The strength of bloodline that had always been his to use was now useless as his vision started turning cloudy. The only thing he could do was to summon the black flames and use that to fight the ice covering his body.

Far in the distance, the fish prince floated above the water and looked at his hand, frowning. A beautiful woman in a veil rushed over to him, stopping quickly before him.

"Excellent job brother. That human was powerful, but no match for you. The ship and all it’s people are ours to do as we please," said the woman, her features much more human compared to her brothers, but still with webbed fingers. Her strength was that of a god as well but a far sight from her brother.

She started to feel concerned as she stared at him, noticing the look on his face.

"What’s the problem brother?" She asked, bringing him out of his thoughts.

"The piece of ice, the artifact of ancient Niflheim... it vanished..." The prince finally said, looking up at his younger sister with an almost fearful look on his face.

"What? But that’s.... it should be impossible. Our family has used that artifact for years, a deterrent to our enemies and a pillar to our kingdom... how could it just disappear?" She said, looking around as though her fool of a brother had somehow dropped it. His father had told him to bring it out with him, a security measure in case he ran into something that threatened his or his sister’s life. Once he returned, he would be expected to return the ancient chunk of ice to his father though, but now it was gone, without a trace.

"How? Just how?" The Prince said, turning his face up towards where Laz had dropped into the ocean. He had ordered all of his troops away in case there was any residual power that might attack them if they got too close. But now he wanted nothing more than to go over to where the power was flowing out of the ocean endlessly, freezing the very waves themselves.

"Minuw, use your powers, please. See if you can figure out what happened?" He asked, grabbing his sister by the shoulders and shaking her hard as a horrible feeling suddenly bubbling within him.

"Ok. OK. Just give me a minute," Minuw said as she moved away from him. Bringing her hands together as though she was about to pray, Minuw closed her eyes and began to sing, a soft and gentle song of question and inquiry. As he brother looked on, her face went from gentle and soft to suddenly tense as the song changed from searching to demanding, then to threatening. The power brimming around her shot out, causing ripples in the air as her brother looked on, worried.

When she finally opened her eyes, she cough, a bright red staining the veil that hid her face as he quickly came over to support her, afraid she might fall. She quickly opened her eyes although he couldn’t see and said,

"The spirits refused to answer. They fear whatever is happening far more than I have ever seen and wish for nothing more than to be gone from here."

"What do you mean?" The Prince asked, concerned. His sister had a connection with spirits ever since she was born. The spirits of water and plants had always been friends of hers and ever the spirits of the air looked upon her friendly. As such, she was able to communicate with them and even ask them to do things. Her power grew strong enough to the point where she could order them to do what they didn’t want to do, even forcing them to do something that would lead to their deaths, but doing such things would lead to other spirits avoiding her, as though it tainted her aura. It took a long while worth of purification before they would respond to her again. And elders of her clan had warned her, based on records, that if she enslaved the spirits for too long or too often, she could lose her connection with them altogether, staining her soul to the point where it could no longer be cleansed. There was a balance that came with such a special power and breaking the balance too much would doom her. As such, she had never been too demanding of the spirits.

Until now, that is. All of the built up good will she had she was willing to expend to figure out the fate of the artifact that was one of the primary reasons her and her family ruled their massive ocean empire. But even under the full force of her power trying to control them, the spirits refused to answer, as though doing so would doom not only themselves, but their entire race. At least, that was the feedback feeling she got from the spirits she tried to enslave. They had killed themselves instead of answering her orders.

After explaining all of this to her brother, they could only look on in horror as the frozen bed of the ocean began to spread out from the point where Laz hit the water.

As for Laz himself, he was cocooned in ice, his body fighting with everything it had while the black flames raged, trying it’s best to dispel the ice. The black flames weren’t hot, nor were they really flames in the traditional sense. Instead, the flames were like a burning bit of chaos, of ancient and powerful energy from a land of eternal darkness. They didn’t provide heat or light, but the absence of both. Still, it was energy that ’burn’ and as such, it could fight the ice that was spreading all over Laz. As for why the small chunk of pure Niflheim ice had disappeared, it was because all of it was needed to contain Laz and the power within him. But as Laz fought back harder, his body growing increasingly cold and solid, that bit of ice was no longer enough. But as the ice itself had a spirit, something the princess didn’t know, formed over the years that the royal family provided it energy, it began to worry about it’s own survival as it fought the power of the black flame.

Once it decided that it wasn’t strong enough to imprison Laz forever and began to fear for it’s own safety, the small ice spirit sent out a distress signal subconsciously, calling for help.

Something answered.

A bright blue portal appeared above the ocean, massive and ominous as lightning crackled. Seeing this, the Prince and his sister backed up, floating away quickly and strikes of lightning covered the ocean, hitting everywhere all at once. Even those back on the ship noticed the change as the power on the shipped seemed to react, the lights going dim as though energy was being sucked out of the massive, steel giant.

From the depths of the gate, a booming voice echoed out, one that froze the surface of the ocean and caused the air to turn stiff and sharp.

"Where is my child?" The voice yelled, sounding like thunder booming over the frozen waves.

A massive hand clutched the side of the portal, as though something wished to pull itself free. The hand was bone thin and the skin looked almost pure white tinged with the faintest hint of blue. The nails were long and dirty, looking more like claws of a beast than the nails of a humanoid creature.

As the Prince and his sister looked on in horror, another hand grabbed the other side of the portal as a deep and billowing yell rang out. The two massive hands then pushed against the sides of the portal and started stretching it, ripping apart the very air around it as the portal became a rip in the very fabric of space. Instead of a doorway, this creature had instead broken open a wound on the very world itself.

Power flowed through the doorway as a massive amount of cold and frozen energy rushed out, freezing everything in it’s wake as the Prince raised his hand, a bracelet with a shiny red jewel humming and glowing in the bright light of the rip. Lava like heat rushed forth to combat the oncoming cold, but even throwing all of his energy into it only allowed the space around him and his sister to remain stable as all of his troops and the very ocean they were in for miles around frozen into solid ice.

The ice continued to spread out until it met the base of the ship, causing it to freeze in place as well.

Dozens of troops had jumped into the air in an effort to escape the water, but they too had frozen solid, falling back onto the ocean’s icy surface.

Before the Prince or his sister could say anything, the massive head of an old and and thing man broke through the portal. Like a spider stretching it’s legs, one spindly leg came out under the head before another followed it out. With a epic level of strength, the slender and aged spirit then pulled it’s withered body out as well before standing to it’s full height, dozens of feet above the surface of the frozen ocean beneath it.

It casted it’s gaze down at the now trembling Prince and Minuw who could only gaze up in horror.