Chapter 122: Was That a Screw-Up? No, It Was an EXP Bonanza!

With the fall of Sradlan, the absurdly cheerful and catastrophically distracting BGM finally faded into silence. The crimson light that had enveloped Celeste dissipated, and the little red dress—which had been strained to its absolute limits over a figure it was never designed for—shimmered and reverted to her original, plain priest’s robe.

“Haaa…” Celeste let out a long, shuddering sigh. A lingering flush of pure, unadulterated excitement still colored her fair cheeks.

‘That felt so damn good!’she thought, a giddy grin threatening to break free.’That kind of pure, unga-bunga, turn-your-brain-off happiness is just… it’s a drug!’

She raised a hand to rub her temples, trying to quell the phantom explosions still echoing in her head. The self-dubbed “da-da-da” of her chain gun and the concussive “boom-boom-boom” of explosions had woven themselves into a two-part harmony of destruction that connected deep in her gamer soul.

This wasn’t exhaustion. It was the aftershock of overstimulation, a restless energy that left her with the primal urge to find another perfectly good hilltop and blow it to smithereens.

‘No, no, Celeste, get a grip!’she mentally scolded herself.’You are an elegant and dignified priest, the strategic core of this team, not some giggling toddler who needs a babysitter! Restrain yourself! You must restrain yourself!’

Across the pass, the clamor of the battlefield was finally drawing to a close. With their leader gone, the frost troll army had completely shattered. Hunted by the elven ranged troops and a relentless Xia Lian, they were picked off one by one, their bodies becoming cold, still landmarks in the snow.

At the center of the pass, the final duel reached its conclusion. The last remnants of the Withered Legion had been systematically dismantled and devoured by the Silent Watch.

Mogras, the once-imposing commander, fell to one knee. His arrogant runic great-axe, now just a hunk of metal, clattered uselessly to the ground beside him. A gaping wound pierced his chest from front to back, steadily leaking black, necrotic energy. Eldara’s blade had already shattered his soul core.

“Why…” Mogras rasped, using the last of his strength to lift his head. The two soul-fires flickering weakly beneath his helm fixed on Eldara. “You are… clearly… one of us…”

Eldara sheathed her sword, her expression as impassive as the frozen peaks around them. She looked down at him, her voice devoid of any warmth or pity. “You and I were never the same.”

“I command death to protect the living.”

“You,” she stated, the words falling like chips of ice, “are merely a slave to it.”

“Haha… Hahahaha…” A hoarse, dry cackle escaped Mogras’s helmet, the sound dripping with malice. “Foolish… Utterly foolish… Protecting those fragile, short-lived, desire-riddled mortals?”

“You will understand, sooner or later… Death is this world’s only true destination! Eternal silence will inevitably devour all!”

“In the face of that great and final will, all your struggles… are meaningless…”

His voice dwindled to a whisper. The two soul-fires in his helmet flickered violently one last time before extinguishing completely, plunging the helm into darkness.

[Withered Legion Commander · Mogras] has been slain.

Eldara didn’t spare his corpse a second glance. She turned and walked back toward her knights.

“Clear the battlefield. Collect the remains of our comrades.”

The knights of the Silent Watch moved with silent efficiency, their movements solemn and practiced as they began their grim task.

Celeste and her party made their way over.

“Sis, that move you just did was so cool!” Selene bounced over to Celeste’s side, her hands gesturing wildly. “It was just ‘boom-boom-boom,’ and that huge guy was just gone! Can you do it again? Please do it again!”

“Nope, no more, absolutely not,” Celeste said, waving her hands with an air of theatrical righteousness as she rejected her sister’s dangerous proposal. ‘Stop talking! I’m begging you, please stop! My rational side is already getting curb-stomped by the inner goblin that just wants to see more things go boom!’

“It was… certainly spectacular,” Su Wan commented, her gaze fixed on the massive, scorched crater in the distance. The shock had yet to fully fade from her cool blue eyes. “That level of instantaneous destructive power is beyond the scope of conventional magic.”

“Celeste, are you alright?” Xia Lian, ever the worrier, was more concerned about Celeste’s condition. Seeing her rubbing her temples, she asked with a hint of concern.

“I’m fine, just… the after-effects are a little intense,” Celeste said with a smile, trying her best to appear normal. “A little too much excitement. I think I need some ‘sage time’ to cool down.”

Just as she spoke, a deep, rumbling groan echoed from the heart of the snowy mountains. The sound made the very earth seem to moan in agony, and the ground beneath their feet began to tremble violently.

“What’s going on? An earthquake?” Selene yelped, grabbing onto a nearby rock to steady herself.

Eldara’s expression changed in an instant!

She snapped her head up, her gaze flying to the towering peaks flanking the pass. Her voice cut through the air, sharp and urgent.

“It’s an avalanche! Retreat! Now!”

Before her words even faded, the terrifyingly thick blankets of snow on the slopes on both sides of the pass began to move. They stirred, then broke, transforming into enraged white beasts that poured down from the summits with a deafening roar.

The entire mountain was collapsing, intent on crushing and devouring the insignificant creatures making a ruckus in its domain.

“Mount up!” Eldara barked, letting out a sharp, piercing whistle.

The next second, the snow beside her exploded upwards. A Skeletal Warhorse, wrought from eerie white bone with ghostly blue soul-fire burning in its eye sockets, burst from its snowy grave and let out a silent, furious roar at the sky.

Eldara’s arm shot out, her hand closing around Celeste’s waist with the unyielding precision of an iron clamp. Celeste felt a sudden tightness, her entire body lifted into the air by an irresistible force. A moment later, with a muffled thud, she slammed into an unyielding embrace.

Or rather, she crashed into a wall of cold, unforgiving armor. Eldara’s breastplate, carved with complex, thorny patterns, was impossibly hard. The impact made Celeste see stars.

‘Damn it! My face! It’s gonna be flattened!’

Before she could even finish her internal complaint, Eldara had already tossed her onto the warhorse’s back and swung up with fluid grace, settling firmly behind her.

The knights of the Silent Watch reacted with equal speed, each summoning their own Skeletal Warhorse from the frozen earth.

“Whoa!” Selene had just found her footing when a knight grabbed her by the back of her collar, hauling her up onto a saddle like a sputtering kitten.

“Ugh!” Su Wan was in the middle of weaving a spell when a large hand suddenly scooped her up by the waist. Her elegant posture was instantly shattered, and a startled exclamation was stifled in her throat. By the time a silent female knight deposited her onto a horse in an extremely ungraceful heap, the ice queen’s cheeks were flushed a brilliant crimson.

“Yah—!” Xia Lian’s reaction was the most visceral. She saw a black shadow flash past, and the next second her feet left the ground, her surprise escaping as a short, sharp scream.

The remaining knights charged toward the elven mages and rangers, dragging them onto their saddles. In seconds, the entire knightly order had transformed into a desperate, undead ride-sharing service, galloping out of the pass at full, breakneck speed.

“Su Wan! Ice Wall! At least slow it down a little!” Celeste yelled, glancing back. The overwhelming white tide had already engulfed the entire pass and was chasing them with unstoppable momentum.

“I’m trying!” Su Wan’s voice was tight with urgency. She and several elven mages waved their staves in unison. Thick walls of ice erupted from the ground behind them.

But in the face of that colossal white wave, the sturdy barriers couldn’t even make a splash. They were instantly swallowed and crushed, not even delaying the inevitable for a single second.

“Don’t look back! Just run!” Eldara’s voice was chillingly calm, cutting through the panic.

The Skeletal Warhorses galloped through the snow, their tireless legs churning. The knights became desperate black dots fleeing across a world of white. The roar behind them grew closer, a suffocating pressure that promised to swallow them whole, making it hard to breathe.

‘This is a huge problem,’Celeste thought, her heart pounding.’Are we really going to get buried alive?’

Just as she resigned herself to an impromptu lesson in “Snow Survival,” a series of dense system notifications suddenly chimed in her mind.

[Your party has slain[Snowfield Ice-Claw Wolf Lv.28]! Gained 350 EXP!]

[Your party has slain[Deep-Sleep Snow Bear Lv.35]! Gained 800 EXP!]

[Your party has slain[Ice-Rock Lizard Lv.31]! Gained 550 EXP!]

[Your party has slain[Frost-Horn Elk Herd Lv.33 – 34]! Gained 2100 EXP!]

The notification messages flooded her vision, scrolling past at an insane speed.

Celeste was completely dumbfounded.

‘What the hell is going on? We’re running for our lives! Where are all these monsters coming from for us to kill?’

She subconsciously pulled up her character panel.

Her eyes widened instantly.

She watched as the blue bar representing her experience points began to skyrocket at a speed visible to the naked eye. It was moving faster than it had for any boss she had ever fought. It was like it was strapped to a goddamn rocket.

‘Holy crap! Is this a bug?’

Celeste’s brain blue-screened for a solid 0.1 seconds.

Then, an absurd yet terrifyingly logical thought bubbled up in her mind.

She stiffly, mechanically, turned her head to look back at the unstoppable white wave that was currently helping her “clear the map.”

‘No way… Did I cause this avalanche?”And because I caused it… all the monsters crushed to death by it are counting as our kills?!’Once the thought appeared, even Celeste found it ridiculous. But as she stared at the crazily climbing experience bar, she realized it was probably the only explanation.’My god… just how many monsters were hiding in this damn mountain?!’

She gaped at the flood of kill notifications. They ranged from common wild wolves and snow bears to rare elite monsters she’d never even heard of, and even entire herds of creatures…

This single event was netting them more experience than the last two boss fights combined!

“Sis! Sister! Look at the experience bar!” Selene’s shocked scream came from a nearby horse. Clearly, she had noticed the bizarre phenomenon as well.

“Ignore it! Just focus on getting out of here!” Celeste yelled back.

Now was not the time to analyze it. Survival was the only thing that mattered.

Finally, under the tireless gallop of the Skeletal Warhorses, they burst out of the narrow valley and onto a relatively flat and open snowfield. The avalanche, now lacking the narrow terrain to focus its power, gradually lost its world-ending momentum. It rolled forward like a great white dragon before finally settling, returning the world to a heavy silence.

They had narrowly escaped.

Everyone collapsed in the snow, gasping for air. Eldara released her grip on Celeste, her perpetually stoic face showing a rare trace of fatigue.

As for Celeste, she couldn’t be bothered with catching her breath. She immediately checked her experience bar.

A brilliant golden light flashed across her vision.

[Ding! Congratulations, you have leveled up to Lv.24!]

Without a moment’s hesitation, she dumped her free attribute point into Constitution.

[Celeste – Priest Lv.24]

[Strength: 90]

[Agility: 60]

[Constitution: 170]

[Intelligence: 80]

[Faith: 90]

[Free Attribute Points: 0]

“I’m level 24!” Xia Lian’s voice was filled with surprise.

“I… I’m just a tiny bit away from level 25!” Selene shouted excitedly, staring at her nearly-full experience bar.

Su Wan also nodded, indicating her situation was much the same as Selene’s.

One avalanche had been enough to grant all four of them nearly a full level’s worth of experience.

Celeste looked at her new stats, the bone-deep fatigue from their desperate escape washed away by a massive wave of pure ecstasy.

Only a single thought remained in her mind.

‘This wave… was a huge profit!’

[Elysian’s Note:

Having a good time with the story?

Every single bit helps immensely:

Thanks a ton for making this journey possible!]