Chapter 652 Melting Ice Crystals

The ice crystal flower.

It required neither streams nor fertile soil, nor a sun-facing slope.

It sprouted thread-like roots only from the crevices of ice and snow, drawing energy from the frigid wind and the freezing sun, ultimately displaying a touch of blue—a hue found only in the deepest layers of ice—between its crystal-clear petals.

The Elves of the snow plains said the ice crystal flower would never wither.

It condensed all of its moisture into ice crystals, suppressed its life activity to the absolute minimum, and extended its root system as deeply into the permafrost as possible to breathe slowly.

It was as if time itself had frozen along with it.

A decade, a century, a millennium—no one knew exactly how long an ice crystal flower could survive—

Until the warmth of "spring" arrived.

Back then, Sonny was far from being called "Old Sonny" by the villagers, yet he was already the best hunter in the village.

Ever since he took up the ancestral longbow from his late father, he had lived alone in the hunter's cabin at the edge of the village, venturing into the forest before dawn and returning with prey before the sun even set.

That day, Sonny had chased a wounded wild deer all the way into the depths of the Rime Forest, a place he had never been before. By the time he realized how far he had gone, the snow covering the forest floor was deep enough to bury his ankles.

He trudged through the blizzard for who knew how long, until his hands and feet were frozen numb. Eventually, he collapsed beneath a leeward cliff.

When Sonny woke up, he found himself lying inside a cave.

The woman sat across from him by the campfire.

She had long, silvery-white hair softer than moonlight, skin as flawlessly white as snow, and eyes that resembled an unfrozen lake shrouded in a blizzard.

Sonny stayed in the cave for three whole days. He learned the woman's name was Allirella, an Elf from the Northern Snow Plains.

He asked her why she had left her tribe to come to a place as remote as the Rime Hills.

Yet whenever he brought up the topic, the Elf responded with silence.

But Sonny's behavior was completely different from the rest.

Ever since she was forced to flee her ancestral land, Allirella had met many humans.

Woodcutters, exiled thugs, lost soldiers—some so young they hadn't even lived as long as the fir trees in the forest, and others so old the wrinkles on their faces outnumbered the grooves in tree bark.

But no matter how well they hid it, without exception, their gazes were always extraordinarily piercing the first time they looked at her—like a Winter Wolf of the snow plains looking at a lamb.

Fortunately, the vast majority of them were nowhere near as dangerous as the fangs and claws of a Winter Wolf, and she was far harder to deal with than a penned lamb.

Sonny's gaze, however, was exceptionally open and candid.

Although he would sometimes dodge her eyes when she suddenly looked back at him, he would immediately stiffen his neck—as if forcing himself to be brave—and stare straight back.

"Will you—will you still be here later?" Sonny asked Allirella before he left.

The Elf had not wanted to answer. She was unwilling to drag anyone else into her current predicament.

But perhaps his cautious demeanor reminded her of a puppy she had once adopted back in her tribe. Driven by some inexplicable impulse, the fleeing Elf from the North nodded to the scruffy hunter standing before her.

The stories that played out in reality were often far more cliché than the tales spun by bards.

They didn't always need twists and turns; the world was simply like that.

Allirella began to ask Sonny about the world outside the forest, and Sonny was more than happy to share the interesting tales he had heard from traveling bards passing through the village.

From the flocks of geese flying across the sky to overwinter, to the distinct four seasons in the south of the Calm Yearning Province. From the thud of overripe wild pears falling to the ground in autumn, accompanied by the buzzing of bees circling the sweet juice, to the faint, fresh scent of damp soil after the first spring rain.

Even though Sonny, who had lived in Ice Tree Village his whole life, had never experienced most of these things himself, it didn't stop him from enthusiastically sharing those fascinating stories with her.

On their third Midwinter Festival together, the solitary hunter's cabin on the outskirts of the village finally welcomed its mistress.

At first, the villagers of Ice Tree Village treated Allirella's arrival as something of an oddity.

The children were curious about the Elf's long, pointed ears. They believed that Allirella, with her magnificent silvery-white eyes and fair skin so rarely seen among the locals, was a legendary "fairy of the woods."

The adults, aware of her race, maintained a guarded distance, driven by the inevitable xenophobia inherent to a remote settlement like Ice Tree Village.

Sensitive and perceptive, Allirella naturally sensed this. She discussed with her husband whether she should wear the felt hat she found so uncomfortable to cover her ears, cut her hair short and tuck the rest under it, and minimize going outside. She even suggested moving back into the depths of the Rime Forest, meeting him only once a week when he went out hunting.

However, Sonny, who had grown up in Ice Tree Village and knew there were no truly bad people there, actively encouraged Allirella to walk around the village more often.

Once the villagers got used to her, he said, everything would get better.

Just as Sonny had predicted, it only took Allirella a few months to fully integrate.

Hailing from a long-lived Elf tribe, she possessed many secret herbal remedies, which she used to pull two mischievous boys stung by winter scorpions back from the brink of death. The special warning traps she had learned from her tribe's hunting parties allowed the villagers to detect hidden dangers around the settlement much earlier. Furthermore, her Class Grade combat capabilities helped drive away the wild beasts and monsters that encroached upon the village—

As time passed, she met with more and more smiling faces on the road, and the Elf's footsteps grew ever lighter.

The following year, they had a child.

It was a girl. Allirella named her "Sarah," which meant "resilient grass" in Elvish. She hoped her daughter would be as resilient and full of vitality as the grass in warm lands, rather than sacrificing herself like the ice crystal flower, absorbing the bitter cold for someone else's sake.

Sarah's childhood was a happy one.

A remote, tiny settlement like Ice Tree Village might have strong xenophobia, but that also meant once you truly integrated and became a recognized member of the collective, you experienced a warmth and closeness far surpassing other places, just like a massive family.

Because of their mixed heritage, half-elves often faced numerous issues with identity and belonging.

Human enthusiasm was often driven by profit, essentially viewing them as an alien race, while Elves treated them with cold indifference and rarely accepted them without reservation.

But in Ice Tree Village, Sarah only had one identity: a villager.

Even if there was occasional harmless teasing in her youth, with other children making jokes about the pointed ears that distinguished her from ordinary humans, those kids would invariably be dragged to her door the very next day by their parents, their faces bruised and swollen, to offer an apology.

Over time, Sarah grew into exactly what Allirella had hoped for. She developed a lively, vibrant, cheerful, and generous personality—traits rarely seen in a half-elf. Only occasionally, when travelers passed through, would she temporarily put on the ear-covering felt hat her mother had hand-knitted for her to avoid any potential trouble.

The days should have continued to pass in that peaceful, beautiful manner.

Until the apocalyptic plague descended.

The first to be infected was the farming household at the village entrance, who had recently taken in a Barbarian refugee fleeing from the North.

At first, it was just a fever and cough, much like a common flu. But in less than a week, dark purple mycelium exuding a stench of decay crept over the corpses of that family and covered the entire cabin.

She had experience dealing with this in the past; to some extent, it was the very reason Allirella had fled from the Northern Snow Plains to the Rime Hills.

Although she didn't reveal what this eerie mycelium actually was or where it came from, she still led the villagers to burn the ruined cabin to ashes the moment she realized something was wrong.

Unfortunately, it was too late.

The microscopic spores seemed capable of spreading through the air. By the time Allirella reacted, five more villagers had already been infected.

And Sarah, her and Sonny's daughter, was one of them.

"This is as far as we go, Sonny," Allirella had said with absolute resolve.

Although he didn't know what she was going to do, Old Sonny sensed the shift in his wife's tone, and an ominous premonition swelled within him.

His attempts to dissuade her were completely futile. His body was bound inside the cabin, making it impossible for him to break free.

"Take good care of Sarah. Tell her that I love you both." Leaving her final words echoing in the room, Allirella vanished into the howling frigid wind outside.

That night, the soft rustling of blooming flowers and eerie, abyssal shrieks echoed until dawn.

The next day, the sun rose as usual.

Ice Tree Village had lost a villager named Allirella, while a newly born banshee had appeared deep within the Rime Hills.

A long-lost warmth spilled down with the sunlight onto the path leading from the village to the forest. Clusters of ice crystal flowers that had only just bloomed began to thaw, their crystal-clear petals melting away like water.

It was exactly like the short nursery rhyme that the beautiful Elf with long silvery-white hair had once sung to her daughter: "The ice crystal flower absorbs all the chill of winter, so that spring may bloom."

"I'll pay any price—my lord, please let her live!" the village chief of Ice Tree Village begged Xia Nan, his wrinkled face displaying an even humbler posture than when they had first met.

Xia Nan had long sensed that something was off about the village. It didn't look at all like a settlement that had just been threatened by a high-risk monster.

As the incident progressed, the various clues in his mind had slowly started to link together.

The village chief's current reaction was, to some extent, within his expectations; he wasn't surprised.

He didn't reply immediately, instead casting his gaze directly at the banshee on the ground.

Regardless of the hidden circumstances, if such a dangerous monster still retained its combat capabilities and ferocity, he couldn't possibly let it roam free.

Fortunately, perhaps because Xia Nan's max-level Mastery of [Gravity Etching] had dealt such outstanding damage, the erupting force field energy had instantly knocked the banshee into a heavily injured state.

Even her self-consciousness, which had previously fallen dormant due to the corruption, gradually returned. Her expression, which had been twisted by pain and fury, began to change. Although the agony still lingered, the ferocity unique to monsters faded at a visible rate, leaving her peaceful and stable.

It seemed Xia Nan's single blast of [Gravity Etching] had literally beaten her benevolent personality back to the surface.

Seeing that the banshee had temporarily lost the ability to fight or flee, Xia Nan shifted his gaze back to the village chief. Just as he was about to speak, he heard a burst of light, faint footsteps coming from behind him.

The shadows squirmed, and the half-elf Rogue, Treebrook, revealed herself.

Gripping her two poison-coated daggers, the half-elf's gaze swept over the heavily injured banshee on the ground. She then looked at Xia Nan, Uriah, and the others in bewilderment. "Why aren't you attacking?"

"Wait a moment, Treebrook!" Uriah interjected. "The situation seems to have changed a bit."

"What change? Stop wasting time!" The earlier battle in the Goblin Lair had completely stripped this temporary captain of his only remaining team member's trust. Completely ignoring the Bard, the Rogue spat viciously, "Hurry up and kill this banshee so we can head back and report our mission! Don't let it escape again!"

Of course, despite her words, Xia Nan had been the main force in the recent battle. Without his timely support, she would have only been able to watch helplessly as the banshee flew away, unable to even catch up to it.

Moreover, it was Xia Nan's ranged attack that had inflicted such heavy damage on the banshee.

Therefore, no matter how anxious she was, she could only tighten her grip on her daggers without rashly stepping forward.

The distance wasn't that far to begin with. Although it seemed like they had been chasing the banshee for quite a while, it had mostly just been hovering and dodging in the air; the actual linear distance hadn't widened much.

Not long after Treebrook arrived, Old Sonny, who had been trailing at the very back, also caught up.

His cloudy eyes looked toward the center of the clearing, landing on the pained banshee, Allirella, collapsed on the ground. His weather-beaten, sweat-drenched face instantly froze.

Without the slightest hesitation, he threw himself to the ground, crawling on his knees and begging the adventurers ahead. "Lords Adventurers, I'm begging you—please, I'm begging you, don't—"

The incredibly humble pleas from behind made Xia Nan feel the situation was tricky to handle.

At the same time, he noticed that a familiar figure had appeared in the crowd behind the village chief.

She wasn't wearing her old but well-maintained felt hat to cover her ears, leaving her long, pointed ears poking out through her hair.

Sarah stood deep within the crowd with a dazed expression, completely at a loss. Her clear black-and-white eyes stared blankly at Allirella in the clearing, and at her father further away.

From the perspective of the adventurers, the banshee before them was their mission target. Only by killing it could they earn War Merits from Bloodcast Keep, and they had already sacrificed a teammate to get this far.

From the perspective of the villagers, including Sarah and Old Sonny, Allirella had only turned into her current state for the sake of the village. Without her, the entire village would have long since been reduced to a ruin consumed by mycelium. Even though she was gradually losing her sanity, she hadn't actually harmed any of the Ice Tree Village residents yet. They couldn't possibly stand by and do nothing while she was killed right before their eyes.

Looking at it from their respective viewpoints, neither side was in the wrong.

But at the same time, everyone present had overlooked the most crucial point.

The adventurers wanted to kill the banshee, while the villagers hoped the Elf could survive.

Then—

What about Allirella herself?

"Shrieeeeek!!!"

A mournful, piercing wail erupted from the center of the clearing.

The moonlight-shrouded mist churned, whipping into waves of sonic force.

The cooldown for [Withering Wail] hadn't finished yet, so the sonic wave clearly didn't possess the special ability to trigger a lethal check.

However, she seemed to have fused whatever negative energy remained in her heavily injured body into that scream.

As the sonic wave surged forward, Xia Nan felt surges of an invisible, freezing chill tightly wrapping around his limbs and torso.

He tensed his muscles and focused his mind.

His extraordinary five-dimensional attributes were pushed to their absolute limits. Within a single breath, he recovered his ability to move despite the impact of the negative energy.

Looking back at the battlefield, the banshee that had originally been in the center of the clearing had taken advantage of the opening to drift right next to the Rogue, Treebrook.

With physical attributes far inferior to Xia Nan's, the Rogue hadn't managed to break free in time. Unable to do anything but watch the banshee approach, a glimmer of despair surfaced in Treebrook's eyes, as if she could already imagine a [Corrupting Touch] striking her vitals.

Unexpectedly, however, Allirella didn't attack her when she drifted close.

The spectral flames in her eye sockets flickered steadily. Her arm, which had grown increasingly transparent from excessively releasing negative energy, gently brushed past Treebrook's hands.

In the next second, she snatched the dagger right out of the Rogue's grasp.

"Sizzle—"

The radiant energy attached to the surface of the short dagger burned the banshee's palm, sending up wisps of smoke.

Enduring the agony flaring from her palm, Allirella twisted her wrist, turning the tip of the short blade toward her own chest.

Her gaze swept over her husband, whose face was twitching as he struggled with all his might to break free from his paralysis. "It's alright—it's alright—Sonny, I love you."

Her eyes then fell upon her daughter in the crowd. A remarkably human-like gentleness and deep affection surfaced on the undead creature's pale face. "Sarah, please forgive Mommy."

The short dagger, sizzling with radiant light, was slowly thrust into her own chest.