Chapter 599: Polluted Creatures

Dragons truly stood at the apex of the biological world. In this extreme environment where even Dusk Crows couldn't fly properly, the Ice Dragon remained completely unaffected.

Its speed was incredible, and Loren estimated he would reach the Lost Snow Mountains before long.

Loren kept continuously converting his Intelligence into Strength, since magic would be suppressed within the Lost Snow Mountains.

This was also why only that Knight had succeeded in the extermination back then. Mages simply couldn't unleash their true power here.

After some time, a towering mountain abruptly appeared before Loren's eyes. It was so massive it made one's heart tremble with unease.

Even the Ice Dragon didn't dare continue forward from this point. It landed at the mountain's base and lowered its head.

Its meaning was obvious. It was telling Loren to get off. The rest of the journey, it didn't dare take another step.

"Wait here for me. I'll be out soon. If you dare leave, you die."

Loren instructed, and at the same time used the Justice Card to leave some damage on the Ice Dragon.

The Ice Dragon understood Loren's meaning and sensed the danger, obediently lying down right there.

"Good."

Loren nodded in satisfaction and began climbing the ice mountain.

The moment he set foot within the Lost Snow Mountains' territory, Loren felt snowflakes burrowing into his body.

His body promptly ignited with flames. This time he was genuinely burning himself, and the snowflakes near him melted on contact.

Compared to other places, the wind and snow here were actually gentler, but the temperature was far colder, already exceeding the limits any living creature could endure.

Not long after entering the Lost Snow Mountains, Loren encountered his first creature.

It was a white bear, gnawing on something.

Before Loren could even approach, the white bear turned its head, allowing Loren a glimpse of its true appearance.

The white bear's head had completely rotted away, bones visible directly. Its mouth was nothing but bone as well, let alone its eyes. Still, one could barely make out that its face had been raked by some creature's claws.

The creatures of the Lost Snow Mountains were no longer living beings. They detected other things primarily through heat sources. Loren, covered in flames as he was, stood out here like a signal flare in the dead of night.

Before the white bear could charge at him, its intestines came first.

Its belly had also been sliced open by something, its contents spilling out. But they were still connected to the body, and had even transformed into limb-like appendages.

Loren sliced through the white bear's intestines with one strike, then cleaved the bear in two with another.

Even so, the white bear didn't fully die. Its body was still squirming, especially those severed intestines, wriggling toward Loren like worms.

It carried pollution on its body, so it wouldn't die easily. Loren couldn't be bothered with it and simply walked forward. Besides, other polluted creatures would eat it eventually.

This white bear was probably an ordinary creature that had wandered into the Lost Snow Mountains by accident while fighting something.

The vast majority of creatures couldn't distinguish between the Lost Snow Mountains and ordinary snow mountains, and accidental entries were common. This was also the sole source of polluted creatures in the Lost Snow Mountains.

Loren estimated that aside from the Extreme Cold Dragon, all other creatures had been replaced at least once. After all, polluted creatures had lost their ability to reproduce.

Before he had gone far, Loren encountered a massive eagle. Half of one wing had turned to bone, with a thin membrane stretched between the bones, allowing it to continue soaring through the sky.

Loren looked at its claws and instantly knew how that white bear had gotten injured.

So Loren casually gave it a slash as well, letting it go keep its old friend company.

Loren continued onward. Since the temperature here was extremely low, maintaining the flames required some mana consumption.

Though not much, there was still a drain, so Loren had to quicken his pace.

If his mana wasn't full when a battle started, he would get very anxious.

Right now Loren didn't have any good mana-restoring potions on hand, so he could only rely on natural recovery.

His accessories were still with Naclis, so he couldn't restore mana through those either.

In the end, Loren chose to let the flames burn even more fiercely, drawing those polluted creatures to him faster.

...

Loren had already reached the depths of the Lost Snow Mountains. By now, night had fallen. Along the way, he had slain quite a few polluted creatures, but he still hadn't seen the Extreme Cold Dragon.

Just as Loren was feeling disappointed, he suddenly noticed the snow had stopped.

The Lost Snow Mountains almost never stopped snowing. And this wasn't snow at all.

Loren looked up at the sky, and only then did he realize it wasn't that the snow had stopped, but that all the snow was gathering in one particular place.

Something was clearly wrong here, and Loren naturally went to investigate.

As soon as he arrived, Loren found a group of people. They hadn't hidden themselves at all, or rather, they hadn't had time to hide.

They were gathered around a massive altar, and most of them had already turned into corpses, their bodies covered in bite marks.

As for those still standing, they were devouring their companions' remains.

"This matter actually went surprisingly smoothly..."

The allure of the living was clearly greater than that of frozen corpses. After sensing the heat radiating from Loren, they tossed aside the bodies in their hands and turned their focus toward him.

By now, Loren had roughly pieced together the situation. They were Plague Believers, sent here by the Church to set up a ritual. But the Church hadn't told them about the pollution in the Lost Snow Mountains.

So after completing the ritual, they were trapped here forever.

Loren guessed that even managing to complete the ritual required drawing on the power of the God of Plague.

Facing these Plague Believers corrupted by the Lost Snow Mountains' pollution, Loren didn't take them lightly. Before they could make a move, he cut them all down in one clean sweep.

Even if they had been polluted, they could still use the powers they possessed in life, such as magic.

Many of those corpses were Plague Envoys. The temperature here was too low, so they couldn't even trigger their Deathrattles.

After dealing with this group of Plague Believers, Loren finally began studying the ritual.

There was a barrier around the ritual that drew in the surrounding snow while also protecting the ceremony itself. Loren couldn't touch anything inside the ritual at all.

Still, Loren could make out the ritual's underlying principles.

"It absorbs the snow of the Lost Snow Mountains, converts it into pollution, then sacrifices that pollution to the God of Plague. Finally, the God of Plague bestows that pollution upon the infected as a blessing..."

"I have to say, these Plague Believers might be rotten, but when it comes to research, they really are top-notch..."

Among all the churches, the Plague Church was the one that produced the most inventions.

Loren naturally couldn't leave a ritual like this in place to keep harming people. The ritual had a barrier, but Loren could break nine out of ten barriers, and this one was no exception.

After dispelling the barrier, Loren directly destroyed the ritual. Instantly, the ritual exploded, sending a pillar of fire shooting into the sky.

Loren retreated in time, using the blast's shockwave to put distance between himself and the epicenter.

This clearly wasn't a standard tactic of the Plague Church, and Loren instantly understood their purpose.

When the ritual was destroyed, it would explode, sending up flames and light to attract something horrifying, something that would kill whoever broke the barrier.