Chapter 48: The Ice Spirit Realm

We immediately got back to the basement after the realization hit me like a bucket of ice water.

Ten years ago. The Southern Dungeon’s fifth floor collapse. The missing body of Lady Silvia.

It wasn’t an accident, and she didn’t die under falling rocks. She was swallowed by the same spatial anomaly that just took Arielle.

I looked up at Duke Voulstridge. His face was pale, his hands tightly clenched into fists.

"My Lord," I said, keeping my voice as steady as possible. "Your wife isn’t dead."

The Duke’s eyes snapped toward me. The ambient mana in the basement spiked so hard the furnace flames flickered blue.

"What did you just say?" he asked, his voice deathly quiet.

"The spatial tag Lady Silvia used before the collapse... it was connected to the same realm Arielle was pulled into," I explained, holding up the spatial key frame. "She didn’t die. She got trapped."

The Duke took a slow, heavy breath. The cold air in the basement settled, though the tension didn’t fade.

"Can you reach both of them?" he asked.

"If I finish this key, yes," I replied, turning back to the workbench. "I need you to feed your mana into the key frame. Not to force a door open, but to tag the destination to your family’s mana signature."

Without a word, Duke Voulstridge stepped forward and placed his palm over the hot metal frame.

A dense stream of pure white mana flowed from his hand into the key. The metal glowed brightly, humming with spatial energy as the three Space Crystals resonated together.

I picked up my carving tool and activated my skill.

Locksmith’s Eye.

The golden mana lines of the key frame exposed themselves to my vision. I carved precise spatial runes directly onto the key surface, weaving the Duke’s white mana threads together with the established connection of the crystals.

"Hold it steady," I muttered, sweat dripping from my chin onto the stone floor.

I placed the second and third Space Crystals into the designated slots of the frame. The spatial energy surged violently, but I didn’t back down.

Close.

I locked the tag coordinates into place, stabilizing the key’s mana loop.

The key frame cooled instantly, taking on a sleek, silver-black sheen with three glowing blue crystals embedded along its handle and teeth.

It wasn’t just a key anymore. It was a customized spatial bypass.

"It’s done," I said, wiping my forehead with my sleeve.

The Duke looked at the key in my hands, his eyes full of anticipation. "Will it open?"

"Only one way to find out," I said, turning toward the open space in the middle of the basement.

I held the key in front of me and aimed it at the empty air.

Open.

A sharp click echoed through the room.

The air ripped apart in a clean, vertical line.

Unlike the violent, jagged crack that took Arielle, this spatial opening was smooth and steady. Cold, howling wind immediately blasted out of the portal, covering the basement floor in a layer of frost.

Duke Voulstridge didn’t hesitate. He stepped in front of me, his body shrouded in a thick barrier of ice mana.

"Stay behind me, Silvester," he commanded.

"Don’t have to tell me twice," I muttered, shivering as the freezing air bit into my skin.

We stepped through the rift together.

The sensation of spatial travel was disorienting, like falling upward through cold water. A second later, my feet touched solid ice.

We were standing on a vast, frozen plain under a dark, starless sky. Massive ice spires reached toward the heavens, and the wind roared like a wild beast.

Unlike the place Arielle and I went into last time, the cold air was terrifying; it was filled with unknown white mana that I have never seen.

"Arielle!" the Duke shouted, his powerful voice cutting through the storm.

My Locksmith’s Eye was still active, scanning the landscape for mana signatures.

"Over there!" I pointed toward a massive structure made of jagged ice blocks a few hundred meters away. "Two mana signatures inside!"

"Two?" The Duke’s eyes widened.

We sprinted across the slippery terrain. As we got closer, I saw a protective ice dome holding off several massive Ice Golems that were pounding against it.

Standing inside the dome was Arielle, huddled on the ground and holding her knees.

And standing over her, wielding two glowing blades made of solid frost, was a woman with silver hair and fierce, icy eyes.

"Silvia!" Duke Voulstridge roared.

The woman turned her head in shock. The moment her distraction occurred, an Ice Golem raised its massive fist to smash through the weakening dome.

The Duke moved faster than I thought possible. He raised his hand, and a massive pillar of ice burst from the ground, shattering three Ice Golems into fine powder instantly.

"Victor! Clear the rest!" the Duke ordered as he rushed into the collapsing dome.

Wait, Victor wasn’t here. The Duke was just so used to shouting orders.

I pulled out my ordinary lockpick and channeled golden mana.

Open.

I disrupted the mana core of the nearest Ice Golem, causing its body structure to unlock and crumble into harmless ice chunks.

The Duke reached the woman and Arielle. He stopped right in front of them, his breath hitched in his throat.

"Silvia... it’s really you," he whispered, his cold demeanor completely melting away.

The woman stared at him, tears freezing on her cheeks. "Sebastian...? How... how are you here?"

"Father!" Arielle cried out, throwing herself into the Duke’s arms.

I leaned against a nearby ice block, gasping for air as my body trembled from the extreme cold and mana exhaustion.

"Reunions are great and all," I called out, "but we have a bigger problem."

Above us, the dark sky began to split open.

A colossal entity materialized from the sky. It had no solid body, only a floating silhouette made of a white cloud body and ancient ice runes.

The pressure it exerted was suffocating. My knees almost buckled under the sheer weight of its mana.

"The Ice Spirit..." Silvia warned, stepping in front of Arielle with her frost blades ready. "It’s been trying to take Arielle’s body for years to fully manifest!"

Duke Voulstridge summoned his Ice Spear, his face darkening. "It won’t lay a finger on my family."