CHAPTER 6: THE ONE WHO STANDS ON ICE AND SNOW
Three straight weeks had passed without Bailey showing up at Wolf Castle’s food stores even once.
Bailey’s disappearance didn’t bring Richard the satisfaction he’d expected. On the contrary, the outcast’s complete disregard for the castle’s existence struck directly at his pride like an invisible slap.
At noon, cold gusts swept across the wasteland on the outskirts.
The sound of footsteps crushing the powdery snow shattered the silence around the log cabin. Three figures in dark-red padded coats embroidered with the insignia of a minor branch appeared. All three were Beginner Mages who possessed the Fire element—the family’s habitual bullies who preyed on the weak.
“Bailey Dermott! Get out here!”
The leader pounded on the door, a ball of blazing red fire flaring in his palm.
“Young Master Richard was kind enough to send us to check whether you’ve frozen to death yet. If you’re still breathing, get out here and accept this little favor!”
The rotten wooden door slowly swung open.
Bailey stepped onto the porch. He wasn’t wearing a bulky coat, only a jet-black athletic hoodie paired with neat, dark cargo pants, both hands resting casually in his pockets. His white hair drooped slightly over his forehead, accentuating his deep-red eyes, cold and sharp as blades.
“Get lost.”
“You wanna die?!”
The leader flew into a rage. All three men swung their arms at once, and three blazing fireballs tore through the air, flying straight at Bailey’s chest as they aimed to burn the log cabin to the ground. They were certain Bailey’s Beginner Ice element would melt instantly under the Fire element’s natural advantage.
Yet Bailey didn’t even bother taking his hands out of his pockets.
Perceive—Concept—Establish.
An invisible spatial membrane that bent light and currents of air rose less than half a meter in front of his toes.
The moment the three fireballs touched its boundary, their trajectories abruptly refracted. They didn’t explode. Instead, they slid off to either side as if they’d struck a perfectly smooth mirror, plunging into the surrounding snow before dying out amid hissing white smoke.
“What?!” All three men stared in terror.
Before the attackers could understand what had happened, Bailey slightly raised one fingertip inside his pocket.
Control—Break.
Three strands of ice, their space compressed until they were as fine as spider silk, sliced through the air. Completely transparent, they swept past the three Mages at a speed far beyond a Beginner’s reflexes.
SLASH! SLASH! SLASH!
The henchmen’s thick coats were cut as cleanly as paper, leaving long slashes close to the skin, while biting frost sealed their arm and leg joints. All three crashed into the snow, their teeth chattering from the bone-deep cold and utter terror.
“If you cross this line again, your throats will be what gets cut.”
Bailey’s voice was as flat as a frozen lake. The three henchmen scrambled up in panic and ran for their lives toward the trail leading back to the castle without daring to look behind them.
Less than an hour later.
The roar of a magic off-road vehicle shattered the stillness. The glossy black vehicle stopped at the edge of the snowy field. Its doors opened, and this time, it wasn’t a group of lowly henchmen stepping out.
Richard Dermott emerged first, wearing a finely tailored luxury fur overcoat. With him were the four most outstanding youths of this generation: Audrey, haughty in a snow-white leather jacket paired with knee-high boots; Kevin, composed in an all-black combat outfit; and Sarah, petite and trailing behind with a troubled look in her eyes.
The quartet from the main branch appeared amid the desolate ruins like people born to the highest echelons of society.
Richard looked around the dilapidated log cabin, the corners of his mouth lifting into his familiar mocking smile. He leisurely pulled an elegantly gold-trimmed leather folder from his coat pocket, stamped with the red wax seal of the Royal Elantra Academy.
“Bailey, I hear you just drove off my people?” Richard held the folder high, his voice echoing across the snowy field. “Do you see what this is? Official admission papers from the Royal Academy. Next week, we’re taking the family’s private airship straight to the capital to receive the finest magical education on the continent.”
Audrey tilted her head up slightly, brimming with pride. Kevin stood silently with his arms crossed, while Sarah lightly tightened her grip on her handbag and looked at Bailey with a hint of unease.
Richard took two more steps forward, his eyes overflowing with condescension and pity.
“And you? You’ll spend your entire life huddled in this miserable dump, waiting for magical beasts to gnaw your bones apart. Face the truth—you’ll never be on our level!”
The northern wind shrieked across the empty ground.
Bailey stood with his back against the shattered doorframe. His eyes glided over the gold-trimmed folder the main-branch youths were cradling like a priceless treasure. In the depths of his deep-red eyes, there wasn’t the slightest trace of envy, resentment, or bitterness.
Only naked contempt.
For someone who had grasped the laws of bending space and personally hunted down dozens of magical beasts in life-or-death battles over the past month, those recommendation papers backed by family authority were no different from a child’s game.
Bailey said nothing. He calmly turned around, slipped both hands into his hoodie pockets, and started walking straight toward Snow Forest.
Bailey’s silence and utter disregard struck Richard in the face like a burst of flame, burning away all his smugness.
“How dare you turn your back on me?!”
Richard roared, his fury erupting to its limit. He couldn’t accept that a disgraced outcast dared to look at him as if he were trash.
“Let me show you the difference between a genius from the main branch and a good-for-nothing!”
Richard stomped hard on the snow. His Ice-element magical power surged violently together with Beginner Tier 3 Wood-element power. Within his magical consciousness, a pale-blue summoning formation burst brilliantly to life beneath him.
ROAR—!
A piercing shriek rang out of the void. The thick snow split apart as a colossal figure rose from the formation: the Frost Ice Giant Serpent—the Bonded Divine Beast Richard had just awakened at the Ancestral Altar.
The ice serpent was more than ten meters long, its entire body covered in layers of sharp blue-ice scales. Its brilliant blue eyes radiated sky-chilling cold. Its appearance forced Kevin and Sarah to take a step back beneath the pressure of its elemental power.
“Kill him!” Richard pointed at Bailey’s back and screamed the order.
The giant serpent opened its maw, packed with razor-sharp fangs, and shot forward like an armored vehicle made of ice, dragging a blinding snowstorm behind it as it bore down on Bailey’s back.
Yet Bailey’s footsteps didn’t stop.
With nothing more than a glance over his shoulder, he saw through the monster’s entire structure.
A Bonded Divine Beast truly possessed terrifying power, but in the hands of someone with a Beginner’s mana capacity like Richard, this giant serpent was nothing more than an impressive-looking empty shell. The mana connections between its layers of ice scales were laughably loose.
There was no need to turn around.
Concept—Establish—Control.
Bailey lightly flicked the index finger of his right hand beside the edge of his hoodie pocket.
A crystal-clear strand of ice, compressed by hyper-dense spatial pressure, shot from his fingertip. It emitted no light and made no sound as it curved through the air like a thread of death.
WHOOSH!
The spatially compressed ice thread wrapped tightly around the Frost Ice Giant Serpent’s throat at a speed invisible to the naked eye.
CRACK... CRACK...
Spatial pressure choked the life from it. The delicate thread cinched tight around the serpent’s central mana node.
BREAK!
A dry explosion rang out in midair.
There was no bloody struggle. The ten-meter-long Frost Ice Giant Serpent suddenly shattered into tens of thousands of glittering ice crystals, vanishing into the void before it could touch even an inch of Bailey’s coat hem!
“COUGH!”
The Bonded Divine Beast had been forcibly destroyed at its soul node, and the backlash of magical power immediately slammed into its summoner’s mind.
Richard clutched his chest and spat out a mouthful of fresh blood, staining the snow red. His eyes bulged, his entire body trembling violently before he collapsed onto the freezing stone ground, writhing in unbearable pain and utter horror.
The snowy field on the outskirts fell into a deathly silence.
Audrey stood frozen in place, the magic phone in her hand shaking violently.
Kevin was stunned, his eyes opened as wide as they could go, unable to believe what had just happened. He knew exactly how powerful that giant serpent was, yet Bailey had crushed it with a move so crude it was invisible, as easily as snapping a dead branch.
Sarah covered her mouth and let out a strangled cry of terror.
Amid the utter shock of the three main-branch geniuses, Bailey continued walking at an unhurried pace. His black hoodie stirred gently in the snowy wind as his solitary figure gradually vanished into the hazy mist of the Ancient Snow Forest.
He didn’t look back even once.