PROLOGUE
Scrunch… Scrunch… Scrunch…
As a gelid wind blew by, clouding one’s field of vision, the sound of snow being crushed under a set of footsteps could be heard. This was the northernmost tip of the fourth continent—the territory of the old Kingdom of Frosthaven.
This area had once flourished thanks to an industry built on frost-mana leaden metals. However, sixty-four years ago, a Void Stampede erupted in a neighboring territory. Frosthaven was consumed in a matter of two weeks.
No human dared set foot upon that frozen soil since. That changed today, though, as several figures advanced through this desolate tundra.
“Are you sure you’re all right, Research Officer Clauvia?” a middle-aged man asked as he looked up at a glacier through a pair of military goggles.
This was a ruin research team captain. He was affiliated with the Sixth Assault Garden’s urban defense knights.
“Yes, the advance unit’s report says the Void nest that caused the catastrophe here has already been destroyed.”
The one who answered was a woman in her twenties, clad in cutting-edge protective clothing meant for low-temperature environments.
Her name was Clauvia Phillet. Daughter of the Phillet Company, a nationwide industry that monopolized the production of Artificial Elementals. Despite her young age of twenty-six, she was a talented woman who had risen to the position of senior researcher in the Sixth Assault Garden’s laboratory. What’s more, she’d done so on her own accomplishments, not nepotism.
“I just hope that the advance unit didn’t accidentally overlook the nest’s presence.”
The research team advanced through the blizzard, their climbing irons noisily stabbing into the snow. Fluttering all around them was what looked like smoldering butterflies, but they were actually fire Artificial Elementals, tuned by the Phillet Company. The heat emitted by these disposable spirits was the reason the team could survive such an intense storm.
“—C-Captain, I have a visual on it! That’s the block of ice we heard about!”
Two of the team members who walked ahead of them signaled their position by waving their mana lanterns. As they approached, they discovered a gigantic crater gouged into the frozen ground. Buried at its center was a mass of ice, forty meils in diameter.
“Duke Crystalia’s research was correct after all…”
“Towing it away is going to be a challenge. Is it possible to at least take out what’s inside it?”
“This is a Frost Goal, produced by an ancient power. Our technology can’t destroy it.” Clauvia shook her head, looking up at the mass of frozen water with enraptured eyes. “I’d imagine even a Holy Sword would be insufficient…”
She got the impression the being within the ice was somehow stirring within its prison.
“So this thing once ruled the ancient world?” asked the captain.
“Yes,” Clauvia replied. “This is what they once called a Dark Lord.”
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