Chương 18: Land Of Frost

"I never thought I'd miss Sherry's Ability." Olive's voice broke the long-attending silence and traveled through the darkness of the pit.

Believe it or not, the ridiculously sized hole came equipped with a staircase that descended alongside its edge. On the flip side, descending it into literal darkness and feeling the broken and cracked pieces of stone beneath your feet is definitely the most horrifying experience Olive has had to brave through yet.

"Sherry's Glow is the best!" Lily commented from way up above Olive.

Olive descended in the middle of the pack behind Isaac, who entered first, and Admiral Adams who pleaded to go second. Lily went after Olive because she refused to go last and luckily Church didn't care when he went so he got stuck with last.

"I think I've reached the bottom!" Isaac's deep voice traveled from below.

"Can you find any sort of light?!" Church strained his vocal chords replying from so far away, "Feel around for anything metal! Like a torch handle or lantern!"

Minutes passed in silence. And in that silence, everyone continued to descend. Their bodies leaned heavily onto the wall of the pit, their hands and arms stretched wide to provide them with as much balance as possible.

The descent was grudgingly slow and painfully uncomfortable. In the darkness, it only takes one mistake to slip and fall into the abyss – a fall none of them knew the length of.

Then, a flicker of light erupted from beneath. First a spark and then a continuous orange glow.

"I found it!" Isaac's voice boomed.

An hour later, Church stepped off the final step and released a pent up deep breath. Looking around, they stood in a hollowed out chunk of stone rectangular in size. At one end of the room stood the staircase along with the massive hole that continued on.

On the other end of the room, two massive doors spired into the ceiling high above them. Standing in some sort of ancient hall, the walls were smooth and straight and intricate patterns adorned the edges – carved into the gray stone itself.

Spread across the walls, with one placed about every five meters, torches lined their surroundings and a small, seemingly fireproof rope connected all of them. What Isaac had lit earlier, in fact, was a cauldron placed beside the end of the staircase.

With the cauldron ablaze, two ends of rope hung over the cauldron's edges and traveled to the torches beyond, igniting them all along the rope's path.

The group of five bravely entered the expansive hall and approached the behemoth doors placed at the polar end. The gigantic doors were white, pure, snow white and were adorned with leaves of gold that seemed haphazardly placed, almost as if they were thrown onto the door without any care in the world.

In the center of the door, at about the height of Isaac, an empty goblet held the two doors together.

"Igniting it must be the key." Church shrugged.

"Now that we've discovered what's down here, we can come back with a better equipped group." Isaac sighed in relief from the side.

"What happened to the Lost Soul?" Church asked, his gaze moving from the white doors to Olive herself.

"I don't know." But Olive shook her head, "Maybe they're always just floating around and I just need to be lucky enough to run into them."

"That's a pity." Isaac lamented.

While the four of them were distracted, however, Admiral Adams discreetly approached the behemoth doors. As two torches directly hung from the sides of each door, the Admiral cautiously lifted one of the torches from their holders and rapidly lunged towards the goblet.

Slamming the torch into the goblet, an explosion of flames erupted and traveled up the length of the doors, scorching the stone ceiling above them and burning the eye brows off of Admiral Adams face!

Immediately following, the earth began to rumble and a loud click sound echoed throughout the ancient hall. Moments later, the two massive doors began to slowly creep back on their own.

"Why did you light it?!" Church yelled.

"God damn it, Adams!" Isaac roared.

Before the doors received a chance to open, Isaac slammed into the ground and tore towards Admiral Adams. Arriving in front of him in seconds, Isaac didn't withhold anything and immediately threw a punch at the Admiral.

His clenched fist rammed into the Admirals cheek and sent him spiraling into the ground! Isaac grabbed the Admirals collar and lifted his head back up, prepared to throw another punch, but before he could, a sudden iciness made its way to his heart and chills spread across his skin.

Forcing himself to look up, a crack wide enough to peer through had appeared in the massive doors, but Isaac couldn't see anything through the frost that's tumbling into the hall from beyond the doors.

Frozen in his tracks, Isaac watched the door for a moment longer and a small, boney hand broke through the frost. The baby blue hand gripped the edge of the door and clenched it incessantly, its long and sharp nails nearly cracking under the pressure of its strength.

A face appeared next, and like the Goblins, the new creatures appeared small in stature. They had light blue skin and small, malnourished bodies. They seemed to lack hair of any sort and their eyes were entirely black.

"SCREEEEE!!" The blue fiend spread its jaw, revealing its vampire-like teeth and screeched into the hall!

The pitch of its scream paralyzed the cohort, instantly causing blood to fall from their ears and temporarily causing all of them to go deaf. While the first blue fiends' wail continued, more and more blue creatures arrived behind it and began to plow through the frost and into the hall.

Pulling himself together, Isaac immediately drew his dual swords and swung them together in front of him, slashing them together like scissors. The moment his two blades touched, a similarly sized 'X' of blue energy exploded forth and crashed into the gap between the two doors!

Isaac's sword energy cut through multiple creatures, severing many of them at the waist before running out of juice and dissolving into nothingness. Even though he instantly felled multiple bodies, more blue fiends climbed atop their corpses and continued to pour into the hall like mere bugs.

Olive sprinted past Isaac with her rapier drawn and immediately began holding the creatures back, taking advantage of her increased reach to keep the blue monsters in the narrow passage between the doors.

Meanwhile, Lily ran around Church in a panic. "There's no dirt!" She cried.

Next to her, Church stood his ground with a standard broadsword clasped between his fingers, defending Lily in the event any of the blue creatures got past the others.

Isaac quickly dragged himself to his feet and began rapidly cutting down the small fiends in waves. With Isaac and Olive now working in tandem, the two began to really let loose – trusting the other to protect their blindspots if need be. As a result, their rate of killing skyrocketed.

By utilizing another person's gaze and by allowing them the opportunity to guard you, Olive is truly able to let loose and aim for every vulnerability her eye catches. In the meantime, she's constantly fluttering her feet and changing perspectives so that she, too, may watch Isaac's back if need be.

Stumbling to his feet behind them, Admiral Adams watched the two warriors in absolute glee. With lights flickering in his eyes, he wiped the blood pouring from his nose and appreciated the scene of carnage.

After thirty minutes of constant killing and having to retreat to the staircase, using the bottomless pit as an advantage and kicking hundreds of the small fiends into the abyss, the blue creatures eventually stopped pouring out from between the doors.

Slaying the final one, Olive dropped to her butt and desperately tried to catch her breath. Isaac approached her and patted her on the shoulder, "Good work." He affirmed.

*clap* *clap* *clap*

Applause erupted in the hall.

"You two are truly deserving of your title as veterans!" Admiral Adams applauded up from the safety of the spiral staircase.

"This is all your fault!" Isaac began rushing up the stairs.

"Stop!" But Church blocked his path and raised his arms between the two older men.

"What's done is done! We're alive and the threat has temporarily subsided! Rather than bicker like children, why don't we do some real thinking!" Church yelled.

"It's just as the boy says, Isaac! We have more important matters to attend to than our minor disagreement!" The Admiral grinned cheekily.

Isaac clenched his fists and stared bullets at Admiral Adams.

"When we get back I'm dealing with you." Isaac's glare was then ripped off of Admiral Adams and he returned to Olive's side.

With tensions higher than ever before, the group began systematically investigating the new variables. Isaac and Olive collected the corpses of the beasts and began cutting into them, searching for Magic Crystals. Meanwhile, Admiral Adams and Church approached the massive doors and, after climbing atop the piled bodies of corpses, finally peered into the other side.

"No fucking way. . ." Church's exclamation could be heard from the entirety of the hall and it immediately drew everyone's attention.

"Well what is it?!" Olive shouted.

"I – I don't know it's –" But Church struggled to find the words.

"It's another world." Admiral Adams finished for him.

"What?!" But Olive and the rest merely replied with the same question.

"Valleys packed with snow. A clear blue sky and a distant mountain range." Admiral Adams muttered.

Deciding not to ask anymore, Olive and Isaac dropped their current carcass and climbed the pile of corpses alongside Lily. When they made it to the top, they couldn't believe their eyes.

Rows upon rows of gigantic trees that greatly resemble spruce trees littered the open wide fields of snow. Towering mountains could be seen in the distance, breaking into the beautiful clear skies above.

Walking down the hill of corpses, the cohort entered the doors and stepped onto the freshly fallen snow. Immediately, a severe coldness attacked the cohort and bitter frostbite ate away at their extremities.

Looking at Lily's fair skin, her lips have already turned blue and her cheeks have flushed a vibrant red. Moments later, the clattering of the young girl's teeth traveled into the ears of her party members.

"How is this possible?" Church was the first to break the silence.

"What do you mean, how is it possible?!" Admiral Adams, momentarily distracted by the unbelievable scene, responded instinctually, "We were all teleported here and were even given superpowers! Why couldn't something like this exist?"

It was then that Olive's voice surprisingly interrupted their discourse.

"Hey guys. . . I caught the Lost Soul."

[Lost Soul Detected]