3rd Floor — Arctic Wasteland IV

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NEWS: For those of you who liked my other story, Keep it in the Family. I've got news. I just published the re-written first chapter of that fiction on my Patreon! (It's NOT paywalled.). I've made a few, umh, critical changes, especially the ending, but the first part is the same. It'll most likely be incest, though to what blood-related degree, well... I'm still thinking about it. Anyway, if you're interested, hop on the website and please do leave some feedback. 

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With this chapter, we've hit 100k words! fuc yea

On with the chapter!

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A fitful of coughs tore through Christopher. He sniffed, the snot seemingly freezing at the tip of his reddened nose. "Goddammit! Worse time to get the fluuuh—wohchu!!" He sneezed so hard it sounded like a gunshot. 

"Don't die, Christopher!" Benjamin and Wei Chen surrounded Christopher. "I'll miss your french haw-haw-haw."

"Besides…" Wei Chen followed up, immensely amused. "There'll be no one to rile up Eileen; she's been secretly honing her throwing skills. I saw her throwing rocks at a practice target."

"I DID NOT!"

Eileen, who was obscured by Griffin's hulking form, yelled. 

Soren had to hold her back from literally plunging three arrows deep into their skulls. 

"Come on, kids. Fun's over. Time to work." Leandro said, and, under his leadership, they ventured inside the dark maw of the mountain. From a grassy plain, to a barren wasteland filled with undead, to a freezing tundra.

The journey was about to end. 

Inside, the air grew colder, and the sound of dripping water echoed off the stone walls. Stalactites hung from the ceiling, and the ground was uneven and slippery with ice.

"Stick together and watch each other's backs." Leandro said, turning to cast a quick look at Christopher. He patted his shoulder, encouragingly. "Chris, stay with me. The cave branches off into separate tunnels ahead. Wouldn't want to get separated, would you?"

Christopher gave a slow, determined nod. "Haha, don't worry, chief. I won't slow… slow…" He sneezed, sniffing. "... slow you down."

"Leandro, are you sure it's fine to go in like this?" Soren asked, his brows knitted together in concern. "Didn't you say that there are dozens of them? Can we handle that?" His sentiments were echoed by the rest of the party. 

"We've got far from the entrance, and they haven't attacked us yet." Leandro said, languidly. His Aura had stretched deep into the cave, and while he could not cover the whole mountain, he had a wide, almost eagle-eyed view of the hiding Yetis—poor bastards. He slung an arm over the pale, shivering Christopher. "They're trying to lure us deeper into the cave…"

'And it's obvious why…'

Eileen gave Leandro a side eye. She still remembered what he said yesterday. Something tumbled in the pit of her stomach. Her anxiety hit new heights, but she didn't let those thoughts distract her. Being the only archer in the party meant that she had her fair shares of responsibilities. 

Leandro mitigated most of those responsibilities, and that's why the party had an implicit, almost blind, trust in him, even as they marched deep into the bowels of the cave. No one made a peep. 

The natural, ambient lighting could very well lull someone into a false sense of security; it did, after all, look incredibly beautiful.

If only you didn't take into account the monsters lurking where the party couldn't see. 

Leandro still proceeded forward with nary a stutter in his pace. He kept a keen eye on every corner. Despite their best attempt at stealth, the Yetis were big and cumbersome. The thumping of their feet on ice could be heard loud and clear. 

The eerie stillness of the cave continued on for a while. 

But before long, things changed—just a little bit. Leandro drew to a halt, along with his party. In front of them stood a stalagmite of heavenly proportions. Crystal-like, with a narrow tip, and a plethora of glowing runes carved on its surface, very similar to the ones on the stone archway of the 1st floor. 

"W-What is that?" Wei Chen stammered, pointing at the center of the pillar.

Eileen quickly corrected. "Who is that, you mean." 

Leandro's gaze followed the direction of Wei Chen's finger, and there, trapped within the icy embrace of the stalagmite, was a woman. Strands of fiery red hair cascaded down her shoulders like molten lava frozen in time, standing in stark contrast to her pale, dewy skin. 

She had long and sharp ears; he noticed. An elvish trait. The crimson hair was misleading and—when she tilted her head in Leandro's direction—so were her eyes. 

Contrasting colors. Blood red irises, slightly incandescent, sat upon a backdrop of an abyssal, black sclera. 'Definitely not an Elf, but a half-breed.' He couldn't see the rest of her. 

Her arms, waist, and legs were encased in ice. Only her neck and face were exposed, along with a hint of her midriff, clearly denoting that whatever was hidden below it was just as beautiful as what was above it. Benjamin and Wei Chen were slack jawed as they stared at the enchanting figure of the woman. 

"I've… I've never seen someone like that. She doesn't look real…"

Wei Chen frowned, nodding. "Is she an enemy though?" 

"Maybe? She does look odd…" 

"Very off-putting." Wei Chen agreed. 

"I think she's the target we have to rescue. I mean, she's trapped." Soren commented. 

"That's true."

Christopher burst out in a more severe fit of coughs as he walked away from the group, isolating himself in a corner. He was dry heaving, his face a sweaty pallor. 

"What do you think, Eileen?" Leandro turned towards his green-haired companion. "Who's the real enemy here?"

Eileen clutched her bow—a sturdy, durable steel crossbow—to her chest and hummed. She stared at Leandro, a hint of uncertainty slowly filling her eyes. But before she could answer…

Benjamin, Soren, Wei Chen and the rest of the party jumped in surprise when a deep, guttural roar resounded throughout the cave. 

Then, in an explosion of ice and snow, several Yetis—twenty six, to be precise, far too many, far too numerous—tried to ambush the party. Eileen was caught off-guard; she sharply turned around. Leandro was still looking at the trapped woman who, in turn, looked back at him. 

Amidst all the chaos, the rampaging Yetis, he was still so calm. Eileen could scarcely believe it! The Yetis made a ruckus as they got closer and closer. She couldn't help but yell at him. "Leandro, we need your help!" 

"..."

Meanwhile, Christopher, in a burst of courage, took to running towards the Yetis. 

"What is he doing?!"

"Christopher! Are you out of your damn mind?!"

"Get back here! Shit—!"

Leandro didn't even bother to turn around. "It's time…" He said, quietly. 

As Christopher charged, his coughing fit worsened. He staggered, clutching his chest, and his skin began to ripple unnaturally. "No… not now…" He muttered through gritted teeth. "NOT NOW!" His mouth tore wide open, blood splattering on the icy floor. 

The Yetis suddenly stopped in their tracks. And—to the surprise of the party—concern was etched on their ape-like faces. "Abrais is injured!"

"Filthy humans injured Abrais!"

"Help Abrais!"

Christopher's skin, his human skin, began to dissipate, like smoke. Underneath the smokescreen, a metallic, robust creature stood. Its body was pure silver and was vaguely humanoid in its anatomy, with hulking physique and robust armor-plated legs. 

A visor, that extended all around Christopher—Abrais—served as the face. It did not have hands. its entire arms ended in sharp blades, as did its legs. "You knew…" Abrais snarled, visor pointed at Leandro. "You knew."

"Hm-hm. You looked like you were having fun, so I didn't want to pop your bubble, so to speak. I'm not that evil." Leandro chuckled good-naturedly. There was no shift in his tone, or even his expression. He still stared at the woman in the ice, as if everything behind him was of no concern. "I thought you'd notice. Hah, I apologize. I didn't realize you weren't fully 'mature' yet. Oh, and Yetis' meat does not heal wounds like that overnight; they merely slightly accelerate the process. I don't like toying around with kids. You can go… this… is my mercy to you."

The Yetis began to hoot in outrage. "Kill the puny human!"

"Kill the intruders!"

Griffin, Soren, Benjamin, and Wei Chen huddled around Leandro in a semi circle formation. Eileen stood next to him, bowstring fully tensed in her fingers. "Shit, Christopher was one of them!? How!?"

"Wasn't he on the 1st floor with us?"

"That bastard even slept next to me!"

"Hmph! Human or not, he's our enemy, isn't he? We'll just have to kill 'em all."

"You go kill them. I'll stay here."

Wei Chen cracked a smile despite the highly volatile situation. Then again, wasn't Leandro's presence and apparent nonchalance what made them more confident? 

But that was extremely counter-productive. Wei Chen didn't like to rely on others, at least not to the point where the tides of a battlefield literally, and solely, rested on Leandro's shoulders. He quietly promised himself that, if he made it out alive, he'd train himself in the 1st floor. Start small. Hack away a group of goblins and grow from there. 

Eileen chanced a look at Leandro. She initially thought he was mesmerized by the crimson-haired woman, but upon a closer inspection, he seemed more fascinated by the runes carved on the stalagmite itself. 

For some very inopportune reason, it slightly pleased Eileen. 

"Stop."

Abrais held a clawed limb in front of the Yetis, halting their assault. He had seen the man himself in action—trying to overwhelm him with numbers wasn't necessarily a good idea. 

Another coughing fit wrenched his throat. His mouth opened, and blood splattered on his hand. "What's this… what did you do to me?!"

"That's some impressive runework, Abrais. She's even got the Imprint of Silence. You didn't want her to speak the Words of Power? Smart." It was only then that Leandro finally turned around, and the atmosphere of the mountain underwent a drastic change. "But you're not supposed to be here. What are you trying to achieve, hm?" 

"You….!" Abrais growled. Aura coalesced around him, flickering like bursts of white flames. "Just what—"

"Refresh my memory, Abrais. What do you get if you mix a Yeti's powdered core and Aura. Are you really that naive?"

"..."

Leandro's gaze was gentle, as if he were looking at his own son.

He was looking down on Abrais.

That bastard was looking down on him. 

Leandro continued poring over the runes, head slightly tilted. "No wonder you've been so antsy to stall for time. 48 hours. You wanted to summon that disgusting thing, huh?" Leandro said, airily, turning to take one last look at the frozen woman. "A sacrifice…" 

Abrais was cautious; he had always been so. You didn't get to where he did by brute-forcing confrontations and making enemies left and right. "You have no right to speak, human. You're not supposed to be here either!" 

Something about that sword style… it was familiar to Abrais. 

It was in the way Leandro stood and held his sword. Abrais realized that, and a part of him regretted even climbing down there.

Grace and lethality were words synonymous to Leandro. His form as he held the longsword was gorgeous, beautiful even. His technique was peerless, not something that a fledgling human from a freshly-integrated planet could possibly achieve. 

That's why he was wary. Abrais couldn't understand him, couldn't read him, couldn't gauge how strong he really was. 

"What are you talking about?" Leandro's lips lifted into a smile. "We're merely going through the trials the Monolith has given us. It's our right to be here, not yours."

Abrais gritted his teeth, but not for long. He held a hand over his mouth, hacking out more blood. Each cough felt like a punch to the gut. "A Monolith has no jurisdiction over a native race..." He rasped out. 

Leandro continued, unfalteringly. "Stop lying, Abrais. You're no native. You invaded, and now you ignore me. I offered you mercy—a rare gift from me. You've been an amusing companion; so I pretended to care. But what's this pretentiousness? It's sickening. Climbing the Monolith must've been hell. Too bad it ends here."

"Ha… haha…"

Eileen didn't have the slightest idea what was going on. She glanced back and forth between Leandro and Abrais, and it didn't take a genius brain or a sensitive nose to literally sniff out the tang of gunpowder between them. 

A fight was about to break out. 

Abrais didn't have the most expressive face, unfortunately. But the Aura that burst forth was quite telling itself. It was like an explosion of kinetic force, cracking the floor underneath him. 

It enveloped him like a shroud, but more dense. 

"I don't know on what grounds you dare talk to me in that way, but you'll pay for it."

"You can barely stand." Leandro had a downcast look as walked forward, unsheathing his sword. "You can barely control yourself. You think a wounded animal still stands a chance? I wonder where you got all of this confidence, but…" He pointed the tip of the longsword at the visor of Abrais.

Its keen blade glimmered under the natural light of the cave. 

"... this is unbalanced. I don't like this. Not at all. Allow me to cut off some weed first."

Abrais couldn't avoid it in time—he concentrated all of his Aura into his arms and held them in front of him, in a criss-crossed way. He was nearly knocked off balance by the initial wind blast, then, came the actual attack. 

Moonblade Style — 4th form — Waxing Gibbous.

Leandro's stance shifted, his sword arm drawing back as if gathering energy from the moon itself. With a swift motion, he brought the blade forward in a wide arc, releasing a surge of lunar energy that spilled forth like a crashing avalanche.

The energy wave expanded rapidly, covering the entire width of the cave, and slicing through the air with a deafening hiss. It was so fast that Leandro might as well have shot a bullet. 

Benjamin, Wei Chen and the others shielded their eyes against the glare of lunar energy; the sheer kinetic force causing their hair to whip violently around their heads.

Abrais, caught in the path of the attack, raised his armored limbs in a desperate attempt to shield himself. The sheer force of the Waxing Gibbous slammed into him, sending him staggering backward, his metallic form groaning and hissing under the burning strain.

But he had never been the real intended target, merely a collateral. The bulk of the energy crashed into the Yetis like a geyser of white flames. The white, cataclysmic wave cleaved through their ranks like a scythe through wheat. They stood paralyzed, eyes turning blind until they were consumed. 

Their howls were brief and brutal before their upper bodies ebbed away in tiny motes of dust. Abrais watched on in morbid silence, his armor was covered in blood splatters and ice fragments. 

Once the dust settled down.

Only five Yetis remained standing, though no doubt frozen by fear. 

"Ah, now it's a bit more fair, don't you think?" Leandro stared at his Moonlit Edge, satisfied by its performance. He turned towards his party, who stared back at him with varying looks of awe. "Don't just stand there, you have your opponents."

He casually walked forward, a soft smile on his face.

"I'll take care of that fake bitch."