After staying there for a few more days, Night Frost prepared to pack up and leave. There was little reason to remain any longer.

The Elderly Elf wanted Night Frost to take Lurie with her and leave first. Night Frost refused. She had no reason to help them to that extent, and Lurie herself refused as well.

In Lurie’s own words, she wanted to help the elves overcome their crisis, not have Night Frost solve everything for them.

“I’m leaving. (Elven language)”

Night Frost didn’t bring much with her. She had a Spatial Box at her waist, and almost everything was stored inside it.

The Eye Orb projected a map in blue light. Since the route had been calculated by combining two different maps, it looked somewhat abstract.

After the Eye Orb optimized it, however, the route became a straight line.

Never mind what obstacles lay ahead. If she followed a straight line, she’d surely arrive.

“Have a safe journey~ (Elven language)”

Lurie saw her off with a smile.

As Night Frost crossed the vast, boundless grassland, the black fortress behind her grew smaller and smaller. In the end, it vanished from sight.

During the day, sunlight spilled across the land like golden tassels, bathing the entire grassland in dazzling radiance.

The blue sky and white clouds looked like the purest painting overhead. The clouds drifted lightly, changing shape from time to time as they intertwined with the blue sky and formed one breathtaking scene after another.

Yet such scenery lasted only for a fleeting moment during the day.

When the second and third suns rose, the merciless heat scorched the ground. Every inch of earth seemed to have been placed inside a furnace, sending waves of heat into the air.

The plants struggled bitterly beneath the scorching temperature. Their leaves curled and withered, losing their former emerald color and vitality.

The soil beneath Night Frost’s feet grew boiling hot. Waves of heat passed through the soles of her shoes.

Night Frost had no intention of traveling at this hour.

Even she could feel the sun’s vicious heat—and the disaster it was nurturing. Her strength was formidable, but accidents could still happen.

When night fell and the suns sank below the horizon, a faint chill dispersed the day’s heat.

The star-filled sky glittered like a scattering of pearls. Pale moonlight drifted down like a veil, gently covering the grassland and adding a hazy, tranquil beauty to the scene.

Weak Monsters wandered outside, but none dared approach Night Frost.

With her overwhelming strength, Night Frost only needed to glance at them to drive the low-level creatures away.

The mountains in the distance appeared and disappeared beneath the moonlight.

After traveling for several days and nights, Night Frost finally reached the mountain range marked on the map.

The towering mountains rose like the spine of the earth. They were majestic and magnificent, thrusting up from the ground and piercing the clouds.

Peak after peak stretched endlessly into the distance, forming a natural barrier that divided heaven and earth.

Night Frost looked at the Eye Orb.

The Eye Orb looked back at Night Frost.

Li Dogegg simply stood there in a daze before them.

“There’s no road here. How are we supposed to cross?”

Walking normally was clearly impossible. Night Frost had no choice but to lift her seal and lead the Eye Orb and Li Dogegg upward along the mountain ridge.

Night Frost rode the wind into the air, beating the dragon wings formed from CrimsonGoldFlame.

The higher she flew, the more intensely she felt the chill from the mountaintop.

With the moonlight as her aid, Night Frost could see that she had already passed the mountainside and was heading toward the snow-covered summit.

Night Frost found a patch of level ground and landed.

Perhaps she had rushed upward too quickly. Her body seemed unable to adapt, so she decided to rest there for a while.

The Eye Orb lit a fire in case the weather atop the mountain caused it to enter a dormant state.

Li Dogegg, meanwhile, seemed completely unaffected by the cold. It rolled around in the snow, showing none of the dignity once possessed by a Calamity Dragon.

Night Frost covered her head and took a deep breath.

Once the dizziness faded, she walked two circles around the area. As her feet moved, a soft resistance passed through the soles of her shoes.

It was the unique texture of snow—firm, yet springy.

Accompanied by a crisp crunching sound, it somehow felt oddly soothing.

That’s right.

Night Frost had never seen snow before.

The Twelfth District was considered a southern region. Summers were scorching, but winters weren’t especially cold, and it almost never snowed.

On the rare occasions when it did, Night Frost had always missed it.

After all, work and studying had occupied most of her life. Even if snow fell in the middle of the night and people outside cheered as loudly as they could, she wouldn’t have woken up.

Besides, no one had been there to wake her.

Under the firelight, the snowflakes that rose into the air shimmered with crystalline radiance.

The flakes landed in her palm and melted almost at once.

Night Frost shifted her gaze to the snow beneath her feet.

Cold and soft.

So this was what snow felt like.

Night Frost hadn’t wrapped her hands in a Magic Layer. Perhaps the cold had started to sting, because she quickly pulled her hand back.

She added a little more fuel to the nearby fire, then sat beside the Eye Orb and warmed herself.

Howls from Monsters came from below the mountain.

Night Frost glanced down. The restless cries stopped instantly.

What was that saying again?

“Fear makes the fire burn.”

After resting enough, Night Frost confirmed the location where they would continue onward.

She spread the CrimsonGoldFlame wings behind her and dove down with the Eye Orb and Li Dogegg.

In one breath, they crossed two mountains and finally reached the forest at the foot of the range.

On the distant horizon, a faint glow of dawn had already appeared. It dyed the sky a pale orange-red as the sun poked its head out from the other side of the mountains.

They had to hurry.

In Night Frost’s impression, forests were extremely dangerous places.

Sure enough, just as she had guessed, the second sun rose.

The surrounding snow condensed into enormous snowmen. The earth bulged slightly, and familiar vines pushed their way out from beneath it.

The vines sensed the presence of living beings and became abnormally active.

Compared with the vines in the Elven Forest, however, these were still somewhat weaker. The climate was probably too cold.

Night Frost moved swiftly through the forest.

It was only the second sun, and these vines were still no threat to Night Frost in Cantata Three. The snowmen had limited intelligence, and she could deal with most of them without trouble.

A sweep of flame melted the snowmen.

Once the melted snow flowed into the ground, bulges appeared beneath the soil and pushed it apart. A new vine emerged, greedily sucking up the remaining snowmelt.

It truly didn’t waste a single drop.

Night Frost felt that the vines here lived rather pitifully.

Look at the Elven Forest next door. Once the third sun rose, seawater would surge in and bring abundant food. The vines could grow strong and sturdy, becoming powerful enough to eat people without paying the price.

But here, they could only survive by drinking snowmelt burned by Night Frost.

Tsk, tsk. They were both disasters, yet this place somehow made its vines seem so pitiful.

Night Frost then burned the vine along with everything else.

At the Eye Orb’s request, she dug out the tumor-like growth. After killing it, she wrapped it in a Formation and tossed it into the Spatial Box.

That way, once the Eye Orb returned to the earthly realm, it could begin researching the specimen immediately.

The third sun rose before she knew it.

Because the mountain range blocked her view, Night Frost didn’t know what was happening outside. She only knew that dark clouds had suddenly filled the sky, and heavy snow seemed imminent.

Strange noises came from the mountains.

They sounded like stones colliding with rock walls. Night Frost had no idea what was happening on the other side.

She only knew that she was safe here—for the moment.

She believed that crossing the mountain overnight had been the correct decision.

The most correct decision she had made since arriving in this world. No contest.

Perhaps because of the collisions, the snow accumulated on the mountaintop began sliding downward.

The Eye Orb and Night Frost had both seen avalanches before. They could understand what had happened on the other side of the mountain.

The noise soon passed.

Night Frost landed on the mountain behind her, but she found nothing unusual. Most likely, the exceptionally tall mountain she had crossed the previous night had blocked the disaster from reaching her.

As for investigating what had happened…

Sorry, but Night Frost didn’t have that much free time.

Besides, it clearly wasn’t anything good. She didn’t want to court death, and she certainly wasn’t going to do it.

Compared with the Elven Forest, this forest wasn’t particularly large.

After traveling for only a day and a night, Night Frost could already see its end.

She had flown along the stream flowing down from the mountaintop.

After passing through the forest, the stream followed the sharply descending terrain and transformed into a river stretching for hundreds, even thousands of miles.

Rolling hills lay below and to the left.

A dry desert spread to the right.

According to the route, they would see the ancient forest where the Calamity Dragon had once lived after traveling for several more days.

The road became much easier from there.

Li Dogegg knew the way.

Even after all this time, Li Dogegg remembered the area with perfect clarity.

How much could more than a decade really change?

Li Dogegg led Night Frost forward through the air.

And then…

Then Li Dogegg got lost.

Li Dogegg no longer knew where the Abyssal Rift it had entered back then was located.

Even if more than a decade had passed, the changes here were far too great.

Had the river really been this wide before?

Had there really been so many pits and hollows?

And where had all those delicious fruits gone?

What had happened to this stretch of scorched earth?

This place was no longer the ancient forest Li Dogegg remembered.

Night Frost landed on the ground and noticed a great deal of fresh soil along the riverbank.

There were also many messy footprints nearby.

Without a doubt, people had been here—and there had been quite a few of them.

The scorched earth nearby had not formed naturally. It was probably a safe zone created by those people.

When Night Frost landed on the scorched ground, she found that the tumors beneath it seemed to have been dug out completely.

Anyone capable of removing all those growths was certainly not weak.

Night Frost suppressed her Mana and did her best to avoid the nearby vines and tumor-like growths.

She moved inward along the edge of the scorched earth.

There, she saw shelters built from soil and stone. They, too, had clearly not formed naturally.

“Abyssal Aura…”

Night Frost could sense the dense Abyssal Aura.

Its scent was somewhat similar to that of the Sorceress leader she had encountered last time. They were probably of the same lineage.

“They’re Sorceresses.”

In the distance, several women gathered around a plume of cooking smoke were chatting and laughing.

The leader narrowed her eyes and stared toward the edge of the scorched earth—the direction where Night Frost stood.

“Who exactly are you?”

Night Frost couldn’t understand a word she said.

She looked down at the scroll in her palm.

Now it was time for the scroll to make its appearance.

These Sorceresses were very likely acquainted with the ones who had invaded the fortress before.

Those Sorceresses had been after the Elven Codex, and they clearly weren’t on good terms with the elves.

Naturally, Night Frost couldn’t reveal herself in an elven appearance.

She couldn’t understand the language of the Sorceresses. She only knew simple Elven language and somewhat proficient Dragon language.

So she pinched the scroll.

Her appearance transformed into the same form she had taken after lifting the seal with Crimson power.

Night Frost had once possessed that appearance, so the scroll directly twisted her Magic Armor into a robe with wide sleeves.

The dragon horns atop her head barely changed.

They remained just as small as before.