Chapter 737
Alistair’s Star Ice!
Count Dawn casually gestured, and a mirror shimmered with rainbow radiance.
This radiance flowed from the mirror, as if it were reflecting some luminous object. Something appeared within the mirror… but in front of it was nothingness.
As it erupted with a burst of light, a person truly appeared before it.
He was a middle-aged man, dressed impeccably, with a solemn expression. He wore a butler’s uniform, and a crow with blood-red pupils perched on his shoulder. After being teleported, he calmly adjusted his tie and remained silent.
Count Dawn’s pupils contracted slightly.
—He felt a sense of danger.
This middle-aged man before him looked as ordinary as a normal person, with no sign of Path Power radiance about him. Yet, his intuition sent him constant warnings.
This person seemed to be hidden in a shadow… and any method of investigation would be naught but emptiness to him.
…Could he be an Adapter?
Count Dawn entertained the thought but quickly dismissed it.
An Adapter who could make him feel such danger could only be a Fifth Tier assassin. But an assassin of this caliber, even if not part of the Eagle Eye organization, would surely have close ties to them—
But Heinrich was an evil Vampire. While he loved his lover, he wouldn’t go so far as to recruit an assassin… Wasn’t he afraid this person was a Master Assassin from the Eagle Eye organization in disguise?
Yet, only Fifth Tier Extraordinary individuals who had adapted to a Path were skilled at concealing their extraordinary traces…
Therefore, he was either an Eagle Eye assassin not under Count Leipzig, or he possessed some extraordinary item that could conceal the fluctuations of Path Power. And those who needed to conceal their traces were none other than Transcendents or those of the Path of Love.
—The arrival was not friendly.
The moment Count Dawn saw the visitor, he regretted inviting him in so readily.
He harbored a faint killing intent towards the Mirror Demon he had contracted with—that fellow had likely deliberately failed to mention the opponent’s strength and identity.
Heh, do you want to escape from me so badly?
He made up his mind to provoke the contract later and torment this unruly Mirror Demon.
At the same time, he awakened the Winter Demon slumbering within his body.
His pupils turned purple for a moment, but a friendly smile appeared on his face: “Oh my, Count, you are too kind…
“Didn’t you say you wouldn’t return to Leipzig for a few more days? Now, I’ll have to host a banquet to welcome you back…”
His underlying meaning was a warning: “Count Leipzig will be back soon.”
If this person was not associated with Count Leipzig, he would have to be cautious. If he was, then this was a gesture of goodwill—in any case, he would not mention Viscount Konalei, whom he had sealed within the mirror.
Saying this, Count Dawn finally looked down at the ice sculpture of the girl that the butler had shielded behind him.
It was an incredibly magnificent, colorful, rainbow-hued ice sculpture.
A young girl, appearing to be in her early twenties, was kneeling with her hands clasped in prayer.
Her features were delicate and beautiful, exuding a strange, divine serenity. At the same time, her tightly closed eyes conveyed a subtle despair, as if weeping silently.
Count Dawn widened his eyes slightly, a trace of admiration in them: “This is simply art… No, this is great art!”
He subconsciously extended his right hand, gently touching the cold surface of the ice sculpture.
From his perspective, he could see it clearly—a soul was frozen within.
From the faint Path Radiance, it could be seen that the girl appeared to be a Fourth Tier Transcendent.
Her soul was still alive, but it seemed to have fallen into a peculiar state, filled with the power of the Twilight Path, and entered complete stillness.
Count Dawn had heard of similar situations—it was said that Elves would be affected by the power of Twilight, causing them to crystallize into colorful stone sculptures while remaining alive.
He began to believe that this was truly Count Leipzig’s gift.
Of course… besides a gift, it was more like a warning.
—It was as if he was being warned that he had mastered the technology to seal Transcendents!
As is well known, from the Fourth Tier onwards, Demon Scholars would advance to become Demon Avatars. Once a Demon Avatar was killed, the demon within would leak out.
From this perspective, high-level Demon Scholars were difficult to kill… If they were killed, one would immediately have to face a more powerful, harder-to-kill, and fully prepared Phantom Demon.
And this frozen girl was a Fourth Tier Transcendent. By maintaining this sealed state, the demon within her would not leak out.
…Hmph.
Count Dawn’s lips curled upwards as he withdrew his hand.
So that’s what it meant.
That old Vampire was warning me… he had found a way to deal with the Winter Demon within me, and could seal me?
Was this his intention, or Hong Xiang’s? Hmm, considering the Twilight radiance, it was not impossible for the Spirit Tower to be involved…
Count Dawn’s mind raced, searching through his list of enemies—but regrettably, he had lived for too long. Over a hundred years had allowed him to make too many enemies, so he couldn’t even figure out whose mess this was.
But he continued to admire the ice sculpture, maintaining his joyful and amazed expression, exclaiming incessantly, “It’s truly beautiful! I think we should hold an art exhibition. Invite all our old friends and let them see this magnificent and fantastical art!”
—The implication was, you had better consider the price of enraging the “Academy.”
Facing an ability that could seal Demon Avatars, even though the various academies usually competed with each other, they would surely unite now.
There was a saying among the Star Antimony people: “No one in the world can stand against a united Star Antimony”—
This saying also had a version circulated among Demon Scholars. The entire Star Antimony dared not confront a truly united Academy.
But the middle-aged man simply stared at him silently, unmoving.
Count Dawn was taken aback, and his heart skipped a beat.
Without hesitation, he drew upon the power of the Winter Demon within him and raised his hand—
Several transparent, invisible energy blades flew past him, instantly slicing the middle-aged man in the butler’s uniform to pieces!
Accompanied by screams and the hoarse cawing of the crow, black feathers scattered wildly, and the man’s limbs shattered on the ground!
—The Winter Demon.
It was the Twilight Demon that symbolized silence, decay, and withering, the symbol of the end of all things!
Even the Moon Children, who were difficult to kill and possessed a considerable degree of immortality, would eventually freeze and shatter into fragments under the Winter Demon’s decaying breath!
“…Wait?”
Just then, Count Dawn felt something was wrong again.
If this person had truly been torn to pieces by his Winter Demon… his limbs should have withered and decayed, not been so full of vital blood, with blood flowing all over the ground—
Come to think of it, had Viscount Konalei and the Mirror Demon been silent since the beginning?
This was… an illusion!
To break through an illusion, one must break through the most prominent point!
And the most prominent point was—
Count Dawn frowned deeply and instantly reached out, pressing towards the ice sculpture.
Formless power seeped through—the touched ice sculpture, along with the girl inside, shattered into pieces!
“Ugh—”
With a scream, the world before his eyes became colorful in a trance, but then it shattered—
Count Dawn felt his brain instantly clear.
He opened his eyes again and saw that the girl in the ice sculpture had lost her life, breaking into several dry corpse pieces within the ice.
The fantastical and radiant girl ice sculpture remained intact, but it no longer emitted the captivating rainbow glow. It had become an ordinary ice sculpture.
—Obviously, the one who used the illusion was the girl hidden inside the ice sculpture!
At this moment, the middle-aged butler’s face showed shock: “How could this be…”
“Hmph, I knew it…”
Count Dawn haughtily raised his head and snorted, “Using such tricks in front of me is centuries too early!
“—Do you know what kind of suffering a Demon Scholar must endure, and with what vigilance they must guard, to overcome the demon that harbors malice day and night? A moment’s hesitation will lead to eternal damnation and the annihilation of their soul! In front of me, any slightest abnormality is so clearly visible!”
At this moment, his contracted Mirror Demon appeared in the large mirror.
Her face was full of fawning and flattery: “My Master, why do you say that…”
“Oh? Where did I go wrong?”
Count Dawn’s lips curled upwards, he pretentiously adjusted his collar, and said slowly but majestically, “You let these two people come… you must know the price, right?”
“No, no… Master, please! Don’t—”
As the Mirror Demon’s fearful pleas echoed, Count Dawn let out a cruel and triumphant laugh.
—And at this moment.
In the real world.
Count Dawn, maintaining his expression of astonishment and his gesture of touching the ice sculpture, had turned into an ice sculpture himself.
As the “shell” of the girl’s ice sculpture dissolved and evaporated, Alistair opened her eyes and slowly stood up. The crow that had been perched on the Honey Badger’s shoulder flew up and landed on Alistair’s shoulder.
The moment the Honey Badger’s shielding was removed, the powerful aura emanating from the crow caused Viscount Konalei, still sealed and hanging upside down in the mirror, to tremble violently—
The power of the Path of Love, unparalleled and like an irresistible sea, continuously washed over his consciousness.
“Please…”
He looked at Count Dawn, who had turned into an ice sculpture, and then at the terrifying crow, and was about to beg for help.
But at that moment, he suddenly lost consciousness—and immediately fainted.
“It truly is… great [Art].”
Alistair glanced at Viscount Konalei, who had fainted with his neck tilted in the mirror, and said slowly.
—This was a Spell Card she had sealed not long ago, a Spell Card crafted using “Sea Bride” as material!
[Spell Card: Star Ice (Art)]
[Requirement: Water 4]
[Action, Summon, Non-contact]
[Effect: Summons colorful Star Ice, shaping its posture briefly. Anyone who looks directly at Star Ice and attempts to destroy or understand it will fall into increasingly deep illusions; those who fall into illusion due to this effect will be frozen; those who are completely frozen by this effect cannot actively escape the illusion, even if the Star Ice is no longer present]
The Star Ice summoned by Alistair had silently frozen a Fifth Tier Extraordinary!
(End of this chapter)
