Chapter 134: Frozen Elysium

A very strange sensation. His head felt as heavy as lead, and Julian’s vision was slightly hazy and dark.

His consciousness struggled to rise.

The moment his eyes opened, Julian found himself facing a sight he could hardly comprehend. There were so many unique, purplish trees, each one so enormous that Julian couldn’t see what their leaves and crowns looked like.

His head throbbed a little. He found Felicya leaning against a tree with her usual lazy gaze. But this time, Julian saw that the girl was injured in several places.

Then, Julian’s gaze turned to a strange humanoid figure with a very dark body and wings that kept flapping without pause.

"....."

Julian had trouble making sense of his surroundings, so his first thought about what to do was to activate his skill.

Fearless activated, and Julian could immediately feel the fear buried deep inside him vanish completely. Now he began to feel better as his consciousness woke up.

He rose, trying to stand. Julian couldn’t understand what the creature was saying. They seemed to be speaking a language he didn’t recognize.

After a moment, Julian let out a small sigh, drawing the creature’s attention.

’For some reason, my Mana feels far greater than usual, and my body feels full of vitality. And my head... It keeps hurting so badly.’

Pieces of information that were hard to grasp, yet Julian could act on them, as though it were an innate instinct.

He had no time to digest any of it as he looked at the creature in front of him, which was looking back at him as well.

"...Where am I?"

The words slipped out. Then, Julian’s consciousness returned fully, and the world grew brighter in his gaze.

He looked at the injured Felicya, while the arrogant creature in front of him stared at him in surprise for a moment, then smiled in a way that was hard to read.

Its lips parted as it said something, seemingly trying to speak to Julian. But Julian couldn’t understand what the creature said.

"I’m sorry, but it seems I can’t speak the Alien language."

Julian glanced at Felicya again.

"...Are they enemies?"

"Yes."

’I see, so they’re enemies. So that’s how it is.’

Julian nodded. His body, to be honest, felt rather unfamiliar at this point, a feeling that probably came from having felt as though he hadn’t moved his body for an immeasurable length of time.

Ignoring the Dragons who kept talking nonstop in front of him, Julian took out his sword from the storage ring.

He still couldn’t grasp the situation, but Felicya had said they were enemies. It could have been a lie, but Julian felt that so far, Felicya had no reason to lie to him.

***

"Bastard! Is he ignoring me, or is he just stupid!?"

Tulkan glared sharply at the man in front of him, annoyed. A man who had drawn his sword, which only made Tulkan more irritated.

For a while, he had been gauging the man’s strength, and he was a little surprised.

’Damn it, I didn’t notice earlier, but this guy is strong.’

However, that didn’t mean Tulkan would back down and admit defeat. He came from a Race far superior to humans, who were always the easiest to fight.

Even if they were fairly strong, the Dragon Race would always stand in a far stronger position.

So there was nothing to worry about. In fact, Tulkan believed his own subordinates were enough to settle this matter.

"You lot, capture that man for me."

"Yes, Lord."

Tulkan’s three subordinate Dragons stepped forward. Each of them was in a Humanoid form somewhat larger and taller than ordinary humans.

Tulkan smirked.

He felt somewhat uneasy about how the man showed no fear at all. It felt like facing something empty and terribly ancient, but there was no way a human could give off something like that, right?

Weren’t humans one of the lowest Races, with Rank-A being the strongest they could reach?

With all of that, Tulkan couldn’t believe what he was sensing. He grew a little cautious, but only that much, because his towering pride refused to give any more.

"Don’t dawdle, just kill hi—"

His sentence cut off as he frowned. The air around them had suddenly turned bitterly cold, as though snow were about to fall.

’No... This... Snow? How? This isn’t a place where snow normally falls.’

Because Tulkan was in a region that should have been dominated by summer, he couldn’t believe his eyes as he watched snow slowly begin to fall.

"What’s happening? Why is it snowing here?"

"Eh... The ground looks strange?"

"Oh, it’s slowly freezing over."

Tulkan blinked several times, looked at his subordinates, who had gone silent in shock, and then looked at the man.

The man stood there with an empty gaze and an empty expression, with no ambition of any kind except emptiness.

Yet that was enough for Tulkan to sense that something was wrong with their situation.

"Watch out! You fools, get away from there!"

"E-eh!?"

His voice reached the three humanoid Dragons who were trying to approach the man, but after hearing Tulkan’s voice, they froze in shock.

Since Tulkan had said so, something dangerous was probably about to happen. That was why the three immediately flapped their wings and shot backward.

Thrust up—! Shatter—!

Just as Tulkan’s instinct had warned, a giant spike of ice thrust up from the ground where they had been standing. There were so many that anyone caught in the attack would be unable to move.

"D-damn it!?"

One of Tulkan’s three subordinates was trapped in there. His wings were pierced by the ice spikes, sending dark blood spraying out.

A scream of pain rang through the silence of the air. Then, in the next instant, the man raised his hand and clenched his fist tightly.

Explosion—!

The ice spikes burst into tiny fragments, freezing the surrounding area and even making the air temperature around them extremely cold.

Tulkan stared at it with a flash of displeasure on his face.

"How dare he kill my people...!"

His teeth ground hard, full of rage.

"Lord, we will kill him." ℓ.

His two remaining subordinates transformed and took on their dragon forms. Their bodies swelled and became as large as a noble’s mansion.

Their thick scales tightened further, and their heads lifted, roaring with deafening cries as they took position in the sky above.

Their gazes swept over Julian’s position for a moment, and then, with their mouths open, a dark light appeared in the throats of the creatures.

Both fired the same destructive power from their throats. A power capable of making the land around them erupt and create a massive crater.

Yet Julian did not dodge at all.

The Dragons knew that Julian couldn’t dodge, not as long as he didn’t want to let Felicya and Monk get hurt.

That was why Julian didn’t move aside even slightly. Or at least, that was what the two Dragons thought.