Frostbound [LitRPG Apocalypse]-Chapter 198 - Crescendo

Gabriel

"Is he getting better?" His mother asked.

His cousin, Ashley, could only shake her head, "I honestly don't know. This is so far beyond regular medicine that I would be guessing. What I can say is it does seem to be doing something."

Gabriel once again cursed his inadequacies. If he had a stronger Law, then maybe his brother would wake up faster. If he knew better Healing enchantments. If he had stronger Ice mana.

Everything that he could have that would make this situation better popped into his mind and he cursed himself for not having it. He didn't even have a single healing skill.

Sure, he would still be limited by how much healing the body could take but maybe his would be more effective. If he had one that mixed healing and ice perhaps it would work that much better.

There was nothing he could do to change it. Even the new assortment of Class Skills to choose from didn't have anything that would help, and he had looked. His level, much like everyone else's, had shot up after the battle and he was able to pick up a new Class Skill.

None of those offered would help and he had shunted the notification to the side angrily. He didn't have time to deal with that.

He also didn't wish to make an important decision about his skills while running on so little sleep and filled with tension either.

The enchantment he had formed into the Ice couldn't power itself and required him to pour mana into it continuously to continue working. The Rune naturally absorbed any mana that came into contact with its lines, but that small amount was far from enough to power it.

In addition, he continued to supply his Ice mana and Law to keep it as cold as he could.

No one was sure how much of an effect it was having, but even if it was minuscule, he would pour everything he had for days if it meant the difference between life and death.

Christopher's condition had changed little since when they first found him. Wounds and injuries still covered his body, his arm was still missing, and many of his bones were still broken.

That wasn't where Ashley had directed most of her healing.

With so many wounds, she had done her best to become essentially Life Support. Whenever Chris's body recovered even a little bit and could take more Healing, she would come in and do so.

Even throughout the night, she didn't stop.

No one in the tent had gotten much sleep, which meant when shouting inside the camp started to come through the tent, it was most unwelcome.

The shouting and raised voices only got more intense and Gabe was starting to wonder where the rest of his family had gotten off to.

Rachel had taken charge of their remnant forces, but she wasn't out there to quell the shouting. Neither was Hal, as he would have gotten things to settle before letting it get this far.

Even some of his more quiet-spoken family members would have at least done something!

"Quiet down!" Hal's voice carried over everyone else's but it didn't seem to do anything.

So Hal is out there but it isn't enough to settle the commotion? Just what's going on out there?

He was loathe to do it, but he needed to make sure nothing was wrong. They couldn't very well travel fast with the state of things. Dumping a bit more mana than necessary into the Ice and the Rune, he turned to find out what was going on.

It must have been his hopeful imagination because after he did so, he swore he felt a shift inside the ice. When he turned to look, nothing was different though.

Odd.

Chris

The Demon. The battle. The Portal. The Explosion.

The moment my hammer filled with energy slamming down onto the mass of mana.

The Pain.

It kept replaying. Over and over. My last thoughts before what I assumed would be my death. Foolish thoughts of grim resolve. To face my death head on. Oh how fast that had crumbled. I had thought I would be fine when my death came and my time was up, but I was wrong.

I thought after the tutorial, and watching my family cut down one member at a time, I would be more accustomed when it happened to me. But I wasn't. I still wanted to live. I wanted to fight for as long as possible. It felt like my time wasn't up yet and it was wrong to go so soon.

Throughout the swing, up until my hammer impacted the portal and my world turned white, I was fine with the tradeoff. My family would live, and the Demon's plans would be crushed.

All until it was too late to do anything otherwise. It wasn't enough to feel regret, just a deep wish. A dear wish to be able to get back up and march on. I fought to do just that. Only nothing happened. I thrashed and bucked, strained and urged my body to get up, but it was for naught.

I was just too broken this time. Even my Anchor wasn't enough to power me through.

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What I was left with instead was the pain. That and complete darkness. I wasn't even sure where I was. I didn't feel dead. I wasn't whisked off to Valhalla like the stories.

I had died in battle with my weapon in hand, by all the folklore I knew that qualified me, yet I saw no Valkyrie coming to get me. Only black. And the feeling of pain.

I had never truly believed in Valhalla before the System. I didn't believe in anything, really. I joked about it, using it in my arguments against my father whenever we had our religious talks, but I never believed it deep down.

That changed after the System came.

Not so much as I would go off preaching about it, just a silent hope. A hope that had unknowingly grown and blossomed.

It started with my Class. Champion of Niflheim had implications. It was drawn straight out of mythology. It was the first time I had looked at it and actually thought it might be real.

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My Bloodline added another brick to the pile. Frost Giants and Jotuns. One more indication of it possibly being real. My next Class came next. Hammer of the Jotnar. Even the unchosen Classes held hints, like Chilling Death of Helheim

At every step, there was a reference, a clue, a small nugget of evidence. If that was real, why not more? It was a question I had asked myself many times. One I had even spoken with my father about before he passed.

Before the tutorial got hectic, and back when we were all in the same camp, the stars had always called to me and gazing up into the twinkling darkness was where I turned when feelings became... elevated. Or when the bottle I stuffed them in threatened to blow.

I had done it a lot in the tutorial. I wasn't sure what I saw up there that calmed me, but after the craziness imposed on me and my family by the System, it was a nice thing to fall back on.

It was also where my best thinking got done, and my dad knew that.

He would often find me on the wall staring up at the night sky and drop down next to me. Sometimes without saying a word, other times he would spark discussions.

It didn't matter what the discussions were about, just the act of talking helped. Somehow, we always came back to the philosophical questions the most. If God was real, if aliens were real, what we believed about the Universe.

Let me tell you, that discussion had a major change after the System.

It was in one of those times that I had voiced my nascent idea that Valhalla was real. I hadn't spoken about it to anyone else. Partially because I felt Austin would laugh at me, and partially because I wasn't sure I wanted to talk about it. Talking about it made it real.

What he said surprised me.

"I don't see why not. It isn't like if one is right, the other is wrong. Both can be true or neither could be true, but it isn't really about that. It's about if you believe it to be true."

The shock on my face was evident because he laughed when he looked at me. He hadn't tried to convert me with our discussions, but this was the first time I had taken a different stance than before. Usually, it was him trying to convince me at least something was real.

The last part of me that believed, was less based on any evidence, but on hope.

I hoped it was real.

My father had died fighting with weapon in hand. If, on even the smallest chance, that I got to see him again, that I got to fight with him again, I wanted it to be real. More than anything else, I hoped it to be real.

That, more than anything, was what crushed me the most.

Being left in nothingness, with no grand halls of warriors and my father, hurt more than any physical pain. Even when it felt like my body was actively trying to rip itself apart.

I wasn't sure how long I was left in this... void, but things started to change at one point. I felt cold, colder than before. I imagined my breath coming out in big clouds, even if I knew it wasn't real.

For some reason, the cold felt familiar, but I wasn't sure why.

After the cold, I started to feel... something. Well, I had felt overwhelming pain the entire time, but this was a different feeling. A nipping at my toes and fingertips. A brush against my arm as the breeze sucked away my body heat.

A slight chill pumping throughout my body.

I tried to shift, to see what was happening but I couldn't. It was similar to when I tried to get up, no matter what I did, nothing happened. I continued nonetheless. It wasn't like there was anything better to do. Even if it caused the pain to flare, I continued to try.

Something inside me wasn't done fighting. A deep feeling, a feeling of an unbreakable will to keep going, one that wouldn't be dismayed by anything.

It felt similar to my Anchor but it was different. I had used my Anchor many times since forming it and knew what it felt like. The feeling it had when coursing through me. This was different. Similar, but different.

With that fighting spirit, I did all I could to claw my way back to the living.

Elizabeth

"What's happening!" She shouted in alarm.

The first time she saw it, she thought it was her imagination. She had stared at her son's body for hours, if not a day by this point. Delirious and sleep-deprived, she swore she saw movement.

Ashley jumped up to look but she wasn't sure what was going on. She was checking him over when it happened again. A shift. A subtle movement of a finger.

When Ashley jumped in fright, Elizabeth knew it wasn't her imagination and a splitting grin formed.

She watched with bated breath as her son's shifting continued. Starting with a finger, then a clench of the hand. There wasn't much room to move inside the ice, but what little was available was being used.

After having what felt like her heart was ripped out, she nearly shouted for joy.

Her boy was waking up. All the other problems, the shouting and yelling fell away.

Her boy was waking up.

Rachel

A fire was building inside her but it wasn't one of magic. The flames weren't created from mana and they weren't fueled by her skills.

It was one of rage.

She wasn't the only one to notice the rising mana levels. While she was the first, she wasn't the only. Even she knew that keeping it a secret was impossible. There were too many people around and the feeling was too obvious.

The only reason no one had found it sooner was because they were still recovering or distracted with something else.

Now, a day later, people picked up on the mana thickening and there was nothing Rachel could have done to stop it. She couldn't keep the mana from gushing out from the vein just like she couldn't stop a river from flowing.

Any effort to do so was pointless.

She had just wished she had more time to come up with a plan. Maybe even enough for Chris to wake up, but that was just fantasy.

People came looking. They saw the pile of wealth. Their eyes lit up with greed and it didn't take long for the news to spread.

Her feeling of rage continued to be stoked as people argued. Asinine claims were thrown out that made her want to start slinging fire at people.

How they 'deserved' something. How it was 'rightfully theirs'.

Sure, she wasn't saying that the people here didn't deserve a piece of the pie for risking their lives, but some of them did next to nothing yet claimed they were the sole reason for their victory.

It made the fire inside her rage at the thought.

As more people from both sides gathered and the crescendo of yelling rose, the possibility of a fight rose with it.

One they were severely outnumbered in. They had only made up less than a third of the forces fighting the Demons and that portion hadn't changed after the fight.

If anything it seemed to be worse.

How the other city managed to have fewer casualties than Frostheim was a mystery and one she didn't have time to figure out.

There was only one way this was going to go and without Chris, it was up to her to make sure it didn't go poorly.