The Extra's Rise-Chapter 201: Northern Sea Ice Palace (2)

We were slowly approaching the island where the Northern Sea Ice Palace was.

The Frostveil Sea, vast and bitterly cold, stretched endlessly around us. It never fully froze over—summer kept it from turning into a solid wasteland of ice, but the water was still sharp enough to bite at the skin.

It was the sea that separated the Eastern continent from the Northern continent, mirroring the Luthadel Sea that separated the Eastern continent from the Southern continent.

And then, there was the island.

It loomed before us, snow-covered and silent, a frozen graveyard where no living thing, including mana beasts, stirred.

The first thing that stood out was the spire. Or what was left of it. Once a towering symbol of power, now partially collapsed, its jagged remains jutting out of the ruins like broken bones. This had been the heart of the Northern Sea Ice Palace. Even in its ruined state, it still held an undeniable presence—a monument to what had once been, and what had been lost.

Our ship slid to a stop at the island’s edge, the automated systems humming softly as it powered down.

"Walk?" Seraphina asked, her voice quieter than usual.

I nodded.

As we stepped onto the snow-covered shore, I felt the tension in her body—a weight pressing down on her as she took in the place she had spent her entire life avoiding.

"Mother," she whispered.

Her breath curled into the freezing air, her face slightly flushed from more than just the cold.

"Sera," I said softly.

Our hands brushed against each other. I didn’t think—I just reached out, intertwining my fingers with hers, grounding her.

She looked at me, lips pressing together, and nodded.

"I’m here," I said.

And together, we walked forward.

The land of the Northern Sea Ice Palace stretched before us. Technically, the sect had controlled the entire island, but the outer banks had been stripped bare. No buildings remained here—only remnants, shattered stone half-buried in the snow, foundations of structures long since torn apart by time and war.

We reached the ruined city, and Seraphina exhaled a whisper.

"..A ghost town."

She wasn’t wrong.

It was like walking through a post-apocalyptic ruin, except this wasn’t fiction. The snow covered everything, softening the destruction, but the damage was everywhere. Collapsed rooftops, shattered walls, streets littered with the remnants of a once-thriving civilization.

More than a decade had passed since the Shadow Seekers had done this.

And yet, it still felt fresh.

For Seraphina, this was a childhood ripped away. For me, it was something else entirely.

I could feel it.

The moment we stepped deeper into the ruins, something stirred at the edges of my senses. Since creating Erebus, I had grown closer to death itself. It was no longer just an abstract concept—it was something I could feel in the air, in the ground, in the very fabric of this place.

And even without using Lucent Harmony, I could tell.

This island was steeped in death.

A massacre had happened here.

Instinctively, I activated Lucent Harmony. My Black Star stirred, like an ember catching wind.

My breath hitched.

For a moment, the world around me shifted—the ruins felt thicker, the air heavier, as if something unseen still clung to this place. The echoes of what had happened here refused to fade, lingering like ghosts in the cold.

"Arthur?" Seraphina’s voice pulled me back. She squeezed my hand slightly, grounding me this time.

"Nothing," I said, though I knew it wasn’t.

Because this place, these ruins—this was more than just a tragedy.

This was a warning.

The Northern Sea Ice Palace had been one of the strongest forces outside of the Seven Superpowers. It had been thriving.

And yet, it had been wiped out.

Because of the miasmic species.

Because no matter how powerful humans became, no matter how much we fought back—this was the future that awaited us if we didn’t stop them.

’Arthur, do not be lost in the sea of death,’ Luna’s voice murmured in my mind.

I exhaled, forcing my breath to steady. Lucent Harmony flickered out.

It wasn’t needed.

I wasn’t here to observe the dead.

"I remember this place well," Seraphina said, her voice quiet. "I used to play here when I was younger."

I nodded, letting her speak.

Seraphina’s mother had been the Palace Lord of the Northern Sea Ice Palace. Unlike now, when she spent most of her time in Mount Hua, she had once belonged to both worlds. She would split her time between the two, standing between her father’s swords and her mother’s ice, trying to be both.

Rachel Creighton was order incarnate, the Saintess.

Cecilia Slatemark was chaos incarnate, the Archwitch.

And Seraphina Zenith was meant to be both blossoming and frost—a bridge between Mount Hua and the Northern Sea Ice Palace.

She had succeeded, to a degree. Her Ice Crystal Jade Body was a marvel, one of the strongest elemental Gifts of her generation. But it had limitations.

She hadn’t nurtured her ice enough.

There had been no one left to guide her.

And that was why we were here.

We walked in silence, wandering through the ruins as the sun dipped lower, the sky bleeding into shades of deep blue and violet. The cold bit at the air, crisp and sharp, the snow crunching softly beneath our boots.

Finally, as the first stars began to flicker above, Seraphina slowed her steps.

"I think that’s enough for today," she muttered.

She reached for her spatial ring, pulling out the high-tech tents we’d be using for the night. They unfolded sleekly in her hands, lined with heat regulation systems and reinforced alloy poles—nothing like the traditional canvas structures of the past.

But before she could set them up, I stopped her.

"Sera," I said. "Come with me for a bit."

She tilted her head but didn’t resist as I took the tents and stored them in my own spatial ring.

"Where are we going?" she asked as I led her through the snow-covered forest.

I didn’t answer.

She didn’t press.

The trees stretched tall around us, their ancient trunks wrapped in layers of frost, their branches bowing under the weight of ice that had settled there for years, maybe decades. The air was still, thick with the kind of quiet that only places touched by time and loss could hold. Every step we took crunched against the snow, the sound swallowed by the vastness of the abandoned land around us.

And then—

We stepped into the clearing.

Seraphina let go of my hand.

For a moment, nothing happened. The world remained silent, frozen in time, the snow undisturbed except for our footprints. The clearing stretched wide before us, an expanse of untouched white beneath a sky shifting between twilight and night.

Then—

The iceflies rose.

It started as a ripple in the air, almost imperceptible—a shiver that ran through the frost-laden ground, a pulse just beneath the surface. And then, all at once, the stillness shattered.

A thousand lights—maybe more—burst into the sky, the ground itself seeming to exhale as the first wave of glowing cyan creatures lifted from the snow, their soft, flickering light illuminating the clearing like a thousand tiny stars breaking free from the earth.

More followed, an endless tide of drifting luminescence, rising higher, moving in waves, their delicate forms pulsing with life. The air filled with their silent dance, a slow, weightless ballet, each icefly leaving behind faint trails of light that shimmered in the cold.

They weren’t fireflies, weren’t bioluminescent drones engineered in some sterile lab. They were something else entirely—something natural, something untouched by the war, by destruction, by time itself.

A phenomenon unique to this island.

Even after the tragedy, even after the palace fell, they survived.

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Seraphina inhaled sharply. Not a gasp—not quite—but close.

Her eyes, reflecting the cyan glow around us, widened slightly, the color swirling in their depths.

"I…" Seraphina’s voice caught. "I remember."

She stared at the iceflies, her golden eyes wide, the glow reflecting in them like tiny stars.

"Mother brought me here," she whispered. "She wanted to show me… the charm of the Northern Sea Ice Palace."

She had forgotten.

But now, it was coming back.

"I-I-I forgot about this," she said, voice trembling.

I watched her carefully.

"Don’t close your eyes," I said gently.

"Just watch. Remember."

And for the first time since we set foot on this island, she did.