The southern wind hardened into a blade as the Frostholm Team crested the final rise. Beyond the hill, the valley lay silent—too silent—and the great gate of Frostholm stood yawning open like a mouth frozen mid-gasp. The walls glittered with a thick blue sheen, ice climbing their stone faces in unnatural veins. No guards. No torches. No movement. Only stillness.
Yoshiya tightened the reins until the leather groaned. "Gate's open," he said quietly.
Omina leaned forward, her breath fogging. "Gate's dead."
The distinction mattered. An open gate was an invitation. A dead one was a warning.
Hayate and Nagare snorted hard as the temperature plummeted again, enough that even the boar-hide pauldrons struggled to keep their warmth. The horses slowed instinctively, hooves crunching over frost that grew thicker with every meter.
Inside the carriage, Yami lifted her head before anyone spoke. Her mana crystal—once calmly pulsing—was now flickering like a lantern ready to shatter.
"This is the same pressure as the anomaly in Eldoria," she murmured, "but colder… sharper. Like the mana's been scraped clean and frozen in place."
Akihiro whispered a prayer, palms glowing with Kindling Light, yet even that warmth seemed muted, smothered by the air.
When the caravan rolled beneath the gate, the world changed.
The road inside was lined with people—except they weren't people anymore. They were statues of living ice, caught mid-motion. A woman reaching for a fallen scarf. A soldier shouting something, mouth open in a silent cry. A Valerian scout clutching a broken spear, frost blooming from the tip.
Yoshiya stopped the caravan so abruptly the wheels skidded. He stepped down, boots cracking the ground's frost crust.
Omina followed, her hand already on her blade. "They're Ostorians… and Valerians," she said, voice low. "Bitter enemies… frozen together."
Fukashi hopped out next, kneeling immediately beside a man frozen mid-run. He brushed the surface of the ice on the man's cheek.
"Thickness is uneven," he muttered, eyes narrowing behind his glasses. "This isn't natural frost formation. And it's not the result of a spell freezing them instantly—they were frozen while moving, not after death. Look, see the hair? It's suspended."
He pointed at a strand of the man's hair, hanging in the air like it had been sculpted.
Akihiro knelt beside another, placing his palm near the chest. "No soul presence," he whispered.
Yami's shadow flickered. "Not gone. Bound."
Above them, a deep whispering hum resonated through the air.
Omina snapped her head upward. "Contact in the sky."
Frost wyverns drifted high overhead, wings beating so slowly they seemed weightless, like phantoms. Their scales were coated in frost so thick they looked carved from glacier-ice. Their eyes—normally bright and piercing—were pale, vacant.
Yoshiya's heartbeat stumbled. "Are they alive?"
"No," Yami said. "Or… not fully. Something's puppeteering their cores. They're moving because something wants them to move."
Fukashi rose, brushing frost from his gloves. "Whatever froze this city worked from the outside in. The outer streets are lighter. The core will be far worse."
Omina swept the perimeter, stepping with a blade-master's quiet precision. "Tracks are buried, but I can still see the pattern. Civilians fled toward the plaza. Soldiers formed defensive lines. Something encroached from the center… and froze everything on contact."
Yoshiya nodded grimly. "Frostholm didn't fall. It was claimed."
Akihiro's voice trembled slightly. "This kind of freezing… it binds body and spirit simultaneously. If we break the frost, they might—"
"Shatter," Yami finished.
The team fell silent.
Not because they feared danger—danger was familiar. This was something else. Something that rewrote the rules of life, mana, and time.
The frost wyverns drifted again, circling lazily as if guarding the slumbering city.
Yoshiya looked at his team, breath whitening in front of him. "We move slowly. We observe everything. No rash actions."
Omina nodded, eyes fierce. "Blade drawn. Caution first."
Yami closed her fist around the crystal, feeling its frantic pulse. "The anomaly's core is close. South sector."
Fukashi adjusted his satchel. "The heart of the city."
Akihiro rose, gathering his courage like he gathered light. "Then that's where we have to go."
The Frozen Gate behind them whispered with the sigh of shifting ice.
Ahead, Frostholm waited—silent and watching—its secrets sealed beneath a coffin of eternal frost.