The deeper the Frostholm Team pushed into the dead city, the more the cold seemed to invade their bones, creeping beneath armor, cloth, even mana itself. The streets were a forest of frozen silhouettes—humans, soldiers, and even beasts caught mid-motion—each one gleaming with the same crystalline glaze. Frostholm felt less like a ruin and more like a mausoleum sculpted in a single impossible heartbeat.
Omina kept to the front, her breath steady, eyes narrowing as she scanned the skyline. Then she halted. "There," she muttered, pointing her blade toward the far ridge of buildings.
Above the rooftops rose a tower—thin, jagged, and unmistakably wrong. From its peak poured white streams that coiled upward like spirits being siphoned into the sky.
"That smoke?" she asked.
Yoshiya's answer came quick, sharp. "Not smoke."
Yami touched the air with her fingertips, tasting the mana. Her eyes widened just a fraction. "It's raw frost essence. Thick enough to feel without a spell."
Akihiro stepped closer, Kindling Light flickering around his palms. Even that gentle radiance was struggling; the flame-like glow pulsed, dimmed, then steadied again with effort. "That tower is producing the freezing effect… or amplifying it. It's not mechanical alone. Something spiritual is bound inside."
Fukashi adjusted his lenses and squinted. "Condensed frost mana… on that scale? You'd need an entire leyline channel to feed it. Or a creature."
The sound of cracking frost echoed beneath their boots as they continued forward, weaving between the frozen. A child clutching a wooden toy—eyes wide with terror. A Valerian knight mid-charge. Two Ostorian soldiers locked in a desperate final stance. Even their shadows seemed frozen in the air beneath them.
The further they traveled, the colder it became. Akihiro's breath hitched; Kindling Light dimmed again.
"Stay close," Yoshiya said, voice tight. "The temperature's dropping too fast."
"It's suffocating the fire element," Akihiro whispered. "Like the air itself refuses warmth."
They turned down a narrow street. Ice coated the walls in jagged sheets, forming unnatural spirals along the stone—as if the frost hadn't simply settled, but grown with deliberate intent.
Yami paused, running a gloved hand over the wall. "Mana discharge residue," she murmured. "Not wild. Directed. Someone engineered this."
Omina flexed her fingers on her hilt. "Then we cut it down."
Yoshiya shook his head. "Not until we understand the source. We don't know what's feeding that tower."
The tower loomed larger as they approached, rising from the heart of Frostholm like a spear stabbed into the earth. The white streams spilling from its crown were cold enough to sting simply by looking at them.
Hayate and Nagare—left tethered in the outer street—snorted nervously behind them, hooves scraping as frost crept across their reins.
"Animals can sense arcane pressure better than we do," Fukashi said. "Whatever's inside that tower is beyond natural."
They reached the base.
The front entrance had no door—only an arched stone maw draped in sheets of ice. Each step they took rang with crystalline echoes. The frost on the walls thickened into layers of glassy plates, swirling patterns that resembled scales.
Omina frowned. "This isn't frost. These are growth lines."
"Growth," Yami agreed softly. "Like a creature expanding its influence."
Akihiro's voice trembled as he touched the frost. "There's a heartbeat… not literal, but a rhythm. A pulse of mana."
Yoshiya drew a breath that burned cold in his lungs. "Whatever's at the top of this tower… it's breathing. Not in flesh, but in magic."
A gust of freezing air rolled from inside the stairwell, curling around their feet like a warning.
"No going back," Omina said.
Yoshiya nodded. "We climb."
The team stepped over the threshold—into the tower that breathed winter. The air within was colder than anything outside, as if they had entered the very center of a spell still casting itself. As the sound of their footsteps vanished into the spiral stair, the tower exhaled again, sending a shiver through the frozen city.
And the climb began.