A little bluebird

* Remaining time: 62:07:31 *

* Underground slave warehouse near the town square of Lake City. *

The beast essence melted away as soon as Arcid put it in the circle. And with the dilution of mana crystal, the magic circle began to give off a bright light. However, Aiden couldn't see any of this.

As the beast essence entered Aiden's body, his body turned stiff. The next thing he felt was bone-chilling coldness. With strong cold winds assaulting him from all directions, Aiden had a hard time standing straight.

It took a while before he could get used to it. It didn't reduce the cold, but he got a little accustomed to it.

When he was able to open his eyes again, it was white. As if someone had covered the land with a thick white blanket. No matter where he looked into it, it was covered in white, and he was standing in the middle of the sea of snow.

And with the first step, the snow-covered land beneath him cracked, and he fell. The feeling of falling did not last long. The hard ice-blue floor broke his fall, but there was no feeling of pain.

'Where am I now?' Aiden remembered that he was forced to stand in the middle of the magic circle, and when the light shone, 'could I be inside some illusionary space related to the beast?' But no one can answer his question.

When he looked around, he found that the dark cave in front of him was inviting him. Even if he did not know what kind of beast it was, he could feel that the owner of the essence of the beast was living inside the cave.

"There are three steps in the ingestion process," Kaiser had told him when they exchanged information about the ingestion process. "The first step is to find the beast, and this is the easiest part of it. The second part is to subdue the beast, which is the hardest part of it."

Thinking about that, all Aiden could do is sigh in his heart. He wasn't sure whether or not he could subdue the mana beast from mine, but he was sure of one thing. That's he's going to die if he fails.

"I can't die here." Aiden clenched his fist, "I'm not going to die after coming so close to success. I'm going to go back for sure."

ESS was unresponsive, so he had to check his body himself. And he was surprised when he did. His body was full, full of water and wind mana, as if something had removed the limiter of his body. Feeling a little more confident about his success, he stepped in.

And a large gust of wind almost sent him to fly. He was quick to circulate the mana inside his body to regulate the temperature. Yet his hair and eyebrows were still covered with a layer of frost.

"How dare you?" The voice shook the cave. Aiden was frightened for a moment, but he did not dare to stop his legs and keep on making progress in the mine.

'You're weak, that's why you're hiding.' Aiden smiled in his heart. 'None of the mana beasts that came out of the mine is too powerful. Otherwise, they wouldn't be able to extract the essence of mana from them.'

That was what Kaiser had told him, but knowing it wasn't helping him at all. With each step, the wind was getting stronger. Taking every step was harder than the last one. Even though the mana inside his body was being refilled, he still lost a considerable amount of mana.

'If I lost all the mana, I got from the mana crystal, I'm going to have a hard time subduing the beast.' Aiden didn't dare to waste any more time and circulated wind mana through his mana channel.

Even if ESS did not notify the activation of [Zone], with the energy flowing through his body, Aiden was sure that he was successful in activating it.

He vanished from the spot at the next moment. But using [Blink] once wasn't enough. It was only after he had used it for the third time that he could see the light behind the strong wind curtain. And he used it one more time.

The gigantic cavern in which he appeared is warmer than outside, even though jagged ice covered the floor and the roof. Ice-blue hue enveloped the entire cave, but what most appealed to Aiden was in the middle of the room.

It was a little bluebird that was hovering in the middle of the cave. As soon as Aiden's eyes met the blue eyes of the bird, the cave shook again, "A measly beast dared to absorb my essence?"

Before he could confirm that the bird called him the 'measly beast,' the little bird flapped its wings.

'Shit.' Aiden cried in his heart as he activated [Blink] again. By the time Aiden appeared 20 meters away from him, an ice pillar had condensed on the spot where he was standing.

A shiver ran down his spine, thinking that if he had hesitated for a moment, he would be trapped inside the Ice Pillar.

He has already used the [Blink] five times, and he wasn't sure he could use it anymore. But the expected attack never came. When he looked up, he found that the bird was hovering again, without any intention of attacking him.

"You should have never tried to absorb my essence. If you had done so, even if you were weak, you would have lived."

Although he knew the voice was talking to him, Aiden wasn't sure what it was talking about. It was only when he looked down that he found his right leg covered in pale-blue ice, and the ice was spreading first.

He tried to circulate mana through his body, but he couldn't even sense the mana channel on the part that was covered with ice. Yet the more he circulated the mana, faster the ice was spreading. Before he could stop the circulation, the ice had covered up to his knee.

"It is futile. Once you have touched my eternal ice, the only fate that awaits you is death." But Aiden spared no effort to listen to him.

'It isn't even real. Everything happening inside my mind, right?' Nobody answered him, but Aiden didn't dare to hesitate. A big scythe had formed on his hand and he slashed his leg.

Aiden was groaning in pain at the next moment. 'Even if it is not real, the pain is.' But one slash wasn't enough. Gritting his teeth, Aiden slashed again and severed his leg.

He was having a hard time balancing himself as the water mana was healing his wounds. Looking at his now-severed feet, that was now covered in ice, Aiden didn't even know how he should feel.

'It is not the time to think about it. I have to subdue the beast first.' Aiden turned to the beast again.

"Beast, why don't you accept your death?"

"Beast, why can't you accept your death?" Aiden had copied his tone and continued, "Even though you've already died."

Aiden had no way of understanding the expression of a bird, but a burst of laughter shook the cavern. "Beast, your spirit is powerful." Aiden looked at the bird while waiting for another attack, but it said, "But you can't escape your fate."

Only then did Aiden realize that the ice had spread again from the wound.

*Swoosh*

And another wing flap from the bird was enough to trap Aiden inside the Ice Pillar. Silence soon returned to the cave.

'He would have been a fine totem bearer,' the bird sighed, looking at the eyes of the weak beast trapped in the ice, he thought, 'Should I let him absorb my essence? After all, I've already died.'

'No matter what, It's too late.' But when he looked at the pillar, it surprised the beast. He wasn't sure whether or not it was a hairline crack on the surface of the pillar. But before it could confirm it, cracks began to spread on the surface of the Ice Pillar.

"How?" The beast couldn't find a reason how such a weak beast could break its eternal ice coffin. But looking at the black smoke that had leaked out of the cracks, the bird was startled, "Ogilt? Why did an Ogilt was hiding inside such a weak beast?"

[Author note: Yes, Ogilt is the name of the species of the devil and the black-eyed man]

*Boom*

And a black shadow shot towards the bluebird from the pillar. It didn't reach the bird, though. There arose an ice wall between them, and the black shadow slammed a loud bang on the wall. But it was nowhere near enough to stop the black shadow.

*Bang* Bang*

Multiple bangs shook the entire cavern as the ice wall crumbled under raw force. The bird could see the black-eyed beast for a moment before it vanished from the spot.

The wind rose in the cave with the wing flap. And it was so powerful that it tore off the pieces of jagged ice from the wall and the roof. And an ice mixed snowstorm wrapped the black-eyed Aiden.

'This isn't an Ogilt. But those void flames?' The little bird couldn't help but look at Aiden, who was now at the centre of the ice storm. 'Can the seed of Ogilt have corrupted the beast?'

Even if he was curious, no one could answer the little bluebird, and there was no time. Slowly, the ice storm began to turn black, and soon it burst out with black smoke. And the Black-eyed Aiden, covered in black smoke, attacked the bird.

"ICE AGE."

The voice resounded in the cave, as silence enveloped the cavern. The falling shards of ice had stopped in the middle of the air, and the wind had stopped blowing. And the hand of the black-eyed Aiden stopped an inch away from the bird. As if the whole world had been frozen in time.

"Ice Heart Prison."

With the word of the bird, the black smoke that escaped from Aiden's pores began to return to his body. Leaving Aiden's crippled body hanging in the middle of the air.

"To think that I was forced to use it against a vessel of the Ogilt..." the little blue bird was not happy with its performance and landed on the ice.

With the bird, the shards of ice and the body of Aiden, frozen in the middle of the air, fell on the ice. The wind was blowing again in the cave.

"But why is the Ogilt vessel using such a crude process to absorb my essence? Why does it want to absorb my essence in the first place?" He had too many questions, but he didn't have much time left.

As soon as Aiden's cold body fell to the ground, the cavern began to crumble. The cracks spread across the ice floor, and the pieces of ice continued to fall out of the roof.

"Looks like the beast is dead." Looking at the motionless body of Aiden, the bird sighed, "Had I let him absorb me? At least I'd have been living."

But as soon as the thought appeared in his mind, the bird shook its small neck. "To think that it would be the end of a ph… what?"

The bird couldn't end its last speech, as something jumped up from the ground and wrapped around the small body of it.

"Is it mana chains?" After confirming that he was wrapped in wind and water mana chains, it looked up to be greeted by the emotionless eyes of the being, which he had called 'weak beast'.