Mother Nature

"What happened...? Why did I lose contact with Adam...?" Silvana muttered with a worried expression.

A few seconds before the transparent sphere had shrunk, Adam's NEP had begun to malfunction as well as the other equipment on him. She had lost not only the video record but now the connection to him as well.

"Hey, I have some bad news for you." Zola said, joining her channel, "Adam was hit by a spatial anomaly... It's unknown where he is..."

Silvana's face went pale.

The worst thing that could happen to the Operator was to lose his Phantom or the connection to him. If the Operator couldn't maintain contact with his Phantom, then it was like the Operator didn't exist.

Without hesitation, Silvana sent requests to all necessary departments and Fort Norton. A Phantom caught in a spatial anomaly had to be found as soon as possible, for it could result in both injury and death.

"What are we going to do...?" Felix muttered in confusion, "We have to find Adam, don't we?"

Oren shook his head.

"We don't know where he is, the only clear thing is that he's somewhere very far away if Silvana has lost contact with him. As much as I hate to say it, we should go back to the Citadel now, complete the mission, and get some rest."

"What... but... we have to do something!" Felix exclaimed.

"Silence!" Oren waved his hand, "Don't forget you're a Harvester and must obey Phantom's orders. Do as I say. Anyway... by the time we get to the Citadel more work will have already been done on Adam's search than we could do in a week."

Felix's gaze deepened as he nodded.

The situation was complicated, no one wanted to give up or lose Adam, but the reality was that nothing depended on them.

"I hope everything will be alright." Verna uttered, looking off into the distance, "Spatial anomalies aren't something we can predict..."

...

While, Silvana, Zola, and dozens of other people were doing their best to find Adam, he ran into an unexpected problem.

"Brrrrrrrr! Why am I so cold?!" Adam muttered, clutching himself with his hands and slowly stepping forward.

Adam had spent all his missions in the Scorching Desert, it was a suitable area for young Phantoms. There were many dangerous monsters in the Scorching Desert, but most of them, could be handled by even the weakest Phantom.

It was obviously hot in the desert, high temperatures were his constant companion. Clothes were appropriate, so it was like going from a resort beach straight to the top of a glacier.

In fact, if Adam had been a mere human, he would have frozen all his limbs off in ten minutes. However, even with Phantom's body, Adam wouldn't be able to survive more than a few hours without a heat source.

He urgently needed to find a way to get warm or get out of there.

'Maybe try to make a fire? Nah, until this snowfall is over, I don't think I can do that... Apparently, it takes a really strong flame to make these trees catch fire.'

The sparse fir trees towered over the entire snowy terrain like immovable giants. They were as tall as skyscrapers and so wide that ten people needed to hold hands to surround them.

The bark of the snow fir trees was tough and thick, and the needle-like foliage was long and thick, all to survive in such unfavorable conditions.

Breathing on his palms and having been through meters of snow and torrents of brutal wind for an hour now, Adam felt a shaking, faint, almost imperceptible.

"Is that a monster...? Wait, maybe it's another Phantom!" Adam smiled widely before running towards the vibrations. 

Even if it was a monster, it was at least something. Moreover, Adam felt strange, for in over an hour, he hadn't met anyone or anything, not even the silhouette of a monster in the distance that would quickly disappear. It seemed that no one was there but him.

Reaching the slope, Adam stopped, placing his hand on the bark of the nearest tree.

His eyes went wide, and a pleased smirk appeared on his face at the sight that opened up.

A girl of medium height, with two red pigtails and green eyes, was swinging a battle hammer with a crimson head. Every few attacks, energy waves traveled through the hammer, and the next strike caused a fiery explosion. Like Adam, she was dressed in desert clothes. 

She wasn't doing this out of boredom, but because she was in the middle of a battle. She was surrounded by strange monsters - with round bodies covered in thick white curly fur. However, their creepy jaws, long black legs, and paws with sharp claws showed that they were not at all like cute creatures.

It was the Snow Clinxes. 

'Hmm... Considering there are so many of them they probably aren't very strong, moreover, it looks like she and I are about the same level.' Adam pondered, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

Then, one Snow Clinx leaped at the girl from behind when she didn't see it, and with a swing of its paw, left long cuts on her back with its sharp claws.

"Argh!" The girl cried out in pain, but quickly recovered herself, continuing to fight. After all, her life depended on it. 

Adam realized he could no longer stand by and just watch her fight, clearly outnumbered.

Whoooooooosh.

Adam leaped forward, rolling down the snowy slope and summoning a needle along the way.

He should have rested properly in the Citadel after the mission, but circumstances had decided otherwise. Adam may not have been ready to use his Nexus, but he had enough energy for Order as it was for a short battle.

"Hold on! Help is here!"

Adam shouted, running up to the first monster. 

The girl turned around, a smile quickly forming on her face, but all talk later - they had to deal with the monsters first.

Snow Clinx jumped back, dodging Adam's needle, but no sooner had the monster taken another step than Adam attacked again, plunging the needle right between the monster's eyes.

Snow Clinx weren't really strong opponents, perhaps some of the weakest, but they had one thing that made them formidable opponents - there was a hell of a lot of them.

Crackle. Crackle. Crackle. 

From beneath the snowdrifts, a whole army of the Snow Clinxes appeared and immediately rushed into battle.

"Shit! There are too many of them! Hey, you! Come to me! I'm going to use my Nexus, protect me!" The girl exclaimed, raising her hammer high. 

Adam nodded and stood beside her, fighting off the Snow Clinx that like mad beasts were attacking them from all sides.

Needle easily wounded them and tossed aside, but there were too many opponents.

"Away! You fucking snowballs!" The girl shouted as her hammer burst into flames.

A bright pillar of fire soared upwards, vaporizing all the snow around them and burning the nearest Snow Clinxes.

The others ran away in fear, but not because they were afraid of the girl, but because of their intolerance to the heat. They urgently needed to find a cold place.

"Phew... I thought I was done for..." The girl sighed heavily, falling to the ground, "That spatial anomaly ruined my day..."

"What...? You got caught in an anomaly too?" Adam asked, surprised.

"What do you mean too...? No way... I'm not the only one like that!?"