Chapter 31 - Wormhole

On the morning of the next day, Zack cleaned up all the city from the hands of the frozen witches and decided to check the frozen lake. Even now, he didn't see the monsters coming out from there, but their numbers increased now and then.

The area was free of corpses since he could put them in his inventory once they became corpses, but he soon threw them away when he got their core. Regardless, the place still looked quite eerie. 

"It must be because it is empty… finding myself alone in such a big place can be pretty nerve-wracking," Zack thought with his sword in hand while looking around. 

Zack stuck his sword into the ground with all his might when he arrived at the lake. It cracked a bit, but Zack felt that the place was completely frozen, and the chances of him falling there were nonexistent.

Zack recalled one of instructor Amanda's lessons. The temperature at which a lake freezes depends on various factors such as altitude, humidity, and the lake's depth and size. However, a rough estimate is that water freezes at 0°C. When the temperature drops below freezing, ice will begin to form on the surface of the lake. If the temperature remains consistently below freezing, the ice layer will continue to grow thicker.

For the entire lake to freeze, the temperature would need to remain consistently below freezing long enough for the entire volume of water to reach 0°C and solidify into ice. This usually happens during extended periods of cold weather, especially in regions with harsh winters. In places like the polar regions or very cold climates, lakes freeze solid during the winter months, while in milder climates, only the surface may freeze. At the same time, that also showed the power level of the enemies around.

"There is nothing here… this can't be," Zack thought. "They should come from somewhere. The wormholes are hard to find, but since they kept coming, it should be active here."

At the same time, the wormhole exists; a boss should guard it as well. The boss's existence guaranteed that people would gain the means to connect their bases to those monster territories. They always appeared when the first boss was defeated.

In the end, Zack decided to check the area using Speed Hack. He might need that if something happens, but he had other tricks that he could use if something happens. Time was more important now. In the end, he did the right thing since he eventually found a hole that was impossible to find unless a person got closer… when Zack tried to check the interior, he saw a massive statue of a frozen witch there. The creature was ten meters tall, and it was standing at the bottom of the lake. In front of its feet, Zack could see a spatial distortion.

"It must be that…" Zack thought.

The wormhole looked like a void in space-time, and this tunnel appeared as a spherical opening. The fabric of space-time surrounding a wormhole was distorted, with light bending and warping due to gravitational effects. Wormholes emit light and energy discharges, altering how time passes in their vicinity. 

"I knew that wormholes are often given an otherworldly feel, conveying a sense of the alien and ethereal, with strange colors, shapes, and patterns adding to their mysterious appearance, but this is beyond what I had expected," Zack furrowed his eyebrows. "Well, what now?"

A monster of this size was probably the cause the territory hadn't been conquered yet. While size isn't everything when it comes to the danger that the monsters can offer, that showed the size of the core that the frozen witch boss should have. At least ten times bigger and ten times more powerful than the others.

Zack wondered if he should crush the monster's head with a big boulder or some massive concrete pillar to steel place. Finding those and moving them would be hard since even his skills had some limitations. 

"Well, this is a good test for all my skills, so I shouldn't skip this chance," Zack thought.

Zack's trait was an anomaly, an enigma among the various traits possessed by hunters. It was undeniably powerful, perhaps even the most potent trait there was. But its sheer strength left Zack thinking about its origins and purpose.

He couldn't shake the feeling that such a formidable trait shouldn't have been acquired without reason. Its incredible capabilities went beyond mere combat convenience. It was as if there was a deeper purpose behind its existence, a reason waiting to be uncovered.

Zack knew that there had to be more to his trait than simply making him show in the battles against monsters. Its power was too vast, too profound to be merely a tool for disposing of enemies with ease. There had to be a hidden purpose, a greater significance that he had yet to understand.

With that in mind, Zack grabbed his sword with both hands and then used No Range Limit before swinging it down with all his might and hitting the top of the head of the ice statue. The impact created a crack at the top of it, but soon, he began to attack again. Before he could do that, though, the giant statue began to shake.