Chapter 42 - The Ice Queen

The demon's mountainous form shattered the last vestiges of the building's frame and walked towards elara and rick. And on his arm, the howling killer was being slowly torn from his body by countless pairs of black hands, though after a few moments no more screams could be heard.

Looking at the monster that was striding towards him, rick finally understood why the little brat had the confidence to easily pass the 5th ranked Bordeaux dog, because the power that he had at his disposal didn't belong to humans at all.

That powerful mind power made the air thin, and one needed to have enough strength to even stand in front of him and breathe.

Relying entirely on instinct, elara unleashed the lanky Knight of Dignity, ready to fight or flee.

RICK, however, slowly gathered his desolation and stuck his hands in his pants pockets, a faint smile on his lips.

Namonxuan had no interest in killing elara and rick, at least not right now. The huge demon slowly sank into the earth as it walked, and when it came to rick, even the head of the demon disappeared into the rubble, and Namonxuan so naturally landed back on top of the earth, still a little kid, but dominating.

"Congratulations, you're the first people to see my Heart Ghost in its entirety and not be killed by me." Nan Mengxuan laughed innocently.

"Congratulations, your heart ghost isn't exactly ugly, he made me realize how twisted your inner world is." RICK said with a calm, badass smile.

"Spirits are not the heart ghosts I created, I'm just a passing host for him, I'll die, but he'll be passed down from generation to generation ... Of course, if my family hadn't been wiped out, the ending would have been like this." The wind took away the young boy's innocent smile, revealing a look of strength honed by the years.

"Why are you fighting, anyway?" RICK asked softly.

"Actually, I didn't want to live a long time ago, but I didn't want to die just like that, so I fought." Nan Mengxuan wiped off the ashes of the talisman on his mahogany longsword and collected the sword behind him.

"Still so sick of seeing that little face of yours with its adult-like vicissitudes. Cheer up, at least we're not the ones who want you dead." RICK laughed foolishly, stroking Nan Mengxuan's little head back and forth with one hand.

"Hey, you're messing up my hair." Nan Mengxuan opened rick's hand with one hand.

"I'm warning you to stop touching my head, I'm not a brat, and in terms of fighting strength rex is no match for me. In terms of experience, you were still chatting with flowers at school when I was soul hunting!"

"Yeah, yeah, in terms of a little bird, I'm already a mammoth, and you don't even have hair!" RICK laughed badly, exasperating Nan Mengxuan's small face reddened.

"You guys stop it, Nan Mengxuan, didn't you say you had something to tell us?" elara held rick back as soon as she could.

"I found the person who took the mission, she is a retired 5th ranked Bordeaux who hasn't appeared in Hound Paradise for 3 years. However, her strength is still superb, and many teams have spent a lot of money over the past 3 years, wanting to invite her to come out, but all of them have been rejected by her." Nan Mengxuan said while straightening her hair.

"You're telling me that she won't even come out when people are paying her a lot of money, are you willing to pay more?" RICK interjected, "Don't count on us, we're broke."

"There are some people that can't be fixed with money, and she's one of them. It's a bit troublesome, but I've grasped a little bit about her weaknesses, and by applying it, we can get a teammate that's stronger than rex." Nan Mengxuan said with a bad smile.

"Stronger than rex? What the hell is she?" elara wondered.

"Her name is yuna, she's 29 years old, she's currently working as an assistant manager in a company, and while she was known as the 'Queen of Ice' when she was a Hound, she's the only nature-based Heart Ghost possessor I know so far."

"Nature-based heart ghosts?" elara Mo didn't say anything.

"I'll bring you guys to meet her tomorrow to talk about taking over the mission." Nan Mengxuan said and turned to leave.

"Are you stupid? It's Monday tomorrow, there's school." RICK said.

"I have a way to fix it, by the way, the weather forecast says it will be afternoon tomorrow, remember to bring an umbrella." After saying that, Nan Mengxuan had already walked away.

In the distance, the sound of sirens was getting closer as well, and even though it was a wasteland, that much commotion did startle the surrounding neighbors, and rick pulled a somewhat dumbfounded elara away.

Walking home, rick finally couldn't help but ask, "What's wrong with you? What the hell is a Nature Tethered Heart Ghost?"

"Nature-based Heart Ghosts ... are superpowers born only once in every million Heart Soul Masters. Their heart ghosts don't have a physical body, but use an ionic state to surround their hosts, and their special attributes give them the supernatural power to change the environment." elara lowered her head as she recited the introduction.

"I don't want to know that, I want to know why you're wearing a sad face?" rick stopped walking with a sigh and stood facing elara.

"In fact ... my father, died at the hands of an evil spirit of the natural system, one who used flames and burned him to ashes, and the mind-spirit masters who cleaned up the scene ... barely collected even a little bit of the ashes. " elara wanted to laugh but couldn't, the tears in her eyes began to fight.

"Don't cry, your dad isn't dead, he's there." RICK pointed to the night sky, stars scattered like diamonds on the night gotta curtain, "Didn't you say that? None of the powerful Heart Soulmaster hearts die, they turn into stars and watch what we're doing from the sky."

"Eh, they're not dead." elara wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes and smiled, taking rick's arm and pulling him towards home.

The next day, Nan Mengxuan lied, the sky hangs this big sun, clear sky without a cloud, not to mention rain, even windy are rare.

After returning to school, rick became the center of attention of the students around him, either in groups of three or five pointing at each other, or standing alone and staring at himself.

"What's wrong with you, not just a t-shirt? Why are you looking at me?" Carrying his backpack, rick walked irritably into the campus, and he who could hear the words of the crowd's heart ghosts easily noticed that the focus of the crowd was on his mutated muscles.

Once upon a time in order to cover up the bone shaping exercise clothes, hot days rick also have to wear a long jacket, now it is hard to liberate, only to realize that once upon a time the T-shirt are turned into tights, make themselves as if they were selling meat.

What makes rick most resentful is that even the heart ghost of an Obasan amah is licking her lips furiously at herself and calling out, "EN!"

Back in class, rick was upset and had just sat down when serena had walked over to the table and handed over a couple of assignments.

"Here you go, there's a bit too much content, so hurry up and copy it." Today serena was wearing a pretty beige pleated skirt and her freshly done hair was slightly curled like a doll.

"Thanks." RICK took the book, but SERENA didn't move away, blushing slightly as she looked at the muscles in RICK's arms.

"Is this for real? When did you practice?" serena asked shyly.

"Huh? You mean this, it didn't take long to practice, but the process was quite painful." RICK recalled the old days when even going to the bathroom was a struggle, and couldn't help but shiver.

"Can I ... I touch it?" serena asked snidely.

"Good ... good." rick also gave a good embarrassed.

serena bent over, incredibly serious, having her fingers rubbing the white muscles, that odd feeling of being a little soft and a little hard at the same time.

The fresh scent of the hair of the person who was close by made rick mesmerized as well.

"Hey, hey, it's real yeah! Muscles like Mr. Bodybuilder you see on TV! It's still moving!"

serena squealed with excitement like a little girl, twisting her head around she realized that she was in such a stance at the moment that she was so close to rick that she could even feel each other's noses.

For a moment, the sounds around them dimmed, and the two beating hearts came closer together. rick's body leaned forward unconsciously, and serena's eyes closed unconsciously.

As the lips were about to meet, the school's fire alarms went off in all directions, the overhead sprinkler system clattered to an artificial rain, and a multitude of screaming students ran out of the building.

"Damn, the work of a brat." Sobering up, rick stood up while serena put her hands over her head to try and block the rain, but it didn't work at all.

"Here, don't catch a cold." rick took an umbrella out of his book bag, held it open and handed it to serena.

"Why do you have an umbrella?" Serena, who was already half wet under the umbrella, wondered.

"Hey, hey, I read a disgusting weather report yesterday that said that." RICK laughed awkwardly.

And so it was that the school had to suspend teaching for two days due to a sudden fire system failure and wait for the overhaul to be completed before it could open again, as an afterthought.

When rick walked out of the school building in the form of a fallen chicken, elara and nanmongxuan had already been standing at the entrance of the school waiting for him.

"I'll take the test, don't you just want to skip class? There's no need to play so big, right?" RICK walked over to the school gates and wiped away a faceful of waterways.

"I'm not like you, as long as I go to school, I keep the record of never leaving early or missing classes, although there are always all sorts of accidents in the school and forced to suspend classes." Nan Mengxuan laughed badly.

"Hey, how come you're not hurt at all? Not even wet hair?" rick looked at elara in surprise.

"It's simple, I called Nam Moon-Hyun yesterday, and after knowing what he wants to do, just don't go into the school building!" elara shook the cell phone in her hand.

"OK, you guys are OK, you're all holding back bad jinxes on me." rick conceded.

"Let's go, it's time to find our 'Frozen Queen', don't make her wait." Nan Mengxuan led the way, and elara and rick left following.