The scouts had detailed hundreds of underground facilities like this scattered along the border. It made sense. Instead of building structures above ground that would be at the mercy of harsh winters and monster attacks, underground structures would be naturally warmer and potentially safer.

  The remains of the town smoldered above her as she entered the underground facility. It looked like survivors, if there were any, had long since left. Bodies littered the area, but their skin had long since gone blue. Too far gone to have been killed here. Almost as if they’d been killed elsewhere and then moved here.

  The thought made Eunice shiver.

  Run environmental analysis, she commanded.

  Environmental analysis running…

  Temperature: -35oC

  Atmospheric pressure: 1.047 bar

  Area of Effect detected.

  Area of effect.

  It was a common term for a spell or skill that affected a large space. Not to mention, the temperature was too cold. The area was rated for -25oC, but it was a full 10 degrees colder. It had to be the aftereffect of a spell, but what sort of spell could affect an entire region like this?

  Eunice blew into her cupped hands. [Warmth] should have been enough to keep the chill out, but she shivered nonetheless.

  ***

  Will-w… >h@t’s happ3ning?

  The message was garbled and barely understandable. Which mean that Willow’s own responses would be just as difficult to understand.

  Sunbae! You need to get here now!

  Over the span of ten minutes, things had gone from bad to worse. Jinyoung was fighting off two sin wraiths on his own. As far as she could tell, he was able to hold his own ground, but he was fighting them to a stalemate. And given how exhausted Willow felt, she had to imagine that Jinyoung wouldn’t last long against two tireless monsters.

  Worse still, Youngho’s infection had worsened significantly. The skin up to his shoulder had grown discolored. More than that, the skin on his hands and forearms was growing hard. At first, Willow thought it was blistering caused by her [frost] spell, but it was too uniform to be anything resulting from her spell.

  Again and again she had increased the intensity of her spell until she was pouring everying she had into it.

  “Willow, move!”

  Willow’s head snapped up to see a wraith charging at her. Jinyoung had barely shouted in time to give her fair warning. Unable to do anything else, she raised both her hands and put any mana reserves she had left into the spell.

  The spell hit the wraith in a steady stream. It kept charging, but its movements slowed and became stiff. Willow could see the moisture in the air freezing when it touched her spell, leaving small icicles on the wraith’s arms until its entire arm was covered in a chunk of ice so heavy it weighed it down and kept it from moving forward.

  She breathed out a heavy sigh and tried to catch her breath. The spell had taken whatever reserves she had left. But even now, she could see that the wraith was tearing away at the ice with its free arm. It was only a matter of time before I ripped through and completed it’s charge.

  Willow took a deep breath and tried to speak, but it came out as a whisper. “[Ember].”

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  The spark of a spell appeared in her hands before immediately flickering and disappearing.

  “[Ember],.” she repeated.

  This time, she was able to conjure a flame, but it lasted only a second before fading away.

  I have to do this, Willow thought. But each time Willow tried to reach for the mana pool deep inside herself, she came up with a few drops. More than that, she could feel her body weakening with every attempt.

  Mana sickness, she realized.

  Every Academy student learned the basics of mana sickness in their first year classes. Afterall, just about every cadet learns the basics of spellcasting (even if they never use it). Mana sickness wasn’t just the effect of depleting your mana pool, it was a barrier to prevent players from drawing on their lifeforce. It was actually possible to cast a spell without mana, but the required energy cost was paid with your health rather than your magical essence. Which meant a spell, even a simple one, could result in the caster’s death.

  Crack!

  The wraith drew it’s free hand back and swung it straight at the block of ice encasing it’s arm. A huge chunk of ice at least a foot across broke off leaving a web of quickly spreading cracks behind. She didn’t have much time.

  Willow raised her hands and closed her eyes. She went deep within herself to draw the energy to power the spell that was coming. It felt like diving into a pool, but instead of reaching the bottom, Willow kept going. She pushed herself further than she’d ever gone before and found another vast pool of power, pulsing with a regular beat. Her own heartbeat.

  Before she could regret her decision, she drew as much as she could out of that deep reservoir and felt the fire magic course through her veins.

  But when she opened her eyes, the wraith was nearly on her. She could feel the seconds tick like minutes as her heart pounded in her ears. And, without a shred of doubt, she knew it wasn’t enough.

  The cold wind on her face felt like a million tiny blades. The creature’s claws swung forward, almost blindingly fast.

  It would have cut her to pieces if not the sudden presence of a shadow that stopped the attack in its place. No, not a shadow. A hand. Or, more accurately, a fist.

  ***

  Youngho forgot where he was for a moment. All he felt was a burning… warmth. Almost as if his body had been set ablaze, but the fires didn’t burn. If anything, they felt warm.

  He saw the wraith and the girl… Willow. The monster moved quickly, but his thoughts were slow. The thing rushed in prepared to kill her, but Youngho’s own thoughts were like quicksilver sliding from his grasp.

  Move.

  His fist caught the blow before he knew it. His body just reacted. Almost like it had when he was a younger man in his prime, but so much faster. The wraith moved and Youngho’s other fist instinctively shot out. Unlike its twin, this one was pink and fleshy.

  Weak, he thought. But it did its job. The punch landed squarely on the monster’s face and stunned it. His right hand swung around and launched a blow that decimated the monster. The impact rippled out across the monster’s very being until it exploded into a mess of blood and viscera.

  From the corner of his eye, he could see the girl… Willow. Yes, Willow.

  She was speaking, but he didn’t care to listen. Or maybe he couldn’t hear her.

  No, he saw the others.

  Jinyoung. His son.

  More of the monsters flocked about him, pecking at him like birds. He needed to stop the birds.

  ***

  The attack came from nowhere and missed Jinyoung by inches. It took a moment for him to register what he was seeing. It was the old man’s fist, but it had buried itself so deeply in the wraith’s chest that he could see it coming through the other side. The monster’s body reacted immediately, popping like a balloon and deflating while the fluids of its life spilled out of it.

  Jinyoung finally found his voice and shouted, “Watch it!”

  But Youngho was already on the next monster, dealing devastating blow after blow on them. Any attacks by the wraiths were literally waved off, almost like they were children.

  Between the armored stranger and Youngho, the wraiths were dispatched alarmingly quickly. Jinyoung helped Willow up and looked at her questioningly.

  “I-I don’t know,” she stammered. “One minute he was on the ground unconscious and the next…” Her voice trailed off as she watched Youngho literally tear the last monster apart with his bare hands.

  Even Jinyoung was at a loss for words. Whatever was going on, it had definitely empowered Youngho beyond anything he had seen until now. Even Cyrus, for all his armor and weapons, wasn’t capable of this level of power. Especially not with his bare hands.

  “We need to shut down the gate,” he said finally. “You gonna help us or-”

  Without hesitation, the armored figure cut a wide swath at Youngho with its spear. Without missing a beat, Youngho dodged the blow and immediately launched a counterattack of his own.

  The impact of the spear against the old man’s fists shook the walls and sent echoes bounding down the hall leading from the control room.

  “What the hell?!” Jinyoung shouted. “Stop this! We need to shut down the gate!”

  If either combatant heard him, they didn’t show it. They continued trading blows with the armored warrior clearly fighting in earnest now. More than once, it had to give up ground to avoid some of the monk’s terrifyingly powerful blows.

  Willow put a hand on Jinyoung’s shoulder. “What the hell is going on?”