The Rise of the Winter Wolf - Book 6 - Chapter 55 - Failure

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Wolf

I spend most of the first half an hour talking with Katie about random things. About how she’s been. What she’s been up to. And just regular chatting, considering we’ve already shared any important information through messages with the System.

Meanwhile the other people who won the lottery all get me to sign my autograph for them, which I go ahead and do just so that they don’t bother me while I’m talking with Katie. Since they agreed to just watch and admire me from the side if I did.

Sapphire also signs plenty of autographs of her own as well. Which I find amusing.

Some of the fans even have her leave a tiny little claw print from her in her miniature spider form. The one that she often uses when she parades around on top of my head or in my jacket’s hood.

Eventually my time with Katie draws to a close though, and we are forced to say our goodbyes.

But not without a single warning from Katie as she pulls me into a hug and says into my ear, “If you do something incredibly reckless and get yourself killed in the process I swear I’m going to get a necromancer to resurrect you just to kill you myself.”

Then she is teleported out of the bar again. Following which another batch of lottery winners enter the bar in her place.

I ignore them though, since I never agreed to any of this lottery and meet and greet stuff. Even if I’m being given a break from it.

And nothing ever said I had to interact with them.

So I down the rest of my current drink before finding a nice corner on a comfy chair.

And freezing myself and everything around me into a massive block of ice, in which I begin to finally do what I’ve been wanting to do for quite a while. Something I haven’t been able to do thanks to how much time it takes to finish it.

It’s time to form my domain.

Of course, I made sure to have Katie make sure no one can actually do anything to me while in this bar. Just in case. And she ended up getting a notification when she tried to use an attack on me telling her it wasn’t allowed and that the attack was voided.

So I’m perfectly safe in here.

Especially since there’s no time limit for how long I can stay here. Almost as if this place was made for me to…

I blink at that thought before glancing at the bartender, who I find calmly watching me as if analyzing my every move.

It couldn’t be…

I return his gaze for a few seconds, only for the bartender to give me a polite nod before the man turns to make a cocktail for one of the other people at the bar. One of the lottery winners. Most of whom are all watching me intensely or even taking pictures of me or me and them from outside of the ice.

Seems like they’re having a fun time even without me talking with them.

Anyways, I go ahead and close my eyes before telling Sapphire what I’m about to do and focusing all of my energy inwards. Just pushing it deeper and deeper inside of myself. All the way to my very heart.

A bone chilling, frozen heart. One filled to the brim with my venom and icy blood made up of my lunar ice of eternity element.

And after pushing a good fifth of my energy into my heart, I begin to feel stuffy. Followed by a mild stinging pain when I hit about a third of my energy in it.

The stinging pain is then turned into a burning sensation all across my body as I see pale blue light shining through my eyelids. But I can’t open my eyes right now or that would break my focus.

So I continue to push my energy into my heart. Condensing it all into that one single organ.

When half of my energy is condensed, the burning pain begins to radiate all throughout every single inch of me, and the energy itself seems to fight back against my control. Like it’s trying to flow back into the rest of my body.

But I don’t let it. I push through the pain and continue condensing my energy.

More. And more.

And more.

All while the pain continues growing stronger, and the force trying to push my energy back into the rest of my body grows stronger.

Until I finally snap and lose control, making all of the energy spill back out into my body. At which point I suck in a gasp of air and my eyes shoot open to see a bunch of people casually chatting in the bar with only a couple taking pictures of me.

There are a few things I notice instantly though.

For one, the people in the bar are different from the people I saw previously.

For two, the people taking pictures look very surprised by my opening my eyes.

And for three, Sapphire is playing video games with some of the lottery winners outside of my barrier.

But none of that is more surprising than when Sapphire comments in my head, “Welcome back. You’ve been out for almost three weeks now.”

My jaw drops open in shock at that.

Three… weeks?

It took me three weeks to do all of that? Only to fail miserably in the end anyways…

Shit.

I take in a deep breath before letting it out again.

That was a major waste of time.

Time to try again.

Without hesitation, I close my eyes again and once more focus on condensing all of the energy that just spilled back out into my body down into my heart. Which doesn’t take quite as long this time around as it did the first time.

So there’s that plus at least.

But I think this may have been the very first time I’ve actually given into the pain and lost.

It’s a good thing I did it in a safe place.

Now I just hope I don’t do it again.