Eternal Winter's Reign - Book 2 - Chapter 32 - Snakes Galore

Alexander North

Seconds pass, and the seconds turn into an entire minute before I regain my bearings and move to the edge of the tunnel that the snake passed through. And by now all I can see is the very end of the snake’s tail as it goes downwards.

I turn to look at the other tunnel on the other side of the hall before just proceeding through the hallway back to the last intersection.

Yeah, those tunnels were frozen solid. Whatever that snake is doing, it’s freezing everything along its path. And it seems to have some sort of ice drill in front of its head.

Which is certainly one odd ability.

Something that’s bothering me though is that the snake didn’t feel like the source of this immense energy.

And if it’s not the snake, then that means it’s one of two different things.

Either the energy crystal in this nest is far stronger than the other nests’ energy crystals, or there’s something even stronger than that snake lurking down here.

What’s worse is that both of those possibilities would explain the oddities in this place, such as the snake and the stronger frozen ones. Meaning I don’t have anything to go off of for figuring out which option it is.

I continue through the hallways of the floor, not finding a single other frozen one inside until I reach the stairwell to the next floor down. And when I enter it, I quickly find… even more oddities.

That’s a lot of snakes.

I stare down from the top of the stairwell at the literal swarm of snakes moving around the bottom and across the stairs themselves.

And now I can’t help but hesitate. Should I turn back and begin to leave the place? Or should I keep going forward?

Because the cold energy is beginning to grow even thicker down the stairs, no matter how impossible that may sound.

Then there’s the massive snake, all of these smaller snakes, and I still don’t know what is the source of the cold energy down here.

I grit my teeth, pondering over it for several seconds with the snakes surprisingly not noticing me yet – just like the big fella that passed right on by me – before eventually deciding to try fighting some of the snakes. Then I can turn back.

Best to at least get some data on the frozen ones before I turn back for help.

So I get to a good vantage point above the stairwell before throwing several arcs of cold energy down at the snakes, cutting over a dozen of them apart in an instant. An act that riles up all of the other snakes as well, but, to my surprise, none of them move towards me. Instead they begin swarming everywhere around them as if searching for whatever killed their brethren.

Wait a second, can they not sense me?

I furrow my brows at that before shrugging and slowly beginning to climb down the stairs. And even when I get right up to the edge of the swarm, they don’t do anything to me.

Interesting.

The fact that they’re not killing me regardless of the noise I make or the fact that I’m standing right here most likely means they have some sort of thermal vision.

I know some of the frozen ones I’ve fought across the nests have had a sort of vision that could only see warm energy. Meaning not me.

Just to test things, I take a few steps up the stairs before reaching down and grabbing a little bit of rubble from the slightly damaged stairwell – not damaged enough to be worrisome though. Then I lightly toss the rock down into the pit on top of some of the snakes and the snakes immediately begin rushing at the snake in question when it lets out a hiss of anger. As if the snake’s hiss warned all of the others about an attack.

Hmm. In that case, it looks like these snakes aren’t all that fast in terms of thinking and reacting. Otherwise the other snakes that I cut in half would’ve at least been able to get a hiss out before dying.

I watch the snakes swarm around the one that was hit by the rock for a few moments before shrugging.

This might not be so hard to deal with after all.

I go ahead and begin sending one arc of cold energy after another down into the stairwell, slaughtering the snakes without much regard for their panic. And it turns out to be even easier than I was expecting.

Actually, now that I think about it, these fellas really do seem like mini versions of the giant snake from earlier. And their having thermal vision would explain why the thing didn’t attack me.

After all, if it couldn’t see me, then it was probably just passing through or something.

I continue slaughtering the snakes for a while until they all just begin rushing away, deeper into the base. But I just keep killing them until they all disappear. And in the end I only manage to kill about half of them despite sending cold arcs nonstop.

Hmm. Slow to react, maybe. But they’re not stupid.

After the snakes are all gone, I begin walking down the stairs before collecting the energy of each one of the dead ones. Only to find that they don’t actually have all that much energy in them.

Huh.

Odd.

They are a lot weaker than I was expecting. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the little things wouldn’t even be able to break through my skin with their fangs…

This is… unexpected. Very unexpected.

I stop absorbing their energy for a second to look down the rest of the stairs at the entrance to the next floor, only to freeze for a second at what I find.

That… huh?

The door is completely destroyed and frozen to the sides of the hole that now makes up the wall where the door was. Meanwhile the walls inside of the floor are all dented and frozen.

Yeah, that’s not a good sign.

I purse my lips for a second before deciding to quickly finish up absorbing all of the energy from the snake corpses. And after doing that, I go ahead and head back up the stairs again to begin making my way out of the base.

Only to find the hallway having collapsed completely right outside of the stairwell, blocking my way back.

“Well, shit,” I mutter while staring at the collapsed tunnel covered in ice and frost.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For those of you who are reading this on a website that is not Patreon, please stop. You're reading a pirated version. Instead, if you would be so kind, please click on the table of contents link below and go to my Patreon instead. Or even read it off of Royal Road, which is free.

Discord Invite

Top Web Fiction

Table of Contents