Volume 1: Ice Contract
Pain!
Excruciating pain!
An intense headache dragged Aivi out of the boundless darkness.
Fragments of memory surged like a torrent, crashing relentlessly into his head that felt ready to explode—
The icy, bone-chilling river water.
A girl struggling ceaselessly.
The heavy cotton clothes dragging the body down.
A burning pain in the lungs, consciousness gradually being swallowed by darkness…
Aivi remembered.
He was a university student, in his third year.
During the winter break, while out sightseeing, he saw a child fall into the water. Relying on his strong swimming skills, he had jumped in without a second thought.
However, after pushing the other person onto the icy surface, he had suddenly lost control of his own body and ultimately sank to the riverbed.
So…
I died?
Aivi felt somewhat bewildered.
Hazy memories rapidly expanded…
Soon, another stream of cold and chaotic, fragmented memories flooded into his muddled mind.
Aivrel.
Her name was Aivrel.
True name: Aiserinnos Viktia Urgistus.
She was the ageless and immortal Ice Witch.
The nightmare in the hearts of the world.
Ice… Witch?
Aivi was slightly stunned.
She shook her head, trying to dispel the grogginess and throbbing pain in her brain, only to feel a sensation of coldness and hardness beneath her.
Only then did she realize she was sitting on a shattered, frozen throne.
The throne had a deep texture, a magnificent icy blue, faintly revealing a heavy, iron-black luster.
Cracks radiated from the throne in all directions, as if pierced through instantaneously by some extremely concentrated destructive force.
Aivi frowned.
She looked around. What met her eyes was an ancient, grand, ice-silver palace.
This palace was long in ruins. The magnificent dome seemed to have been smashed through by some massive object, torn open with several hideous large holes.
Through them, she could not see the sky’s natural color, only an endless gray, silent void like solidified dense fog.
Most of the countless giant ice pillars supporting the great hall had already snapped and collapsed.
Like toppled dominoes, they lay strewn haphazardly on the icy ground, shattered into countless dull fragments.
And outside the palace stretched a boundless, deathly gray desolation.
The earth was cracked, the firmament gray.
As if all life and color had been drained from the entire world.
Aivi took a deep breath and tried to stand up.
However, an invisible yet immensely powerful force pinned her firmly within the throne’s area, like a solid cage.
Her body swayed slightly, a strand of fine silver hair falling onto her chest.
Aivi froze for a moment, instinctively looking down. But the sight that met her eyes made her instantly rigid.
What she saw was a deep, luxurious dark blue.
It was the hem of a long dress.
The material resembled silk but wasn’t quite silk, resembled ice-gauze but wasn’t quite gauze. Even in such dim light, it faintly flowed with a cold, somber luster, like condensed aurora.
Her gaze moved upward, landing on a pair of hands resting on the throne’s armrests: hands with slender joints and delicate, pale-white skin.
Aivi was stunned.
These were definitely not the hands she remembered belonging to herself!
She abruptly raised these unfamiliar hands and touched her own face.
The sensation was cool and smooth, the contours fine and soft.
Her fingertips brushed against the long hair cascading to her chest. The strands were like an ice waterfall, a kind of nearly silver-white ice-silver hue.
Cold and sleek, carrying not a hint of warmth.
In a panic, she used her hands to explore the contours of her own face—
A tall yet elegant nose bridge, a clearly defined jawline, and… skin curves that were distinctly feminine and delicate.
No Adam’s apple.
Plus the slight sense of weight coming from her chest…
“Huh…?”
A short gasp of astonishment escaped her throat.
It was a clear, slightly husky female voice.
All her cognition crumbled at that moment, only to be forcibly reshaped by the cold reality.
This cold, slender female body…
Was hers!
Aivi hurriedly looked toward the mirror-like, smooth broken ice pillar beside the throne.
The silver column shimmered with a faint glow, reflecting her current appearance.
It was a silver-haired girl who appeared about sixteen or seventeen, whose beauty was otherworldly.
Her features were exquisitely unreal, her pale skin revealing an arctic-like cold undertone, her lips as faint as newly blooming snow-plum blossoms.
Her ice-silver hair cascaded down, the tips adorned with fine ice crystals that refracted rainbow light as she bowed her head, as if crushed stars had been scattered among her tresses.
But those ice-blue pupils were the true abyss.
Colder than the polar night, yet clearer than melting ice. Staring into them felt like glimpsing the silent flow of a deep-sea vortex.
Aivi’s breathing instantly grew rapid.
The rapid breaths stirred wisps of mist, condensing into tiny ice flowers around her.
Dense frost spread from her body onto the shattered throne, magnificent ice crystals swiftly covering the entire ground.
Within mere moments, the entire palace was frozen solid.
She closed her eyes deeply, opening them slowly only after a long while. The chaotic thoughts also rapidly calmed down with the release of the ice flowers:
“So… after I died, I crossed over here, becoming… a witch?”
“【Ice Witch】—Aivrel?”
Aivrel’s voice still held disbelief, but it was no longer panicked.
As if some cold, rational force had flattened her thoughts, instantly restoring her calm.
This rapid calmness even surprised herself.
It was as if, by becoming the Ice Witch, she had herself turned into solid ice, her mind receiving some kind of absolutely rational enhancement.
And just as Aivrel regained her senses, recognized and temporarily accepted the current situation, she felt an unbearable, intense hunger assault her mind.
A clear summons came from outside the great hall, accompanied by a mouth-watering rich fragrance, as if some delicious food was tempting her to go forth.
Only now did Aivrel feel this kind of unbearable hunger.
She couldn’t help but look towards the dilapidated palace doors, took a deep breath, and tried to stand up again, only to be stopped once more by that invisible force.
But this time, she finally saw clearly what it was—
It was several chains formed from blue-purple lightning.
These thunder chains slowly manifested, entwined around her limbs and waist. Sparks of lightning flickered, emitting a low hum as if warning her not to struggle.
And the moment that lightning appeared, something within Aivrel’s body seemed to rapidly awaken as well. A cold sensation suddenly spread from her fingertips.
Her heart stirred slightly. She looked down and saw her hands, now inexplicably covered with a thin layer of ice crystals, cold air radiating from them.
This was… the power of 【Ice】?
No.
It was 【Ice】, but it seemed to be more than just 【Ice】. It felt more like the manifestation of some mysterious power.
After a brief thought, Aivrel attempted to channel this power.
Immediately, more ice crystals surged from her palms, coiling upwards like living things, silently resisting the thunder chains.
Two completely different powers collided, intertwined, annihilated…
Like two natural enemies pitted against each other.
Gradually, Aivrel felt the suppression from the thunder chains lessen.
This invigorated her. She hurriedly deepened her control over the frost power, quickly immersing herself in this strange battle of forces.
She didn’t know how much time had passed…
Suddenly, with a crisp sound, the thunder chains binding her abruptly cracked, spreading countless fissures. Finally, amidst the shattering of ice crystals, they broke apart!
Aivrel felt the shackles on her body loosen abruptly.
Her body lightened, and she stood up sharply!
An invisible ripple spread outward from her as the center. The entire world seemed to tremble slightly.
Silver hair fell like an ice river, the long dress swayed without wind.
The ice crystals released from the girl’s body seemed to instantly come alive, spinning around her continuously, blooming into clusters of ice-silver light like fireflies.
Those ice-silver lights drifted about, dreamlike and illusory.
Each seemed to possess its own life and spirit, faintly conveying emotions of joy, affection, and longing, like children long separated from their mother.
【Ice Elemental Spirit】
Living ice magic, the key to unlocking the laws of ice.
Unfamiliar knowledge naturally surfaced in Aivrel’s mind.
As if she was supposed to know it all along.
Aivrel was somewhat astonished.
She quickly realized this was her recalling another fragment of the Ice Witch’s memories.
And within her perception, there were many more memory fragments of the Ice Witch Aivrel, but most lay dormant deep within her consciousness, not yet fused with her.
She seemed unable to actively absorb these memory fragments.
The emergence of memories related to Ice Elemental Spirits gave her a new speculation:
Perhaps, only by continuously interacting with the outside world, continuously encountering new things in this world, could she receive ongoing external stimuli, causing these memory fragments to surface one by one.
Thinking this, Aivrel looked toward the outside of the great hall.
Perhaps because she had used too much of this body’s power earlier.
That inexplicable hunger seemed to have grown even stronger, and her spirit felt a soul-deep weariness.
Without further hesitation, she resolutely took a step forward, following the increasingly enticing rich fragrance.
Freed from the suppression of the thunder chains, Aivrel smoothly walked out of the dilapidated palace doors.
Outside the great hall lay an open, silver-gray stone platform.
In the center of the platform stood a massive stone gate.
This gate was about thirty meters high, its frame composed of two mottled stone pillars carved with ancient, long-faded runes, bearing everywhere the marks of time’s erosion and violent damage.
Between the twin pillars of the stone gate swirled a seething, distorted vortex of energy.
The energy vortex rotated constantly, occasionally tearing open a gap, revealing the blurred, distorted scene behind it—
An azure ocean, a vast continent.
Majestic mountains and rivers, and expansive plains dotted with towns and castles.
Winding roads connected villages with curling smoke, and caravan teams as small as ants crawled slowly across the vast land.
That… seemed like the reflection of another world.
“【World Gate】, and… the 【Prime Material Plane】.”
Gazing at the blurred scene within the stone gate, two more unfamiliar terms surfaced in Aivrel’s mind.
【World Gate】
It was a gate between worlds.
It could connect planes, link different worlds.
【Prime Material Plane】
It was the most vast, most ancient plane in existence, with the most complete laws.
Unfamiliar knowledge welled up in her heart. Aivrel almost instantly knew how to use this World Gate—
As long as she stepped through it, she would leave this cold, dead plane and arrive in another vibrant, clearly civilized, colorful world!
Just as Aivrel recalled this new memory, that intense feeling of being summoned also rose to an unprecedented level.
The source of it all was precisely this World Gate before her, or rather… the 【Prime Material Plane】 beyond the gate!
Feeling the powerful attraction from the world beyond the gate, Aivrel took a deep breath of cold air and decided to try crossing through the World Gate.
However, the moment she lifted her foot, the entire World Gate suddenly shook violently!
The dilapidated gate pillars groaned under unbearable stress, the energy vortex showing signs of losing control.
Aivrel instantly realized something—
This World Gate was severely damaged and could no longer withstand the power of her crossing between worlds.
Not only that, the moment she took that step, an unprecedented, lethal crisis pierced her soul, freezing the blood in her veins.
It was the most primitive fear stemming from life’s instinct—
She clearly foresaw that some sort of tracking mark, similar to a trace, remained on this World Gate.
If her foot so much as touched that distorted energy, it would activate. Then, some terrifying unknown force would track it, descend in an instant, and directly suppress her!
Only when Aivrel withdrew her outstretched foot did that instinctive sense of life-and-death crisis gradually fade.
“I… cannot cross this World Gate to enter the Prime Material Plane on the other side right now.”
Panting with lingering fear, she naturally came to this conclusion.
After some thought, Aivrel stopped attempting to cross. Instead, she cautiously stretched her hand toward the World Gate.
The next moment, she felt her soul suddenly pulled, and her consciousness, following some special instinct, extended outward like a stretching arm.
Immediately afterward, Aivrel felt that her expanded consciousness seemed to have “grabbed” something.
Dazzling specks of radiance bloomed on the World Gate, presenting different colors.
Brown, cyan, blue, red, silver, purple, gold, ink-black.
Eight kinds in total.
Among them, silver was the most prominent, followed by cyan and blue.
These radiances seemed attracted by Aivrel’s consciousness. They traversed the World Gate, passing from the Prime Material Plane into this dead world.
“These lights… are 【Mana】?”
New memory fragments surfaced. Aivrel naturally learned the name of these brilliant lights.
They were 【Mana】.
The foundation that constructs all things in the world, and also the source of transcendent power.
The moment this mana appeared, the Ice Spirits around instantly grew excited, rushing over in a competitive swarm.
Aivrel also felt a certain instinctive desire.
At this moment, she suddenly understood:
The rich fragrance she had sensed earlier came precisely from the mana beyond the gate!
Aivrel almost subconsciously reached out her hand. These mana lights, surrounded by Ice Spirits, swiftly surged toward her, merging into her body.
Gradually, her body also began to glow with a magnificent, crystalline light, her form turning semi-transparent, as if transforming into a flowing mass of ice magic.
Just like… those Ice Spirits.
And simultaneously, Aivrel was surprised to find her spirit slowly recovering, and the strange power within her body also began to replenish slowly.
She herself also felt a sense of satisfaction akin to eating…
“So, mana is my food?”
“Could it be… I am also an Ice Elemental Spirit, just in humanoid form?”
Looking at her own energy-state body, which bore an extreme resemblance to the Ice Spirits, Aivrel had a somewhat absurd conjecture.
And at this moment, she finally realized why she felt this ice-gray world before her was deathly still.
Unlike the Prime Material Plane beyond the gate, this world… had no mana.
This was not only a dead world, but also most likely a prison meant to confine her!