21: Chapter 21 The Fear of Losing Him

"Get out of the way!"

A cold voice swept across the battlefield like a winter gale.

Frost Mage Lin Shiyun rushed forward.

Her staff was raised high, her silver-white hair swirling like a blizzard amidst the surging spiritual energy, and her ice-blue pupils churned with unprecedented fury.

No, it wasn't fury. It was fear.

It was an uncontrollable fear welling up from the deepest depths of her heart.

She saw him kneeling on the ground, saw the blood at his ribs, and saw his face instantly turn pale.

In that moment, there was only one thought in Frost Mage Lin Shiyun's mind.

He was injured.

He was injured.

He was injured.

This thought drove into her consciousness like a red-hot iron nail, shattering all her calm, restraint, and rationality.

The precise battlefield control that the Frost Mage prided herself on vanished in an instant.

Replacing it was an overwhelming, uncontrollable frost power surging wildly from within her.

"Frost Seal: Absolute Domain!"

She slammed her staff onto the ground.

With Frost Mage Lin Shiyun as the center, everything within a fifty-pace radius was swallowed by frost in an instant.

The ground froze, the air stagnated, and the water vapor crystallized; silvery-white frost spread in all directions like a tsunami, and the temperature plummeted to extreme cold in a split second!

The Iron-Armored Bear's limbs were frozen as the frost spread, a flash of terror crossing its dark red eyes; as it struggled with brute force, the ice layer shattered and then rapidly refroze.

But Frost Mage Lin Shiyun's frost power had already spiraled out of control.

The frost did not stop.

Fifty paces, sixty paces, seventy paces—the frost continued to spread, rampaging like an unbridled beast.

The tent fabric became as brittle and hard as glass in the extreme cold, the spirit potato sprouts in the spirit field instantly froze into ice sculptures, and the leaves of the medicinal herbs in the herb garden shattered into powder.

Shen Xun'er's moonlight shield developed cracks under the impact of the frost, and she exclaimed, "Shiyun! Get a hold of yourself!"

Frost Mage Lin Shiyun could not hear.

Only a vast expanse of white remained in her ice-blue pupils, and the spiritual energy on her staff poured out like a burst dam.

Her body was trembling violently, her silver-white hair covered in frost as if wearing an ice crown, and the hem of her mage robe had frozen into a hard shell clinging to her legs, but she could not stop.

Fear gripped her heart like an invisible hand; the more she feared, the more turbulent her frost power became; the more turbulent it was, the less she could control it; and the less she could control it, the deeper her fear grew—a vicious cycle that grew larger like a rolling snowball.

"Sister Shiyun! Calm down!" Zhao Linger's voice came from afar.

"Her spiritual energy has gone berserk!" Hua Jieyu's voice was filled with panic.

Half of the camp was being swallowed by frost.

Wang Sheng knelt on the ice, the blood at his left ribs slowly congealing in the extreme cold.

But his eyes were fixed intently on Frost Mage Lin Shiyun. She stood at the center of the frost, her silver-white hair dancing in the cold wind like a snowy waterfall.

Her ice-blue pupils were hollow and fearful, and her tall, slender figure beneath the mage robe trembled slightly amidst the berserk spiritual energy, like a candle in the wind.

She was so beautiful that she didn't seem real—with skin like ice and bones like jade, cold and stunningly beautiful, like a living ice sculpture.

But the fear in those ice-blue pupils turned all that beauty into a heartbreaking fragility.

He stood up.

The tearing pain in his left ribs caused his vision to black out for a moment.

But his footsteps did not stop.

The frost spread beneath his feet, and the cold air pierced straight into his bone marrow through the soles of his feet.

His fingertips had already begun to turn blue, but he walked toward her step by step.

"Chieftain! Come back! You'll freeze to death!" Murong Xue shouted from behind.

Wang Sheng did not look back.

He passed through the area where the frost was spreading, each step treading on the shattered ice surface.

The cold air eroded his limbs, and the Power of Holy Light within his body desperately resisted the extreme cold.

With the physique of a Rank 2 Barbarian Warrior and the protection of the Power of Holy Light, he could still hold on. But there wasn't much time.

Five paces. Three paces. One pace.

He stood before Frost Mage Lin Shiyun.

Frost Mage Lin Shiyun's ice-blue pupils stared ahead without focus, her staff still uncontrollably releasing frost power.

Her lips were frozen purple, her face as pale as snow, and her silver-white hair was covered in ice crystals as if wearing a crown of crushed diamonds.

But her eyes were filled with fear—not fear of the Savage Beast, not fear of the uncontrollable frost, but fear for him.

Fear for his injury, fear that he might fall, fear that he would never stand up again.

Wang Sheng reached out.

He grasped her right hand that was holding the staff; that hand was as cold as iron, its knuckles white from excessive force.

The spiritual energy on the staff was still outputting wildly. He gripped it tightly, and the Power of Holy Light surged from his palm into the back of her hand.

The golden warm light and the ice-blue cold light collided on their joined hands, steam rising like mist.

"Shiyun."

His voice was not loud, but in the whistling wind of the frost, it was as clear as if spoken directly into her heart.

"Don't be afraid."

"I'm fine."

Frost Mage Lin Shiyun's body suddenly stiffened.

Her ice-blue pupils finally focused, bit by bit regaining their focus from that vast expanse of white.

She saw him, saw his figure as he knelt on the ground and then stood up to walk toward her.

She saw the wound on his left ribs still oozing blood, saw his fingertips frozen blue.

She saw the warmth of his palm as he held her hand.

The frost power suddenly diminished in that instant.

It was not because his spiritual energy was exhausted, but because the fear had dissipated.

That red-hot iron nail had been pulled out, replaced by the warmth coming from his palm.

Like a basin of charcoal fire placed on a frozen lake, the heat permeated through the ice layer bit by bit, melting the hardest layer of its shell.

Frost Mage Lin Shiyun's staff slipped from her hand.

With a "clatter," the staff fell onto the ice and bounced twice.

The spread of the frost stopped completely, the silvery-white ice field reflecting a dazzling light in the morning sun.

About one-third of the area in the camp had been frozen into ice sculptures.

Tents, spirit fields, herb gardens, and even a small section of the Lingxi River had been frozen over.

But none of that mattered anymore.

Because Frost Mage Lin Shiyun's tears fell.

The Frost Mage does not cry. Since transmigrating, she had not cried even once; she did not cry when the Beast Tide came.

She did not cry when she was exhausted to the limit from standing guard every night, nor did she cry when she practiced Frost Spell alone in the training ground until her palms cracked from the cold.

The Frost Mage does not cry, because an iceberg does not shed tears.

But at this moment, she cried.

Tears welled up from her ice-blue pupils, slid down her pale cheeks, and dripped onto the back of his hand that was still holding hers.

The warm teardrops hit his blue-frozen skin, scorching like a branding iron.

"You..." Her voice was hoarse, her lips trembling, each word sounding as if it were chiseled out from beneath the ice layer, "Why didn't you dodge..."

"You could have clearly dodged it... Why did you take that claw head-on..."

"Are you stupid... Are you stupid..."

She repeated, "Are you stupid," her voice turning from a sob into a near-breakdown cry.

Her silver-white hair hung down on both sides of her cheeks, covering most of her face, but the tears and fear overflowing in her ice-blue pupils could not be hidden at all.

That was not the cold, tsundere words, nor the reserve of an iceberg beauty.

It was the most authentic appearance of a girl after all her disguises had collapsed in the fear of losing the person she cared about most.