The Eternal Winter - Book 1 - Chapter 76 - Arrival of a New Player (Patreon)

Almost done with book 1!

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                                                       Alexander North

After finding and entering one of the secret entrances for planet hall, I quickly begin sprinting through the halls of the place until I reach the stairs and begin to find frozen ones. Although all of these at this point are rather weak, so I deal with them quickly and move on after absorbing their energy.

While I was doing so, I can’t help but notice that my terminal is still working.

Terminal, why aren’t you locked up? I disobeyed a direct order from my captain.

|This unit does not follow the same chain of command anymore and therefore is not beholden to orders from any other terminal unit|

That statement alone surprises me enough to stop moving.

Say what?

That’s… how did a little mutation to you lead to that?

|Answer to Alexander’s query is unclear, however, this unit believes that the energy making up the foundation of the terminal has been corrupted and turned into something entirely different|

Energy? What energy? Aren’t terminals just running on electricity or something? Some sort of tiny generator in my body inside of the chip?

|Incorrect. This unit – prior to mutation – ran on an energy very similar and yet completely opposite to the energy running through Alexander’s body. Now, however, the energies have fused into one, creating a new power source that disconnected this unit from any chains of command previously set|

Wait, does that mean there’s something else out there that could cause another Eternal Winter? And it has energy in our bodies?

|Incorrect. This energy is on the opposite side of the spectrum from the energy in your body as while the energy behind the Eternal Winter is based on the cold, the one in your body is the opposite and is based on heat|

I frown at that, only to shake my head and continue running up the stairs.

Whatever. I can deal with that info dump later.

Terminal, bring up the map of the building my father sent over.

The terminal does just that, displaying it minimized in the corner of my vision. And just like dad said, the map has a small dot marking the last point where the captain contacted headquarters according to the captain’s own words, seeing as the GPS is down.

I continue running all the way until I get to the floor they were on at the time, which is the third floor, but I don’t find a single heat signature on it. So I move towards the stairs for the next floor, getting more than a little frustrated that the stairs aren’t all in just a single stairwell. Especially since they were supposed to be in a single stairwell in the other secret entrance, but that secret entrance was already used by someone else. Most likely the captain. So it was sealed.

And when I tried breaking the door down? I just found rubble on the other side, blocking the way.

Damned annoying building layout.

I still don’t find anyone on the third floor aside from frozen ones that I continue slaughtering before finding the stairs and moving up. This process then repeats several times until I finally begin to run into more powerful frozen ones that stall me for longer.

But then the terminal gives me a rather ominous warning.

|Energy hereby designated as ‘heat energy’ as opposed to the ‘cold energy’ in Alexander’s body has been detected building up in the atmosphere|

And right after I hear that, I do begin to notice things starting to heat up ever so slightly. Meanwhile the frost coating the walls begins to melt in some areas, only to recover again soon after as if there were two energies fighting over dominance.

What the fuck is happening now?!

Out of nowhere, I see a lot of the incredibly weak frozen ones – the ones with less than half a point of energy – dying off in what looks like extreme agony. The flying ones having fallen out of the air to convulse on the ground, while the ones on the ground simply start to convulse, losing their footing in the process for the ones on the walls and ceiling.

But the frozen ones with energy higher than about half a point simply ignore the changes and continue rushing towards the stairs like they’re mad.

I personally don’t feel anything weird happening to me, so I eventually just ignore the weirdness to continue running. Since any second wasted could be the end of one of the team.

It only takes me stepping into the next stairwell and finding a window there to stop again as I see parts of the storm just vanished at random with what looks like sunlight streaking through. But those parts continuously appear to be warring with other parts, with neither of them gaining any ground.

“Okay, what the fuck is going on here?” I ask out loud, starting to lose any sense I had of the situation at hand. Of the Eternal Winter, the frozen ones, the symbionts and terminals, and everything else going on here.

|Massive heat energy source approaching from the skies|

I raise my head at that to look up, only to find what looks like a small glowing orangish red dot approaching. Or at least, small for several more seconds as it continues to grow larger and larger until it’s practically just a blazing sun right in front of me that’s scattering away the majority of the Eterna Winter.

At this point I think I’m numbed to the events that seem to be destroying the laws of physics, so I stare at the thing before the sun shrinks till it’s just a single person. A single creature.

Very clearly not human, but still humanoid. It has glowing gold and red eyes, with the whites in its eyes replaced by gold and the irises replaced by red with more gold in the place of the pupil, along with several glowing golden rings floating in circles around it and a cold expression on its face as it looks down at the intelligent frozen one standing in front of planet hall.

Then the intelligent frozen one begins to float itself until its on level elevation with the new creature.

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