Eternal Winter's Reign - Book 2 - Chapter 34 - A Trap (Patreon)

Alexander North

“Shit…” I mutter at the sight of the serpent looking around in confusion before slowly trying to cover the entire hallway while inching forwards. As if trying to scout me out despite not being able to see me.

So I try to move a little closer to it while still maintaining some distance. Just in an attempt to figure out how much energy the thing has.

But I don’t manage to get a lock on it, so I begin sending arcs of cold energy at the serpent to see how much damage they do. Only for the arcs to barely leave little scratches on its scales, sending the thing into a screeching frenzy.

At which point I rush forwards to claw at it myself. And just like my cold energy arcs, my claws barely scratch the thing.

So, without any hesitation, I beat a hasty retreat, rushing down the stairs.

The frozen one can’t sense me, so it’s not likely gonna follow. Which also makes me wonder how it knew to break into the hallway I was in.

I’m not given the time to figure that out though as the moment I reach the bottom of the stairs, the serpent begins to go down the stairwell. Meanwhile a couple more serpents break into the stairwell through the walls.

Seriously?

Are these things able to sense stuff through other methods besides just thermal vision? Or maybe its thermal vision is just a lot stronger and can sense the bits of heat energy that are still inside of me?

Either way, I can barely even scratch one of these things right now. There’s no way I can take on half a dozen of them.

So I rush straight into the next floor before making a beeline straight towards the nearest door. But moments before I open the door, the serpents reach the entrance of the floor.

And instead of chasing after me, the serpents slam themselves into the wall, bringing the wall and ceiling down around it.

Locking me into this floor as well.

My eyes narrow, but I continue on into the room, closing the door behind me before looking around the room. And after finding the room to be a simple storage room without any frozen ones in it, I slide down to the floor while finally catching my breath.

Terminal, was it just me, or were those frozen ones purposefully trying to herd me down here?

|It would appear so.|

Yeah.

At this point I know there’s something wrong with this base. It’s almost as if the nest is some sort of trap.

One set for me.

The weaker frozen ones outside, then a couple types of frozen ones that I pretty much counter due to my inherent nature. Followed by a bunch of very powerful frozen ones practically herding me deeper inside as the place continues to fall apart behind me, trapping me in the process.

And if this is really the case…

I stand up again after catching my breath before looking around the storage room to see if there’s anything here that might be of use to me. But there doesn’t appear to be anything. Just a bunch of machine parts. And I’m no mechanic.

Damnit, I really shouldn’t have come into this base after all…

I grit my teeth before relaxing my jaw again and letting out a sigh. Then I head back over to the door and crack it open to look out into the hallway. But I don’t see anything. No serpents, none of those other frozen ones or any wraiths. Just a frost coated hallway with one end collapsed and frozen blocking the stairwell.

Although… why are they herding me instead of just killing me? I’m pretty sure those serpents were strong enough to kill me if they wanted to.

Then there’s the fact that they even can herd me in the first place. Because if those serpents really only have thermal vision, they shouldn’t even have been able to see me unless it was just that strong.

So someone may be guiding them.

And if that’s the case, they’re probably the source of that cold energy flooding the base.

Guess that most likely means there are other fully intelligent leaders of the frozen ones on the planet just like the one who was put underground and the one I killed. And that they’re now after me.

Considering that even the one that tried catching me before was trying to capture me and not kill me, this sequence of events makes more sense to me. But there’s still the issue of whether this energy source belongs to the one trying to capture me, or if it belongs to an underling of theirs.

Because if it’s the one trying to capture me, I may not be strong enough to fight back. Not if they’re as powerful as the one who was put underground back then, fighting that person working for the Sun God.

But if it’s not the one trying to capture me, or if they’re just plain not as powerful as him… I may have a chance.

And if nothing else, I should be able to get away.

Assuming they didn’t collapse the emergency exit.

Which is possible.

Damnit.

My thoughts are interrupted when my cold energy enhanced radio receives a signal and one of the higher ranking officer’s voices echoes out of it.

“First Lieutenant North, do you read?” Frist Lieutenant Maverick asks. One of the men I was helping train.

I quickly unclip my radio while hurrying carefully back into the storage room and quietly closing the door. Then I pull the radio to my mouth and answer, “Affirmative.”

The first lieutenant’s voice quickly returns again with relief obvious in it, “Good. Evacuate the base as soon as possible. The doctor believes it’s a trap.”

Little late there, bud.

“It’s too late, the frozen ones have been cutting off my escape route and herding me deeper inside,” I speak into the radio with a frown on my face. “I’m going to search for the emergency stairs on BF3.”

A brief pause fills the air before the first lieutenant states, “Understood. Reinforcements are en route. If you can’t make it to the exit, hold out until we get there.”

Then the line cuts off.

Well, there’s that at least.

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