"We’ve arrived." Frostbite lazily lifted its pure white paw and pointed towards the distant outline hidden within the frosty mist.
As the Gondola sliced through the white sleet, the outline within the frosty mist revealed its true form.
It was a series of undulating ice mountains shrouded in thick white steam.
Each ice mountain wasn’t particularly tall, but they were packed densely together, like frozen waves.
However, this so-called "not tall" only applied above the water’s surface. The shadows beneath the water loomed like lurking ancient beasts, and just gazing from afar was enough to make those with thalassophobia tremble.
"This is the Malaya Ice Mountain," Frostbite said, and after speaking, it elegantly rose from the bow of the Gondola, lifted its head high, and with a forceful leap, descended gracefully from the sky. Piercing through the layers of clouds and mist, Frostbite landed smoothly atop the ice mountain.
Angel then slowly lowered the Gondola, finally stopping it upon the chilly ridge.
After settling down, Angel first looked into the vast distance and then turned his gaze towards Frostbite.
His original plan was for Frostbite to lead them to Frost Iser’s palace, but when he looked back, he realized Frostbite had already found a spot on the mountain’s edge and lazily sprawled out.
When Angel looked over, Frostbite was yawning, with an expression that seemed to say, "I’m going to sleep, don’t disturb me."
Seeing this, although Angel felt the probability of Frostbite leading them was low, he still had Lobal try to test the waters.
Sure enough, Frostbite refused without hesitation: "No, I flew so far to get here, I’m exhausted. I need at least two days to recover my strength."
Angel: "..." Are you sure it was you who flew all the way here?
No matter if Frostbite’s perception was off or not, it was clear that it didn’t want to leave.
Angel couldn’t force it, so he decided to let it be.
Just as Angel was about to raise the Flying Boat again, Frostbite suddenly said: "As a farewell, though the area of the Malaya Ice Mountain is not prohibited from flying, many ice creatures have a strong sense of territorial awareness. If you walk on the ice, given Lord Lobal’s presence, they won’t make a big deal of it; but if you fly over their territory and are detected, they’ll be quite angry. Frost Iser feels the same way."
When Angel heard the first part, he thought, "At worst, I’ll use the Illusion Technique to conceal," but after hearing the last part, that Frost Iser had a similar sense of territory, Angel decided against using the Flying Boat... after all, no one knew how vast Frost Iser’s territorial awareness was.
After this, Frostbite lay back on the ice, its eyelids drooping, and in the next second, it fell asleep.
Angel glanced at the spot where Frostbite was sleeping, right on the ice mountain’s edge, with the vast sea just behind. If the edge portion of the ice mountain were to collapse, it might drift back to the Outer Sea.
However, even if it did drift away, there was no need to worry. This place was a paradise for both Water System and ice creatures, after all.
...
Stowing away the Gondola, Angel turned away from the sea and headed towards the frozen mountains.
While it was called walking, the speed wasn’t slow at all, because Angel’s steps were aided by the wind of the Speedy Spirit. With the assistance of Speedy, he almost traversed hundreds of meters in a single bound, like flying low.
After just a few minutes, Angel sensed a peculiar icy aura.
He could clearly discern that this aura undoubtedly came from an ice creature, though looking out into the distance there was no sign of any creature, yet its presence enveloped a region.
At this point, Angel roughly understood that this icy aura was what Frostbite referred to as "territory awareness."
In the sky, the aura was chaotic and hard to distinguish, making it easy to intrude into others’ airspace. But walking on the ice, the aura was pure, making it easy to identify the boundary of the icy aura. If one didn’t want any interaction with its owner, simply bypassing could avoid unnecessary disputes.
Angel didn’t want to waste time, and he didn’t need an ice creature to guide him now because Lobal had been to Malaya Ice Mountain before. Although Lobal didn’t know the exact layout of the ice mountains, it knew the general direction of Frost Iser’s palace.
With a path to follow, there was no need to interact with the ice creatures on the outskirts, so Angel chose to skirt around the bounds of the icy aura and continue deeper into Malaya Ice Mountain.
He walked for half an hour.
Along the way, he encountered five ice creature territories. Though Angel chose to take detours, he was spotted by the creatures in two of those territories.
Yet to Angel’s surprise, these ice creatures paid little attention to him and his party, merely raising an eyebrow to glance their way, which was the extent of their concern.
This gave Angel the impression that "as long as you don’t enter their territory, they really don’t care who you are."
This was the first time since arriving in the Tidal World that Angel had encountered such a situation.
In other areas, elemental creatures, while not as heavily fortified or trapped as in the Baya Desert, remained very alert to outsiders. Upon entering their territory, whichever path you took, there would invariably be guards to obstruct you and inquire about your intentions.
Given past experiences, seeing the unique situation at Malaya Ice Mountain was quite distinct for Angel.
He had previously learned that Frost Iser was a formidable invader and assumed the rules at Malaya Ice Mountain would be very strict, but reality was entirely different from his expectations.
In this case, it’s beneficial, avoiding disputes and saving time from having to explain intentions to every ice creature encountered.
However, Angel couldn’t always detour, as some places simply couldn’t be avoided.
Just like now, Angel reached the crossing of an ice river.
A few meters ahead, there was a thin layer of ice, and beneath this ice was a river that hadn’t frozen over. Standing at the bank, one could hear the gentle sound of water flowing beneath the ice.
The ice river was very wide, its end invisible at a glance, stretching far into the distance.
The reason Angel stopped at the ice river’s edge was that he could clearly sense the dense water system aura where the ice river extended.
There was undoubtedly a powerful water creature entrenched in this ice river.
A detour was next to impossible.
Angel pondered for a moment and decided to step into the creature’s territory.
According to Frostbite’s earlier statement, walking on the ice, even if entering another’s domain, should be met with leniency in light of Lobal’s presence.
With this in mind, Angel stepped onto the ice river.
This was Angel’s first step into the territory of an elemental creature on Malaya Ice Mountain, completely different from previous detours. As soon as he entered the territory, an overwhelmingly dense water vapor locked onto him.
The ordinary mist lingering on the ice surface seemed to have turned into molten iron sludge, making it feel like walking with a thousand-pound burden on the feet.