Chapter 142
The black spatial tear snapped shut, and Ayla’s round blue body crashed into a world of absolute, bone-chilling cold.
She did not fall onto hard volcanic rock or polished marble floorboards this time. Instead, she landed with a heavy, dull thud onto a massive sheet of solid, dark blue glacial ice. The surface was as slick as glass and stretched out endlessly in every direction under a heavy, midnight-black sky. There was no sun here, only a massive, pale blue ringed planet that hung low on the horizon, casting a dim, ghostly light across the frozen landscape.
The air parameters in this unmanaged primitive world were incredibly hostile. The temperature was hundreds of degrees below freezing, far past the threshold where normal biological lifeforms would instantly freeze into solid blocks of ice. Fierce, howling blizzards tore across the glacial plains, carrying sharp, jagged ice crystals that whistled through the air like thrown daggers.
Yet, as the freezing winds slammed against Ayla’s translucent blue surface, her glossy jelly did not freeze at all. Her Apocalypse Gold Metal Core was spinning with a majestic, heavy rhythm deep within her center, radiating a constant, dense golden warmth that easily pushed the extreme cold away from her fluid pathways.
"Nexus, this world is very cold," Ayla muttered through the mind link, her mental voice completely flat and deadpan as she rolled a few inches across the slick blue ice. "But the air is very clean. It does not smell like sulfur or angry students."
"Welcome to the Frozen Sea World of Niflheim, little monster!" Nexus’s voice giggled loudly inside her head, a massive block of bright blue digital data charts instantly expanding across Ayla’s right holographic lens. "This is a real, unmanaged Class 3 primitive planet. Ninety-nine percent of this world is covered by a colossal, miles-deep frozen ocean. The ice sheet we are standing on is over five hundred feet thick, and directly beneath us is an endless abyss of freezing liquid water."
Ayla tilted her round body slightly, her golden-ringed pupils looking down through the dark, translucent blue ice beneath her mass. In the deep, pitch-black waters far below the frozen crust, she could see faint, glowing trails of bioluminescent light moving slowly through the current.
Even from this distance, through five hundred feet of solid glacial ice, Ayla’s primitive monster brain could clearly feel the dense, pulsing heat of real, unrefined cosmic energy centers. They smelled incredibly rich, cold, and heavy. They were raw, ancient, and completely untamed, far superior to the synthesized cores of the academy grid or the dry, mutated dragon core she had eaten that morning.
A wild, uncontrollable wave of primal hunger instantly bubbled up from her golden core, causing her blue jelly surface to ripple violently with a terrifying velocity.
"There are very big fish down there," Ayla whispered, her golden eyes flashing with a sudden, predatory light. "How do we get to them?"
"The ice sheet is incredibly dense, but you have the perfect tool for the job!" Nexus laughed happily, highlighting a specific spot on the ice directly in front of Ayla’s coordinates. "Your newly mutated Rend of the World-Order trait ignores eighty percent of all physical protections. A five-hundred-foot layer of primitive glacial ice is basically nothing more than soft snow to your black claws. Just dig a hole!"
Ayla did not wait a single second. She floated toward the highlighted spot on the blue ice, her five majestic, pitch-black claws slowly extending from her front mass with a sharp, synchronized metallic click. The intricate golden runes on the surface of her claws flared with a brilliant, blinding light, absorbing the wild, freezing mana of Niflheim to reinforce her strike.
With a simple, lazy downward sweeping motion, Ayla drove her claws straight into the solid glacier.
Clang. Crack. Crash.
A series of loud, echoing explosions vibrated through the frozen plains. The thick, ancient glacial ice did not offer a single ounce of resistance against her law attribute trait. The pitch-black claws sliced through the frozen crust like a hot iron blade cutting through soft butter, tearing massive blocks of ice into fine, glowing blue powder.
Ayla did not stop digging. She turned her body into a high-speed blue drill, utilizing her Gale Acceleration trait to descend deeper and deeper into the glacier. Within less than two minutes, she had carved a perfect, ten-foot-wide vertical tunnel straight through the five-hundred-foot ice sheet.
Splash!
With a loud, echoing splash, Ayla’s round blue body broke through the bottom of the ice crust and plunged directly into the pitch-black, freezing liquid water of the endless primordial ocean.
The water parameters here were incredibly dense and heavy, filled with a high concentration of salt and wild, ancient mana. The pressure was immense, enough to crush a normal Gold-ranked warrior’s physical bones into powder in seconds, but Ayla’s maximized Peak Gold Crusader density was far too high to be bothered by deep-sea pressure. Her fluid mass simply adjusted to the current, her translucent blue body blending perfectly with the dark ocean water as she floated calmly in the abyss.
"Oh, look at that!" Nexus whispered excitedly inside her head, updating her holographic contact lens to display a real-time, three-dimensional sonar map of the deep-sea sector. "Your entry has definitely made some noise in the local ecosystem. The bioluminescent signals are moving toward your coordinates at a very high speed!"
Ayla panned her golden-ringed pupils across the pitch-black water.
From the dark, deep trenches far below, several massive, glowing shapes were rapidly ascending toward her. Within a few seconds, three colossal aquatic leviathans emerged from the darkness, surrounding Ayla’s small coordinates completely.
These creatures were over eighty feet long, their sleek, serpentine bodies covered in heavy, glowing blue scales that radiated a freezing, anti-magic aura pressure. They looked like prehistoric, multi-eyed sea serpents, featuring massive jaws filled with hundreds of translucent, ice-like teeth that dripped with a paralyzing, toxic frost. Their ten glowing red eyes locked directly onto the tiny blue slime floating in the water. To these apex deep-sea predators, Ayla looked like nothing more than a tiny, stray bubble of air.
The largest leviathan did not hesitate. It whipped its massive, powerful tail, its serpentine body cutting through the freezing water with an incredible, silent speed as it opened its giant jaws to swallow Ayla whole.
Ayla did not try to dodge the attack, and she did not use her Abyssal Shadow Blink to escape. A wild, manic joy instantly erupted from her Apocalypse Gold Metal Core, causing her to launch herself directly into the open mouth of the giant sea serpent.
"Rend of the World-Order," Ayla commanded flatly inside her mind.
The moment she entered the creature’s gaping jaws, she extended her five pitch-black claws and swung her fluid arm in a wide, savage arc.
The heavy, glowing blue scales and the freezing anti-magic aura that protected the leviathan’s inner throat did not offer a single ounce of protection. Her claws completely ignored eighty percent of its physical defenses, slicing cleanly through the thick skin, through the heavy jawbones, and straight through its primary life pathways.
A massive shower of thick, glowing blue blood erupted into the dark water, sizzling loudly as the permanent bleeding effect of her trait instantly latched onto the creature’s soul container. The giant leviathan let out a silent, agonizing shriek of pure pain, its massive eighty-foot body thrashing violently in the current as its internal regeneration skills completely failed to close the deep lacerations.
Ayla did not let it roll away. She reached her fluid hand straight through the severed meat, her grip locking tightly around the massive, pulsating blue energy core that was glowing violently inside the beast’s chest cavity.
"Removal," Ayla ordered smoothly.
She forcefully erased the concept of physical mobility from its ancient core framework.
Instantly, the giant sea serpent’s violent thrashing stopped completely. Its massive, serpentine body went entirely limp, its ten glowing eyes turning into a dull, expressionless gray color as its primitive nervous system was completely short-circuited by her conceptual mind control. Ayla pulled her hand back, forcefully ripping the glowing blue core straight out of its chest and swallowing the frozen entity directly into her center.
The other two leviathans watched their pack leader get thoroughly liquidated and stripped of its core in less than ten seconds, and a sudden, primitive survival terror entered their ancient minds. They had been the undisputed kings of the frozen deep for thousands of years, yet they were now looking at a literal prehistoric predator that was far more monstrous than anything they had ever encountered.
They frantically turned their massive bodies around, attempting to dive back into the safety of the dark, deep-sea trenches.
"You cannot run away," Ayla’s multi-layered mental voice boomed through the water parameters, carrying a terrifying, heavy resonance that vibrated through their scaled skins. "I am still very hungry."
She activated her Gale Acceleration trait, her gold-ranked body becoming a devastating, high-speed blue projectile that sliced through the freezing water like a missile. Within less than three seconds, she caught up to the second fleeing leviathan, extending her black claws to slice its massive tail completely off. The permanent bleeding effect drained its vitality in an instant, and Ayla casually ripped the second blue core from its chest.
She then changed direction, soaring straight toward the third leviathan. She focused her Twin Lens of the Weaver onto its massive, scaled head, deploying her standard conceptual function to finish the hunt.
"Removal," she commanded flatly.
She forcefully erased the concept of oxygen retention from its biological framework.
The giant sea serpent instantly opened its mouth in a silent, desperate gasp, its lungs completely collapsing as its primitive brain lost the ability to process the water’s oxygen. It floated weakly in the dark current, its ten red eyes rolling into the back of its skull within a fraction of a second. Ayla rolled over its head, smoothly harvesting its blue core and pulling it straight into her golden center.
[ System Notice: Real-world cosmic targets eliminated ]
[ Three primitive deep-sea leviathan cores successfully digested ]
[ Your internal gold core density has increased by twelve percent ]
[ The frozen world parameters of Niflheim are currently thirty percent conquered ]
Ayla floated in the quiet, bloody water, her translucent blue body expanding and contracting with a deep, heavy rhythm as the massive influx of real cosmic energy flooded her biological framework. The cold, raw mana from the leviathan cores was incredibly rich, perfectly anchoring her Peak Gold Crusader rank and pushing her closer to the absolute boundary of the next tier.
"This is a very good beginning, Nexus," Ayla whispered, her golden-ringed pupils glowing brightly in the dark abyss. "The meat here is much sweeter than the dragon student. I want to find the nest of these big fish."
"Oh, you are in luck, little monster!" Nexus’s voice giggled loudly, her digital interface flashing a massive red warning arrow that pointed straight down into the pitch-black trenches far below. "The sonar sensors are detecting a massive, colossal energy signature waking up at the absolute bottom of the trench. It is easily ten times larger than these three leviathans combined! Get ready for a real, heavy meal!"
Ayla did not wait. She contracted her blue fluid mass into a tight, perfect ball of jelly, her five pitch-black claws extending back out with a sharp, synchronized metallic click. She dropped her body straight down into the deep, dark abyss, completely ready to unleash her monstrous, unyielding hunger across the entire Frozen Sea World of Niflheim.