Chapter 576: The First Concept of Frost
The system’s golden panel flashed before Ryuk, whose back rested against the tree, legs spread out before him, his gaze slightly raised as he looked at the sky.
It had turned into a darkened void, scattered with starlight and streaks of faint green auroras that drifted past.
But what drew him most tonight was the moonlight.
Cold. Alone. Still.It was alluring in its solitude—a peaceful silence draped in silver.
“I’m just trying to… take a day off from it all,” Ryuk whispered, inhaling deeply before exhaling, the moonlight reflecting in his soft blue irises.
Rakshasa had eventually left after a bit more discussion.
He had managed to rein in her chaos-driven bloodlust and dissuaded her from leaving the island, instead asking her to focus on strengthening herself for her revenge.
It was an obvious excuse to keep her from leaving—but it worked. Now, at least, she was doing something productive.
Antares wasn’t near, though he could faintly sense him somewhere else on the island.
Isha and Void were still in slumber—evolving.
None of them had broken out of their cocoons yet, and Ryuk didn’t wish to stir them, letting them evolve in peace.
“It’s a bit cold tonight,” he murmured to himself, eyes gazing into the distance. Then slowly, he raised his hand and turned it palm upward.
An object was conjured—a frosty orb of Mana.
His gaze settled on it, lost in its pale glow. And then, the earth beneath him shifted—blanketed in frost.
The grass turned white before it froze over.
The cold spread like breath over glass, covering a radius of about three kilometers before it stopped. Above him, the sky changed.
The world had become one of frost, as if it had just heavily snowed, illusions of mountains lingering quietly behind him.
[Domain Expansion Skill Has Been Activated.]
The frozen moonlight pierced through the domain, shining down on the lone figure still seated beneath the tree.
His arms were raised before his face, eyes fixed on the undulating sphere of ice floating on his palms.
“Frost… Ice… Cold,” Ryuk whispered, and with a simple will, he began unraveling the ball in his hands, decreasing its energy bit by bit as he watched it evolve.
It changed—morphing into a glowing frosty aura, like the shimmer one might find in the flare of a flame.
“Cold… Aura,” he murmured again, the first thought that came to him.
Then, with a flicker of intent, he extended his will once more, seeking to unravel that aura in his hands into something even more simpler.
It was difficult—more difficult than before.
But Ryuk no longer cared.
Time, effort, difficulty—they didn’t matter.
He condensed his will and focused on the aura, a way to try and escape the raging emotions inside him. And after an unknown amount of time had passed…
He unraveled the flickering aura into something… basic.
“Frost Flakes…” he whispered.
And there, in his hands, were particles—impossible for a regular mortal to perceive—but Ryuk saw them as clearly as the lines on his palm.
They were frost flakes.
Each had five pointed edges, shaped like stars.
But as he gazed into their intricate elegance, his eyes caught something more.
Tiny symbols carved onto the five edges of the snowflakes—each brimming with faint silvery motes of light.
“Frost Runes…” he breathed, identifying them, and in that quiet moment of observation, something stirred in him.
Each of the five edges had a distinct, runic shape, which was distinctly different from the others.
His brows subtly twitched, and then… his vision deepened.
Now, they were more than just visible.
Five edges on a snowflake.
Each edge, inscribed with a unique runic symbol.
Each radiating an ancient energy.
His gaze magnified, until he felt as though he were standing before these frost runes, and slowly, his hands reached out to touch one—the one angled vertically, facing the sky the most.
But when Ryuk reached out his ‘hand’ toward it…
He found himself unable to move.
Before this rune, time itself had been frozen. Even he was frozen.
His eyes, formerly dulled from the chaos within, finally saw something that managed to capture his interest—and he strained hard to touch the rune, yet found himself failing.
That’s when he realized.
His gaze was still endlessly magnifying.
‘I’m… not frozen physically. It’s… magically. Like a law of stillness, stopping me from even really moving to reach for the runes.’
‘And… that law seems to be present due to the presence of this runic symbol…’ he muttered to himself as he looked at the runic symbol—but while concentrating, he noticed something more profound.
And that was—while the other runic symbols were dancing with dots of light that flickered and bent in their form…
This particular rune also radiated a frost of light, but the motes of light weren’t moving. They were like stars, hanging in the same place…
“An Aura of Stillness… from one of the Frost Runes?” Ryuk muttered, stopping his effort to reach.
His magnifying paused. His hands, once extended, slowly fell to his sides.
“The frost… It’s not just cold, like I thought,” he said quietly, watching the rune as its essence revealed a deeper concept.
“It stills the world. Frost is not chaos. Nor just cold. It is silence… and control. One obtained from inner calmness.”
“One I obtained… by trying to run from the chaos inside me…” Ryuk whispered.
And then, as if to answer him, the rune on the edge of the first flake slowly detached.
It drifted toward Ryuk, hovering before his fingers.
He raised his hand, and the frost dissolved into him.
His eyes shut—just for a moment.
And when they opened, they held a depth unfathomable.
“The Frost Concept of Frost… is Absolute Stillness.”
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In and Out_SnowySmoos