They came...

"Ahhhh!" Aiden groaned in pain as he opened his eyes. He woke up with the throbbing pain in his head. After a few breaths, the pain reduced a little. Next thing he did was to check his body.

'My leg has already grown back! How did this happen?' Aiden, who did not remember his previous void flame transformation, could not find an appropriate answer.

The only explanation he could think of was the words he had heard from Kaiser, "Anything could happen in that space."

While he looked around, the situation of the cavern surprised him. He wondered, 'Why is the cavern falling apart?'

Giant ice shards fell from the roof, the pale blue ice floor cracked in pieces. But Aiden could not find the reason for the destruction of this imaginary space.

'Can it be because of the bluebird?' Aiden soon found that the bluebird was sitting on the ice floor as if it was thinking about something.

But as soon as Aiden realized that the bird had not noticed that he had woken up, Aiden did not hesitate any longer. 'This is my chance. I've got to catch it before it's too late.'

Under his will, the water and wind mana formed chains as they condensed outside his body. If Kaiser hadn't told him a long time ago, he wouldn't have known he'd be able to wield mana like that in this space.

The chains soon found their marks and wrapped the unsuspecting blue-bird in the chains.

"How?!" The voice of the bird proved that it surprised the bluebird. But the confusion disappeared at the next moment, "Beast, why are you trying to ingest my essence?"

"Huh!" The bluebird's question caught Aiden off-guard. He replied as he recovered, "I want to get stronger."

"Why?" There was neither mockery nor curiosity in the voice. As if Aiden's answer meant nothing to the bluebird.

"I want to get stronger." Aiden repeated his words, "I want to get stronger so that nobody can force their will on me. I want to be strong so I don't become a guinea pig or a slave again. I want to be strong so nobody can trample on me."

"And when you're strong, what are you going to do?"

"I will make them pay." There was not a shard of hesitation in Aiden's voice, but the blue-bird wasn't satisfied.

"You will create an endless cycle of hatred."

"They have chosen their own path."

"But you can put an end to everything."

"That is what I will do." It was clear from Aiden's voice that the path will be anything but a peaceful one.

"How?" There was a hint of curiosity in the bluebird's voice.

"Why should I let you know?" Aiden frowned as he looked at the bluebird that had become a chatterbox. "I'm just going to absorb your essence and make your power mine."

"Hahaha!!" The thunderous laughter accelerated the collapse of the cavern. As the bluebird spread its wings again, the chain of mana shattered like nothing. "Did you think those weak strings could bind me?"

Aiden expected that the chains would bind the little bluebird for a little longer. But as soon as the chain had broken, Aiden circulated the mana inside a body.

"If you can truly make me believe that you are worthy of my power, then…"

"Then what? You are already dead." Aiden didn't let the bird finish its words and said, "Even after death you're not letting me absorb the mana essence, and you are telling me to give up on taking revenge?"

"Arrogant!" The bluebird spoke as it flapped its wings and directed all the falling ice shards towards Aiden.

Aiden didn't have the time to think about anything else, and he circulated the mana through his body, hoping that he could use the [Zone] again. And he vanished from the spot before the ice shard hit the spot.

He reappeared above the bird at the next moment, and the [Air Punch] hit the bird. Instead of a body made of blood and flesh, [Air Punch] shattered a piece of ice. And Aiden vanished from the spot.

If Aiden was a little too late, he would have been trapped in the ice.

"Ice Clone?!" Aiden frowned as he was trying to find the real body of the bird. With the shards of ice continuing to follow him, Aiden could not find any chance to look for the real body.

'This will not do. If this continues, the cave will collapse before I can find it.' Even if Aiden knew about it, he couldn't stop looking for a bird.

'Wait for a minute!' As he continued to use [Wind Burst] to avoid falling shards, he realized, 'It must be using mana to control the ice shards to attack me. If only I could find the trace of mana...'

But He couldn't stand still and detect the trace of mana neither he could give up without trying.

'I can't just give up.' Making his mind, Aiden pushed up his speed a little more. His movement became more unpredictable.

One moment he appeared on the ground, and the next moment he used the roof to propel himself out of the path of the ice shards. Aiden was trying to detect as much space as possible, and soon his effort paid off.

'It's here.' Aiden rejoiced. It took a lot of mana before he could find the mana stream along with its source, and he dared not waste any more.

"Found you." Aiden reappeared behind the first pillar of ice that had frozen his leg, with a smile on his face. And it caught the bird off guard.

"No, you don't." Aiden cried at the top of his lungs as the bird tried to flap its wing and another [Ice Punch] hit the bird. Aiden was sure that the punch had been connected before the bird could flap its wing, but ...

By the time Aiden felt something was wrong, he was already frozen inside the ice with a shocked expression on his face.

And the crumbling of the cave sped up. Big chunks of ice began to fall from the roof and the cracks on the floor swallowed the scattered shards of ice.

*Crack*

An enormous chunk of ice cracked right above the frozen Aiden and fell.

*Boom*

And with a thunderous sound, it shattered. The chunk was never able to touch Aiden. It wasn't just that chunk, none of the falling ice could penetrate the transparent ice dome that covered Aiden and a bird.

The bird was blue, but it wasn't small. It was almost five meters in height and covered in blue feathers. However, it looked like it had gone through a tough battle.

The broken right wing could not be folded back, and it was spread over the floor. Its beautiful blue tail was nothing but a broom right now. And the crystal in the middle of the chest had a lot of cracks on it. However, it was staring at Aiden intently.

"Arrogant little beast." the voice said. It was difficult to detect any resentment out of the carefree voice.

"If I had met you in my lifetime, I would have given you my totem." The voice of the bird was energetic, thinking of its glorious past. But in the next moment, his voice grunted in pain, "Revenge?" the bird sighed like an old man, and went on, "Revenge will give you nothing but ..."

As the bird spoke, all its energy began to concentrate in the crystal on its chest, "But it wasn't like my path was right. Prove to me that your path is the right one."

And a blue-light ball shot out of the crystal and penetrated Aiden's chest. In the next moment, the ice dome shattered and the entire cavern crumbled.

***********

* Remaining time: 50:17:51 *

*The town centre of the Valley city*

*Crash* Slam*

The man, covered in full-body poly armour, slipped and fell. The armoured friend, beside him, smiled as he helped his friends up.

"What the hell?" The man cursed and stood up while rubbing his poly armour protected ass, "How the hell is the street covered with ice?"

"Who knows?" His friend shuddered his shoulders, "It happened last night. Look at that."

Looking at the direction his friend was pointing, the man gasped in surprise, "It is summer. How could the fountain be frozen under the scorching sun?"

"Could it be related to the beast tide?" the man dared not to say it out loud.

But his friend shook his head. "I have seen the last war. Those beasts are made of skeletons, vines and moss. There was another, but none of them used ice."

"But…" Before the man could inquire more, someone shouted from the front.

"Hey, what are you doing there? We need to get to the wall soon. Come quick. Captain will be mad if we're late."

They knew how punctual their captain was. So they didn't dare to waste any more time and ran to the city wall.

When the town lord's manor broke the news of the beast tide, the entire city had broken into chaos. They had to work hard all night to control the chaos before they could take them to the bunker under the mountain city.

Now that the last batch of civilians has been taken care of, all the able-bodied men and women gathered near the city gate.

As a part of the city lord guard, they have no problem reaching the top of the wall. But when they did, they realized that if they didn't, it would have been better.

"There are at least 100,000 of them." The man spoke as he looked at the dust cloud that rose from the movement of the beast tide. "But wasn't there just one giant that came with the beast tide?"

As the man asked all his friend could do was nod, "Our previous lord had died fighting that black smokey giant with red-ringed eyes. But that giant plant monster…"

"Could it be the skeleton of the previous lord from the skeleton forest?"

His friend couldn't answer nor could check it. For now, all they could do was to wait till the beast tide reached the city and hope that they could survive the ordeal.