A constant chattering sound was going off, like a beetle making a type of mating call. However, the sound wasn't due to any beetle; it was all because of three young students who couldn't help but clatter their teeth together.
They were all huddled up close to one another as they moved through the snow, slowly one step at a time.
"Come on, it isn't that bad, will you guys stop exaggerating?" Gunther asked.
"Wha-wha- what type of teacher are you?" Simyon eventually said, stuttering a few times due to the cold. "You forced us in here, you practically pushed us, and now you don't look after us."
"My balls!" Liam shouted out. "I think they're going inside my stomach... it's too cold, I want to have kids! Don't do this to me!"
Unlike the other two boys, Safa wasn't complaining about the situation. Not that she could vocally if she wanted to. Instead, she was taking deep breaths and trying to focus her Qi.
She noticed that activating it ever so slightly through her body was warming it up. She needed to be careful because using too much would eventually make her feel more exhausted, and if that were the case, she wouldn't have enough to fight either. Right now, they were in a dangerous place.
"Hey!" Gunther shouted back. "I'm doing the right thing, aren't I? I'm here with you, and with me, you guys won't have any problems; you don't have to worry about that. Besides, the next assessment was going to be portal exploration anyway, so you're just getting a head start!"
Since Gunther was a higher-staged warrior, he couldn't feel the cold, and with all three of the students being 1st-stage warriors, they could bear it only a little more than that of a regular human.
It wasn't as if there were no snowy areas back on Pagna, but they at least would have prepared if they knew about it beforehand.
"Fine, look, you all need to do the same as the girl is doing. Activate the Qi, a trickle amount throughout your whole body. Think about how you activate your Qi when you use your skills or perform a hit of some sort; that same feeling needs to be spread around your body but ever so gently, and then you'll be able to stand the cold a bit more."
The students, hearing his words and wanting to do anything to battle the cold, had instantly tried what he had said, and due to the desperate situation they were in, they were more focused than they would have been. n-/1n
Gunther hadn't told them this from the get-go because part of the portal exploration assessment that they would do next month was to adapt to the situation they were in. Dimension portals led to all sorts of different environments.
They wanted the students to figure out solutions for themselves, but he just pitied them too much.
'The girl is good, the two boys could take a leaf from her book,' Gunther smiled.
Once the boys were able to stop hanging onto Safa, the three of them could move a lot easier. Although it was more difficult for them. As they walked, it didn't take long for them to find tracks of other people.
"There, it looks like two footprints!" Liam shouted. "That must be Raze and Pink; the two of them had to have come in here."
"Ah, to be young," Gunther smiled. "I remembered all the reckless things I did as well. If I were in their situation, I perhaps would have done the same."
Gunther wondered if this place was the route of Raze's strength. When he had been knocked down by the other disciples, if he had found this portal to this world. He had trained and grown stronger before returning.
It made sense not to talk about the portal, so he could use it again for himself. However, this theory had quickly proven to be wrong, as soon as they had discovered something grand in the snow.
"Ah!" Liam shouted and jumped backwards. Distracted by everything around him, he had nearly walked right into it, the dead body of a beast.
"Its head, it's been split in half, but how, neither of them had a sword, right? They just have the wooden training swords, how then could they make this deep of a cut?" Simyon asked.
That wasn't the question Gunther thought of though. He looked at the long body of the beast. From its size and the hard scales on its body, he couldn't imagine this being a simple level 1 beast. This at least had to be a level 2.
"With Raze's strength, a level 2 wouldn't be too much trouble. Especially if he has Pink by his side as well. But the kids do have a point. How was this possible with no sword?" Gunther kept thinking back to the event.
Raze was able to make cuts on the other students. Everyone assumed that it was the techniques he had used, was it the same again here?
Going around the beast, Gunther stuck closer to the children. Having brought them here, the last thing he wanted to do was get them hurt, but perhaps they could still get some experience out of all of this. With the three of them, he hoped they could use their skills to combat against a level 2 beast.
When continuing down the mountain though, they didn't come across other beasts; instead, they had just come across more dead beast corpses. This one had a large hole in its head but had the same type of cuts all over its body.
"What type of move could even do this?" Gunther was now the one wondering.
They didn't spend much time examining the beast as they had seen it before, but the sight in front of them didn't change. They saw beast after beast, the same snake type killed.
They were walking through, and the bodies were getting more frequent, as they came across more closer together.
"Is all of this really the result of just two people, two students? A level 2 should still give them some trouble. I have to be ready for anything we meet. It might not be the students that are in here after all," Gunther thought.
Thankfully, he had taken his trusty blades on his back and had his armor on underneath his uniform. This was because Gunther was always ready for an attack at any time.
Continuing to walk, they finally could hear something. The sound of grunting off in the distance. The screeches and squeals of what sounded like a beast. The land was starting to level out, and the snow wasn't as thick as before either.
"Do you think that's them?" Liam asked.
Gunther decided to run ahead.
"You three keep up and stay close, be ready for anything," Gunther said, and he was doing his best to hide his smile.
Another teacher perhaps would have run back or thought of the children first, but Gunther didn't even want to become a teacher. He was doing a favor for his clan. Before this, he had entered portal after portal, all with the idea of getting stronger.
Thinking about who might be ahead, it was getting him excited. Through the snow, they could see a strange setup not too far in the distance.
It looked like a remote outpost had been built. There were strange wooden spikes that had been set up, making a type of wall. Several towers were built behind the wall, the other dimensions. In most of them, they had these; it was just they never found some of them destroyed while others were left standing.
It wasn't strange to see structures like these, structures that looked more human in the other dimensions. In most of them, they had these; it was just they never found any life that was like that of a human.
As they got closer to the outpost, they went past even more of the giant dead snakes. These looked different from the others. They had been killed more cleanly, with fewer hits.
The sound of fighting was growing louder as they got closer, and Gunther wanted to pick up his pace but hadn't done due to the children behind him. Then when they finally entered the outpost, they could see what was happening.
The barracks were large, and deep in the center, fighting was taking place. There were two that were battling against a large number of the beasts. There were now six of them and more coming from another direction toward them.
Jumping up in the air, one had black gauntlets and threw out a fist, hitting the beast in the head. Half of its head exploded on the spot, killing it. As for the other, they recognized straight away.
"That's Raze, it's him!" Liam said. "They both are here, and it looks like they're in trouble."
Doing the two-step shift, Raze slashed his sword vertically; he had used the second formation of the Devil's strike along with his wing power. Having created a deep cut, he had hurt it badly but it wasn't dead.
That's when, from his right side, another of the snakes came right at him, trying to eat him up in a bite, but placing his hand out, Raze had started to gather his dark magic, and with a sword in one hand and his palm open facing the other, he said two words.
"Dark pulse!"
The attack blasted right into the snake's mouth. It wasn't enough to kill it since he hadn't used any of his martial arts with it, but it veered the attack off course, causing it to fall and skid its head across the ground.
Meanwhile, the unknown onlookers had seen everything.
"What was that dark beam that had just come out of his hand?" Gunther said, his body trembling; he was ecstatic.
