Chapter 373 - Fire
In the darkness, Xavier had difficulty breathing. A voice kept calling him to wake up, but another, somewhat harsh voice kept whispering in his ear, trying to drag him into the eternal darkness.
But eventually, a faint light lit up Xavier's sight. It was the light emitted by the frost spirit.
Xavier opened his eyes, and cold snow poured into his throat.
Pale, white magic power poured out from his body. With the support of magic, he broke through the snow and crawled out.
"Cough cough..." After Xavier sucked in the icy air, he felt his consciousness clear up.
There were still many strange sounds echoing in his ears, a bit like tinnitus, that made him feel very irritable. But thanks to the spirit of frost, he managed to suppress it.
An ice dragon and an avalanche.
Despite the use of magic to contain the falling snow at the last moment, the whole army had been swallowed up by the avalanche. Had they fallen to the bottom of the cliffs?
Xavier looked up. The ice cliffs were so high that he became a little desperate. Meanwhile, the sky was gradually darkening.
He struggled to climb out of the snowbank. the frost spirit instantly landed on another snowbank, as if indicating something.
An ice-blue inscription appeared in Xavier's hand. The frost and snow accumulated on the snowbank was gradually removed, revealing Marshal Amter below.
"Marshal Amter!"
Xavier immediately ran to the tall marshal. The marshall had fought the dragon in close quarters just now, relying on his own body to resist the ice dragon's breath.
Marshal Amter slowly opened his eyes. When he regained consciousness, he covered his forehead.
"Damn it! What are these sounds in my head?"
"Marshal Amter, are you all right?" Xavier asked.
"I'm fine, but my head isn't." Marshal Amter shook his head and took a sip from a jug full of liquor. He wanted to use alcohol to clear his head. Just as he was about to stand up, he noticed a sharp pain in his left leg.
"Frostbite. And a very bad case of it, to boot." Xavier looked at Marshal Amter's left leg. The armor covering it had been shattered like ice.
It had to be the injury caused by the breath of the ice dragon just now. When Xavier was about to use magic to perform first-aid treatment of the wound, Marshal Amter waved his hand.
"We southerners won't flinch from this little injury. Prince Xavier, there are still a lot of soldiers buried underneath the snow. They need your help more than I do."
"I see."
Xavier also realised the seriousness of the matter. He immediately stepped back a few steps and began to chant spells. As he built one inscription after another, the frost spirit surrounded him.
When the magic was completed, the snow lying on the ground was lifted directly, revealing the soldiers that had been buried underneath.
Some of the soldiers and mages had woken up, but others seemed to be still asleep.
Prince Xavier immediately ran to a sleeping soldier and used his voice to wake him up.
"Don't come near me! Don't come near me!"
When Xavier was about to touch the soldier, the latter's reaction was particularly intense. It was as if he was having a terrible nightmare, sweat dripping from his forehead.
Xavier had never seen anything like this before. At the same time, his own 'tinnitus' appeared to be getting worse.
Xavier was about to start to wake him up when a roaring voice suddenly came from the other side.
"You damned beast!"
It was a soldier who was awake, but his mental state was extremely unstable. He was kneeling on the ground and holding his forehead, constantly yelling something.
His roar was like a contagious virus, spreading to the other soldiers. One by one, the soldiers fell into a state of fear as if they had seen something terrifying.
Had this been caused by the ice dragon?
"Calm down!" Xavier began to try to release the soldiers from their fear, but to little effect.
Only the high-rank mages managed to remain sane.
"Can any of you perform calming magic?"
Xavier shouted at the mages who were awake.
"Your Royal Highness! We've already tried! But it didn't work!" A mage shouted back at him.
What the hell was going on?
Xavier looked at the soldier in front of him, who kept chanting strange words, and was at a loss.
He himself was only proficient in a very small number of healing spells. But even the army mages who were proficient in healing couldn't do anything, so it was impossible for him to heal those soldiers.
Xavier's forehead started to ache at the thought.
At night, the temperatures at the border of the Nation of Frost were low enough to freeze any unprepared spellcaster to death. If they didn't hurry up to collect the materials that had fallen into the canyon to build a camp, half of the soldiers would freeze to death tonight.
What should I do …
As Xavier desperately thought, he touched the pendant hanging on his chest.
Inside the pendant was a leaf, a leaf of the World Tree.
Ah! The magic network!
Xavier immediately opened the magic network and logged in to the Mage Forum. Ever since he had gained access to the mage forum with the help of Norland's mages a few days ago, he had completely fallen in love with this brand new 'magic'.
Using the mage forum, he was able to communicate with mages from Norland to discuss magic issues, as well as ask questions himself on the forum.
Xavier found the forum's 'Magic Research' subforum and posted a post in the help category.
In the post, he described the symptoms of these soldiers, hoping that a wise mage could answer him and inform him of the method of treatment.
But his post didn't get a response from anyone. Xavier waited anxiously for three minutes. When the post "sank to the bottom" in the thread list, he became a little discouraged.
But it didn't take long for his post to get a reply from someone else, and he looked at the reply in surprise.
"The symptoms sound a bit like the side effects of magic addiction. Are you using a magic addiction stone?"
Poster: Yellow Mage.
Xavier had heard of magic addiction stones before, but he didn't believe that so many soldiers would at once use those stones ...it had to be something else.
Xavier replied with a negative and waited for more than ten minutes for other people's answers, only to find that there was no new reply.
Was his symptom description not detailed enough? Or was it because Norland's Yellow sage had replied? Wait...Yellow Mage may not necessarily be the Norland sage.
Xavier listened to the roars of the surrounding soldiers becoming more and more noisy, and anxiety started to overtake him. Right as Xavier lost all hope, a new reply finally appeared.
He glanced at the poster's name: Firebringer.
