Chapter 530: Frost of the Cold Night

Translated by: La0o9

Proofreader: Arya

On the frozen wasteland.

The snowy wind howled.

Within the pure white land of snow and ice, a certain area was lit with sky-high fire.

Gu Qing Shan and Laura were standing on the edge of the cliff, waiting for the mission to be confirmed.

“Why hasn’t it confirmed that we finished the mission yet?” Gu Qing Shan wondered.

“Normally, a little bit of time is necessary to confirm, do not be impatient” Laura told him.

While they were talking, as if sensing something, both of them went quiet at the same time.

The lava lake below started to ripple.

Right after that, a strange object floated to the surface of the lava.

At a glance, it looks like a pinecone, only it was about the size of a boat capable of supporting about 3-5 people.

As the lava flowed around it, the dirt and mud on the outer layer of the pinecone was slowly melted away, revealing the outer layer of a fruit dotted with mystical runes.

Apparently, this large fruit was originally hidden at the bottom of the icy abyss, watched over by the countless Ice Fiends that lived there.

If it weren’t for the [Legendary Firearm: Divine Flame Bird Phoenix] working its magic and destroying the entire abyss at once, no one would’ve discovered this fruit.

“What is that?” Gu Qing Shan asked.

“A Frozen Berry” Laura had a strange look on her face, “this is the fruit of a treasure tree in the Mystic Zones. It likes to hide in frozen and cold places, capable of concealing its own presence and is immune to all clairvoyance techniques. The only weakness it has is being weak to heat”

“No wonder it floated up” Gu Qing Shan nodded.

What a coincidence, if they had not used that gun, this fruit would still be able to hide there for a really long time.

While they were talking, the fruit was unable to endure the heat of the lava.

Its outer layer began to crack.

Cra-rik!

The sound of something shattering.

The fruit broke into numerous pieces.

A frosty ice-crystal feather appeared in front of them.

Since it was resting on one of the broken pieces, it wasn’t yet touched by the boiling lava.

As soon as the feather appeared, the lava around quickly hardened.

A large area of lava solidified and turned into grey-ish black magma rocks.

But by itself, the ice-crystal feather wasn’t able to fight against the entire lava lake.

The feather lightly trembled.

All of a sudden, the outer layer of the ice-crystal feather let out a faint 5-colored glow.

Laura’s expression changed.

She recognized that feather.

“Hurry and save it!” Laura shouted.

“Alright”

Gu Qing Shan activated a remote-control seal and waved his hand from the cliff.

The ice-crystal feather flew into his hand.

Bone-chilling cold.

A thin layer of frost started to climb up his finger, spreading to his arm.

Gu Qing Shan circulated his spirit energy to resist the frost.

This level of Ice Elemental power wasn’t enough to threaten him.

But this was only a single feather, to contain this much power, the more he thought about it the more surprised he was.

Gu Qing Shan squinted his eyes and thoughtfully observed the ice-crystal feather.

A really faint trace of blood could be seen on the feather.

As the feather left the lava lake, the 5-colored glow around it became weaker.

Laura finally sighed with relief.

It was fortunate that Gu Qing Shan reacted in time, otherwise, under the stimulation of the lava, the presence of this feather would’ve been exposed.

She was still worried, so she started chanting an incantation to the feather.

After some time, the glow of the feather was fully contained back into the feather.

The ice-crystal feather became calm again.

“Hoh—— I have hidden its presence, Triste will not notice its existence” Laura sighed of relief and said.

Gu Qing Shan waited until she was done until he asked: “What is this?”

Laura’s expression showed both sorrow and confusion.

“This feather belongs to Frost of the Cold Night Ilya, it seems she had hidden here before” Laura muttered.

“Is she an acquaintance of yours?”

“She is. Frost of the Cold Night Ilya and Light of Dawn Triste, they were the two most powerful Bramble Birds”

“The Light of Dawn is responsible for protection—— she was the head of the royal guards, in charge of all security issues”

“Taking the chance when we left the kingdom for Aboul, Triste killed everyone in my family and concealed the news in one fell swoop”

“What about the Frost of the Cold Night?”

“She was responsible for external warfare of the Bramble Bird Kingdom”

Gu Qing Shan suddenly realized the importance of this matter and raised his brows unexpectedly.

“You mean the military troops are under her command?” he asked.

“Indeed”

“Then why is she here?”

Laura shook her head: “I am not clear either, before we left, Triste would be in charge of all security issues and our protection, while Ilya would be in charge of protecting the country——- but then why would her feather be here?”

Laura was also confused.

What exactly happened?

Gu Qing Shan had already begun to think.

“I will try to deduce a few things, tell me if I got something wrong” he said.

“Go ahead” Laura said.

“There are traces of blood on the feather, which means she must be wounded”

“Yes”

“Since she hid her feather away, she was obviously afraid that Triste might find her”

Laura nodded: “Bramble Bird feathers still contain a lot of power even after they are detached from us”

“If that is the case, she must’ve been wounded outside before she entered this world”

“Why do you know that she was wounded outside?” Laura asked.

“Because if she was wounded here, she must’ve gone through a tough battle in this world. But I still remember what you told me, inside one Bramble Bird’s world, another Bramble Bird absolutely cannot release their presence or they would be found out”

“Which means she couldn’t have fought in this world, and so she must’ve suffered a wound outside”

“That does indeed make sense” Laura confirmed.

Gu Qing Shan continued to think as he quickly narrated his thought: “Obviously, she must’ve noticed some sort of problem, or perhaps she had found a piece of hidden information that caused her to be suspicious of Triste”

“That is why she came here—– but she was too late, as Triste had already succeeded”

“The only member of the royal family who managed to escape death is you”

“And I believe she would find out right away that her Highness the princess went missing”

Gu Qing Shan looked at Laura and quickly continued: “Both your parents were replaced by fakes while you went missing, the Frost of the Cold Night Ilya would definitely investigate this”

“Even the Spirit of the Holy Tree could not find you”

“So Frost of the Cold Night couldn’t have found you either, so she had no choice but to come to Triste’s collection world to see—— whether or not you were here, and perhaps find out the reason why Triste betrayed the royal family”

Gu Qing Shan thought back everything from the start and nodded: “It should be something like that”

Hearing his string of deductions, Laura couldn’t help but tremble a bit.

She suddenly felt that this person right in front of her was a bit frightening.

I was lucky that he’s a member of the Justice Iron Fist Club.

“No wonder…” Laura muttered in a low voice, “no wonder I managed to seal this world so easily. So the protection spells Triste put on the outer layer of this world were already destroyed by Ilya, it was truly ridiculous of me to think that I managed to seal this world through sheer luck”

“You made it so that Triste could not find the world, while she made it so Triste did not notice any difference, she was much more skillful” Gu Qing Shan praised her.

Saying that, Gu Qing Shan fell silent.

He suddenly asked: “Frost of the Cold Night Ilya——- how loyal is she to the royal family?”

“She is my godmother, she vowed to the Bramble Bird Divine Tree to protect me”

“What about Triste?”

“She vowed to become stronger, protecting all that deserves protection”

“How sly, what are the consequences of going against this oath?”

“The Divine Tree will take away all the powers of that Bramble Bird”

Gu Qing Shan clapped his hands ecstatically, saying: “Then that’s it, it seems Frost of the Cold Night is on our side, if we can reach her, our chances of winning against Triste will be much greater!”

Winning?

Laura was stunned.

Ever since the disaster, there was only a single thought in my mind.

That is ‘the royal bloodline of the Bramble Bird must not die out, I need to stay alive, I need to run away’

But this man, all he saw was a single feather and he was already thinking of how to overturn the situation.

Really…

Laura suddenly felt like she really didn’t know how to process this.

At this point, the voice from before finally came again.

[The mission is over]

[You did exceptionally well, perfectly resolving the first official issue, if you can keep doing this well, when you complete every mission, your rewards will also be exceptionally]

“And here I thought the rewards would be given right away” Gu Qing Shan muttered.

The voice then continued: [The second mission: The Descending Battle, is about to begin, please wait for 1 minute]

Gu Qing Shan just stood there and waited with Laura.

All of a sudden, something showed up on the War God UI.

Since he had some time, Gu Qing Shan focused his attention on the UI, looking at the glowing lines of text scrolling through.

[Maximum Alert: The War God System had sensed Worlds Apocalypse Online: Kindling]