Chapter 15: Thermal Drain

The warm, humid air of the Sunken Spire basin vanished within hours as the elevation rose steeply toward the northern border.

By midnight, Kaelen and Lyra had crossed the frozen threshold into the jagged peaks of Frostfell Ridge. A howling arctic wind swept across the narrow pass, blowing blinding sheets of white powder across the obsidian cliffs. Every breath exhaled formed a instant cloud of ice crystals against Kaelen’s leather collar.

Above his vision, a sharp frost-blue status bar replaced the deep-water oxygen UI from thePrevious cavern.

[ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARD: EXTREME SUB-ZERO EXPOSURE]

[THERMAL DRAIN: -1% STAMINA REGEN PER 30 SECONDS]

[COLD SLOW DEBUFF: MOVEMENT SPEED REDUCED BY 15% WITHOUT THERMAL PROTECTION]

Kaelen pulled his heavy fur-lined travel cloak tight across his chest, adjusting the straps on his boots. Even with the harsh environmental drag, his movement felt remarkably smoother than it had during their initial vault run. Having his permanent agility penalty halved down to 10% was the only reason he could march through the knee-deep snowdrifts without sinking into exhaustion.

"How are your thermal meters holding up?" Kaelen called back over the roar of the blizzard.

Lyra walked close behind his shoulder, her silver familiar floating inside a flickering warmth sphere that projected a soft amber glow around their feet. "My insulation enchantments are taking the edge off, but my mana pool is steadily ticking down to maintain the barrier. If we get caught in a prolonged fight up here, I won't have the spell points to sustain both thermal defense and high-tier kinetic magic."

"We keep moving," Kaelen said, his eyes scanning the ridgeline through his night-vision overlay. "The third matrix vault is located deep inside the Glacier Vault—an old dwarven fortress carved into the side of Mount Ironclad."

Suddenly, Kaelen stopped in his tracks, dropping low into a crouching stance behind a snow-covered boulder. He extended his hand back, pressing a single finger to his lips.

Lyra instantly crouched beside him, dousing her familiar’s warmth sphere to minimize their light signature in the open pass.

Fifty yards ahead, near the narrowest choke point of the mountain trail, three glowing red campfire markers flickered in the storm. Figures in heavy polar armor sat around a portable thermal beacon, their weapons resting against crate barriers stamped with a silver wolf emblem.

[HOSTILES DETECTED: FROST-FANG MERCENARY SQUAD (LVL 58–60)]

[STATUS: ACTIVE BOUNTY PATROL]

"Mercenaries," Lyra whispered, her voice barely audible over the wind. "They aren't Crimson Guild main line, but they’ve clearly set up a blockade to collect that hundred-thousand gold bounty."

"Three high-level frontline guardians and a spotter scout on the high ridge," Kaelen noted, his gaze tracking the faint blue beam of a long-range scope sweeping across the snow below. "With our thermal drain ticking, a head-on fight will drain our stamina before we can clear the bottleneck."

Kaelen drew his twin stilettos, the dark metal glinting under the icy moonlight. "We don't fight them on the trail. We force them into the snowdrifts where their heavy armor turns into an anchor."