Aetherios System [Slow Build OP MC, Isekai LitRPG/Cultivation] Chapter 189: Book 3: Chapter 41: Garden Biome

Read chapter 189 of Aetherios System [Slow Build OP MC, Isekai LitRPG/Cultivation] by TTReynolds on NovelPedia.

Book 3: Chapter 41: Garden Biome Chapter 41: Garden Biome The tundra was different now that all the statues were activated. Without the storm, it felt wrong. The lack of movement and noise made the area feel silent and hollow, like a theater stage after the actors had finished their performance and walked off. There was no more howling wind chewing at their ears, and no more white curtain smothering sight. It was just a wide-open plain of snow and ice stretching to the horizon, with the statues glowing faintly like lanterns scattered across the expanse. And no more chimeric ghosts. The leopard chimeras were surely still out there. Alex could feel them, their threads of aether curling faint and distant on the edges of his [Aether Sight]. But without the blizzard, they were nothing but cats without their shadows. They didn’t even try to ambush the team anymore. Every so often, Alex would catch a pair of glowing eyes retreating into the distance, or the ripple of spotted fur disappearing into a ridge of ice. But they were always slinking away, never challenging. They were cowards without their storm. And that was fine by him. “Almost feels like using cheatcodes. All this space and not a single furball trying to rip out my throat.” Garret said. Allie scoffed. “Cheating would be me sitting at home with a drink while you idiots did all the heavy lifting.” “Dream on,” Lance said as he hauled Tom-Tom out of a snow drift he’d stumbled into. Alex tuned them out, his eyes fixed ahead. The calm didn’t comfort him. If anything, it unsettled him more. But that wasn’t his problem right now. His boots crunched steadily over the ice, his lungs burning with every cold inhale, and his focus stayed locked on the only thing that mattered: the dungeon objectives. The tundra had been trial enough. The statues were done, the hidden challenge finished. Now the path bent onward, away from white and silence, toward the next threshold. Toward the Garden Biome, and that’s where Alex led them. The tundra ended not with cliffs or walls, but with iron. A fence stretched across the expanse, black bars rising from the snow in neat, perfect lines. It went on forever in either direction, unbroken, as if the dungeon had drawn a ruler straight through the world. On their side, the ground was all white and ice, lifeless as a corpse. On the other, pressed right up against the bars, was green. Lush grass curled thick against the fence posts, flowers swayed in a breeze that couldn’t reach them, and trees rose tall and flush with leaves. The transition was staggeringly stark, just a couple inches of steel separated frozen death from teeming life. And at the center stood the gates. They were seemingly made of tall, arched, wrought-iron, like the entrance to some old cemetery. The iron scrollwork was bent into lavish patterns that seemed to mock him the longer Alex stared at it. The tips were speared with finials shaped like twisted blooms, thorns and flower petals entwined into something both beautiful and harsh. Foreboding didn’t even begin to cover it. Garret whistled low. “Well, that’s… cheery. Real welcoming. Nothing says ‘step right in’ like Dracula’s front yard.” “Looks like a place you bury people, not grow things.” Allie added. Holly tilted her head, her eyes watching the grass ripple beyond the bars. “Garden or grave… maybe both? Did rich people used to bury their dead in their palace gardens?” Alex only shrugged. His eyes traced the gates, the arch, the vines of iron looping around in patterns he didn’t quite trust. The dungeon never gave them transitions for free. And if the tundra had been a test of endurance and patience, he could only imagine what the Garden Biome had waiting. “Stay sharp. Whatever’s on the other side, it isn’t just flowers.” He said. The wind stirred faintly at their backs, as if urging them forward. They stepped forward together, hands on the bars of the gate, and they all shoved as one. The gates groaned open under their combined push,