Aetherios System [Slow Build OP MC, Isekai LitRPG/Cultivation] Chapter 186: Book 3: Chapter 38: Tundra Biome

Read chapter 186 of Aetherios System [Slow Build OP MC, Isekai LitRPG/Cultivation] by TTReynolds on NovelPedia.

Book 3: Chapter 38: Tundra Biome Chapter 38: Tundra Biome The waterfall’s roar dimmed as they hauled themselves over the cliff’s lip, leaving the spray and moss behind. The climb up the cliffside wasn’t too hard,they’d had practice such things by now, and the remaining, very angry, corcodilian chimeras in the lake were great motivators. They crested the cliff after an hour, and walked into another world. Sheer whiteness swallowed everything. A tundra sprawled out in every direction in front of them, with ice and snow stretching endlessly. The wind cut sharp enough to burn against any exposed skin, the cold crawling under armor plates and gnawing straight at bones underneath. The horizon was just… more of it. More snow, more ice, a void pretending to be a landscape. “Perfect,” Alex said. He pulled his hood tighter around his face in a futile attempt at blocking out the whipping cold air. It was as if a blizzard had suddenly kicked up from nothingness, a haze of white shifting in his vision from the snowfall. “We go from drowning, to freezing. What's the next stop after this, lava bath?” Garret’s teeth were already beginning to chatter. “On the bright side, no mosquitoes.” Allie shot him a look sharp enough to cut diamond. “On the bright side? I can’t see anything past five feet. This is not my idea of fun and games when everything in here wants us dead.” “Then stick close. Everyone... be ready. Tom-Tom, use Henry.” Alex said. The little lizard let out a yelp and scampered his way on to Henry’s shoulders. The small kobold sat across his broad frame, looking like a toddler being held up by their parent. Tom-Tom being, in this case, a very, very ugly toddler. They moved out in a wedge formation, crunching through crusted snow. Every step felt too loud despite the sound vanishing into the white with nothing to bounce back from. All around them was a flat expanse, there was no cover and nowhere to hide behind. Just exposure, and the feeling that something was waiting for them to let their guard down. Alex kept his [Aether Sight] open, the wisps of air and water aether glowing faint silver and blue across the tundra. The storm was alive with it, currents of frozen breath, streams of ice-bound essence curling around them as they marched through the snow. But then… he caught it. It was a ripple, a curl of energy that didn’t belong. Not the chaotic blue and silver aether of the wind and ice, and cold, nor the frozen rigidity of the earth aether buried far beneath the white. It was something else. Something that was following them. His throat tightened as he watched the flicker of energy disappear. “Something’s here.” Eric edged closer to him, Alex could see concern written plainly across his face. “Define something .” Alex’s eyes tracked back and forth, finding and losing the distortion that weaved in and out the blizzard, like something poking in and out of the darkness of a doorway. Each time it vanished it was swallowed by the ambient water and air energy that swam in the storm, the aether folding around it like a cloak. Invisibility skill? Is it just watching? It must have been nearby the moment we first got up here, and it hasn’t let us go since we left the cliff. Snow hissed sideways at them, a white curtain in motion, and every direction looked the same. But Alex could feel it, stalking their footsteps, its presence written in the unnatural drag of aether across the storm. “Guys…” His breath fogged in the cold. “We’re the only ones making tracks out here. But we’re not the only ones moving around.” “Square up,” Thompson ordered. The team shifted automatically at his demand, backs angled, weapons at the ready, each of them with eyes sweeping in large pie slices. The snowstorm made a liar out of distance. A sudden gust could smother sight to nothing, then peel back to show thirty feet of featureless white. It was like trying to walk through a storm of TV static. Yet, Alex trudged forward with the others, powdered ice sinking past t