CHAPTER 458: ICE COLD.

‎Rasmus took a bath after days of journey without stopping. Although he didn’t feel fatigue or anything, bathing made him feel a lot better. He looked down at his own reflection in the water, thinking about the situation he was in. His mind was like water moving through branches, trying to understand every possible outcome before he faced those figures.

‎While he was deep in thought, he looked at his fingertips that no longer wrinkled when they got exposed to the water. His train of thoughts suddenly stopped, and got replaced by the words that came from Aris and Rullein’s mouth about his power.

"Ice Dragon..." Rasmus said the first thing that came to his mind.

Rasmus paused all his thoughts, his mind was blank for a moment, pushing all the noises in his head. He tried to recreate what he felt when he awakened something within him after he merged with Rullein. He imagined his heart pumping blood because based on what Rullein said, the Dragon’s Blood within him was located inside his heart. Before he could prepare himself, his heart suddenly stopped beating for a few seconds and felt something within him tried to take over his organ system.

His eyes flinched when his heart began to beat again, and the blood that should have felt warm turned to freezing cold. It was a bit painful, similar to how it felt when holding a block of ice on the palm but it happened within and every inch of his body. When he looked at his arms and palms, his skin became paler and paler until his skin was almost as white as snow. It was a painful experience he had ever had because he could feel every muscle, vein, and nerve shrunk but the ice cold blood forced its way through. The most painful moment was when ice cold blood ran through his brain and into every vein in his eyes that felt like his eyes were being stabbed by thousands of needles from the inside of his eyes.

His pupils dilated and shrunk rapidly as the blood slowly forced his irises to glow bright blue because of the ice cold blood. He was curled up in the bathtub as the water began to freeze solid above him. He was frozen inside the ice, and he had no choice but to break free, breaking the ice and the bathtub. Mist came out of his pores and froze everything the steam touched, the floor, the ceiling, the walls, everything was coated in dry ice.

Rasmus collapsed to the floor and ice began to form around him, piling up because his body produced and released ice through that extreme cold mist. He had never felt that cold before, the cold that felt so hot that he felt like his insides were melting. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t move his body because the ice cold blood kept pumping inside his body, making his body even colder and paler.

At the same time, Rullein was having a bottle of whiskey accompanied by Aris, Yur, Erlina, Serena, and the others. Suddenly she was out of breath and cold breath began to come out of her mouth. She felt chills down her spine until suddenly she dropped the bottle and collapsed to the floor. Everyone looked at her twitching and black smoke began to wrap her body.

Aris looked at Rullein and noticed that something was happening to Rasmus, and knew exactly what was happening. Before she could reach Rullein, Rullein turned into black smoke and disappeared into thin air. Aris hurriedly ran to check on Rasmus, and the others spontaneously followed her to see what was going on.

Everyone ran in the hallway and caused such a ruckus that everyone in the palace noticed that something had happened. Aris and the others were standing in front of Rasmus’ chamber, and they were all shocked when the walls and the door had been covered by a thin layer of dry ice.

Aris kicked the door with quite a lot of force, surprised that the ice was so strong even for her. The moment the door collapsed, the cold mist reached everyone’s faces and noses, feeling the extreme cold that their skin felt like being peeled forcefully and slowly. Erlina and the others who had no ability to control Mana or Aura immediately moved as far as they could from the mist, even Javi couldn’t force his way in because he knew that he wasn’t strong enough to get in there. On the other hand, Aris, Videl, and Serena got into the chamber.

"What the hell happen here..." Videl narrowed his eyes as he looked around.

"This energy... it’s similar to Rulleins’..." Serena could see the faintest of dark energy in the room.

"It is Rullein’s," Aris said as she looked at the door to the bathroom. "They both merged again..." she muttered and kicked the door open, but it wouldn’t budge.

Aris narrowed her eyes, and there was no point of holding back her strength. She coated her fist with her blue energy and punched the door open. The moment the door toppled, the three of them were shocked when they saw Rasmus’ appearance. His hair became stiff and sharp and coated in ice, making his hair look longer. His skin was as white as snow, and his irises had a mixed color of bright blue and dark orange, glowing menacingly and staring at them. His skin was coated with a thin layer of ice that looked like scales, and the one thing that shocked them to their core was his energy that looked dark blue-ish gray.

"Rasmus?" Aris asked, not sure if the person or a being that stood in front of her was still Rasmus or not.

Rasmus looked down at his right hand which was covered in thin ice like a gauntlet. He was overwhelmed by the power within him, and his mind went blank, not having a single thought.

"He’s not answering..." Serena narrowed her eyes. "What happen to him?" She asked.

"It’s hard to explain, but to put it simply, he’s trying to awaken the power that his mother left him with. The problem is that he’s not yet ready for it and the power within him might be able to take over his mind and body," Aris answered as she brushed her spatial ring, ready to pull her swords in case Rasmus lost his mind and control over his own body.

"And what should we do?" Videl asked, glancing at Aris.

"I’m not sure..." Aris shook her head. "If he lose control, the three of us won’t be able to stop him," she warned.

"You’re being serious?" Serena furrowed her brows and looked at Aris.

"Why would I make things up? I’m being serious. The thing that inside him, even for us Orthias, we call it a myth," Aris explained as she took a step forward slowly and carefully, not wanting to make Rasmus see her as a threat.

Videl and Serena shared a look before they looked at Rasmus and took a step at a time toward him.

"Hey..." Serena said gently at Rasmus. "Are you alright?" She asked.

Rasmus was still staring at his hand with that blank and empty gaze. He could feel something within him that wanted to obliterate everything. However, Rasmus ignored that feeling and kept staring blankly at his hand.

"Rasmus," Videl called, but there was no response from Rasmus.

The three of them tried to make Rasmus snap back to reality, or at least to respond to them. However, the closer they were to him, the weaker they became. They realized the energy around him forcefully took life force it touched. It was as Aris said that they might not be able to defeat him if he decided to fight them. The three of them decided to keep their distance from him, and try to find a way to wake him up.

Videl risked it all and used his primal energy, a dark red energy surged from his body and in just a blink of an eye, he grabbed Rasmus’ face and forced his primal energy into Rasmus’ brain. He used his power to bring Rasmus into the past, a past where he was still Kyros. At that moment, Rasmus suddenly collapsed while Videl had to pull his frozen hand from Rasmus’ face.

"Fuck!" Videl groaned in pain as he watched the frostbite move rapidly up to his wrist then to his forearm.

Without thinking twice, Videl cut off his right arm as he dashed backward as far as he could from Rasmus. He regenerated his whole arm, but the problem wasn’t that he had to use power to regenerate his arm, the problem was that he felt a big chunk of his power was being absorbed by Rasmus from that split second encounter.

Fortunately, what Videl did was enough to bring Rasmus back and forced Dragon’s Blood to stop, preventing it from taking over Rasmus’ body. Aris and Serena watched as the ice around Rasmus’ body began to evaporate, making a loud sizzling sound. Slowly but surely, his body began to act normally and warm blood began to circulate all over his body.

"What did you do?" Aris approached Rasmus and carefully checked his pulse.

"I forced his soul to collapse..." Videl answered as he looked at his previous arm to be devoured by frost. "He’ll be fine. He might be unconscious for a while, maybe even a few days..." He looked at Rasmus, still in disbelief that the body within him possessed such power.

Aris looked at Videl, not understanding what he meant by making Rasmus’ soul collapse. However, the most important thing was that Rasmus was fine, and there was nothing to be worried about anymore. The three of them looked at Rasmus silently until one by one everyone came to check on him.