The frog faced snake was throwing a massive tantrum as it swirled its long body around, lashing at the dozens of orcs coming at it. Its black ink was spurting everywhere.

However, the orcs were also standing strong. This group not only had thick weapon wielding frost orcs, but they also had some monsters that could cast magic spells.

Several attacks were being hurled at the huge snake frog chimera, its already injured body gathering more and more cuts and bruises.

Alex sighed in relief. At least no one was paying attention to her any longer. She silently started to slip away from the danger zone when something else caught her eyes.

There were a few thatched huts where the orcs had camped and in the middle of this settlement, there was something that looked quite different and unique.

Alex saw a black colored crystal floating atop an altar kind of structure.

From the way the things were arranged, it seemed as if the orcs were either closely guarding this or perhaps worshipping this.

She could also sense a sort of dense energy coming from this. It was not mana but rather something else. She could feel it.

As she was currently devoid of all mana, all her reserves sucked dry to the bone, she could feel this even more distinctly.

Alex gulped and took a step forward. She knew that she was supposed to run, but this was too peculiar to simply ignore.

It would only take 2 more seconds to take this and then run? So what could go wrong?

“I will do it. I don’t want to be running all the time. If this is something that could make me powerful then I am going to take it and become powerful.”

She steeled her nerves, took a deep breath, and bolted towards the crystal. Everyone was too busy fighting and no one paid any attention to her or noticed her running towards their camp.

The froggy snake was raising hell and the orcs were only barely dealing with it.

Alex as well counted every second and dashed towards the crystal. She had almost reached it and just as she was about to grab it with her hand stretched outward… something happened.

The ground beneath her shook and the snow and ice started to drift. A huge gaping hole opened up surrounding the altar and the rift crystal on all sides.

“FUCKKKKK!” Alex screamed as she tried to balance herself.

She had also almost done it, but a chunk of flesh hit her in the head and she lost whatever stability she had and fell into the deep hole with a loud thud.

“NO! No! No! Damn it!” She looked at the green scaly flesh of the frog faced snake. The beast had dealt her a finishing move even when she was not fighting it.

“What the hell! Just how much bad luck do I fucking have!”

She clutched her head in distress and tried climbing back, only to fall down again and again. The walls of the hole had some sort of slippery stuff smeared on them.

She couldn’t hold onto anything. It looked impossible to climb out. She tried for a while but then her tired finally crippled her, making her collapse on the freezing ground.

“And now I am done… Ahhhh!”

“Why didn’t I fucking just run away when I had the chance damn it!”

To add more to her misery, the black crystal was still visible from the depth of the hole. It shone brightly in the frozen winter lights, dazzling in all its splendor as if it was taunting her.

“Just kill me already.” Alex sighed and cradled her face in her knees not wanting to look at anything any longer.

She could still hear the horrific fighting noises outside but she just did not care anymore.

…

…

…

In other parts of the rift, Coco ran forward and quickly started healing Xu Meilin.

She and a group of people were scattered around, badly injured, but next to them there was also a dead beast.

“Coco… is that you… I knew you would come… my angel…” She was blabbering something as Qin Hua sliced the beast and made sure that it was completely dead.

The core was still inside so she clawed it out and gave it to Xu Meilin. This helped in her recovery and she sat up feeling a lot better.

“Bro Chen!!!” She exclaimed and started looking around searching for Lu Chen, when a wolf appeared in front of her. “Ah… little white…”

She then saw Lu Chen, Geming, and Fang Yuan standing nearby.

“Ah… you are all safe… thank god.” Xu Meilin looked relieved even though her eyes were teary.

She was about to say something when he eyes fell on the beast in front of her and then she quickly shouted.

“Bro Chen! Brother Ye! He is injured. There was another beast. Guan Ye brought it away from all of us on his own.”

“Ok. Don’t worry. We will find him too.” Lu Chen patted her and then looked at Qin Hua. “We will go ahead and look for him?”

Qin Hua as well nodded.

She dismissed her clone that was searching some other part of the frozen forest and the clone and Coco stayed behind healing everyone, while Qin Hua, Lu Chen, Geming, and Fang Yuan started running forward to look for Guan Ye or signs of other beasts.

At this point, they could either search for the rest of the members of their group or search for beasts and frost orcs and kill whatever came in their way.

They were just blindly dealing with everything one step at a time. It was impossible for them to find everyone in these never ending snow covered lands filled with frozen coniferous trees.

But slowly everything was starting to piece together and it looked like their misfortune had ended. They were no longer up against an impossible situation.

Dealing with one chimera at a time was still within their limits and each time they killed one, they could feel themselves becoming stronger.

Perhaps this was not going to be their death bed after all…