Third Person’s POV
Unfortunately, no matter how carefully he searched, neither Eleanor nor Aurelia appeared among those groups.
A trace of disappointment quietly surfaced within his heart.
Behind him, Erius finally managed to free himself completely before brushing away the snow covering his clothes.
Only then did he notice Ethan and Misril silently staring into the distance.
"What are you two looking at?"
His irritated voice echoed across the snowfield.
"Shouldn’t we be discussing how we’re going to reach the Crystal Springs first?"
His tone still carried lingering frustration from his earlier embarrassment.
However, before anyone could answer, a strange silence suddenly descended upon the frozen plains.
Even the biting wind seemed to weaken for a brief moment.
Ethan’s expression changed, and an inexplicable sense of danger violently surged through his instincts.
His crimson eyes instantly narrowed as he sensed that some things were watching them.
Before anyone could answer Erius, a distant scream suddenly echoed across the frozen plains.
It was filled with horror and pain.
Everyone instinctively turned toward its source.
Several hundred meters away, one of the nearby student groups had also begun surveying their surroundings after arriving inside the Glaciem Ice Abyss, but none of them had noticed the danger lurking beneath the endless sea of snow.
A sharp blue object suddenly materialized behind one of the young mages without the slightest warning.
Thud!
The conical beak pierced straight through his abdomen before emerging from his back.
The young man looked down at the blood rapidly spreading across his robes, disbelief filling his eyes.
His face twisted in pain, and his lips trembled as if he wanted to say something, but before a single word could escape his mouth, his entire body was lifted into the air.
The surrounding students froze at this situation, and only then did they finally see the owner of that horrifying beak.
A gigantic blue heron nearly ten meters tall slowly revealed itself.
Its scarlet eyes radiated savage hunger, while its long neck curved unnaturally as it casually tossed the impaled student into the air.
The enormous beak opened, and the young mage disappeared inside its slender beak.
Crunch!
The sickening sound of bones breaking echoed across the silent plains, and a swelling could be seen travelling down its long, snake-like neck as the monstrous heron swallowed the young mage whole after piercing and crushing his body.
Several students immediately turned pale, while others instinctively stumbled backward in horror and fear.
However, before they could even react further...
The monstrous bird simply vanished.
It didn’t fly away using some fast movement technique, nor did it use some kind of spatial movement.
It simply disappeared.
Back within Ethan’s group, everyone’s expressions became grave.
Even Ethan’s pupils contracted sharply, as he had been staring directly at that monster.
Yet, he hadn’t been able to track how it vanished after that quick kill and devour.
He hadn’t even perceived its mana until the instant it attacked.
"...Invisible?"
The thought had barely crossed his mind when his instincts exploded with warning.
It was behind him.
No, it was behind Erius and Aria.
Without the slightest hesitation, Ethan’s hand flashed toward his spatial ring.
A thin emerald-green dagger instantly appeared between his fingers.
"Watch out!"
His shout exploded across the frozen plains.
Almost simultaneously, he threw the dagger with his full bodily strength.
It streaked across the air, causing the others to only see a flash of green.
Slash!
A piercing shriek erupted.
The space behind Erius suddenly distorted before a gigantic blue heron appeared out of thin air.
The green dagger had embedded itself deeply into one of its blood-red eyes.
Dark blue blood streamed down its enormous face as it thrashed violently in pain.
Only now did everyone finally understand that the monster hadn’t vanished.
It had merely become invisible, and in its invisible state, it had flown towards them so fast.
Erius’s face turned deathly pale, and cold sweat instantly covered his forehead from being nearly killed a moment ago.
Without caring about his dignity, he threw himself onto the snow and frantically crawled backward before hurriedly drawing his longsword.
His breathing became rapid as he observed the wounded heron shriek and thrash furiously.
Its enormous wings unfolded and stirred violent gusts of icy wind as it prepared to lunge toward the group.
Yet before it could move, a nearly imperceptible breeze swept quietly across its neck.
It felt like a simple gust of wind, and none of the others, barring Ethan, sensed its unusualness.
For a brief moment, nothing happened, but the monstrous heron’s gigantic head slowly slid from its long snake neck.
Blue blood erupted like a fountain before the enormous corpse crashed heavily into the frozen earth.
Everyone subconsciously looked toward the source of the spell.
Misril calmly lowered the fingers he had quietly raised moments earlier.
His expression hadn’t changed in the slightest.
It was as though decapitating a rare and deadly Rank Three magical beast required no more effort than cutting a blade of grass.
Even Ethan couldn’t help glancing toward him.
’So precise...’
That wind spell had been astonishingly refined.
There hadn’t been the slightest sign of unnecessary mana expenditure, nor had there been any obvious indication that Misril was even preparing to cast a spell.
That alone was enough to make Ethan take notice.
Most ordinary wind mages would have instinctively relied on straightforward wind blades when facing a monstrous creature like this.
They might have launched a volley of blades in an attempt to overwhelm it, but against a beast capable of moving with such frightening speed and concealing its presence, that approach could easily become their downfall.
This monstrous heron was clearly a skillful hunter, and even though its intelligence didn’t seem as advanced as humans’, it covered the gap with its deadly powers and predatory instincts.
Not to forget that the moment the heron would have sensed the gathering mana, it could have attacked before they had even completed their spell.
Yet Misril’s casting style was completely different.
It was silent and subdued, and not easy to detect at all.
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