The northern border of the Protos Empire.
Dandren City was situated between the empire's Northern Border Province and Snowfield Province, nestled on a narrow, snow-covered plain between two towering mountain ranges.
For most of the year, this independent town remained blanketed in ice and snow. Daylight was scarce, and like most city-states along the northern border, the nights were longer than the days.
Thanks to the rich natural resources in the surrounding wilderness, diverse travelers—scholars, hunters, prospectors, adventurers, and more from the Snowfield Province—frequently stopped here to rest on their journeys.
Standing beside a small square in the center of town was a three-story building constructed of dark timber and gray stone. It had a conical roof draped in a thick mantle of snow, looking as though it were wrapped in a silvery-white cloak. Wooden wind chimes hanging from the eaves swayed in the breeze, chiming dry, hollow notes from time to time.
Inside a spacious room on the third floor of the finest inn the town had to offer...
No matter how fiercely the wind and snow raged outside, the room remained immersed in complete stillness beneath the soft natural light.
Occasionally, the rustle of a turning page drifted from beside a tall, round wooden table.
Aside from that, the only subtler sound was the faint breathing of Sigrid from beneath the thick quilts on the bed.
Her face appeared completely unguarded, her eyelashes fluttering faintly.
After an unbroken stretch of quiet time, she finally opened her eyes slowly.
Because winters on the northern border were bitterly cold, most interior furnishings in these towns relied on natural wood and solid, warm tones to foster a cozy atmosphere.
Sigrid quickly spotted the figure sitting on a chair not far away, holding a book in one hand and exuding the elegance of an old headmaster.
In the dim light, he appeared remarkably tall. Dressed in a traditional dark suit with a crisp, tailored jacket, he looked as meticulous as ever. His lowered eyes held a profound gaze, blending worldly experience with calm enlightenment.
His left hand held the spine of the book firmly. After a long pause, he turned a page lightly with that single hand, the rustle echoing distinctly through the wooden room.
The entire world seemed to rest between the pages of his book.
He slowly turned his head.
"Boss Cat went out to buy groceries."
Lanqi could roughly tell that Sigrid's hazy gaze meant she was hungry, but lunch was not ready yet.
Although they could have bought lunch directly from a shop in town, Boss Cat had insisted that takeout was unhealthy and only its own cooking provided a balanced meal.
Now that the gravely wounded Side needed rest to recover, Boss Cat had grown far less afraid of her and had begun looking after her.
Even if Sigrid never said a word, Boss Cat knew she was a hundred times tougher than her languid demeanor suggested.
It was not that her wounds failed to heal; rather, regeneration and rupture were caught in a perpetual cycle of canceling each other out. She endured unimaginable agony every second, and keeping a completely straight face through it all was something an ordinary human could never manage.
"Sigh... Without any strength, my body feels so heavy, like I'm pinned under the quilt and can't even move."
Sigrid nestled deep within the warm quilt, her voice soft and weak.
The sky had still been pitch-black when she fell asleep last time, but now it was broad daylight.
To think she would actually sleep for ten solid hours a day just because of the cold weather—and once asleep, she would drop into total oblivion, devoid of any vigilance whatsoever.
Every day, so that she could rest in peace, the Holy Son and the little black cat did everything they could to find a town to halt their journey.
One would never notice while walking through the streets, but lying indoors and gazing out the window, the swirling snowflakes looked breathtakingly beautiful.
Before long, these cotton-like flakes would surely coat the entire town in white.
"If you're sleepy, go back to sleep. I'll wake you once Boss Cat finishes cooking."
Weather like this was ill-suited for travel.
During the months bridging the end and beginning of the year in the northern empire, far more northern residents perished from the brutal climate than from bandits or magical beasts.
"Mhm."
Sigrid shrank back under the quilt, muttering softly with half her face covered.
The Holy Son's naturally gentle voice sounded even more like a lullaby right now.
She closed her eyes, though she did not drift off immediately.
"Holy Son, can you use that massive explosion of yours again?"
Knowing the little black cat was timid, Sigrid had deliberately avoided asking while it was around.
The further forward they traveled, the closer they would draw to the Extinction Branch's blockade lines.
Even reaching the Snowfield Province was fraught with hardship, to say nothing of the Box Mountain Province or breaking through the northern encirclement.
On the bright side, this fellow was the governor of the Snowfield Province, and the Bishop of Extinction likely never dreamed in his wildest nightmares that the Holy Son of Domination was secretly the governor of the Snowfield Province.
Once they reached the Snowfield Province, it would more or less be Lanqi's home turf.
"It will take another twenty-odd days to recover."
Lanqi showed no hesitation in retrieving the Orange Epic card, displaying the still-recovering [Nuclear Fusion Wolf] to Sigrid.
At present, [Nuclear Fusion Wolf] remained completely unusable. Every time its self-destruction was triggered, it had to undergo an entire month of self-repair.
Furthermore, the unbound, packaged Purple Rare cards detonated along with it had been reduced to ashes.
Even if it became available again, he likely would not have raw materials comparable to uranium-235 like the [Abyssal Black Worm], not to mention he possessed hardly any other fuel on hand.
"Then can you beat a Tier 6 right now?"
In the past, Sigrid had felt that with her around, it hardly mattered whether her Holy Son was Tier 4, 5, or 6. But now that he had become the pillar supporting them, she finally felt that the gap between Tier 4, 5, and 6 was quite significant.
"I have ways to handle a Tier 5, but I can't beat a Tier 6."
If he had Side at her Tier-5-equivalent strength, the two of them working together could still take down an ordinary Tier 6.
Against apex Tier 6 figures like the Saintess of Destruction or the Holy Son of Extinction, however, a frontal clash was entirely out of the question.
Formidable though [Nuclear Fusion Wolf] was, the cooldown on its self-destruction was simply too long.
[Poet of Great Love] was not on hand either. At this point, it felt as if her presence or absence made little difference—and without her around, things were honestly so much quieter.
One could only say that the authentic Talia was nothing special to begin with, so a knockoff modeled after her was even more useless.
Using Poet of Great Love as fuel for Nuclear Fusion Wolf in the future seemed like an appealing idea; that way, she could stay quiet for a month too, killing two birds with one stone.
Then again, if he actually did that, she might never obey him again.
"If the Holy Son of Extinction finds us, how will you fight?"
Sigrid knew full well how powerful her former Saintess of Domination had been, and the Holy Son of Extinction who had defeated her was stronger still.
"Then I'll just have to summon a god," Lanqi sighed, closing the book in his hand.
For a moment, Sigrid could not fathom what Lanqi meant by "summoning a god."
Yet she could vaguely sense that when he summoned a god, he had no intention of asking for that god's consent.
"Then I'd really like to see who you manage to summon when the time comes."
Her Holy Son simply possessed that sort of temperament: he had not panicked even when facing the Bishop of Extinction and the black-robed figure, and now, even with the Holy Son of Extinction hemming them in with layers of blockades, he remained completely unshakable.
Although following him felt like dangling between life and death, she unexpectedly found it rather agreeable.
Those were all points in his favor.
Chapter 340