The Sword and The Shadow

A blinding blue light flashed before the change in temperature once more terrified everyone present.

After Annelotte activated Host of Glacier, the temperature rose considerably. It was around negative fifty now as opposed to the negative seventy of before.

Though Leguna was protected by her spell, even he could feel the change. He wanted to ask about it, but he didn't say anything in the end.

While he was healed by Annelotte and recovered a bit from the potion she'd given him, he had still suffered serious injuries. Even the slightest movement pained him greatly. IT was best not to mention the screaming.

He also knew Annelotte didn't do anything without a reason. There were few things that escaped her notice. Since she used a gift even he hadn't heard of, he knew she had her reasons.

He was no fool. How could she answer his questions about her abilities in front of Saron? She wouldn't be stupid enough to leak crucial information.

A fourth gift? Leguna thought as he watched the now-blue Annelotte. This was the first time he saw her use such a gift.

Host of Glacier was a gift she had awakened around half a year earlier. Back then, Arikos had mentioned the bureau, or rather, Moonshadow, wanted to use her for research into the gifted.

The results, however, were puzzling at best. Though the alchemists' understanding of the gifted hadn't progressed by much, they realised Annelotte's glacial essence underwent a change and awoke her new gift.

Marolyt had been nearby at the time. It was no surprise, considering his precious daughter was being experimented on. He had to monitor them constantly.

When he saw Annelotte's skin turn blue, he had a complex look on his face. He was proud and excited to see his daughter grew stronger, but he also appeared somewhat disappointed, like he didn't want her to learn that particular gift.

After another round of testing, Marolyt was once more blown away by his daughter's prowess. He felt as if the gift shouldn't have been that strong to begin with.

In fact, it had something to do with the crystal core of the ocean emperor whale he had given her. Though she'd absorbed it, a third of the crystal's energy still hadn't assimilated into her diatagi and didn't improve her magic abilities much.

As the power contained in the core was similar to her own essence, it was automatically and gradually absorbed into her body without her noticing.

It wasn't until the alchemists used various tools to make some observations on how glacial essence worked that they were surprised to discover that bundle of power. With her permission, they tried to give the power a push so that it may be absorbed and assimilated into glacial essence.

She recovered the glacial essence she lost when she detoxified Leguna only then. In fact, there was still more left over, so the essence in her underwent a qualitative change. Not only did it shorten the time it would've taken her to awaken the gift, it also strengthened the gift considerably.

That was why she was so much stronger than expected. Only he knew why he had any expectation of her strength at all.

While Host of Glacier was considered her fourth gift, it was actually only an upgraded version of Cold Resistance, one of her first gifts. In fact, Cold Resistance was a manifestation of Host of Glacier before it matured.

Regardless, the bureau's tests identified a few properties of the gift.

The first was the destructiveness of the low temperatures. When she the gift, she could lower her body temperature to absolute zero. A mere touch would be extremely harmful, but it was too bad she wasn't a warrior. Otherwise, she would've been able to capitalize on it.

Additionally, the lowered temperature would seal off some of her biological functions, including her heartbeat, breathing, and most metabolic processes. In this state, she could no longer be considered live. She was more like an animated inanimate object.

It followed that it was incredibly hard to kill her. Technically, she didn't need her bodily functions anymore, so harming her organs or limbs wouldn't be enough to kill her. The only way to stop her was to destroy the glacial essence, which served as a core to move her. The other was to destroy her brain and stop it from communicating with the rest of her body.

Naturally, those were only inferences by the alchemists. They naturally wouldn't dare to actually poke a knife through her heart to see if she would die with the galestorm swordsaint just beside them.

According to their expectations, the undead state would be lifted once she stopped using Host of Glacier. As her body temperature rose, her biological functions would once more turn vital. If she no longer has a heart to pump blood or lungs to breathe, she would be at death's door.

After the tests, Annelotte found that she could maintain that state for half an hour at most. However, being able to ignore mortal wounds for that span of time was already ridiculously impressive.

But that wasn't all it did. While the first effect would be really useful for fighters, it didn't do much for a magus like her. And while the second undying effect sounded terrifying, half an hour wasn't a long time and she would still die after she reverted to normal if she suffered a critical wound. That was why she would have to be careful and defend herself all the same.

Only the third effect of the gift brought her a substantial advantage. She could directly absorb glacial essence from the environment in that state.

That, in itself, would only raise her ice-aspect spells' efficacy without doing much else, but when coupled with her two other gifts, it would be beyond ridiculously powerful.

Using Glacial Domain, she could lower the surrounding temperature and increase the rate of essence absorption. That was why the temperature rose after she used Host of Glacier. Much of the glacial essence in the environment had been sucked in by her.

Glacial Conversion, on the other hand, was the crux of the combination.

Not only could the gift convert all types of mana essence into glacial essence, it could do the reverse and convert glacial essence into any other aspect. Though she could only absorb glacial essence, she could convert it into any kind of aspect she wished!

In another sense, she could greatly increase the rate of mana recovery. According to the alchemists, she recovered 1.5 times faster than she would after consuming a high-grade mana potion.

If Alissanda's Host of Radiance made him a perpetual lifeforce generator, Annelotte's combination of three gifts made her a mana reactor. With mana, a magus could do almost anything!

That was why even she was shocked to see the results.

At that moment, she suddenly recalled Leguna's promise to protect her. He sounded so sincere, serious and brave.

If he found out the one he wanted to protect had that kind of power, he would naturally be happy and excited, but also loath himself for his weakness and retract from her emotionally.

The thought made her to destroy the report and resolve to never use the ability unless the situation was appropriately dire.

Even though she was a bright diamond that could catch everyone's eye, she made sure not to flaunt her abilities and chose to remain quietly and undetected by Leguna's side as his helper and think tank. She didn't want to hurt his sincere and weak heart because she liked to see him try hard for her sake.

Though she wasn't as gentle as Eirinn or as direct as Innilis, she showed her care for Leguna in her own twisted way without even her noticing. Perhaps Leguna would never realize what she had done for him for the rest of his life if she didn't mention it.

That was why Leguna had only heard about the two gifts, but never really knew how powerful they made her. Now he was in mortal danger, she finally put them on full display even if it meant exposing them to him. She would pay any price to destroy the one who hurt Leguna and save him from this predicament!