A Serpent's Tale
Chapter 305: Cold Wall

Chapter 305: Cold Wall

The moment we arrived at the entrance to the orphanage, I could tell that Ashtraz was on the verge of breaking down.

The woman at the receptionist noticed us just standing there and recognised Ashtraz immediately because of her unique appearance and immediately got up.

"Oh thank goodness you’re here! Please, she won’t last much longer!" She immediately came out from behind her desk and dragged Ashtraz away.

I was momentarily stunned by this, but shook my head and slithered over towards Astryza’s room.

I actually got there faster than todays receptionist and Ash with my speed, and when I got there, I was not expecting what I saw.

The door to Asty’s room was frozen shut.

Just as I was about to break it down, David came running at me with glee.

"Oh thank the Gods you’re here! Please tell me you brought Ash back with you?" he laid a hand on my shoulder as he gasped for breath.

"Yes, but how did you know I was back so soon?"

"I felt you moving throughout the building."

"What?" What did he mean by that.

He then explained, "You shook the building with just your speed and the shockwaves alone, so I rushed here to find you in front of Asty’s room."

"Oh... My bad..." I shook my head because this wasn’t the time to be worrying about such things. So I asked, "What about Asty? What exactly happened here?"

David’s face that was full of relief at my return quickly turned sour when I asked for an explanation, but he gave one anyways.

"A few days after you left, some of my colleagues from the merchant company I work at came over so that I could continue my training, so I left her side for a couple of hours." He scratched the back of his head.

"I thought that she would be fine, seeing as she didn’t really do much as of late. But when I came back, she had already started to form a cocoon of ice."

"When I reported it to the caretakers, they came rushing to try and help, but there was nothing they could do. Something about this ice was special, unable to be melted by normal means."

"Also, it would freeze anyone and anything that came into contact with it. One of the caretakers has already lost a couple of fingers because of this. She’s fine now, but after that, no one dared to go in there, and eventually..." He didn’t finish his sentence and just looked over at the frozen door.

"I see..." I wasn’t sure how to respond to that so I just stayed silent until Ash arrived.

When she did, the receptionist was a little confused to see me here but said nothing and asked Ash, "Can you please fix this? When we had access to her room, she kept on muttering your name endlessly."

"H-How am I supposed to get in though?" Ash asked as she looked at the frozen door.

The receptionist was unable to answer her and just lowered her head ashamedly.

I took a deep breath and decided to forgo hiding secrets and just break the damn door down.

The ice that was freezing everything had already made its way outwards along the door, the walls and the ceiling. But I wasn’t concerned with any of that right now.

My main goal was just simply getting the door open. And although regular fire didn’t work, I had not regular fire at my disposal.

I stopped at the edge of the ice on the floor and could feel it even through my scales from here. So frigid and piercing. It was like I could feel the sorrow that Asty was feeling from here.

Taking another deep breath, I cocked my fist back before igniting it with a deep crimson [Hell Fire], which I hoped would be enough to break through this situation.

If it wasn’t... Then I’d just use brute force and shatter the ice with my bare fists.

Either way, I threw my fist forwards and smashed into the icy door.

*Crack*

The ice, and I think the door also, cracked a little.

Everyone here was shocked, both at the fire itself and the fact that I had cracked the ice also.

I didn’t stop there thought. No, I did the same with my right hand and punched in the same spot, alternating punches repeatedly.

The fire itself didn’t seem to be doing anything apart from protecting me from the freezing of the ice, and my brute strength was the only thing that was doing anything as of now.

Still, I continued punching, even as the air itself began to frost up at my punches.

*Crack* *Crack*

My punches soon started to have a lot more of an affect as the cracks began getting deeper and deeper, and the dent I was creating was becoming more pronounced.

And at some point, pieces started to fall off also. But instead of melting, the tiny fragments just started to freeze the floor also.

"To hell with it all!" I yelled upon seeing that, I decided to stop having reservations and just use all of the fire at my disposal.

So that meant adding my [Lust Flame] and my [Astral Flame]’s into the mix also.

And when my fists were coated in this new conglomeration of different fires, they were literally burning the existing space surrounding us and giving off aphrodisiac fumes.

I didn’t concern myself with any of that though and decided to just simply keep on punching.

And this time, it had much more of an effect.

This time, instead of just being a simple punch that chipped away at the ice, after this punch, the ice was just flat out gone.

Literally, the ice where my fist was, was now gone. Which was good because it meant that I was moving in the right direction.

My next course of action was to get rid of the rest of the ice on the door to provide some actual access to the room so that Ash could go in there and talk.

Then I realised that punching would cause too much damage so I decided to instead see if I could just simply erase the ice.

I mean, if a punch could do it, what’s to say that simply touching it couldn’t do the same?

I imagine that it’s probably the [Astral Flame]’s that are doing the work here, so I got rid of the [Lust Flame]’s to prevent any horniness that I might cause because of it.

That left me with [Hell Fire] and [Astral Flames].

I tested out my theory on whether or not it was indeed my [Astral Flame]’s that got rid of the ice by just pressing my hand up against it and I was right, it was just the [Astral Flame].

With that now confirmed, I began basically carving away at the ice that was covering the door.

Then I thought to myself, ’Wait, why am I being careful? This is an emergency. Fuck the door!’

And with that, I punched the edges of the doorway rapidly until there was nothing holding it up anymore. Nothing except the ice up above.

I pointed my hand up at it and let a beam of fire melt and erase the space it hit until the door, or what was left of it at least, was dislodged from the doorway.

It then began falling towards me so I just slapped it back in the other direction, with it landing on the ground inside the room with a crackle as it slid backwards slightly.

The moment the door was dislodged and fell backwards though, a chilling air blew out of the room, causing a frost to cover all of us and the surrounding hallway.

I was relatively okay, but the other weren’t. They were shaking from the cold air that mysteriously blew out of the room.

Seeing this, I ignited my arms in the flames as well, which did help alleviate the surrounding temperature, bringing it up quite a bit, but the air was still rather chilling.

I knew that Ashtraz was the only one who could calm Asty down and make her sane, which she clearly wasn’t at the minute, but that wouldn’t be possible like this, not with all this ice in the way.

Ice which, for lack of a better term, was cursed basically. It was constantly creeping outwards.

In fact, it had already reached my lower half. I hadn’t moved at all, yet in these couple of minutes, it had reached me, and had begun to try and freeze me.

So, I ignited the underside of my lower body also and started to trek my way inside of the room.

Nobody said anything to oppose me, as they all saw that I could handle this situation easily.

Now inside the room, I was forced to cover more parts of my body in fire because the cold air in this room was completely unnatural to the point where even my hair was freezing.

I was now basically a giant burning woman. And in this cold, dark and somehow dry room, that was kind of a good thing.

Looking around, I found Asty lying on the bed, but her condition wasn’t good, and the closer I got to her, the more powerful the freezing effect became.

But, I toughed through it and sat on the side of the bed, which was a mistake.

My ass was now frozen solid, and the ice was spreading further along my body. It was happening slowly, but it was happening.

I ignored that though and greeted Asty in a warm tone, "Hey there, little Asty."

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