I Conquered the Tower with the EX-Class Character That I Raised - Chapter 22

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 22
‘What do I do?’
Han Seol-ah’s mind spun with crystalline clarity as death loomed before her.
Her concentration was so fierce that subjective time itself seemed to decelerate.
“6.”
Apostle’s emotionless countdown pierced like a blade.
Han Seol-ah was not the type to merely fidget when faced with a problem.
This ‘what do I do’ was a koan—a meditation on how to resolve this catastrophe.
[Calm yourself.]
It was Frozen who answered.
‘Frozen!’
Relief bloomed through Han Seol-ah’s consciousness.
Frozen’s knowledge of the Eternal Winter’s mana transcended her own comprehension.
Surely he could help navigate this crisis.
‘How? Quickly!’
[No. Finding the answer is your role.]
Frozen drew a firm line.
[I will only sustain you until you find it—keep you from shattering.]
‘What?’
[That is the role our great master has entrusted to me.]
“Gasp!”
In that instant.
From the Frost Dragon’s eye clenched in her palm, a biting, searing cold surged backward through her mana channels.
Han Seol-ah understood in that moment.
Why Apostle had entrusted her with Eternal Winter!
‘He knew of this danger all along!’
[Calm yourself.]
Frozen wrapped himself around her interior, holding her steady.
Thanks to him, she avoided the worst—her mana channels freezing and rupturing—but…
The cold still crept up her arms.
[Do what you must do.]
‘But what exactly….’
[Protect the people. Isn’t that what you’ve always done?]
‘…!’
[Think. How can you protect them all?]
The problem is simple.
I’m holding a nuclear warhead on the verge of detonation.
So… I just have to prevent it from exploding.
Han Seol-ah instinctively poured mana violently into the Frost Dragon’s eye—that tiny sphere of ice.
Like pouring water to extinguish fire, she unleashed a torrent of even greater cold to suppress the raging cold.
It was a method Han Seol-ah had honed over ten years.
But.
‘Ugh…!’
The moment mana flowed into it, the orb resisted violently.
A fierce chill surged backward, clawing through Han Seol-ah’s mana circuits.
It was as though thousands of ice needles were piercing her veins.
[Endure.]
‘Stronger!’
Han Seol-ah clenched her teeth and amplified her mana output.
She sharpened her own mana that was burrowing into the Frost Dragon’s eye, honing it to a razor’s edge.
Like navigating a blizzard with nothing but a single thread of mana to cling to—a vast, vertiginous agony.
“5.”
Apostle’s impassive countdown continued its merciless, methodical descent, indifferent to the bone-shattering struggle.
‘This won’t work either?’
Han Seol-ah focused on the creeping cold infiltrating her from within.
So cold. Her mana circuits are freezing solid…
‘Ah.’
Han Seol-ah recalled the magic she had experienced in that other world.
There, she had learned that an Awakened of the Frost Seal could freeze to death.
‘White eye mist.’
She remembered the ‘death’ that had approached.
It had taken the form of pure white fog.
—She remembered that terror.
The ice arrows she had fired as a deterrent froze mid-air.
Even the Eternal Winter couldn’t pierce it; instead, it became an ice sphere that rolled across the ground—a shocking sight.
That mist approached slowly but inexorably, enveloping Han Seol-ah.
Mana withered from her fingertips. Her scream froze coldly within her throat.
That experience of dying, submerged in the cold.
The terror of ‘freezing,’ and the chill of approaching death!
‘Aah….’
Han Seol-ah’s pupils trembled.
She understood how foolish and stubborn what she was doing truly was.
Merely summoning cold wind to meet the onslaught—nothing but crude brute force, wasn’t it?
The moment Han Seol-ah released the mana she had been gripping so fiercely, the cold surged backward like a broken dam.
[…!]
Even Frozen expressed a wave of alarm at Han Seol-ah’s near-suicidal choice.
‘It’s fine.’
Han Seol-ah, quietly…
inverted the nature of her mana.
To coldness.
Even colder.
Like that death creeping in slowly.
‘…I’ll freeze it all.’
My blue mana began to turn white.
Like frost spreading across glass, from the very tip of the mana threads, gradually… turning white.
The Frost Seal mana froze pure white.
As I advanced without hesitation, the frigid aura pouring from the Frost Dragon’s eyes gradually clung to my mana and… froze solid.
‘Frost Seal… yes. It’s about freezing.’
Why does Frost Seal mana possess such a cold nature?
I had thought it was because The Tower had ordained it so.
That was correct.
Why is Frost Seal magic so difficult to use?
I had believed this too was something The Tower had determined.
That was wrong.
Frost Seal is not magic that fires ice or anything of the sort.
Rather, it clings to coldness and freezes everything solid.
An authority closer to immobilization than projection!
Whoosh!
—I’ll freeze it.
The moment I thought that, my mana flowed forth with surprising ease.
The pain that felt like tearing through my veins whenever I cast magic was nowhere to be found.
Instead… it felt refreshing.
A crisp clarity washed through my mind.
Crack!
In this slowed world.
I watched the sphere trembling and emitting crimson light wildly become instantly covered in pure white snow crystals.
‘…Did it work! I did well, didn’t I?’
These words never left my lips.
To avoid losing the sensation of Frost Seal I had just awakened, I poured all my focus into controlling my mana.
Perhaps sensing my thoughts.
“Well done.”
Apostle’s voice came through clearly.
“You’re not thinking of stopping at freezing that small sphere, are you?”
“….”
“Think. Where exactly are we right now?”
This place is… Pyongyang.
The coordinates where the Boss Gate opens.
“Freeze it. Those coordinates, and everything in the vicinity.”
“…!”
My senses, confined until now within that small sphere, suddenly expanded wide.
I feel the ground beneath my feet.
A desolate land frozen white as snow.
I sense the atmosphere.
…The air itself is suffocating, saturated with an overwhelming concentration of ice-attribute mana.
This was no ordinary frozen wasteland.
A place where a frost dragon—a calamity itself—was obliterated in a single strike.
Where the sprawling metropolis of Pyongyang was transformed into a white inferno…
The very ground where that transcendent spell, “Absolute Zero,” had detonated!
Pyongyang had become the most ice-mana-saturated location on all of Earth.
Like some colossal battery, deliberately charged and waiting.
‘Could the Apostle have… calculated even this?’
Moreover, the frost dragon’s eye I held in my palm brimmed with transcendent cold.
Every condition was perfect.
‘It’s possible!’
[Yes. You can do this. Here and now, in this place.]
Han Seol-ah drew a deep breath and centered herself.
A sharp crack echoed.
Han Seol-ah awakened the frost dragon’s eye.
I seized the dormant cold slumbering within the orb.
There was only one image I held.
Death approaching slowly, as I had witnessed in that other world.
White snow mist.
[I’ll help you.]
Gripping the cold, I traced the spell circle.
This time, not within my body, but without.
A pristine white magic circle materialized before Han Seol-ah’s eyes.
A brilliant flash erupted!
Like flames racing across kindling, lines of white mana surged forth, beginning to inscribe an intricate mandala.
Thousands upon thousands of geometric patterns overlapped and rotated.
A high-tier incantation far beyond human calculation.
But behind Han Seol-ah stood Frozen.
Han Seol-ah channeled her mana at full capacity, guided by Frozen’s direction.
‘Ugh…!’
Sharp pangs shot through my head intermittently.
The strain of maintaining such intense concentration for so long.
Without Frozen’s aid, I might have failed long ago.
I never knew that not being alone could feel this reassuring.
The moment the thought crossed my mind—how grateful I was that you stood beside me—Frozen’s calm resonance reached me.
[…That’s all I needed to hear. Now, activate it!]
Han Seol-ah’s lips moved in silent incantation.
“—Frost Mist.”
Han Seol-ah’s first spell, born from her understanding of ice magic.
It was a power awakened from the terror of freezing to death that she had endured in that other world.
Whoooosh—!
With a sound like crashing waves, the magic circle flared brilliantly, expelling white mist in all directions.
‘It worked!’
The billowing mist began to freeze everything around it.
‘But….’
It was different from the magic she had witnessed in that other world.
While its range was broader, the freezing power itself seemed diminished.
Yet Han Seol-ah was overjoyed.
This was the moment she had finally recreated Nebula’s ice magic perfectly with her own hands.
‘Wow….’
“…Now you’re starting to look like a proper ice mage.”
At Apostle’s assessment, Han Seol-ah felt even more proud.
“So you understand now. The essence of ice-attribute mana is….”
“To freeze coldly and completely.”
“Exactly. That’s what ‘ice magic’ truly is.”
“Yes.”
But Apostle remained resolute.
“There’s still one step remaining.”
“…?”
“System Message.”
“…Oh! It didn’t appear!”
Han Seol-ah understood what Apostle meant by ‘insufficient’.
“If I had succeeded in delaying the boss Gate’s emergence, it would have notified me that ‘remaining time’ had increased!”
“You must freeze the Gate’s source itself.”
Apostle spoke with grave weight.
Han Seol-ah’s eyes widened.
Freeze a Gate that hasn’t even opened yet?
“…I’m not sure. How do I find the Gate’s source?”
“This place is now under the complete influence of ice-attribute mana.”
Apostle’s eyes gleamed with an icy light.
“Focus your mind. In this frozen world, find the foreign substance that trembles alone.”
A foreign substance.
Han Seol-ah closed her eyes and expanded her senses.
Through the Frost Mist, she felt all of Pyongyang.
Everything was cold, still, and silent.
Everything was frozen solid.
And yet.
‘…Huh?’
Han Seol-ah’s brow furrowed.
Upon the white canvas of sky, there existed a minuscule blemish—a single point of impurity.
High above, in that distant expanse.
That place alone was not cold.
That place alone held mana that did not stagnate, but instead churned and roiled with turbulent energy.
Like a single drop of scalding ink about to fall into the center of a tranquil lake.
‘Found it.’
There—that was the seed of the Gate.
The instant my gaze locked onto that singular point in the void, Apostle’s command descended.
“Freeze it.”
I drew up the frost mist that carpeted the ground.
The white haze that had blanketed the earth surged upward in reverse, rushing toward the heavens.
‘Not destruction.’
The point where heterogeneous mana swirled.
I would envelop it with mist.
“I’m going to freeze it solid.”
Uuuoooong—!
The moment the mist enveloped that singular point in space, reality twisted grotesquely.
‘Ah.’
In that instant, I perceived the truth through pure instinct.
My power was insufficient!
Even if I scraped together every last drop of EX-grade mana, it would fall catastrophically short of freezing that ‘singularity.’
As despair threatened to overwhelm me.
[You possess one rather excellent tool, after all.]
Frozen’s counsel anchored my mind.
‘…Right. Of course.’
I gazed down at the orb in my palm.
The very first thing Apostle had introduced.
A nuclear bomb.
An orb containing truly staggering cold—mana of the frozen realm, dormant and waiting.
The Frost Dragon’s Eye.
Without hesitation, I shattered the Frost Dragon’s Eye.
Crack!
Shhhhaaaa—!
Tremendous cold erupted outward.
I concentrated every fiber of my being, controlling the mana with precision.
I poured that power into the mist surrounding the singularity.
This was not the crude, brute-force struggle I had waged against the Frost Dragon’s Eye before.
This was fuel.
To freeze everything that composed that singularity.
To deploy magic that would ‘Freeze’ it all…
Controlling mana became impossibly easy and effortless.
Crackle… crackle-crackle!
Invisible sparks erupted in the empty air.
Finally.
Snap!
‘…It’s done.’
The moment I perfectly ‘Froze’ that single invisible point in the void.
Like a broken television screen, the sky’s landscape began to distort.
Simultaneously.
[Error Occurred]
[The summoning path of the awaiting boss monster has been blocked]
[Recalculating route…]
A red System Message materialized before Han Seol-ah’s eyes.
[Recalculation Complete]
[Creating alternate route]
[Recalculating time required…]
The numbers changed.
2 days.
3 days.
4 days.
10 days…
And.
[Time until next invasion: 15 days]

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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