Revive Rome: Wait! Why not make the empress fall in love with me first?
Chapter 192 - 96 North Wind Axe

Chapter 192: Chapter 96 North Wind Axe

Aske removed his Lock Armor and received healing from Nora.

Most of it was extensive burns, along with bruises and contusions from the impact.

After Nora’s lengthy lectures, the deep wounds beneath Aske’s skin were finally preliminarily healed, and then he was wrapped in thick bandages.

In Nora’s words, the epidermis of the burns should be protected, and it was best to let it heal by itself.

If they recklessly used the power of Life I to accelerate the healing, there was a certain probability of excessive growth of these skin cells, resulting in bumps and wrinkles.

Although Aske didn’t care, Nora made it clear that she absolutely couldn’t tolerate such disfigurement.

So Aske could only become the mysterious bandaged man, advancing amidst the girls’ tittering.

The young Spartan guides had mostly been taken away by the Steel Cross. However, the direction chosen by the Azure Longsword was vastly different from that of the Steel Cross and others.

They didn’t continue along the gentle mountain road but instead found a steep path leading to the cliffs above everyone’s heads.

It was exactly where the Snow Monsters had appeared and triggered the avalanche.

Leveraging his years of game experience, Aske realized that there was some potential causality between the avalanche and the subsequent snowfall increase.

And the increased snowfall was due to the influence of the North Wind’s Axe’s mutation.

In other words, the avalanche itself was very likely related to the North Wind’s Axe.

For example, if the North Wind’s Axe was planted on the mountaintop and a Snow Monster kicked it, it could lead to an avalanche below.

Considering that the mutation of the snow sealing the mountain was caused by the North Wind’s Axe, such causal linkage was not impossible; in fact, it was quite likely.

The steep path underfoot was much harder to climb than the gentle mountain road. Some of the steps weren’t even stones but depressions trampled by foot, covered with snow and turned to ice, perilously slippery.

"Be careful, everyone!" Aske, leading the way, drove Eleanor’s Longsword into the ice layer while reaching down to pull up each of the girls one by one, "If you fall, you’ll be half dead!"

"Don’t worry, even if we fall, isn’t there still a Squad Leader who would rush down to rescue us?" Thira quipped as she passed him.

"Yeah, you’re talking about me!" Aske retorted irritably, "If you fall, I’ll be the one half dead!"

And so, the snowy mountain was filled with cheerful laughter.

——————

After about an hour, the group finally climbed up a rugged steep footpath to a natural plateau.

The plateau wasn’t large, and along the cliff, there was a concrete ruin that looked like a watchtower from the Second Epoch Spartans, only the top of the tower was missing.

At the base of the tower sat an ancient Giant Troll, its wrinkles almost squeezing its eyes shut. It held a thigh bone with flesh in its hand, gnawing on it with yellowed teeth.

Behind it, beside the base of the tower, were piles of human skeletons, skulls, and some not yet decayed bodies, belonging to both mercenaries and Spartans.

Upon seeing the Azure Longsword party, the aged Giant Troll was startled, and the quickest to react was Miel, swiftly laying her sniper rifle in her hands.

A gunshot sounded, and the bullet struck the Giant Troll’s brow, passing straight through its skull.

The Giant Troll collapsed dead, and Miel looked somewhat surprised, apparently not expecting this old Giant Troll to be so fragile, felled by a single shot.

Quite different from the young Giants that could previously withstand the impact of dozens of rifle bullets head-on.

"There!" Thira pointed to a glint of cold light at the top of the tower, "Aske, is that the North Wind’s Axe?"

Aske borrowed Miel’s sniper rifle and took a look through the scope, "Yes."

He turned to ask, "Sigrdrifa?"

"I’m all ready!" Sigrdrifa declared confidently.

Previously, while waiting for Aske and Medea, Sigrdrifa had finally digested most of the Frost I and took Giant I on Fire Island.

Angel’s Song was simply the team’s strongest Buff, even with the bloodline magic potion "Giant," known for its high risk of losing control, the mutation was forcefully suppressed by Nora working together.

When Aske arrived, Sigrdrifa was chasing around with a huge snowball, also to quickly digest the power of the "Giant I" magic potion.

"Good," Aske said gravely, "Listen carefully to what comes next."

"It’s not you choosing the weapon, but the weapon choosing you."

"You will enter an illusion and temporarily forget the purpose of your journey, wandering aimlessly."

"To pass its trial, you must quickly find yourself again."

"The only correct course of action is to follow your own heart."

"Follow my own heart, huh?" Sigrdrifa laughed heartily and thumped her chest, "Got it, I understand everything now."

The girls behind her sighed and facepalmed.

"Just like that," Aske nodded.

With that, Sigrdrifa stepped over the body of the aged Giant Troll and headed towards the dilapidated tower.

Just as she entered the tower, she suddenly poked her head out, looking puzzled and asked,

"Aske, what was it that you said just now?"

The girls all collapsed in despair.

Aske remained silent for a moment, then shouted loudly,

"Follow your own heart!"

"Alright, got it!" Sigrdrifa waved her hand and then turned back around.

The carefree smile disappeared from her face, replaced by a grave and cautious expression.

"My... heart?" She muttered to herself.

Sigrdrifa proceeded up the staircase.

Each step she took upward seemed to drop the temperature of the air by a degree.

However, having consumed "Frost I," she felt only the biting chill of the air more acutely, without any particular discomfort.

Then, ethereal voices started to reach her ears.

Those voices seemed to act directly upon the Spiritual Body, whispering like a murmur, dream-like, inducing a strong urge to fall asleep.

Sigrdrifa pinched the webbing of her left hand, the slight pain keeping her alert, and her mind became involuntarily tense.

Finally, she stepped onto the last stair and arrived at the tower’s open roof.

The biting wind was as sharp as a knife against her face, causing great pain, mingled with countless snow particles and hailstones, swirling around the Battle Axe embedded in the wall.

The murmuring in her ears turned into a roar, the sound so loud she could not make out the words, only a buzzing noise like a swarm of bees.

Sigrdrifa tried to walk forward but found herself staggering terribly.

She was not sure if this was due to the pushing force of the wind, the noise affecting the balance within her mind, or if there was something wrong with her spirit.

She stubbornly pressed forward toward the Battle Axe.

Despite her faltering steps, despite her shaking figure.

Even as her vision and consciousness began to blur.

She still braved the snowstorm, one step, two steps, three steps, four, until she finally stood before the Battle Axe.

It was a classically designed Battle Axe, clearly intended to be held with one hand, though two could manage it as well.

The handle was made of a grayish-blue Steel (probably Steel), with peculiar and striking patterns that resembled the ancient inscriptions she saw the village Elders write on the ground when she was a child.

What was it called... Rune?

Sigrdrifa gazed vacantly at the Battle Axe, its blade a strange deep blue, as if forged from ice, and as profoundly dark as the frigid depths beyond Svalbard.

It was said that even the bravest Viking pirates dared not gaze at the glowing blue water beneath their ships by moonlight when sailing in those regions.

A mysterious area of sea where pirates even speculated that by looking straight down during the night, one could see the palace of the Sea God Aegir, filled with the treasures from all sunken ships. Just one glance and a human would uncontrollably leap into the sea to drown.

The color of this Axe resembled the hue of that legendary sea area, although Sigrdrifa herself had never been there.

The face of the Axe was polished to a high gleam, with simple lines carved along the blade, exquisitely like an ancient work of art.

The edge of the blade was very thin, somewhat similar to the style of Flying Axes commonly used by Norman pirates. Such a thin edge might be fragile, but Sigrdrifa believed this blue ice had an unbelievably great Hardness.

Otherwise, the smith would not have carved intricate patterns into such a thin slab of ice.

Trembling, she reached out both hands and grasped the handle encircled by ancient inscriptions.

And then, consciousness left her mind.