I WAS Humanity's HOPE-Chapter 40: Iceland

Inventory > Items > Mask (SS Class)

Description: This enigmatic mask conceals the wearer’s identity while fortifying them against both magical and mental onslaughts.

It was wrought in silence by a nameless mage whose very identity was swallowed by their creation. Originally designed as the perfect tool for infiltration during the Silent Wars, it became their undoing.

"They burned the city looking for me. They didn’t realise I was the one who gave the order."

Stat Bonuses: STR: +2, DEX: +2, INT: +20, WIS: +20

Passive Abilities

1. Mind Veil

Grants complete immunity to mind-reading, charm, fear, and confusion effects. Attempts to probe the wearer’s mind rebound with psychic damage.

2. Arcane Masking

The wearer’s magical aura is suppressed or appears as something else (user’s choice), allowing them to bypass all kinds of detection spells.

3. False Presence

When targeted by Divination magic, the caster receives false information.

4. Adaptive Persona

Allows the user to effortlessly shift their voice, mannerisms, and emotional presence.

Active Abilities

1. Mirror of the Mind (1/day)

Reflect the next mental spell or psychic effect back at its caster. The attacker becomes the new target of their own ability.

2. Identity Fracture (1/week)

Temporarily splits the wearer into two independent personas (with identical stats and equipment) for ten seconds. One is real; the other is an illusion that can cast a single real spell while following the original’s restrictions.

3. Thoughtstealer (2/day)

On a successful touch, steal the most recently cast spell from a target and store it. The stored spell can be cast once within 24 hours.

4. Morpheus (2/day)

Transform into an incorporeal mist for 1 minute. You can pass through small cracks, become immune to physical attacks, and whisper directly into the minds of nearby creatures.

Unique Trait

Mask of the Unknowable

If the wearer is about to die due to mental domination, execution, or exposure, the mask activates automatically. It wipes their presence from the memory of all but the strongest minds and generates a false memory of their death.

Drawbacks:

Hidden Will: The mask possesses a subtle sentience, gradually compelling its wearer toward secrecy, shadow-dwelling, and the pursuit of its own mysterious agenda.

—

"OH COME ON!" Meredith almost whined and was about to say more, but a low crack echoed—ice fracturing somewhere beneath them.

Both siblings froze.

Richard’s instincts screamed left, and he yanked Meredith aside just as a sliver-thin geyser of frost burst from the snow they’d been about to cross.

The serpent erupted from the snow in a geyser of glittering ice, its body uncoiling skyward like a glacier come to life. It must’ve been twenty metres from snout to tail-tip, each scale a polished shard, its maw lined with fangs that looked carved from diamonds.

Magic radiated off it in cold pulses that made even the dungeon’s windless silence feel distant.

S-Rank. No doubt.

Richard’s mask clamped tighter as the serpent lunged—too fast for something so massive, its head spearing toward him in a blur of white and razored hunger.

But he was already moving.

Light sparked around his boots—Phantom Afterimage.

Illusory flickers of himself split in his track. The creature’s bite passed through one decoy, meeting thin air.

Richard blinked—Mirror Step—reappearing behind the serpent’s exposed flank. His daggers hissed free. They glinted unnaturally bright in the reflective snow.

"Mer!" he called. "Melt it!"

"Gladly." Meredith’s wand spun once, a sharp flick of her wrist, and magic thumped the air.

"Volcanic Burst!"

A ring of hot, glowing lava erupted beneath the serpent’s lower half.

For a breathless moment, everything held—then the ice gave way to fire. The ground under the creature’s body explodedinto molten stone. The temperature shifted violently.

Steam shot upward as white turned to red, snow to obsidian slush.

The serpent shrieked, body arching into the air as its underbelly blackened and cracked, molten wounds steaming as it flailed. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

It writhed for only a moment before Richard struck.

The serpent’s head reared high, searching for its attacker. Too slow.

Richard dashed along its spine like a streak of starlight, daggers slicing clean arcs into its crystalline flesh.

Each step blurred, the Light-Dancer’s Edge passive enchantment turning him into something faster than normal, harder to follow than thought.

One blade stabbed into the base of its skull. The serpent convulsed.

Richard landed smoothly, cloak flaring behind him. "Now, Mer."

She was already mid-incantation. Lightning crackled up her arm. Her feet left the ground.

"Storm Avatar."

Magic tore through her, and she became a storm given form.

Her hair lifted in an invisible wind, her body wreathed in pulsing arcs.

The sky responded.

Thunder rolled across the ice field as she raised her hand and thrust it toward the wounded serpent.

A bolt of lightning, fat and blindingly white, speared down as if from the dungeon’s sun. It slammed into the serpent’s face.

The impact was instantaneous.

Cracks webbed from the point of contact, racing through the monster’s form. Its screech died in its throat as it froze mid-rear. Then, without delay, it shattered.

A thousand shards of enchanted ice burst outward like crystal rain. They tinkled against snow, harmless now, as the serpent’s corpse dissolved into the ground.

Meredith landed beside Richard, her body still humming with static, a few golden sparks flicking off her shoulders.

Her breathing was a tad too loud. "So. That was definitely S-Rank."

Richard rolled a shoulder. "And we didn’t even break a sweat."

She gave him a side-eye. "Talk about yourself... Those were some impressive moves."

"Flair is half the job," he said with a wink, sheathing his daggers. "But now we know what this place is worth."

Meredith looked at the scattered shards, still glowing faintly with residual magic. "Not really. The snake could’ve been some random lackey."

Richard nodded, gaze turning toward the ice cliffs in the distance. "True. By the way, did you get anything? What was the monster called?"

"Nah, although I’m halfway through levelling up. The snake was called... Frostblight Coil. Not a terrible name, all things considered."

Look who’s talking, Richard thought, but quietly agreed. The system had named his SS-Rank mask Mask after all...

"That’s too bad. But now that we mentioned it, I did get a couple of things in the dungeon yesterday that I didn’t check on. Wait, let me see," he said and pulled up his status window, scanning through his inventory.

Inventory > Items > Sleeker Boots (B Class)

Description: Formed from interwoven umbral silk and mirrored hide, these boots ripple faintly when viewed in peripheral vision.

Stat Bonuses: DEX: +10

Passive Abilities

Mute Step: Movement is completely silent, regardless of terrain. Footsteps leave no sound or physical trace unless the wearer wills it.

Active Abilities (1/day)

Mirage Vault: Leap through a nearby reflective surface and emerge from another within 50 feet. If no other reflective surface is available, this ability fails but does not consume a use.

Inventory > Tomes > Mirror Cage (B-Rank)

Description: An ability that the Umbral Warden craved, yet was out of his reach.

—

"Go on. Consume the tome!" Meredith urged, grinning madly. "I’ve got a feeling this one’s going to be good."

Richard eyed the tome skeptically, but his fingers were already reaching for it. There wasn’t anything to lose anyway.

The familiar tingle of magic brushed against his skin as he summoned the book into the real world.

Consume [Mirror Cage]? Y/N.

He selected Y with barely a thought.

The tome crumbled into motes of light that sank into his skin.

You have learned a new spell: [Mirror Cage].

Abilities > Apprentice

B-Rank: Mirror Cage

Description: Create a prison of reflective surfaces around a target, trapping them in a maze of their own infinite reflections. The target becomes disoriented and unable to leave. Only the caster can enter and leave the cage at will. The greater the disparity in rank between the caster and target, the more effective the spell. If both are of equal rank, the cage is almost ineffectual.

Requirements: 50 STR, 50 INT

—

"Not bad," Meredith said approvingly. "I think it’s even better than my Root Cage, although it depends on the situation."

Richard nodded, already imagining the possibilities. I should pay more attention to the items the system gives me.

"Enough of that, though. We should move northeast," he said, nodding to the jagged ridge he’d spotted earlier. "If that snake was territorial, the path ahead might be safer. For now."

"Big if," Meredith muttered, brushing a static strand of hair behind her ear. "But you’re probably right. It felt like we were trespassing."

They began trekking again, the snow crunching beneath their boots in faint, softened pulses.

Richard’s new Sleeker Boots barely left a trace, though Meredith still left faint trails.

Minutes passed, then hours. It was hard to tell exactly how much time had passed, as the sky above never changed.

"Don’t like this," Meredith murmured eventually. "Ever-constant blight sun. Something’s wrong with this place."

Richard didn’t answer. He was thinking the same. It wasn’t just the sky—it was the stillness. Even dungeons usually shifted.

But here?

Time felt... paused.

They didn’t speak again until the ridge loomed ahead.

Up close, it wasn’t just ice. Not entirely.

The jagged structures were ruins—massive pillars and shattered arches, all carved from a translucent mineral that bled slow-moving light.

Something between sapphire and ice, but warmer in tone.

"A city," Richard murmured. "Or what’s left of one."

Meredith knelt beside him, examining a pillar fragment. "I’ve never heard anything like this... Who built it?"