"Wasn't she being eroded by the Demon's lingering power? Why are there Miracle Elements in her dream?"
Shade, who had landed atop a hill, raised his hand to summon flames and melt the Ice Layer, wanting to see what lay beneath it.
But the instant the flame appeared in his hand, the entire Ice Field began to shake without warning, as though it had been struck by a magnitude-eight earthquake.
Shade hurriedly extinguished the fire in his hand. In astonishment, he looked around through the blizzard, then lowered his gaze to the golden light buried beneath his feet.
"Is this dream afraid of—or rather, resisting—flames?"
After hesitating, he lay flat against the slightly curved ice surface. Closing his eyes, he carefully sensed the Miracle Elements beneath the ice, and then confirmed his earlier suspicion.
"The power of the Old God—the Winter Maiden. This deity really does appear quite often."
Since it was the power of a familiar deity, Shade knew what he should do. Still lying on the ice, he conjured Chloe's little ice doll in his hand.
Chloe's Ice Echo.
The sigh of the short silver-haired Witch sounded beside Shade's ear. An Ice Blue phantom embraced him from behind, then seemed to chuckle softly at his ridiculous posture.
As a Witch who had reached the level of a demigod under the guidance of that Old God, Chloe's power was closely tied to the Winter God. Thus, the Thaumaturgy resonated with the golden radiance beneath the ice in this strange Dream World. The Ice Blue light on the surface guided the golden light below to grow brighter and brighter, until Shade himself, lying atop the ice, seemed to be shining with golden light.
At last, a dazzling pillar of light shot from the ground into the gray sky, completely scattering