Taste of Youth: Chapter 67

Josh's P.O.V

Now we just defeated one of the guards, but there will be more monsters coming, and I got the feeling that the monsters from Greek Myths are not the only ones guarding this place.

Anyways, we walked deeper into the castle. This castle is giving me the creeps. I wished we were out of this place since it's only one more fragment of the map left, and we can't risk it if anyone here dies. We need to work as a team.

I looked around, suspecting any traps, but so far, the castle seems nice. Lights are shining from the crystal glass up on the ceiling. Perhaps they need lighting since this is the castle of eternal night. There's a lot of crystal decoration, and some photo frame made out of crystal. I wondered who made them, it seems way too nice to be crafted by a human.

As we passed another room, I held my hands up, and Cheyenne, Christopher and Katherine stopped. I sense that the room in front of us is a trap.

"Psst... this room is booby trapped." I told them. I placed my right hand as near as 2 centimeters from the door, closed my eyes and started concentrating. I got the blueprint of the next room in front of us. It appears only the door in front of us is booby trapped, not the room.

I told my friends to stay back, and as I opened the door, a huge black ball dropped from the ceiling. Thankfully I had told my friends to stay back or else they would be flat as a pancake by now.

Anyways, the black ball missed me by a meter and dropped onto the floor with a big BANG!!!

"Uh-oh... I think we might have awaken the other monsters now that stirs in this very castle." Christopher said.

So, it's not really a booby trap. I thought. It's an alarm to warn monsters of intruders...

We decided to run away now, but since we don't know where we are at the castle, I decided to try something new. I closed my eyes, knelt on one knee, and touched the floor. Immediately, the blueprint of the castle of the eternal night came to me. We were just on the west of the castle, and we must go another 400 meters east to get to the map of youth. The map of youth is surrounded by a very cold water, which I could tell it's about -5 degrees celsius.

Oh, you must be thinking why does the water not freeze at -5 degrees celsius, are you? Well, to answer this question, the water had salt concentration, which lowers the freezing point of the water. I could tell that the salt concentration is enough to make the water stay in liquid phase until -9 degrees celsius.

Just then, my concentration broke, because Katherine slapped me in the face.

"OWW!!!" I screamed.

"Look!" Katherine yelled and pointed behind me. I looked behind me and saw hundreds of monsters coming towards us.

I remembered the blueprint, and I know which direction to go.

"There!" I said, pointing towards the left door.

Just then, I heard a rumble beneath us, and we decided to keep going, but that didn't turn out well because below us, the floor had turned into some kind of bluish glacier. The as I watched, the black floor of the castle of eternal night is slowly fading, revealing the blue glacier. Monsters stayed out of it, and we tried to get out of the glacier and hop into the next room.

Just then, the next glacier that I stepped cracked, and that sent me plunging down into the icy river. The ice above me solidified as quickly.

"JOSH!!!" Katherine yelled, as Cheyenne is trying to think of a way to free me.

I was submerged into the icy water. It was so unbearably cold that my whole body had gone numb. My body kept trying to ignite into a bright light but the coldness around doused it as fast.

I know that if I didn't get out of the water quickly, I could die of hypothermia. Somehow, the water here is colder that I predicted.

I pounded the ice with my hands, but to no avail. The ice just kept thickening.

Katherine tried to struck the ice with her knife, and stomping it. Cheyenne is doing the same, but she uses the used herb pot that the old daughter of Aphrodite gave us, which is now empty of herbs right now.

I clamped my hands into my mouth. My body started to gave up consciousness. It's been 3 minutes, and to no avail. Chris is busy fighting the monsters that are approaching.

With the last efforts, Katherine and Cheyenne simultaneously struck their sword onto the ice, and the ice cracked. Katherine and Cheyenne thrust their hands to me to help me up. As I got to the surface, I gasped and coughed and shivered. I shivered on Katherine's arms.

Katherine hauled me to safety, and she settled me on her lap.