When his consciousness returned, he found himself lying on the cold floor, his face staring up at the still-frozen ceiling.
The air was still biting, but Elsa's body had vanished.
'My head still hurts,' he grumbled.
Nausea gripped his mind, and the world spun around him.
Struggling to sit up, he felt disoriented and weak. His vision was blurry as he tried to make sense of his surroundings.
The freezing temperature seeped into his bones, a constant reminder of what just happened. He tried to piece together everything.
"Did I absorb her?" he asked aloud.
[System: Affirmative. The absorption process was successful. The Meta-human's body has been safetly stored in your soul.]
He touched his chest but didn't feel anything unusual. Taking a deep breath, he stood up to steady himself.
"System, what was that chain? Why did I feel so much pain just from looking at it?" he asked, trying to understand the agonizing phenomenon.
Whatever that object was, it was powerful enough to threaten his consciousness. He needed to understand what he had encountered and why it had such a strong effect on him.
The system did not respond right away, so he grew concerned and asked again.
[System: Host lacks the authority to know this information.]
"Figures," he muttered.
'So, it is now hiding information from me,' he thought, feeling a twinge of frustration.
The intense pain from what had happened earlier was one thing, but the system's ability to shut down his consciousness was an even bigger issue.
He realized that the system was filled with secrets, and the more powerful he became, the more worried he felt about its true nature.
Unfortunately, he had no means to defend himself against whatever the system was planning. It felt like a ticking time bomb, and he was helpless to stop it.
His only option was to continue growing stronger and hope to eventually become independent from the system's control.
'I can't stay frustrated,' he sighed, trying to calm his emotions. He knew dwelling on this was pointless at the moment, so he redirected his focus to understanding the value of Meta-Humans in his growth.
It might just give him the answer he was looking for, especially since even the system was unaware of its full abilities
"Yet?" he asked. "What are the requirements for you to analyze Meta-Humans?"
The faster the system could analyze them, the sooner he could understand their powers.
[System: To analyze Meta-Humans, the system needs significantly more processing power and detailed information about their abilities. This involves collecting more samples, studying their powers thoroughly, and improving the operating capabilities of the system. Currently, the system is not strong enough for this task.]
"Can you make it short? Tell me exactly what I should do?" he asked, his frustration evident.
[System: Reach Level 100. Reach Peak Demon King.]
"That high?" he said, shaking his head.
The system's requirements were overwhelming, especially since absorbing Meta-Humans required sacrificing his level each time.
It felt like investing everything he had in the hope of a future gain while risking everything in the present.
'Forget it. I'll deal with it when I get there,' he decided.
With that resolved, he continued his mission and headed deeper into the warehouse, which was now a frozen wasteland because of Elsa. The cold persisted, with no sign of melting.
For some reason, his powerful attacks didn't trigger any alarms, so he assumed that Elsa's ability was so strong that even sounds didn't escape this place.
'So they trapped her here because she couldn't control her power,' he thought. 'No wonder she looked so lonely. I did her a favor by killing her.'
He started searching for security cameras but found none. The lights were also frozen, indicating she must have lived in complete darkness.
'So that's why she was so happy when I used my lightning,' he mused.
The warehouse was eerily quiet, the silence broken only by the occasional creak of the ice-covered structures.
He moved carefully, his steps muffled by the thick layer of frost on the floor. Not wasting any time, he searched for another way out.
Eventually, he noticed a vent that had also been frozen. He raised his hands and slowly melted the ice away. Now that she was gone, the ice was melting like normal.
CRACK!
He shrank his body again in order to fit through the narrow space.
The air was damp and chilly, which made the vent feel even more isolated, but he didn't mind at all.
'Is it just me, or do I actually like narrow and tight spaces?' he thought to himself as he continue crawling. 'Maybe it's because I lived in a coffin for a year? Or maybe it's an old habit from when I was still a lab rat?'
Those thoughts ran through his mind as he passed the time until he finally emerged from the vent and found himself on the roof.
'Wow, this place is even bigger up close,' he thought.