In the atmosphere of cold, hopelessness had frozen solid. And the terrifying fate that awaited them.
Warriors with white faces, their hair covered in snow and their armor frozen over, stood motionless in the middle of a new winter day. Their empty eyes stared indifferently ahead. Dried blood on their faces, dried blood on their armor and bodies.
An army of zombies, ready to obey the orders of their Mistress and conquer the entire world.
Among them stood the Cursed. The Ice Mirage lay upon him as well. His arms and legs moved with difficulty, his vocal cords rasping, unable to produce a single word, a gray haze frozen before his eyes.
She sat on a white horse with a lush mane. She was surrounded by warriors with long white hair and white armor. The very ones who had attacked the Judge and pursued the Cursed across the icy night plains.
Nearby, a rider with long white hair and ancient armor stood frozen. The zombie's eyes stared into the void.
The Cursed grabbed him and threw him down like a sack of dirt. He climbed onto the horse. He turned his head toward the female rider as if on hinges. The powerful mass zombie-raising magic was affecting him as well. One white-haired rider raised an icy spear, but the Ice Queen stopped him with her hand.
"Where is the Light-Haired?"
"There was a huge explosion. A powerful burst of energy. It destroyed my Curse." The Ice Queen was extracting the words monotonously, staring ahead. "My protection withstood the explosion. It was what saved you. The Light-Haired might very well not have survived it."
"What are you doing?"
"I'm killing the Demon-King. I know you have a personal score to settle with him. But I need to rid the Moon-Devouring One of another servant. Because the fewer servants he has, the weaker the Moon-Devouring One will be. And the easier it will be to kill him. Let's kill the Demon-King together."
She gave him a meaningful smile, then gave a signal, and a cart with a strange device came up to her. A large metal cube was in the back. Its surface was covered with numerous slots and panels. Weak black smoke streamed from the slots. The space within three feet of the cube was constantly trembling and distorting.
The Ice Queen rode up to it on her horse, and a black rod appeared in her hand. She drove it forcefully into the cube, and it got stuck there, completely embedded, so that only a small end of it protruded outward. The cube trembled, the distortions in the space around it increased, and black smoke began pouring out in thicker streams.
"This is the Black Artifact, or the Black Cube, as it is also called," said the Ice Queen. "No one knows all of its functions. But one of them is opening doors to secret areas. Right now, I have activated it to search for a secret territory where the sword capable of killing the Demon-King is kept. But now that it is activated, stay away from it, or it may devour you."
Meanwhile, black tentacles of smoke touched the horses harnessed to the cart, lifted them into the air, breaking the harnesses, and dragged them into their black depths. Then they reached for several nearby dead warriors, grabbed them, and dragged them into the darkness without a trace.
Then the cart moved forward on its own along the icy crust that stretched ahead, like a paved road leading into a new nightmare.
The branches of the ancient forest were drifting past on both sides.
"What sword are you talking about?" asked the Cursed.
"Very little information is known about it," replied the Ice Queen. "It has no name. Only fragmentary information about some sword capable of killing all creatures except gods, and located in a secret ancient place. This place has no name either. Only in ancient books, archival documents, and… never mind, it is designated as Territory 77. Nothing there obeys the laws of the earth, and no one knows whether they will survive until morning. The Sorceress Maidens live there. They possess deadly, powerful magic. But we will fight them together with the zombie army and destroy them. Then we will take the sword."
After several hundred feet, the cart with the Black Cube suddenly stopped. The strange device trembled ominously, black smoke poured out of it in huge clouds, which seized several dozen zombies standing in the distance and devoured them without a trace. At that moment, a flash of light swept through the surrounding space, and suddenly the winter forest disappeared, and they found themselves on a plain where a forest of giant ice crystals began. The daytime sky turned into twilight. To the left stood an ancient, half-ruined fortress, frozen in place, while numerous human corpses were trapped beneath the ice under their feet.
A terrifying, wild thought pierced the Cursed. He frowned, holding back the horse that had suddenly reared beneath him.
"We need to leave this place. Immediately."
"We haven't even started anything yet…"
The Ice Queen spoke while staring ahead into the thicket of ice crystals. And suddenly she fell silent. It seemed she had sensed that something was wrong as well.
An unknown threat was moving between the giant crystals.
The Cursed remembered that he had already been to this place. Once, the magic of an ancient temple had transported him here. And even before the unknown threat emerged from behind the ice crystals and became visible, he already knew who it would be.
A terrible cold surrounded them. A tall, slender figure was approaching from the icy land. A girl with long white hair like the snow lying all around. A grim, alien beauty. Space blurred around her, preventing the details of her appearance from being seen. Her eyes burned with blue lights. In her long hands, she gripped a gigantic black scythe. The Cursed recognized this terrible weapon. He had held it in his hands once before. When he killed a hideous creature from ancient times that wielded it.
Behind the first tall figure with the black scythe, the others appeared. Just as grim, endowed with an alien beauty.
The first figure struck with the terrible black scythe, and a dozen zombies, torn apart, were thrown aside. One more strike—and the next dozen zombies ended their enchanted state. The remaining zombies launched an attack. The tall figures were hacking their way toward the white-haired generals, the Ice Queen, and the Cursed with blows from their monstrous black scythes.
The Ice Queen unleashed an ice storm upon them. Numerous sharp shards flew toward the advancing ominous figures, but they continued moving as if nothing had happened. Only the blue lights of their eyes burned beneath the hail of falling projectiles. But the projectiles fell nearby, never reaching their targets.
A black scythe formed in the Cursed's hands. The terrifying witches instantly turned their attention to him, turning their heads with their burning gazes toward him.
He jumped off the horse so that it would not hinder his movements. The first sorceress was already here. She struck, and the Cursed dodged. But something went wrong. His vampiric speed slowed down. He seemed to be getting stuck in the flow of magic surrounding the sorceress. A blow from the large black scythe sent him flying far to the side. His body was cut in half. He closed his eyes and sank into darkness.