Upon the Frost-Covered Earth
Frost crunched beneath heavy iron sabatons.
High upon the wind-scoured ridge, Knight Commander Whisley stood motionless, his pale grey eyes locked onto the faint orange glow flickering in the valley below. The Ardenian Royal Army patrol had pitched their camp in a shallow depression, hemmed in by skeletal pine trees. They huddled around four meager campfires, utterly oblivious to the predators watching from the high ground.
An early winter had blanketed the western frontier in virgin snow. The biting cold seeped through thick gambesons, chilling men straight to the marrow. Whisley gripped the leather-wrapped haft of his halberd, his chin raised in self-important pride.
"That Ardenian encampment must be erased from the map," Whisley declared, turning toward the unit assembled behind him. "Tonight, we ride upon the wings of victory and deliver glorious news to the Deputy Leader!"
Behind him knelt twenty hardened veterans of the Iron-Thorned Knights. Draped in crimson tabards over blackened plate armor, they rested silently in the snow. No fidgeting. No wasted breath. Their eyes were hard, tempered by years of brutal border skirmishes.
Whisley gave a smug nod, stepping back toward the tethered horses along the ridge. "Carry out the vanguard strike. I shall oversee the tactical formation from the heights and draft the victory dispatch."
The squad's second-in-command, Sergeant Thorne, exchanged a grim glance with his men before pulling down his visor. "On my mark."
He raised a mailed gauntlet. The silence stretched taut, like a bowstring drawn to the breaking point.
Thorne dropped his hand.
The knights surged forward. They didn't roar. They didn't beat their shields. They descended the slope with terrifying momentum, weapons drawn and low.
The Ardenian sentries—two shivering conscripts stationed near the tree line—turned just as the vanguard hit them. It was a synchronized, merciless execution: a heavy mace crushed one man's collarbone before he could draw breath, while a broadsword found the vulnerable seam beneath the other's armpit. Both sentries collapsed into the red-stained snow without uttering a single cry.
An instant later, the camp erupted.
"Ambush!"
"To arms! To arms!"
Ardenian conscripts scrambled blindly, kicking away bedrolls and lunging for their spears. But the Iron-Thorned Knights tore through the perimeter with disciplined savagery. A halberdier swept through a panicked line attempting to form a shield wall, cleaving through shins and sending men tumbling into the mud. Thorne severed an Ardenian sergeant's neck with a clean, sweeping stroke, stepping over the spurting corpse to drive his sword into the next man.
The Royal Army's morale buckled beneath the sheer ferocity of the assault. They were disorganized, terrified, and bleeding out by the dozen.
Thorne yanked his blade from a fallen pikeman's belly, kicking the corpse aside. He paused, scanning the chaotic campsite through the slits of his visor. A sudden chill settled in his gut—one that had nothing to do with the winter wind.
They had cut down barely a dozen men. Yet... the resistance was pathetically light. Far too light for a fortified patrol holding a strategic sector of the Western frontier. And those tents... many were hollow frames, pitched flat against the ground.
"Something isn't right, Sergeant," muttered Porter, a veteran knighted pikeman at his flank.
Before Thorne could answer, the dull thrum of a bowstring snapped through the trees.
An iron-tipped shaft punched clean through Porter's throat with a sickening crack.
"Gah—! Luna..." Blood bubbled past the knight's lips as he collapsed heavily into the snow, lifeless before he hit the earth.
Thorne spun around, his blood running cold. From the dark tree line encircling the depression, dozens of Ardenian archers and heavy infantry stepped out from the shadows.
"Shit. It's a decoy!" Thorne snarled.
"The intelligence from the Black Thorns was spot on," an Ardenian officer sneered from the safety of the perimeter, raising a glowing command baton. "Albion dogs... you die tonight! Fire!"
A deadly volley of black-fletched arrows blackened the twilight sky.
Four of Thorne's knights dropped instantly, their plate pierced by the concentrated fire of high-draw warbows at point-blank range.
"Shields up! Form a perimeter!" Thorne bellowed, ripping a heater shield from a fallen brother-in-arms.
The surviving Iron Thorns reacted on pure instinct, condensing their formation into a tight ring. Shields interlocked, polearms bristling outward like an iron hedgehog. But they were entirely surrounded.
"You won't leave this valley alive, you filthy Albions!"
From behind the archers, an Ardenian Royal Magician raised her staff. The Lumite crystal affixed to its crown flared with incandescent orange light.
"[Fire Pillars]!"
An explosive column of superheated flame erupted dead center in Thorne's formation.
The blast shattered their shield wall like dry kindling. Three knights were incinerated instantly, their blackened plate armor glowing cherry-red. The kinetic shockwave hurled Thorne off his feet, his shield splintering to splinters. He crashed violently into the frozen earth, the breath violently expelled from his lungs.
A deafening ringing filled his ears, drowned out only by the wet crunch of steel tearing through flesh and bone. His unit was being butchered.
Wheezing through cracked ribs, Thorne dragged himself to his knees. He parried a panicked thrust from an Ardenian spearman, stepped inside the guard, and smashed his pommel into the soldier's face before sweeping his blade across the neck of an encroaching axeman.
"Whisley! You bastard, where are you?!" Thorne screamed toward the ridge. "Sound the retreat!"
"Hold the line! No retreating!" Whisley's voice echoed faintly from far up the hillside. "Crush these heathens with courage and honor!"
Yet down on the blood-soaked earth, Whisley was nowhere to be seen.
"I shall... reposition to direct the battle from a more advantageous vantage point!" Whisley shouted from the distant crest, already swinging his leg over his warhorse. "Thorne! Die with honor for the glory of the Iron Thorns!"
Tch... Damn craven coward! Thorne gritted his teeth, barely deflecting a halberd that gouged deep into his pauldron. His men were dropping one by one. Out of twenty seasoned veterans, only eight remained on their feet.
Honor? Courage? Bullshit! Thorne's heart hammered in wild desperation as crossbolts whittled away his surviving brothers. He's abandoning us!
Up on the snow-covered ridge, Whisley frantically wheeled his steed around, desperate to vanish into the shadowed pine forest under the guise of "tactical repositioning."
"A commanding officer abandoning his men to the slaughter? How utterly disgraceful."
The voice was clear, resonant, and dripping with frigid contempt.
Whisley yanked his reins in terror, his horse whinnying as its hooves skidded on the ice. "Who goes there?! Identify yourself!"
A silhouette stepped gracefully from the moonlit treeline.
She wore pristine white mail adorned with polished gold filigree, overlaid by an azure tabard—the unmistakable, regal heraldry of the Avalon Knights. Her statuesque beauty possessed the sharp, untouchable perfection of carved marble, framed by long white hair that spilled down her back like a frozen cascade.
"I am your reinforcement," she said. Her voice was so cold Whisley swore the falling snowflakes froze mid-air around her.
"W-What?!" Whisley stammered, puffed-up bravado crumbling into panic. "I am Knight Commander Whisley! Where is your vanguard? Where is your battalion?!"
"I am Victoria," she replied calmly, not breaking her stride. "The sole reinforcement."
"WHAT?!"
Victoria didn't spare him a second glance. She walked past his horse as if he were nothing more than a pile of roadside dung, descending the bloody slope toward the valley.
Whisley wasted no time questioning his luck. Cursing her under his breath, he buried his spurs into his mount's flanks and bolted into the dark, fleeing like a beaten cur.
Down in the depression, the temperature plummeted abruptly the moment Victoria's boots touched the frozen blood of the battlefield.
"Knights of Albion! Regroup behind me," she commanded smoothly, her voice slicing cleanly through the din of steel and dying screams.
Tch. Cleaning up after these incompetent wretches... Victoria thought coldly, her pale eyes scanning the perimeter. Still, routing an entire ambush detachment will reflect well on my military record. Francis will have to acknowledge my worth.
"What the hell... why is it suddenly freezing?!" an Ardenian pikeman muttered, his teeth chattering violently as unnatural frost crept across his leather gambeson.
Victoria drew her longsword. It was a masterwork of folded silver steel, glowing with an eerie, azure luminance. With a casual flick of her wrist, she deflected an incoming crossbow bolt out of the air without breaking stride.
"Form a wedge behind me," she ordered the remnants of the Iron Thorns.
Though humiliated to take orders from an Avalon Knight, Thorne and his battered survivors possessed enough veteran instinct not to argue with salvation. They rallied behind her flanks, desperate to survive.
"An Avalon Knight?!" The Ardenian officer's eyes widened before turning venomous. "Kill her! Don't let her cast!"
A dozen heavy infantrymen charged, spears leveled.
"[Frost Bloom]."
Victoria stepped forward and executed a single, sweeping diagonal slash.
A crescent wave of razor-sharp ice erupted from her blade, shredding through the air with a deafening screech. The projectile scythed through the charging vanguard, slicing through steel plates and flash-freezing flesh on impact. Before the severed men could even hit the ground, crystalline frost spread violently across their bodies like a living parasite, entombing them in jagged, translucent ice.
A dozen charging soldiers were transformed into ghastly, frozen statues within a single heartbeat.
"W-What kind of sorcery is that?!" The Ardenians recoiled in horror.
"Mage! Incinerate her!"
The Royal Magician stepped forward frantically, raising her Lumite staff to ignite another spell. But before the incantation could cross her lips—
"[Glacial Lance]."
Victoria thrust her sword forward with mechanical precision.
The earth beneath the magician's feet violently detonated. A massive pillar of jagged, solid ice spiked upward from the permafrost, impaling the mage straight through the torso and hoisting her mangled corpse into the freezing night sky. Her unfinished fire spell sputtered and died into gray ash.
Total silence washed over the clearing.
The morale of the Ardenian ambuscade shattered irrevocably. They had laid a cunning trap to butcher thirty knights with zero casualties; they had not prepared to face an avatar of winter.
"M-Monster... She's a monster!" a soldier shrieked, hurling his halberd aside.
The rout was instant. The surviving Ardenians broke formation and fled blindly into the dark woods, discarding weapons and shields in a frantic scramble for their lives.
Just like that, the slaughter ended.
Thorne dropped heavily onto one knee, gasping for air as adrenaline drained from his trembling limbs. His remaining men collapsed beside him in a daze. The contrast was humiliating. Their commander had fled like a frightened dog, while a lone woman—an Avalon Knight—had dismantled an army of fifty men in the span of three breaths.
Victoria stood amidst the frozen carnage, sheathing her sword with a crisp clack. Her pristine armor remained utterly unblemished.
"Tend to your wounded, if any still draw breath," she instructed, her voice devoid of warmth. Her gaze swept over the ambushers' abandoned gear. "It appears the 'Black Thorns' intelligence network is riddled with fatal blind spots. This sector is far more contested than Francis claimed."
Thorne forced himself back to his feet, ignoring the agonizing burn in his shoulder, and offered a stiff, solemn salute. "My deepest gratitude, Lady Victoria. Your arrival saved our lives."
Victoria offered only a dismissive nod as she turned toward the ridge. "Save your breath. Fall back to the base camp. I shall deliver the report regarding this failure to the Deputy Leader myself."
Without waiting for a reply, she vanished into the winter mist, leaving Thorne and his hollowed men alone among the frozen dead.
A few miles away, the heavy canvas flap of the forward command tent violently slammed shut.
Knight Commander Whisley collapsed onto a fur-lined folding chair, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He snatched a tin cup of mulled wine from the hands of a startled squire, his fingers trembling so hard the dark liquor sloshed over the rim, staining the thick woolen rugs beneath his sabatons.
"Savages!" Whisley roared, slamming the cup onto the strategy table. "Barbarians! To spring an ambush in a blizzard? What manner of cowardly peasant warfare is that?! No honor! No dignity! No respect for the sacred rites of noble combat!"
He violently unclasped his visor and hurled it into the corner. Even the radiant heat from the brazier could not stop his shivering.
"They hide in the snow like sewer rats! Had they met me upon an open field at dawn, I would have cleaved their lines in two! But this... this is the trickery of commoners!"
He turned his bloodshot eyes toward the shivering squires huddled by the tent flap. "Well?! Why are you standing there gaping at me?! Out! Get out and reinforce the perimeter watch!"
"B-But, Commander," a young squire squeaked, "the storm is worsening, and—"
"I said get out!" Whisley kicked the squire's shin with his iron sabaton. "I am formulating an absolute counter-strategy! Do not disturb me!"
Terrified, the squires scrambled out into the freezing night. Left alone, Whisley let out a shaky breath and hunched closer to the fire, rubbing his clammy palms together.
"Arrogant Avalon bitch..." he snarled through clenched teeth, Victoria's mocking face burning in his memory. "Just because she belongs to the High Order does not give her the right to look down on me! I am an Iron-Thorned Knight Commander, damn it! I will have her court-martialed for insubordination!"
Outside the warm sanctuary of the command tent, the stationed sentries shivered violently in the biting gale, their skin pale and numb beneath iron plate.
"S-So cold..." one sentry whispered, his knuckles white around his halberd. "Why must we freeze out here while the Commander sits by the fire drinking spiced wine? He barely drew his sword today!"
"Quiet, fool," another hissed, though his own teeth clattered incessantly. "Hold your tongue before—"
Thwack.
A heavy bearded axe split the air from the snowy dark, burying its iron head deep into the knight's throat. His voice cut off in a choked gurgle.
"Am—!"
Before the second sentry could draw breath to scream, a black-feathered arrow punched through his eye slit, dropping him instantly into the snow.
Out of the suffocating darkness, the raid began.
Silent as ghosts, Renjiran archers glided between the pines, loosing lethal volleys with terrifying precision, while Silver Wolf mercenaries swept through the perimeter, dragging panicked Albion soldiers into the snow and slitting their throats before alarms could ring.
High on an overlooking pine bough, Victoria watched the infiltration unfold.
Her eyes narrowed slightly, zeroing in on the towering figure leading the raid. Ah... So this is the Varyag strike force from the border reports.
Her gaze lingered on Alexei. The young were-bear moved with explosive, predatory agility, his massive twin axes carving through armored knights as though they were made of parchment.
Fascinating, Victoria mused, a dangerous smirk curling her lips. Brute strength that rivals tier-four reinforcement magic. Whisley is dead weight anyway... but that beast? He will make a magnificent test subject for my sword.
Rather than intervening to save the pathetic garrison, Victoria melted back into the shadows, circling wide around the encampment toward the raiders' anticipated retreat corridor.
Down below, the tent flap violently tore open.
Two blood-soaked knights tumbled inside, bringing a blast of ice and terror with them. "Commander! The perimeter has fallen! We are completely over—"
The lead knight collapsed face-first onto the map table, an iron javelin protruding from his spine.
Whisley shrieked, kicking his chair over as he scrambled backward. "Hold the line! Form ranks! You are Iron Thorns!"
Outside, the chaotic sounds of battle abruptly shifted into a heavy, synchronized tread.
Snow crunched under hundreds of armored boots. The Iron Cross heavy infantry marched into the clearing, forming a suffocating blockade around the command pavilion. At their center stood Vsevolod. The scarred veteran carried a massive Dane axe loosely over his shoulder, his cold gaze piercing the tent's entrance.
Whisley stumbled out into the snow, wielding his halberd with wild, uncoordinated sweeps, his face pale as chalk. "I am Whisley! Commander of the Iron-Thorned Knights! Touch me and the entire Albion Empire will—"
Vsevolod stepped forward, towering over him like an ancient mountain of iron and bear fur. The sheer weight of his bloodlust crushed whatever fragile sanity Whisley had left.
"Do you truly believe," Vsevolod rumbled, his voice like grinding millstones, "that we give a single shit about your titles?"
Whisley's knees buckled. His halberd slipped from his numb fingers, clattering into the snow. "W-Wait! Mercy! I know strategic routes! Secret supply caches! I'll give you gold, lands, women—anything! Just spare my life!"
Vsevolod looked down at the weeping noble with unvarnished disgust. He spat onto the snow and jerked his head toward his men.
"Gag him and bind his hands."
Within moments, the Iron Cross bound the whimpering commander securely, neutralizing the forward headquarters without suffering a single loss. The outpost was completely theirs.
Alexei jogged up, his chest heaving with steady, measured breaths, his twin axes dripping dark crimson onto the snow.
"Objective secured," Alexei said, surveying the smoking ruins. "Burn the supply caches. Olga! Shnezna! Escort Vsevolod and the prisoner back to the rendezvous point immediately. Do not linger!"
"Understood!" The twin scouts saluted, quickly falling in behind Vsevolod as they dragged Whisley into the sheltering treeline.
Alexei watched them depart, his grip tightening around the shafts of his axes. The primary objective was complete, but a foul prickle ran along the nape of his neck.
He glanced toward the eastern ridge.
His rearguard—a dozen elite Silver Wolf veterans tasked with securing their extraction corridor—should have sounded the signaling horn five minutes ago.
Silence.
The woods were suffocatingly still. No clash of iron. No shouts. No crunching boots. Just the soft, unnatural whisper of frost settling over pine needles.
"Something is wrong," Alexei growled.
Three Renjiran archers slipped from the shadows like phantoms, their bows drawn. "Commander Alexei," whispered Tira, their point scout. "The southern road is clear. Should we proceed to extraction?"
"You head south," Alexei ordered, his voice grim. "I'm checking the eastern ridge."
"We're coming with you," Tira insisted.
Alexei didn't waste time arguing. He bounded up the snowy slope, his massive strides devouring the incline. Every instinct beaten into him by Aunt Hilda screamed that they were walking straight into the jaws of a predator.
Cresting the ridge, they dropped low behind a dense thicket of frosted brambles.
Alexei looked down into the shallow ravine where his rearguard had held the choke point. His breath caught in his throat.
The twelve Silver Wolf veterans were there.
They stood frozen in perfectly preserved battle stances—shields raised to parry, broadswords arrested mid-swing, mouths open in soundless battle cries.
Every single one of them was encased in thick, jagged ice.
They were grotesque human statues, their skin turned a sickly cobalt beneath crystalline sheaths. Several had already shattered; cleaved limbs and severed torsos lay scattered across the drifts, the frozen flesh breaking as cleanly as polished glass.
Walking casually among the frozen graveyard was Victoria.
Her pristine white-and-gold armor remained spotless in the moonlight. She held her azure-hilted blade loosely at her side, leaving no footprints in the snow.
Down in the ravine, a ragged, wheezing gasp broke the silence.
Jurg—a towering, grizzled Silver Wolf veteran—was not dead yet. The ice had only consumed him up to his waist. With a feral roar of sheer will, Jurg dragged his heavy broadsword upward, bringing it crashing down toward the woman's neck.
Victoria didn't even turn her head.
She casually raised her blade to meet the blow. Clang.
"Futile," she murmured.
She gave her wrist a sharp flick. A burst of absolute-zero magic blossomed instantly from the point of impact. The frost cascaded down Jurg's broadsword, engulfing his gauntlets, racing up his arms, and freezing his chest solid in a fraction of a second.
Jurg's defiant glare crystallized into lifeless glass. Victoria casually tapped his frozen breastplate with the flat of her blade.
Crack.
Jurg's upper torso shattered into dozens of icy fragments, clattering across the frozen earth.
Up on the ridge, Alexei's hands gripped his axes so hard his knuckles popped. A blazing, ancestral fury ignited behind his ribs. Those were his men. Silver Wolves who had watched him grow, seasoned warriors who had fought beside him in the frozen north.
Beside him, Tira nocked an arrow, the bowstring groaning under full draw. "Eighty paces. Zero wind," she hissed, her eyes wild with rage. "I can punch through her neck before she raises her guard!"
Alexei reached out, his heavy hand pressing down firmly on Tira's bowstring.
Tira glared up at him, bewildered. "Alexei?!"
"Stand down," Alexei ordered in a low, rumbling growl. His golden eyes remained locked on the woman below. "Fall back."
"We can kill her!" another archer whispered fiercely. "She slaughtered our vanguard!"
"She'll slaughter you too," Alexei replied flatly.
He evaluated the carnage with a commander's cold eye. Victoria wasn't out of breath. Her cloak wasn't singed. There were no signs of a struggle. She had obliterated twelve elite veterans with the ease of swatting flies. An arrow volley wouldn't scratch her—it would only pinpoint their position and draw that lethal blizzard up the slope.
"Take the southern path," Alexei commanded, stepping out from the brush. He unclipped his heavy battleaxes from his back. "Rendezvous with Vsevolod. Make sure Whisley reaches Zachary alive. That is a direct order."
"Alexei, you can't face that monster alone!" Tira protested, grabbing his arm.
Alexei looked down at her. The youthfulness in his face vanished, peeling away to reveal the terrifying predator bred in the unforgiving wastes of the Varyag North.
"I am the vanguard commander," Alexei said, pulling his arm free. "I decide who lives and who dies today. You cannot fight high-tier sorcery with cedar arrows. I can endure the cold. Now run."
Tira saw the absolute resolve in his eyes. Swallowing her pride, she tapped her companions and vanished into the shadowed pines without another word.
Alexei cracked his neck, the vertebrae popping like dry kindling.
He reached deep into his bloodline, calling upon the dormant primal beast within. His muscles expanded beneath his furs, his broad shoulders swelling. His teeth elongated into wicked fangs, and his pupils narrowed into feline slits as a deep, resonant rumble vibrated in his chest. Heat radiated from his skin, steam hissing as it met the falling snow.
He vaulted over the ridge, his heavy iron boots crashing down into the ravine with thunderous weight.
Victoria paused her stroll among the shattered corpses. She turned slowly, her face tilting upward as she took in the massive beast-warrior descending the slope.
She saw the towering physique, the twin axes thirsting for blood, and the feral inferno burning in his eyes.
A slow, vicious smile curved her lips.
"Ah," Victoria whispered, her voice echoing sweetly through the frozen night air. "Finally. A subject worth cutting down. Let us see if your flesh can withstand the cold."