After receiving Colin's orders, Hask did not utter another word of nonsense.
He turned sharply and donned the heavy bear-skin cloak, stained with blood and dust, stirring up a cold wind filled with the aura of death behind him.
Like a bloodthirsty beast finally unleashed, he strode out of the tent.
Outside, thirteen silent phantoms—phantoms of death—had gathered, as if they had crawled from the deepest depths of hell.
They were the Thirteen Wolf Guards, the most elite, loyal, and lethal subordinates under Hask!
They made not a single sound.
They simply stood quietly upon the snow, illuminated to a ghostly pale white by the Moonlight.
From each of them radiated a chilling, suffocating murderous aura, like ice that had frozen for ten thousand years.
That murderous aura was so pure and condensed that even the ceaseless, wailing cold wind seemed to freeze and solidify the moment it brushed against their bodies!
Beside each of them crouched a magnificent, elite Snow Giant Wolf, far larger than any ordinary one!
When Hask's imposing, tower-like figure appeared before them, those fourteen Snow Giant Wolves, previously as motionless as ice sculptures, simultaneously emitted a low growl filled with bloodthirsty longing from their throats!
Bonebreaker sensed the monstrous murderous intent in its master's heart, already boiling like volcanic magma!
Hask did not speak a single word of mobilization.
He merely swept his wolf eyes—like two ghost fires burning in the dark night—slowly across the thirteen young, resolute faces before him, each filled with the same cold killing intent.
Then, he swung himself onto the back of his mount, 'Bonebreaker,' the largest of them all, with fur as pure as white snow!
"Awoooo—!"
A long, shrill wolf howl, filled with endless fury and a longing for revenge, instantly tore thru the deathly silent, frozen nite sky!
Immediately after, thirteen roars, equally filled with bloodthirsty killing intent, echoed one after another throughout the entire camp!
The fourteen white, ghostly figures did not hesitate or pause for even a moment.
They were like fourteen cold droplets merging into a boundless ocean of darkness.
They silently left the camp as the lights gradually extinguished, plunging without hesitation into the vast snowfield filled with the unknown and death!
They were the phantoms of the snowfield.
They were the deadliest blades of vengeance in the dark of nite!
The pursuit had begun.
It was a death hunt conducted in extreme cold and exhaustion, filled with patience and cunning.
Hask had completely changed his usual rugged combat style, which was filled with wild rage and a desire for destruction.
At this moment, he was like the most seasoned, patient lone wolf of the snow.
He crouched on the back of his equally wise and patient mount, 'Bonebreaker,' pressing his body extremely low, almost merging with the white snow waves rising and falling with the wind.
In his eyes, the violent, bloodthirsty flames had long since extinguished.
In their place was a focus colder than the ten-thousand-year ice atop the Giant Bear Ridge!
All his senses were heightened to an unprecedented, extreme state of acuity!
He used his eyes to search for any faint trace on the vast, pure white snow that did not belong to the natural world.
He used his ears to listen for any superfluous, discordant sound mixed into the ceaseless, thunderous howling of the wind and snow.
He even used his nose to distinguish, amidst the air already thoroughly polluted by the thick scent of blood and burned odors, a faint, special scent belonging to a strange kin!
Soon, he made his first discovery!
It was a set of extremely messy, uneven footprints!
These footprints were completely different from theirs!
They were narrower and sharper.
Some were so deep they almost sank to the knees—marks left by the raiders, heavy and greedy, carrying the heavy, stolen chunks of meat!
Others were as shallow as the claw marks left by panic-stricken birds, filled with confusion and fear!
Hask could clearly "see" from these contradictory and chaotic chains of footprints the complex state of mind of those damned, abominable raiders after they had succeeded—full of ecstatic joy and terror!
They were like a group of starving rats that had stolen enough food from a rich granary to last the entire winter!
Excited yet afraid! Greedy yet cowardly!
A cold, cruel, and disdainful sneer slowly curled the corners of Hask's cold mouth.
He made a simple, unquestionable tracking gesture to the thirteen silent, shadow-like Wolf Guards behind him!
The fourteen white phantoms made no sound.
Like fourteen sharp blades of vengeance imbued with life, they silently followed the trail left on the vast snowfield, filled with the aura of sin and death, heading north!
The pursuit lasted for two full days and two nights.
The damned raiders were clearly familiar to a heinous degree with this region, which was filled with endless dangers and death trent of death, they were closing in, step by step, on the prey they had already sentenced to death!