The moment Victor's boots touched the icy surface, he felt the world change a little.

The subterranean cold did not vanish but it was replaced by the brightness of the surface.

The frozen wastelands stretched endlessly in every direction. His breath curled like silver mist as he exhaled, adapting instinctively to the new environment.

Rhozan climbed up beside him, followed by the ten elite warriors Victor had reluctantly approved.

Their armor, made of chiseled frost-steel and glowing runic threads, reflected the golden light of the sun above.

Victor scanned the horizon.

"So… what now?" he questioned whilw adjusting the grip on his legacy sword. "That thing—the corrupt undying entity—it morphs, right? How are we supposed to know which creature is it when it gets here? What if it shows up disguised as one of the beasts that roam this region?"

Rhozan stepped forward with a solemn expression. "Iruhun, we anticipated this. I carry a charm linked to the last pure fragment of our ancestral wards. It resonates with the corrupt being. When the entity approaches, the charm will chime. When it is near, it will glow."

Victor nodded slowly, though unease prickled in his chest.

"So we just… wait now?"

"Yes," Rhozan answered. "Waiting is our battlefield, Iruhun. It tests resolve more than any blade."

The ten warriors spread out, forming a loose perimeter around Victor and Rhozan. Some knelt with their hands pressed to the icy ground as they synchronized their mana with the natural ley lines running beneath the frozen region.

Others stood with weapons ready, ranging from curved froststeel axes to crescent halberds to runic spears, and shimmering crystal talismans.

Victor inhaled deeply, feeling his qi circulating smoothly. His spiritual senses stretched farther than before, reaching beyond the horizon like invisible threads of awareness.

Thirty minutes passed.

Thirty minutes of tension thick enough to cut, hanging like a blade over their heads.

Victor shifted as his eyes scanned the horizon. Every instinct in him remained coiled tight.

All of a sudden...

BOOOOOOM!

The ground vibrated as a deep, echoing hoofbeat rolled across the plains like thunder.

Victor's head snapped west simultaneously with the Kahr'uun elites.

Atop a distant icy mountain, white frost erupted like a sudden avalanche.

Rhozan raised his hand. "Forms… multiple. Coming fast!"

Victor took a step forward, preparing to engage—

But then the shapes became clear.

It was a herd.

A massive herd.

Tall Frost Oxen over ten feet in height, covered in crystalline fur with steam rising from their nostrils, tore down the mountain in a stampede.

"They're just magical beasts," one of the warriors muttered with a breath of relief.

Victor exhaled slowly, lowering his stance. The warriors eased their grips while some chuckling nervously.

The herd thundered past them, brushing the edge of the party's formation with their massive bodies as they charged onward, fleeing from something or simply migrating.

Due to their numbers being over a hundred, a silver storm of ice was left in their wake.

Victor let them pass with his hand still resting on his sword hilt. Fortunately, unlike other frost beasts in these region, these ones didn't seem to be hostile.

They were just passing.

Although, Victor couldn't tell if this was because it was in their nature or it was due to the presence of the Kahr'uun or something else entirely...

Eventually, the last batch of the Frost Oxen followed after the others and the group began to relax—

But all of a sudden...

CHIME~

A crisp sound sliced the air.

Victor and Rhozan both froze as everyone turned instantly.

Rhozan looked down at his charm hanging from his hip and his pupils shrank.

The symbol engraved on it suddenly emitted a bright.

"Iruhun—!" Rhozan shouted.

But the warning came a heartbeat too late.

Halfway through the last batch from the herd, one Frost Ox jerked violently like something snapped inside its skull. The creature twisted unnaturally with its bones shifting beneath its hide as it suddenly leapt sideways out of formation.

Its entire mass blurred as it traveled across the air and before anyone could react, the Frost Ox opened its mouth.

The jaw cracked apart, splitting far wider than any natural creature should have been able to. Rows of spiky, pointy, rotting, mismatched teeth erupted outward. The gums peeled back, revealing blackened tendrils writhing like parasitic worms. A foul, corpse-like aura exploded from its body...

And in the next moment...

CHOMP~

The monstrous maw clamped over the entire head and half the shoulders of a Kahr'uun warrior who was only meters away.

He didn't even get to raise his weapon in time... no one did.

Blood sprayed outward in a violent burst of crimson mist as his body spasmed.

His head was gone.

Completely gone...

Swallowed in a single grotesque gulp.

The headless corpse toppled forward onto the ice with a heavy thud as blood pooled beneath it, staining the pristine snow.

The other warriors eyes widened in shock as they stumbled back from the sudden eruption of violence.

Rhozan roared, "THE CORUPT ENTITY IS HERE! IT HAS TAKEN ON THE FORM OF A MAGICAL FROST BEAST—DEFENSIVE FORMATIONS!"

Victor didn't move at first.

He stared at the ox separated from the herd which had corruption leaking through its flesh like blackened smoke. Its eyes were hollow pits with writhing void-like veins stretching outward.

A cold chill slithered across Victor's spine.

"Well," he murmured as his expression turned focused.

"I guess the waiting is over."

A warrior shouted through trembling anger, "THAT WAS GRELLAN! WE WON'T LET HIS DEATH GO UNANSWERED!"

The surviving warriors instantly reacted with blistering speed.

"FOR GRELLAN!" They all yelled out.

One hurled his froststeel spear with terrifying force. The weapon vibrated with runic sigils as the warrior traced glowing symbols in the air, channeling a spell through it.

A spiraling burst of spectral ice erupted from its tip, howling toward the corrupted Frost Ox.

BOOOOM!

The spear struck the creature's torso, detonating in a shockwave of freezing mist and raw mana. The corrupted entity staggered back as cracking noises split across its hide.

Then the remaining eight warriors joined in.

They moved as though they shared a single mind.

Four conjured chained glyphs that fired lancing beams.

Another pair summoned torrents of razor-sharp frost shards.

Two others traced sigils that birthed floating mana discs spinning like deadly saws.

Rhozan himself raised his staff and the crystalline head emitted a bright cyan as he chanted in a ancient tongue.

Victor blinked in genuine surprise.

For a group that had just lost someone brutally and without warning, their synergy didn't waver... not even by a hair.

Their coordination was flawless and their spell timing seamless.

'They're good,' Victor admitted inwardly. 'Really good.'

But the corrupt entity was not merely a beast wearing stolen flesh.

It was more...

The creature turned into a streak of blur as space distorted around its movements.

WHOOSH—CRACK—BOOM!

It skittered across the ice, evading most of the incoming spells with unnatural sharpness while its corrupted mana burst forth like a dark flare. The ground beneath it froze, melted, warped, and shattered in chaotic bursts.

Then it retaliated.

With a deep, resonant screech that didn't match the ox's anatomy, the creature slammed its legs into the ground. Corrupt mana spiraled outward in a sphere of black-green fractures.

BWAAAAAAAAAM!

Three of the warriors were lifted off their feet, hurled backward like ragdolls. Their armor cracked on impact as they slammed into the ground nearly thirty meters away.

"FORMATIONS—REINFORCE!" Rhozan bellowed before stabbing his staff into the ice.

A defensive dome of mana attempted to form around the wounded.

However, it was too slow.

The corrupted entity dropped to all fours as its shape twitched, twisted and then exploded outward in a disgusting transformation.

Bones cracked like splintering wood.

Flesh writhed beneath its fur like dozens of serpents.

The ox's body ballooned and stretched, growing grotesquely large.

In seconds, it towered above them, becomimg a monstrous fifteen-foot-tall hybrid form.

Now had massive bear-like arms with fur dense like glacier ice and the massive head of a lion with fangs long as daggers and eyes like pits of abyssal smoke.

The roar it unleashed shook the frozen plains.

Victor's grip tightened on his sword.

"And the ugly gets uglier..." he muttered.

The beast leapt forward, straight toward one of the downed warriors from the earlier attack.

Its jaws opened wide, ready to snap him in half, when...

FWOOOOOSH.

Victor simply pushed his hand forward.

An invisible force blasted outward in a crushing wave.

BOOOOM!

The bear-lion monstrosity was flung backward like it had been struck by a mountain. It skidded across the ice, carving a massive trench several meters deep.

The saved warrior gasped and bowed his head even while lying injured.

"G–great Iruhun… my life is yours…"

Victor didn't even look back.

"Save it," he said flatly with his eyes locked on the recovering abomination. "We're not done yet."

He stepped forward slowly and confidently while unsheathing his legacy sword.

With every step he took, a powerful pressure radiated outwards... pressure not born from mana but from qi.

His sword trembled eagerly qi poured through it like a storm.

The entity rose in fury as corrupted mana oozed out of its chest.

It roared and charged once more.