Chapter 1224: And the Winter Trembled!

The invisible undead empire stirred as she breathed in.

"She has less physical strength than the Behemoth hybrid or the Blood Elf which means nothing once her Death army rises. Don’t let her complete a summoning or attach anything to your soul or shadow."

"What about things I’ve killed?"

"Especially those."

"That’s ridiculously broad."

"She’s a World Transcendent Undead Queen. Fairness became irrelevant several stages ago."

Phei glanced at the kneeling dead and asked jokingly. "What happens to my corpse? Imagine I die"

"If your body remains before the behemoth what happens to you is still debatable."

"Lovely."

"Don’t forget my warnings. Leave her to me."

Void-Ice gathered around Eira’s tiny body, then sank into the winter and vanished. Her essence spread through the ancient ice so quietly that the dead failed to notice how much of the basin had already become hers.

Phei studied her. "You’re confident?"

"Not for you."

He blinked.

"That’s why I’m telling you to stay away."

The final two inner guards unveiled themselves.

Dark-green scales raced over one Chained’s body as his legs fused and lengthened into an enormous serpentine tail. More scales climbed his shoulders, throat and jaw. Two curved fangs descended over his lower lip, and a third eye opened upon his forehead.

His aura fell upon the basin.

Miles of snow flattened. Ice fields bowed, glaciers split and the entire region seemed to sink beneath a primordial ocean. Sound thickened. Air pressed against Phei from every direction with the merciless silence of depths where light had never lived.

Danton emerged from beneath the Titan a moment later, wrapped in the golden Flames of Beginning.

The serpent bowed immediately with his fist pressed against his chest while the oceanic dominion surrounding him folded inward.

"Why is he bowing isn’t he like an unwilling prisoner or something?" Phei asked.

"Because Danton is Jörmungandr."

Cultivation declared the World Transcendent stronger but somethings overruled it and among ancient races, ancestry commanded the marrow; a descendant could surpass another serpent by countless stages, yet certain lineages remained too deeply written to defy.

Jörmungandr stood at the summit of all serpents.

Whatever the Chained felt toward Danton, his marrow bowed first.

The fifth inner guard transformed soon afterward too: Grey scales spread across his face and neck. His eyes became molten gold while the hair upon his head thickened into dozens of serpents, each possessing eyes of its own.

Several looked toward a distant glacier.

The blue-black ice dulled as grey stone spread across kilometres of frozen mass. The glacier groaned beneath its altered weight and collapsed.

"Gorgon," Eira murmured.

Phei lowered his gaze. "You could have warned me before his fucking hair started looking back."

"I assumed Master still possessed survival instincts."

"Tonight may be the worst evening to test that theory."

Beyond the inner five, the outer six stopped concealing their powers too.

Dark scales erupted over the Dragonkin’s arms and throat. Two backward-curving horns pierced his hair, and a thick tail formed behind him. One strike tore a corridor through the blizzard with a thunderclap.

His Dragon aura opened.

Phei felt it and nearly laughed: ’Weak.’

The World Transcendent stood fourteen cultivation stages above him and could probably reduce his current Mortal body into a stain before Phei completed a disrespectful thought but his bloodline still felt tiny.

Phei’s Cosmic Dragon blood stirred without command the Dragonkin froze and his head snapped toward Phei’s hidden position, pupils contracting as every scale locked against his flesh; his blood had heard something impossibly young and weak in cultivation, yet carrying enough ancestral weight to confuse every instinct inside him about which of them should be afraid.

Not like he was obliged to report... he was a prisoner unlike the stupid serpent. Among all of them, only he felt Phei’s presence thanks to reverence being demanded from him.

Phei smiled. "At least somebody here understands genealogy."

Beside the Dragonkin floated a pale woman with long black hair. Her lips darkened, delicate fangs descended and her eyes brightened crimson.

Black-red mist seeped from her clothing and searched the air in thin tendrils, pausing near anything living. Snow began rising toward her against the storm, frozen water remembering its ancient intimacy with veins.

"Vampire."

Eira nodded. "An old one at that."

That was apparently all he was getting.

The remaining four were two Demons and two other vampires.

Fiction had undersold the word badly.

Their presences converged and the environment spoiled as they released their powers too.

Glaciers blackened. Snow collapsed into ash. Frozen cliffs sagged beneath spiritual rot, and the air acquired a metallic bitterness Phei could taste.

They had yet to start moving and just breathing.

Phei surveyed the formation. The Blood Elf had stained winter crimson, the Half Behemoth-Dwarf compressed atmosphere with his fist, a dead empire knelt behind the Undead Queen. The Naga carried the pressure of a primordial ocean, the Gorgon petrified glaciers with a glance, and the outer six poisoned Anarctica merely by existing.

Phei Ryujin Tiamat, nineteen years old, Master Stage, Mortal Realm and Cosmic Dragon intended to rob them all!

His bloodline was doing heroic amounts of work to make him sound superior but single cultivation stage could separate predator from prey and fourteen stages amounted to an entire civilization of difference.

Phei remembered the System placing his chance of success below five percent and looked across the eleven Chained again.

Less than five?

That fucking machine had been trying to comfort him.

Danton finally rose completely from the entrance, golden Flames of Beginning spiralling around his body as he inspected the force guarding the Coffer while pride settled across his handsome face as he looked at his army, and something ancient surfaced through the Saint Stage bastard Phei had grown accustomed to hating.

Danton looked like a prince again and now he was like an old commander inspecting calamities dragged from conquered worlds; he’d let them let out their presences to make himself feel good and what he possessed, who wouldn’t?

His golden eyes passed over the Blood Elf, the Behemoth hybrid, the Undead Queen and the Gorgon before settling upon the Naga.

The serpent bowed lower, Danton smiled and gave him a small approving nod.

The World Transcendent shuddered, then Danton surveyed the rest of his force. "Let’s go."

Golden Flames of Beginning condensed within his raised palm, folding inward until their centre became white. Space softened beneath the primordial fire as a portal began opening.

Phei looked toward the Titan’s crown.

Consort was watching him.

Waiting.

His expression sharpened: "NOW!"

Consort moved but Danton had seen her!

... or more accurately, she replaced the world before his eyes before Consort occupied Danton’s entire eye sight her presence encompassing him!

The Coffer, World Transcendents, Titan, mountains and storm vanished from his perception. There was no room left for anything beyond the woman standing before him.

His Flames of Beginning died and the unfinished portal collapsed.

Danton’s pupils contracted as recognition struck; Consort stood within reach, dark hair exploding through the blizzard behind her while one hand rested upon her katana.

Danton tried to move!

His eleven Chained reacted with him. The Blood Elf spread her skeletal wings, the Behemoth hybrid twisted, the Naga raised his head and the dead empire behind the Undead Queen surged toward the living world.

They were World Transcendents and were monstrously fast but Consort had moved first.

But space suddenly folded around her and Danton making the world buckle once, and both vanished before any of the eleven could reach them.

For one fraction of a heartbeat, the Chained stared at the place where their commander had ceased to exist.

Anarctica erupted as the Naga’s roar flattened miles of snow. The Blood Elf released a carmine tempest in alert while the Half Behemoth-Dwarf bellowed hard in challenge enough to fracture distant glaciers. The Vampire dissolved into predatory mist, the Gorgon’s serpents screamed and the dead empire rose behind its Queen.

Eleven World Transcendents moved at once and the basin convulsed beneath them.

Eira moved too, Void-Ice flooding through the foundations of the Dead Winter Realm as her attention locked upon the rising Undead army.

Phei smiled small, calm and perhaps the clearest evidence that his relationship with common sense had become irreparable.

"True Void Steps." He vanished.

Eira’s eyes flew wide as her Master reappeared inside the innermost formation guarding the Coffer, precisely where she had spent the last several minutes warning him never to be.

Directly in front of the Half Behemoth-Dwarf.

The enormous Chained felt the disturbance and his pitch-black eyes descended.

Far below, Phei raised his head looking at the monstrosity while heat rolled from the giant’s body while the atmosphere compressed around one hanging fist.

Phei looked into those merciless eyes.

The Half Behemoth-Dwarf looked back.

Something inside the giant’s chest inhaled.

The sound resembled a mountain preparing to roar.

Eira’s face lost every trace of colour.

"That fool!"

She moved... but it was already too late—