Chapter 677: The Igloo

Kayn’s slow walk broke into a sprint as the penguin-beast launched its own charge to meet him.

The two collided in the snow.

The beast slashed his sharp flipper, and Kayn slipped under it, his first blade opening a line across its side.

The penguinas spun with surprising speed, its bladed beak snapping at his throat.

Kay twisted away at the last moment, the strike grazing past his shoulder.

The beast pressed him hard, not giving him a chance to get ready, flippers carving in fast arcs, its footing sure on the ice where a normal fighter would have slipped, and for a moment Kayn was on the defensive, both swords working to turn the blows aside rather than to attack.

Moon nodded to himself in approval.

Kayn was a strong warrior. With five Star combat prowess, one of the top Evolvers of his city, and he hadn’t been invited to this gate for nothing. His mobility was real, his blade work was clean, and against a beast this ferocious he held his ground and found his rhythm quickly.

Kayn stopped retreating.

He feinted low, a committed drop toward the beast’s leg that pulled its flipper down to block, and the instant it committed to the parry, he reversed. Both blades came up and crossed at its exposed neck in a scissoring double slash.

The penguin-beast’s head dropped into the snow, and its body folded beside it three minutes after the fight began.

Kayn stood over the corpse, chest heaving, the tension he’d been carrying slowly leaving with the kill.

Kayn flicked the blood off his blades and glanced back at the group, and for the first time since the confrontation, some of the weight had lifted from his face.

Moon gave him a small nod.

"Clean work."

Kayn held his eyes for a moment, then returned the nod, the closest thing to a truce the two of them had reached yet.

Marek immediately moved to Kayn’s side and cast a healing spell.

Kayn had taken a few hits during the exchange, shallow cuts from the beast’s flippers and a graze across his shoulder, and the green light knit them closed quickly.

Kayn stored the penguin-beast in his storage ring and walked back toward the group, rolling his newly healed shoulder.

"Thanks for the heal."

Marek nodded casually. "That’s what I’m here for."

With the beast dealt with, the team entered the ice den and began setting up inside.

They worked fast, widening the walls with the help of Moon who controlled the ice, whilst they used their high physical strength to open up the cramped interior.

Two others smoothed the floor and reinforced the low entrance. Within ten minutes, the beast’ dome had become a proper shelter, spacious enough for seven people to sit and rest without crowding.

After doing so, they began to furnish the igloo out of their storage rings. The furniture was compact comforts of a well-supplied Association team.

Laid out inside the ice walls, sheltered from the wind and the endless falling snow, the space became almost comfortable.

Moon glanced over it before nodding his head in approval at their quick work.

"Good work. This is a solid position for a shelter, far enough from the spire that we won’t get stumbled on by patrolling beasts, and off the route the white commander will most likely take when it comes north looking for a fight. But close enough that we’ll see whatever happens at the black spire when it happens. We watch, we rest, and we move when the moment’s right."

Vela settled onto a soft cushion with a tired sigh, glancing at the ice walls around them. "We’re basically hiding in plain sight. From the outside, this is just another beast’s den. Nothing worth a second look."

Moon allowed himself a small smile.

"Exactly. The best cover in an unknown place is looking like you belong to it."

He glanced toward the low entrance, past the curtain of falling snow, toward the black spire waiting a kilometer to the north.

~Roar~

Barely half an hour had passed since Moon and his team had claimed the igloo as their shelter when a massive roar managed to catch their attention.

Moon and the others rose from their seats at once, hands going to their weapons, and filed out through the low entrance into the falling snow.

A penguin-beast stood before the den, and its dark eyes were fixed on them with unmistakable hatred.

This one was noticeably bigger than the creature Kayn had killed.

Its aura was stronger than the previous one.

And it was staring at the den. Its den, most likely, or the den of its mate, or its offspring, the one they had just butchered and moved into.

Moon understood the hatred in its eyes immediately. They had killed one of its kind and taken over the home. To this beast, they were invaders squatting in a stolen nest, and it had come to take it back.

Although it had every right to be angry, this was the law of the Sanctuaries. The strongest hunted, and the weakest got hunted.

His eyes landed on the body of a beast just meters away from it. The Penguin had brought back to the igloo, clearly a prize it wanted to share with the one they had killed themselves.

Moon’s eyes swept over the penguin, weighing its threat.

It was stronger than the last, but nothing the team couldn’t handle.

He glanced sideways at the others, and once again, Kayn stepped forward.

"You seem angry, big-one. Why don’t I send you to your little friend? I’m sure you miss it..." Kayn spoke coldly, unsheating his two blades and walking towards the beast with no fear in his eyes.

The bigger penguin-beast lowered its head, spread its bladed flippers wide, and let out another guttural roar, challenging Kayn for a battle to the death.

Kayn dashed forward and they both struck each other.

Within a minute of fighting it became apparent to Moon that the penguin was a very powerful beast, and killing it would take alot of time from Kayn.

Still, knowing that intervening would likely hurt the man’s ego, Moon did not intervene, simply keeping an eye on the spire.

Just to be on the safe side, he activated a silencing rune to avoid any mishaps.

Kayn managed to defeat the beast after a battle that lasted fifteen minutes, draining him of his energy and injuring him much more than the last.

Marek stepped forward and cast two rounds of healing that Kayn accepted and thanked him for.

Shortly after the battle ended, Moon spotted something approaching in the distance...