Chapter 288: The Extreme Cold Witch — Lilith

The grueling war in the Northern Province of the Kingdom of Rowe raged on. The urgent clatter of hooves echoed across trade routes, forest paths, and the open wilderness—some belonging to barbarians, others to the forces of the Kingdom of Rowe. While the barbarians raided villages and towns to slaughter and burn, the kingdom's army used those very settlements as bait to ambush them.

Forests, riverbanks, and even farmlands had devolved into battlefields. Both sides traded victories and defeats; sometimes, the victors could not even manage to bury their fallen comrades before being forced into a hasty retreat.

Corpses lay exposed across the wilderness, providing a grand feast for the wild beasts of the Northland woods.

Awooo!

A wolf's howl echoed through the mountain woods. Pomahan, the old wizard, and a group of barbarians sat around a campfire, gnawing on plundered pork chops. In the light of the dancing flames, their mouths gleamed with grease.

Hearing the howl, the old wizard shivered. For some unknown reason, a chill gripped his heart and left him profoundly uneasy. The sound seemed subtly different from a Northland mountain wolf.

It sounded like a gnoll!

Puzzled, the old wizard failed to understand his sudden dread. Savage monsters like gnolls could be found anywhere on the Nordhill Continent, but the cowardly creatures only bullied the weak. They would never dare attack a tough target like a barbarian warband; feeble villagers and battlefield corpses were their usual prey.

The unease ruined the old wizard's appetite. He stood up and walked over to a Goshawk tearing at the red meat still clinging to an animal skeleton.

Fweee!

The Goshawk tilted its head in confusion as it swallowed a strip of meat. It did not understand why its master would whistle while it ate, but years of training drove it to respond to the summons. Flapping its wings, the bird landed on the old wizard's raised arm.

The old wizard leaned his mouth close to the bird's head and whispered. The power of magic linked their visions together.

"Fly higher."

The old wizard thrust his arm upward. The Goshawk beat its wings, threading through the gaps in the branches to soar into the sky.

His anxiety faded slightly. The old wizard was certain his intuition was correct.

Due to their unique cultural heritage, barbarian wizards were a special breed of spellcaster. They sought knowledge much like a Mage, yet possessed some of the unique abilities of a shaman. Shamans shared a subtle connection with the unseen forces of the world, and the old wizard was a standout in this regard.

"Stop eating! We might be in serious trouble!"

Startled, the barbarians stood up.

...

High above, the Goshawk glided over the canopy, scanning for suspicious targets. Under the old wizard's control, its flight altitude was carefully chosen: exactly one hundred yards beyond the maximum range of the Kingdom of Rowe's military bows. This guaranteed its safety while maintaining an optimal field of vision.

However, using the Kingdom of Rowe's standards to gauge the military equipment of Yafiavi was a massive mistake. After all, the forging technology behind Yafiavi's gear came entirely from the hands of the Dwarves.

The night-flying Goshawk had long since been spotted by a Gnoll Arcanist. Using the leaves for cover, a gnoll hunter scrambled up to the treetops and nocked an arrow to his bowstring.

Swish!

The last image the old wizard saw was a sharp arrow hurtling straight for the bird's eye.

Down in the forest, the old wizard cried out and clamped a hand over his eye. Although the arrow had not physically struck him, the shared vision meant he felt the Goshawk's pain as his own.

Clutching his face, the old wizard darted his remaining eye around in shock and uncertainty. He had not managed a clear look at the enemy, but in that fleeting glimpse through the gaps in the trees, he had caught the cold gleam of rapidly moving weapons.

"Enemies. Less than two kilometers away."

"How many?"

"I don't know, but it isn't a small number. They are fast, their bows have incredible range, and my bird was shot down."

A large, fast-moving force armed with superior weapons—could it be a hidden royal army from the Kingdom of Rowe?!

As the thought flashed through his mind, Pomahan dropped to the dirt and pressed his ear against the earth. Yet, he gleaned absolutely no useful information from the ground.

A drop of cold sweat slid down the barbarian chieftain's forehead. Normally, galloping horses produced a thunderous racket, but he heard no movement at all. Even if magic was muting the sound, he still should have felt the faint tremors in the earth.

Yet there was nothing. This meant the enemy's mounts were not horses.

On the Nordhill Continent, horses had always been the mainstream mount because they were cheap to raise, thrived on mere grass, and possessed excellent stamina. But this did not mean they were the absolute best; alternative mounts existed.

Those who rode these alternative mounts were either showing off, like flamboyant young nobles; acting like fools, such as green adventurers relying on a bit of background or strength; or riding something genuinely superior to a horse.

Obviously, an organized group of enemies was not just showing off, and a well-equipped army was not composed of fools. That left only the final possibility: an army like this was not to be trifled with.

"Everyone! Retreat toward the Wormwood Plain!"

An enemy taking the initiative to attack was undoubtedly prepared. Furthermore, barbarians, much like humans, were not adept at night combat. Pomahan chose to avoid a direct clash for now.

"Hyah!"

The barbarians scrambled onto their mounts and spurred their horses toward the Wormwood Plain, just as their chieftain ordered. The plain was only three kilometers away from their forest hideout. A dense, tree-filled woodland was no place for a cavalry sprint, so Pomahan decided to retreat to the open flatlands first.

In the distance, Mark Greyheart—the commander of the gnoll decapitation squad—twitched his pointed ears. He heard the chaotic clatter of hooves. The enemy was fleeing.

"Warriors of Yafiavi! Pursue!"

The gnolls dropped all pretense of stealth. Howls erupted in succession, and the hyenas beneath them shrieked in excitement, their cries echoing through the nocturnal forest.

Hearing the chorus of howls erupting from behind, the barbarians finally realized what kind of enemy they faced.

Gnolls?!

Riding side by side, Pomahan and the old wizard exchanged a glance, both seeing the horror and disbelief in the other's eyes.

After confirming their pursuers were gnolls, the two barbarian leaders immediately questioned their origins. A well-equipped, organized gnoll army could belong to only one faction: the Yafiavi Kingdom of the Overseas Archipelago.

Yafiavi's founding ceremony had invited every power on the continent, including the barbarians. Since the two sides had no prior interactions, the barbarian patriarch, Siegfried, merely dispatched a Master Tier powerhouse to make a perfunctory appearance.

But when that Master Tier powerhouse returned, the news he brought back shook the entire Barbarian Tribe to its core. The barbarians realized there was now yet another major power they could not afford to provoke.

Pomahan's heart burned with shock and rage as he finally understood why the Kingdom of Rowe had actively provoked the barbarians. They had forged an agreement with the Yafiavi Kingdom and called in reinforcements.

"Faster! Speed up!"

Pomahan raised his riding crop and lashed it viciously against his horse's rump. Spurred by the blow, the horse surged forward.

Hearing their chieftain's frantic urging, the barbarians pushed for more speed. But navigating the coniferous forest required them to constantly dodge trees, severely limiting the horses' pace.

The hyenas beneath the gnolls faced no such restrictions. Their physiological structure made their limbs far more agile; even while sprinting through the forest, they could pivot and change direction with ease.

The howling drew closer and closer. The barbarians lagging at the rear looked back, only to see the woods behind them swarming with a dense sea of eerie green eyes.

The cacophony of howls frayed the men's nerves and panicked their mounts. The frightened horses accelerated blindly, but galloping at top speed through a forest was no simple task. From time to time, a horse would smash headlong into a tree trunk, causing a chaos that only terrified the remaining animals further.

Finally, the gnolls closed the distance.

The broadswords in the hands of the leading gnolls were already close enough to brush against the flying horse manes.

A gnoll soldier excitedly slapped his hyena's rump. Catching the command, the hyena leaped, instantly closing a gap of several meters.

In midair, the gnoll swung his broadsword. A cold gleam flashed by, and a barbarian's head tumbled from his shoulders. The headless corpse spewed a fountain of blood before slumping weakly from the saddle.

Where the first fell, a second immediately followed.

Another gnoll crouched low over his hyena as it charged. He brought his heavy blade down viciously on a slender horse leg, cleaving it in two.

The galloping horse let out a tragic whinny, lost its balance, and crashed to the ground. The barbarian rider rolled across the dirt, barely managing to draw his weapon before a ferocious hyena lunged in and clamped its jaws on his arm. A moment later, the hyena's master hacked him to death.

The rapid slaughter of their comrades ignited the barbarians' fury. These fierce warriors, bred in the harshest, coldest regions of the Northland, unleashed their inherent savagery. The men at the rear hauled their horses around, ready to counterattack.

But while the ideal was grand, reality was brutally unforgiving.

Those left at the rear were basically the weakest among the barbarians, whereas every single gnoll possessed strength comparable to an Intermediate Tier professional. Moreover, their night vision gave the gnolls an overwhelming natural advantage in the dark woods. Almost the moment they clashed, the barbarians were cut from their saddles.

With escape hopeless, more and more barbarians gave in to their bestial instincts, halting their horses to fight back. Far ahead, the old wizard finally saw the edge of the forest and spurred his horse into a frantic sprint.

The gnolls slaughtered their way out of the forest. Thanks to the delaying action of the rear guard, nearly half of the barbarians managed to spill out onto the flat expanse of the Wormwood Plain.

The decapitation strike had failed!

Commander Mark Greyheart watched the retreating barbarians with cold indifference and halted the gnolls who were about to pursue.

"They won't get away."

The encounter here was merely a microcosm of the fate of the barbarians infiltrating the Northern Province of the Kingdom of Rowe. Hogger, having just arrived at his destination, immediately linked up with his local allies, gathered intelligence, and formulated the nocturnal decapitation plan.

Caught completely off guard by a premeditated ambush, the barbarians operating deep within the Kingdom of Rowe suffered catastrophic losses, stripping them of the capital needed to continue fighting in the Northern Province. After all, not every barbarian warband had a vigilant old wizard.

Night.

A Goshawk soared through the clouds, flying over forests and mountain ranges before descending into the barbarians' main camp on the Great Barbarian Steppe.

Soon after, the barbarian patriarch, Siegfried, received the report. His face drastically changed color.

Siegfried gripped the letter so tightly that his fingernails pierced the paper and dug deep into his own flesh.

"Gnolls?!"

"Yafiavi??!!"

Siegfried finally understood the source of the clan-exterminating disaster the Legendary Priest Homlan had warned him about.

Not long after, another Goshawk landed in the barbarian camp.

Siegfried unrolled the scrap of paper: 'Archbishop Homlan was ambushed and killed. The murderer is unknown.'

"Argh!!!"

His emotions erupting, Siegfried kicked the table in front of him. It tore right through the tent's fabric and crashed into the clearing outside, shattering into splinters. The guards stationed at the door were horrified and rushed inside.

"Patriarch, what... what happened?!"

Looking at the concerned, shocked eyes of his personal guards, the red-eyed Siegfried suppressed his fury.

"It's nothing! Get out!"

"Yes, sir!"

The authoritative tone of the patriarch left the guards too afraid to say more. They hurriedly exited and ordered men to repair the ruined tent.

After the guards left, Siegfried slumped weakly into his chair. The sheer might of Yafiavi filled him with despair. If they could silently assassinate Homlan, they could just as easily assassinate him.

Without a single Legendary Rank expert left, Sandonar would immediately be wiped from the map of Nordhill by the Kingdom of Rowe.

Siegfried's eyes flickered as he searched for any sliver of hope.

But he realized that unless they surrendered and begged for the enemy's mercy, the Barbarian Tribe stood absolutely no chance. If surrendering could win his people the right to survive, Siegfried wouldn't hesitate to surrender. The problem was—would the Kingdom of Rowe ever forgive the barbarians?!

Thousands of years of constant raids had made the Rowe People hate the barbarians to their bones; they would gladly chew their flesh and drink their blood.

Putting himself in their shoes, Siegfried did not believe the Rowe People would spare the barbarians. The best-case scenario for surrender was enslavement, ruthlessly exploited and abused. The men would be reduced to miners and gladiators, and the women... faced with that fate, they were better off dead.

Suddenly, he recalled a secret recorded in Sandonar's history, and a final spark of hope ignited in his heart.

"Homul!"

The captain of the guard hurriedly entered the tent.

"What are your orders, Patriarch?!"

"I need to go out. If I don't return by tomorrow..."

Siegfried paused and let out a sigh.

"Then the Barbarian Tribe is finished. Tell the clans to scatter and run for their lives."

Without waiting for the captain to react, Siegfried charged out of the tent and rushed toward the Elance Kingdom.

...

The guiding witch carried a battered oil lamp, its light dispelling the fog in the air. Siegfried followed closely behind the silent witch.

Beyond the lamp's illumination, there was only a vast expanse of white. Burdened with heavy thoughts, Siegfried had no idea where he was.

Finally, the witch stopped beside a door covered in ice-blue patterns and extended a hand in an inviting gesture.

Siegfried took a deep breath and pushed open the door, its surface as freezing as eternal, unmelting ice.

Beyond the door lay a magnificent circular hall. Precious sapphires were used as mere flooring material here, while the surrounding walls were encrusted with colorful magic gemstones.

Most extravagant of all, the center of the floor was inlaid with a massive snowflake pattern crafted entirely from priceless Legendary Rank Snow Sprite Cores.

But Siegfried was in no mood to admire the hall's luxury. Positioned at the six points of the snowflake pattern were six distinct, elevated thrones.

He walked to the center of the snowflake pattern, faced the throne directly opposite the entrance, and bowed to the shadowed figure whose face he could not clearly see.

"The Barbarian Tribe begs for your protection, Lady Lilith!"

The Extreme Cold Witch—Lilith!

The master steering the Northland Witches' Council!

The woman who had suppressed the Northland of Nordhill with her might for thousands of years!

If it had not been recorded in ancient texts, Siegfried never would have guessed she was originally of barbarian descent.