Conquering His Cold Heart

"Get up!!" She spoke with such unbridled bloodlust that even Frost hovering in the distance felt his skin crawl, his instincts warning him of the extreme danger.

Frostine let out a groan as an all-encompassing pressure pressed down on his body and his alone. The surrounding soil, trees and leftover snow were completely unaffected. An A-rank combatant had far better control over their aura than those of B-rank.

Frostine felt his body ache as his muscles forcibly contracted and blood seeped out from his many wounds, Anya\'s demand to get up was proving difficult for the mighty frost monarch.

Eventually however, relying on his pride and brute force he rose from the pit and glared back at the old woman, his hatred for her becoming almost tangible. This was the woman who was going to end him he knew that and despised her for it.

He was a glorious monarch, a ruler of a decent sized territory in the inner regions of the glacial mountains, someone who lorded over others yet here was under Anya thumb, like a lamb prepped for slaughter.

A guttural and animalistic roar escaped his lips as he continued to fight against the pressure and even take steps towards Anya despite his body breaking apart as he did.

A chilling smile grew on the General\'s lips and a look of derision filled Freya\'s eyes. She turned her neck upwards and glanced into the air where Frost and Kiba were hovering and winked, a sign that told the young dungeon core to watch and learn, to understand the difference between the B and A-rank.

In response Frost\'s eyes opened as wide as they could possibly go and his senses strained themselves to the peak of sensitivity, he wouldn\'t miss as single movement.

General Anya looked back down at Frostine who had gradually made his way closer towards her, his body covered in cracks, cuts and blood, a gruesome sight for others but not her as she was a General of the Northrend empire someone who had become used to such images long ago.

"You dared to attack the mighty Northrend empire, brought war to the gates of our land, threatening the lives of our citizens and ended the lives of so many of our brave men and women…. The sentence is of course…. Death!!!" In response to Anya\'s final words, aura burst forth from her body, making her presence radiated outward, she looked like a giant about to cast judgement.

"Rahhhhhhhh!!!!" Frostine roared even louder, his eyes turning blood red as his violent instincts took over but in front of a General of the empire such roars were nothing but pathetic cries.

General Anya raised her red spear, pointing the tip at Frostine and in response invisible chains formed from her mighty aura came into existence and wrapped themselves around Frostine\'s limbs, pulling and stretching him as they lifted his body off the ground and displayed him before her like a criminal ready to be hanged.

Frostine roared and desperately fought against the invisible chains but failed to break free. He attempted to conjure a skill but found that while wrapped in these chains his energy struggled to flow, severally weakening and delaying the activation of the skill. Freya let loose a powerful roar in response to his efforts, causing a skill activation failure.

The rebound effect thus caused Frostine to suffer even more damage but his maddened state numbed him to the pain. Since skills didn\'t work he tried magic.

His mana seemed to be far less constrained than his internal energy therefore the spell activated without hindrance. Freya was about to make a move but stopped when Anya stroked her ears.

"[Ice hydra]" Frostine funnelled as much mana into the 4th circle spell as he could, summoning a massive three headed serpent from the established magic crest. A smile grew on his lips as he madly ordered it to devour Anya and her battle mount.

"Haaaaaaa pathetic" General Anya let out a sigh before twirling her spear in the air and redirecting her attention to the suddenly summoned ice hydra.

"Rooooooaaaaarrrrrr!!" The ice hydra roared with all three heads before diving down with its jaws wide open, ready to swallow Anya and Freya whole.

Anya stared at the summoned beast with scorn as she reeled back her arm in preparation for a thrust.

"[Sky splitting thrust]" With those command words Anya\'s internal energy and aura filled her spear, causing it hum and glisten in the light. An apparition that was practically corporal formed behind her back. A female giant with features similar to Anya wielded an equally similar spear. The two women tensed their arms before, in perfect harmony thrust upwards with frightening momentum.

Alongside a fierce howl the spear rose upwards to meet the massive ice hydra. A split second later the two forces made contact and despite the ice hydra being an upper 4th circle spell and several times larger the beast burst apart like a fragile balloon the moment it touched the spearhead. It was nowhere near its match.

The residual force of the thrust continued beyond the ice hydra and pierced the sky, leaving a massive hole in the overhead clouds.

Frost watched the entire process with rapt attention. His skin had formed goosebumps and a biting chill wrapped itself around his heart as he witnessed the majesty of Anya\'s spear. Despite the fear however he kept his eyes glued on her every movement, refusing to even blink lest he miss the slightest change.

"That must have been an expert level skill" Frost muttered as he understood some of the strength held by this female General. Expert was the level beyond Advanced mastery, the realm usually seen as the highest sapients could generally reach unless they were absolute prodigies i.e. those that could reach S-rank.

Beginner-basic-adept-advanced-expert-peak-perfect and finally origin those were the 8 stages of weapon mastery as well as weapon skills. Frost was at the advanced stage which was generally a hallmark of B-rank. Expert was the realm of those at A-rank whereas Peak was reserved for those that reached S-rank, a level that very, very few sapients ever reached.

Perfect was the realm of those who had reached the very limit of S-rank and focused the majority of their strength on their weapon. Maya could be considered roughly at the perfect rank for her hammer mastery, though only at the very early stages.

Origin was the realm of the Gods. Only entities of that magnitude could truly understand the true origin of a weapon and reach the pinnacle of mastery, able to unleash the fabled origin ranked skills that could shatter dimensions. Of course such power was way beyond Frost at the moment, even Anya\'s mastery was beyond what he could currently understand.

As the ice hydra burst apart and Frostine lost his connection to it his mind cracked and an overwhelming sense of inferiority filled his heart.

\'So this is A-rank huh.\' He said internally, realising the true depth of the canyon that separated the two of them, he stood no chance whatsoever. He wasn\'t even at the upper ranks of B-rank, just a middle class weakling…..

The massive giant that looked like Anya didn\'t fade away as her skill was unleashed, instead both Anya and the giant version of her reeled back for a second strike, this time aiming directly for Frostine.

In but a moment the spear reached the frost monarch and practically vaporised everything above his shoulders, leaving nought but a headless frame. The B-rank frost monarch that controlled the monster stampede to decimate a vast portion Furano\'s forces died just like that. Yes, he was injured and far from his prime but still a single blow.

Frost was left speechless, the difference between ranks only grew the higher you went.

Anya breathed out and nodded, her subordinates had been avenged. She looked up to the sky, seeing Frost still frozen in awe brought a prideful grin to her lips.

\'Good he\'s impressed.\' She destroyed Frostine in such a flashy way on purpose, all so Frost would have a good view of her and the frost wolf battalion. He\'d be more inclined to join them if he could see the limits of their strength.

"Come Frost, we\'ve done what we can." She briefly glanced to the north remembering the retreating figure of the frost giant but he\'d already fled too far for them to chase.

Frost trembled upon hearing Anya\'s voice, his mind slowly coming back to focus. He nodded and ordered the even more frightened Kiba to descend next to Freya.

The two warriors and battle mounts thus made their way back to the Furano battlefield.

Clean up operations had begun, removal of the dead monsters but more importantly retrieval of their dead. Those who died in service of protecting Furano from the stampede would have their names written in the memorandum of heroes, forever recognised as the brave warriors they were.