A long, drawn-out horn blast echoed across the frozen expanse.
Sunlight filtered through thin clouds as the freezing wind howled. Blanketed in white frost and snow, the glacier glinted with a biting, razor-sharp light.
This was the Vahara Glacier, known to the world as the Frozen Forbidden Land, and the home where the frost giants had survived for thousands of years.
Within the fissures of the glacier lay beds carved from solid ice, scattered with hide garments, bone spears, and crude stone blades—this was the dwelling place of the Everfrost Tribe.
In the shadowed glacial crevasses where the frost giants gathered, winter brought almost no sunlight. Since crops could not grow, they penned up livestock plundered from their raids for food and hunted across the tundra and snowcapped peaks. Outside the ice caves stood enclosures holding mammoths, alongside several tundra landwyrms.
"Is that... a horn?"
"By Thrym! That's the Horn of Everfrost!"
A frost giant wearing a horned helm raised a double-bladed battleaxe. Feeling the resonance in his very bloodline, he let out a fevered roar.
He stood massive and powerful, over eight meters tall, with glacier-blue skin covered in scars. A pale white beard clung to his jaw like a drift of snow, and frost and icicles twined around his body.
He was the current chieftain of the Everfrost Tribe, Kasa Bonebreaker Everfrost.
Kasa was the tribe's fiercest, mightiest warrior. In the prime of his life at barely eighty years old, he had once snapped the neck of an adult white dragon with his bare hands, earning the revered title of "Bonebreaker" from his kin. Every frost giant warrior respected and obeyed him without question.
Yet Kasa carried a lingering grievance: the tribe's sacred relic, the Horn of Everfrost, remained lost.
The horn had gone missing more than six hundred years ago. The shameful traitor known as the Death-Traitor had stolen the relic, using its power to escape south, where he ultimately defected to the humans.
Under natural conditions, the average lifespan of a frost giant was only around two hundred and thirty years.
Over those six centuries, nine chieftains had died in succession. Aside from endless small-scale raids, the Everfrost Tribe had launched thirteen major invasions into the human lands to the south—the so-called "Frost Calamities." Yet they had never managed to recover the sacred relic that embodied their ancestors' supreme glory.
Today, the Everfrost Tribe boasted five hundred and thirty-two adult frost giants. These vigorous, hearty giants had nearly stripped the great glacier bare of sustenance. Kasa had originally planned to mobilize the entire tribe for an invasion in ten years, but he had never imagined the Horn of Everfrost would sound today.
"This is too monumental."
"I must speak with Elder Nur."
Kasa made his way to the deepest part of the ice caves. There, in the most profound and freezing chill, he found a truly unique frost giant.
Even as brash as Kasa was, he held back his surging excitement and asked tentatively, "Elder Nur, has the time come?"
"Yes..."
"We shall reclaim the sacred relic... and recover our ancestors' glory."
The voice was raspy and low, yet laden with unwavering conviction.
The frost giant known as Elder Nur was hunched and ancient, his pale blue skin etched with bizarre runes. A closer look revealed that they were almost identical to the runes carved upon the Horn of Everfrost.
He was the shaman of the Everfrost Tribe—Nur Wooden-Staff Everfrost. Said to be three hundred and seventy-four years old, he had lived through the reigns of five chieftains and taken part in six southern invasions. He was the most venerated frost giant in the tribe, rumored to be capable of communing with the long-dormant frost giant god, Thrym.
Leaning heavily on his wooden staff, Nur rose unsteadily to his feet. His eyes remained shut, one hand held open as though feeling the chill in the air.
"I can sense it..."
"The power of the Horn of Everfrost... It guides me..."
"It is the ancestors' call. The great Lord Kobar calls to us."
A wave of wild joy washed over Kasa. The hand gripping his battleaxe trembled continuously. The centuries-long yearning of his people was about to be fulfilled by his own hands; he would become the most accomplished chieftain in a thousand years.
"Splendid, Elder Nur!"
"I will rally all our kin and wage war on those southern humans to reclaim our relic! This time, I will wipe away our disgrace and restore the glory of Ancestor Kobar!"
Nur murmured in agreement, "Indeed, our kin have waited far too long..."
"However..."
The weathered old frost giant closed his eyes once more. As if witnessing some horrifying vision, his entire body shuddered faintly.
"I also saw... a calamity. A fated calamity."
"A calamity?"
Kasa frowned in confusion.
Nur furrowed his brow, pondered in silence for a moment, and answered slowly, "Yes, a calamity. I do not know what this omen portends. It could be a host of humans, a dragon, or perhaps something else entirely."
Kasa burst into laughter, resting his battleaxe casually against his shoulder with boundless confidence.
"Elder Nur, you worry too much."
"What calamity could possibly threaten us? We frost giants are the very existence those southern humans call the 'Frost Calamity.' Even if it's a dragon, I will snap its neck with my bare hands."
A sharp gleam of supreme confidence flashed in his eyes.
"We bring disaster to others—no one has ever dared cross us!"
"May it be so."
Nur neither agreed nor disagreed. Supported by a frost giant attendant, he shuffled unsteadily outward.
"Kasa, since you have made up your mind, inform our people. The southern humans have enjoyed peace for too long. Another sacred conquest is about to begin—and remember, this will be the first under your rule."
"Understood, Elder Nur."
In contrast to Nur's tranquil demeanor after weathering multiple southern campaigns, Kasa was thrilled to the core, barely able to contain the fierce leap of his heart.
A single successful large-scale conquest yielded plunder that could sustain the tribe for decades. For frost giants scraping by on a barren glacier, this was an invaluable opportunity—and the ultimate hallmark of a chieftain's legacy.
"Reclaim the Horn of Everfrost!"
"Slaughter the southern humans! Plunder everything!"
Standing atop the glacier, Kasa raised his battleaxe with one arm and roared at the top of his lungs.
Below, hundreds of frost giants brandished a motley array of weapons, erupting into a frenzy of bellowing roars.
While the frost giants certainly longed to restore their ancestors' glory, they were far more interested in butchering and looting those wealthy southern runts than in lofty ideals.
Plunder was etched into their very marrow. Unlike their good-natured kin, the cloud giants and storm giants, the frost giants bred in ice and snow believed only in one thing: strength was everything.
"I will lead my people to reclaim the Horn of Everfrost and take back all that was once ours."
"Anything standing in our way will be crushed into dust!"
Looking down upon the surging, bloodthirsty crowd of his kin, Kasa Bonebreaker Everfrost tightened his grip on his battleaxe, his resolve forged into steel.
Chapter 167