Roar of Winter

Gazing at the billows of steam before him and the steadily fading blizzard, Kasa did not halt his charge. He continued to urge his tundra landwyrm forward, plunging ahead without hesitation. Though he had lost the cover of wind and snow, and the sweltering air around him caused some discomfort, Kasa harbored absolute confidence in his own strength. He was certain he could cleave any enemy before him in two with the double-bladed battleaxe in his hands—after all, he was Kasa Everfrost, the "Bonebreaker." "Warriors of the Everfrost Tribe!" "Charge with me! Fight for the glory of our ancestors!" Seeing their chieftain rush forward so fearlessly, the frost giant warriors grew wildly impassioned. Brandishing their weapons, they charged closely behind him. Across the vast wilderness, hundreds of frost giants swept forward, churning up roiling clouds of dust and making the earth rumble and shake. Meanwhile, within the lines of the Kingdom of Cinders, Duoluo shouted his orders, his heart brimming with pent-up fury: "Fire! Fire!" "Blast these suicidal giants to pieces!" "Let them taste our cannonballs!" The new cannons developed by the Machine Cult were arrayed in neat batteries. Beside each cannon stood several well-trained hobgoblin soldiers, and in every artillery position, a tech-geek player from the Machine Cult served as a director—though Gangtie Kuangchao was not among them. *Boom!* *Boom! Boom!* Fierce artillery fire roared, the thundering crashes deafening. A hail of cannonballs rained down along the path of the frost giants' charge, blasting scorched crater after scorched crater into the dirt. Unfortunate frost giants caught in direct hits were blown into mangled heaps of flesh and blood. Yet the frost giants were not tightly packed, and the open expanse of the wasteland was far too wide. The cannonade inflicted minimal casualties, doing nothing to slow the relentless advance of these fierce, fearless giant warriors. After all, the first wave of frost giants charging alongside their chieftain comprised the absolute elite; cowards were entirely unworthy of joining their ranks. Wyverns swooped down from the sky, releasing magical incendiary pots strapped to their talons and spewing blistering flames, turning the battlefield into a raging sea of fire. In an instant, thick smoke choked the battlefield as flames lit up the sky. "Warriors, keep pace with me!" "The great Thrym watches over us!" Braving the cannonballs and flames, Kasa continued to charge forward without the slightest hesitation. As fate would have it, a cannonball descended straight toward Kasa's head. Yet he merely swung his double-bladed axe with a casual flick of his wrist, releasing it from his grip. *Whoosh—* The heavy double-bladed axe spun through the air, ripping through the gale until it blurred into an afterimage. It sliced the primed cannonball cleanly in two, and frost instantly sealed the smooth cut surfaces, causing the bisected shell to clatter harmlessly against the ground. Yet it did not stop there. The battleaxe danced wild and free across the sky, leaving a flurry of afterimages like an iron curtain of frosty white, turning one incoming shell after another into inert, frozen lumps of iron before they could detonate. *Clang—* The double-bladed axe arced back in a flawless trajectory, returning to the frost giant's hand, where it was caught in an iron grip. Kasa burst into boisterous laughter. "Do you see?" "These toys are nothing! There is nothing to fear!" "The enemy only resorts to cheap parlor tricks because they know their own strength cannot stand against us!" Witnessing this feat, the frost giants erupted in thunderous cheers, whatever dread the artillery fire had previously instilled vanishing into thin air. Like a living war banner, Kasa guided the warriors' advance and stoked their fearless bravery. That chill-radiating double-bladed axe was no ordinary weapon. Legend held that Thrym, the god of frost giants, wielded a snow-white double-bladed battleaxe; whenever swung, the entire world would plunge into a frozen white winter. The weapon in Kasa's hands was a replica forged in ancient times—Winter's Roar, passed down through generations of Everfrost Tribe chieftains. Duoluo observed this from afar, his brows furrowing as he studied Kasa. While he took pride in his own axe mastery, he knew he was utterly incapable of pulling off such a display. *What a formidable enemy...* "Line regiments, prepare to advance!" the hobgoblin commander bellowed. For large-scale engagements at this stage, Duoluo still preferred the linear firing-line tactics of volley fire; after all, it had proven its worth time and time again in battle. As satyrs blew stirring tunes and beat a rhythmic tempo upon their drums, the hobgoblin line regiments marched forward. *Thud, thud, thud.* Their footsteps sounded in perfect unison, radiating an immense sense of oppression. When they were barely a hundred meters from the giant host, the newest muskets cracked in unison, filling the air with gunsmoke. The bursting rounds they discharged struck down a great number of off-guard frost giants. Accompanied by the tremor of the earth and pained roars, more than a dozen frost giants crashed heavily to the ground. An exceptional warrior like Kasa immediately recognized the danger, sensing the perilous magical aura radiating from those gun barrels. "So this is the army that gave Baya such a bitter beating?" The frost giant narrowed his eyes. Tensing every muscle, he gripped the frost-white axe tightly, a savage grin spreading across his face. "They look... pretty weak to me!" Before his words finished echoing, the ground boomed and caved beneath him. The muscles across Kasa's body surged with explosive power. Raising Winter's Roar with both hands, he launched himself into the air in a textbook jumping slash, soaring as if he were truly taking flight. That single leap cleared nearly a hundred meters. "How is that possible?!" "He... he's flying right at us!" Gazing up at the frost giant looming ever larger in their vision, the advancing hobgoblin infantry fell into complete disarray. In a panic, they fired wildly into the sky, but hitting a target moving at such high speed through the air was impossible. Even when stray bullets managed to strike him, they were deflected by his impenetrable white dragonscale armor. *Boom!* Kasa landed with a tremendous crash, pulverizing several hobgoblins while splitting the earth beneath their feet wide open. As Winter's Roar slammed into the ground, massive ice spikes several meters tall erupted along the fissures one after another, hurling hobgoblins through the air with ease and even skewering them through. The strike shattered the hobgoblins' tight formation to pieces. "Standing before you is the greatest warrior the Everfrost Tribe has seen in two hundred years—Kasa Everfrost, the Bonebreaker!" "Remember that name! For it shall be your final honor!" Kasa rampaged through the lines of the regiment, swinging his double-bladed axe and hacking more than a dozen fleeing hobgoblin soldiers in half. As the axe blade sheared effortlessly through their bodies, the severed halves of their corpses turned as stiff and frozen as glacial ice. "Before my might, your struggles and flight are utterly meaningless!" "Haha! Behold the roar of winter!" Kasa threw his head back and bellowed into the heavens. Single-handedly butchering the entire regiment, he revitalized the morale of the frost giants who had just suffered heavy casualties. In merely a few breaths of time, the Kingdom of Cinders' precious hobgoblin line regiment suffered over a hundred casualties, sending a pang of fierce heartache through Commander Duoluo. *We have to find a way to eliminate that frost giant chieftain.* *Otherwise, this battle is unwinnable!* Gritting his teeth so hard they nearly cracked, Duoluo tightened his grip on the Bloodfire Battleaxe, his thoughts burning with resolve.