Before long, the exceptionally gifted Mezrolash had become a squad captain in the city guard of Northwind Keep, patrolling to keep order and shouldering the duty of defending the city.
During that time, he had also found a beloved wife of his own kind, welcomed a child of his own, and bought an attic loft in the city. Life seemed to be heading in a wonderful direction.
Yet from one day on, everything changed.
That day, he was still dutifully investigating the string of disappearances plaguing the city, dismissing the strange looks people cast his way as ordinary.
Then that "Lord Duke" gave a speech.
Those human neighbors who had seemed so friendly and harmonious suddenly wore completely different faces. Raising torches high, they cheered as they stormed into his home, bound his wife and son to pyres, and burned them alive.
By the time he caught wind of it and rushed back, everything he owned had been reduced to ashes, and his former comrades-in-arms were butchering his kin like cattle and sheep.
Weeping in anguish, Mezrolash swung his silver sword, slaying every perpetrator present.
He became an Oathbreaker.
The radiant light that once burned in the Knight of Redemption's heart was snuffed out, leaving only darkness; cruel reality had utterly shattered his naive ideals.
"What a... naive fool."
he repeated once more.
Suddenly, the urgent blare of a horn sounded outside the cavern.
Mezrolash snapped back to reality. Snatching up his longsword, he hurried out of the cave.
"What's the situation?"
The sentry posted at the camp's entrance looked panicked. "Yetis! More than one!"
"Awoo—!"
In the deadly chill, the yetis' howling echoed across the remote peaks and swept down the mountainside on the freezing wind, striking sheer terror into the hearts of the gathered tieflings.
These monsters could scent living flesh from miles away and track it through wind and snow.
Mezrolash looked up. Dozens of ghostly white silhouettes were surging down the slope like a tidal wave.
"Everyone, prepare for battle!"
"Damakos, shoot them down!"
The tiefling warrior called Damakos nodded grimly and drew his bowstring taut.
*Twang—*
With a shrill whistle tearing through the air, an arrow struck straight between a yeti's brows, sending the beast crashing down.
Behind Damakos, several other tiefling warriors also notched arrows and drew their bows.
However, shooting uphill at targets above in a blinding blizzard—and without their captain's superb marksmanship—most of their arrows quickly plunged uselessly into the snowdrifts.
Damakos loosed several more arrows in rapid succession.
Two hits out of seven; two more yetis fell.
In such atrocious weather, the yetis moved like phantoms against the snow. Even a skilled marksman like him could not guarantee his accuracy, doing nothing to halt the yetis' surging charge.
"It's no good, Mezrolash! The snow is too heavy!"
"I can't see!"
Damakos shouted, letting fly another arrow that brought down another yeti.
Yet the wave of yetis had already closed to within less than a hundred meters of the camp.
If those starved, flesh-hungry yetis breached the virtually defenseless settlement, it would be an absolute catastrophe.
"With me! Charge out to meet them!"
Mezrolash raised his blade high, followed by more than forty tieflings.
These tieflings were crudely equipped; some lacked swords and knives entirely, armed only with pitchforks and torches, yet their eyes were resolute.
They might once have been merchants, clerks, or artists, but right now, to safeguard the camp and the loved ones behind them, they could only be—and had to be—warriors.
The yetis swarmed forward, eyeing the tieflings with ravenous hunger for living flesh.
Standing over three meters tall and draped in snow-white fur, their massive frames were thick and powerful; to them, ordinary tieflings were nothing more than easy meat.
Mezrolash led the charge, rushing straight at a yeti.
Instead of pouncing immediately, the yeti fixed an eerie stare on the tiefling.
*Chilling Gaze.*
Faint blue light flickered in its beady eyes—the freezing gaze of an ape-like beast capable of freezing its prey solid on the spot.
As the stare locked onto Mezrolash, a bone-chilling frost washed through him, threatening to freeze his entire body.
"Damn beast..."
Mezrolash cursed under his breath, forcing his way through the cold with sheer physical endurance, and thrust a finger forward.
"Hellish Rebuke!"
Instantly, the yeti was engulfed in roaring hellfire, shrieking in agony.
Its coat ablaze with inextinguishable flames, the fire-fearing monster flailed about, frantically swatting at its own body.
"Die!"
With a fierce roar, Mezrolash leaped meters into the air, severing the yeti's burning head with a single slash.
A nearby yeti tried to turn its Chilling Gaze on him, but the trick was useless against Mezrolash now.
"Cleave!"
Riding the momentum of his descent, Mezrolash cleaved his longsword deep into the second yeti's shoulder.
"Awoo!"
The beast howled in pain, instinctively swatting a broad palm toward the tiefling.
"Inflict Wounds!"
A murky green surge of necrotic energy coursed along the blade into the yeti, corroding and widening the wound.
In the next instant, Mezrolash leveraged that destructive power to shear clean through the yeti's left shoulder, ripping the entire arm away.
Blue blood splashed across the tiefling's face, yet his expression never shifted, his eyes unblinking.
Only after striking down two yetis in rapid succession did he look around the battlefield, blade in hand. The tieflings were locked in chaotic melee with the beasts, and several tiefling warriors had already been turned into ice sculptures by the yetis' Chilling Gaze.
Just as frost crept over another tiefling, threatening to freeze him solid—
"Aura of Protection!"
A shimmering crimson aura flared around Mezrolash, momentarily repelling the yeti's chilling gaze and halting the ice spreading over the tiefling.
He strode forward and drove his blade straight into the yeti's heart.
"Awoo—"
More and more yetis converged—a full twelve of them—surging toward Mezrolash like a white tide from all directions, intent on bringing down this tiefling paladin first.
Facing the snarling, clawing mob, Mezrolash remained calm, merely raising his longsword high.
"Oathbreaker Channel Divinity..."
"Dreadful Aspect!"
The Oathbreaker paladin channeled his darkest emotions, condensing and detonating them into an aura of magical terror.
A blood-red radiance erupted from the longsword, sweeping outward in all directions.
Every yeti around him beheld what it feared most, instantly seized by overwhelming, helpless terror and rooted to the spot, terrified to move.
To him, these yetis were now sitting ducks.
"Cleave!"
Mezrolash slashed his blade across the throats of several yetis, sending arcs of blood spraying through the air.
A few breaths later, twelve hulking beasts crashed backward into the snow. Not a single yeti around him remained standing.
"Huff... huff... huff..."
Mezrolash leaned on his sword, sinking to one knee as he panted heavily.
Chapter 48