Nite had reached its deepest point.
The crescent moon over Giant Bear Ridge, cold and sharp as the scythe of the Grim Reaper, had been completely swallowed at some unknown moment by the thick, lead-gray clouds hanging silently from the heavens.
Between heaven and earth, everything fell into a pure, heart-palpitating darkness—a darkness so deep one could not see their own fingers.
The wind had stopped.
The biting, frigid wind that never ceased, like the frantic wailing of countless aggrieved souls, seemed to have exhausted its last bit of strength in this suffocating, deathly silence and subsided unwillingly.
In the entire world, only one sound remained.
It was the sound of falling snow.
Endless, fine, soft as the gentlest goose down, the snowflakes drifted down, flake by flake, from the nite sky that was as deep as a bottomless abyss.
They silently covered the mountains, covered the glaciers, and covered this vast white wasteland already ruled by death.
They also covered those fourteen silent, vengeful phantoms who seemed to have crawled out from the depths of hell, chasing the scent of death.
Hask, like a lifeless statue carved from eternal ice, lay motionless on the back of his mount, Bonebreaker, who was likewise one with the darkness.
A thick layer of pure white snow had long since fallen upon him, making him look like a natural, inconspicuous snow mound.
Yet, beneath that thick snow, his eyes—like the most vigilant, patient lonely wolf of the snow—burned with two flames even deeper and colder than the boundless darkness!
He had maintained this posture for a full hour.
He and the Thirteen Wolf Guards under his command, who were also one with the snow and wind, were like fourteen of the most patient, cold-blooded ghosts.
They were waiting.
They were waiting for their prey, whom they had already sentenced to death, to reveal their final, fatal flaw!
Two days and nites of sleepless, high-intensity tracking had already pushed the physical strength and will of every one of them to an unprecedented limit.
However, not a single person uttered even the slightest complaint.
Because they could clearly feel it—
They were getting closer and closer to their prey!
The special scent of unfamiliar kin, full of weakness and fear, drifting in the air, was becoming increasingly thick!
The panicked, heavy footprints, shallowly covered by the new snow, were also becoming increasingly fresh!
That group of damned, hateful attackers, as dirty and despicable as rats in a gutter, were almost home!
And they were also almost at their death date!
Suddenly!
Hask's body, which had been as motionless as a statue, suddenly stiffened!
His wolf eyes, which had been scanning the boundless darkness ahead like the most precise and cold radar, instantly contracted into two dangerous points, like the tips of needles—cold glints!
He had seen them!
Right there on the massive, rocky slope ahead, which was barely outlined by the hazy, negligible starlight!
Dozens of ghostly, thin, hunched black shadows were struggling to trek thru the thick, knee-deep snow!
Their speed had clearly slowed down.
They no longer looked as vigilant and panicked as they had two days ago.
Their bodies radiated a sense of relaxation and exhaustion that only appeared when one was about to return to their most familiar, safest nest!
Found them!
On Hask's face, which had always been as cold as eternal ice, a cruel, bloodthirsty, devilish smile finally curled slowly!
He slowly raised his right hand.
Then, he made a gesture full of cold murderous intent toward the thirteen silent phantoms behind him who had also discovered the target!
Disperse!
Surround!
Silent infiltration!
Swish—!
There was no sound.
There was no communication.
Those thirteen figures, who had originally been like the most ordinary, inconspicuous snow mounds on the snowfield, vanished from their spots the instant they received the order, like thirteen cold water droplets merging into the boundless dark ocean!
They and their robust, silent Snow Giant Wolf companions dispersed silently into the deeper darkness all around in a way that was almost like teleportation, full of eerie beauty!
They were like an invisible, massive net of death woven by death itself, slowly and quietly enveloping the rocky slope ahead, which was still completely unaware!
Hask, like the coldest, most arrogant king, remained alone in his spot.
He did not move.
He was like the most lethal, patient spider at the center of a massive, slowly unfolding web.
He was waiting.
Waiting for the prey to walk into the death trap he had carefully prepared for them!
With the help of the jagged, massive rocks covered in thick snow, and the perfect cover of the naturally formed, shadowy snow mounds, Hask and the Thirteen Wolf Guards under his command, who had already scattered around, approached the rocky slope filled with the scent of death like fourteen real ghosts walking on the snowy plains.
The distance was closindriven crazy by hunger and despair! Let them become another batch of minions for his wolf pack!
All of this would be decided by their King!