Angel Monarch

After talking with Faith, she met up with the others and asked for their help as well.

They all looked miserable. All five of them were cooped around a small fire, that Hellfire kept alive. This trick would only work until his essence lasted, but it was more than most of the town had.

Bea spent a few seconds examining her oldest friend. He was down since Faith had disappeared. They hadn't talked yet, but it was obvious to everyone that they weren't together anymore.

He also stopped using his title, Hellfire. Now everyone just calls him Leslie.

He was close to giving up, just like everyone else in the town. They all felt that the breaking point was approaching. The endless chasm of despair was close to swallow everyone.

That's why she had to gamble. They only had one chance of surviving this desolate plain, and Bea wasn't ready to jump down the chasm.

After she talked with everyone for half an hour, she left their shack and approached one of the town gates. There was one person she had to talk to before leaving...

On top of the town wall, Damien stood stoic as ever. He was the only one whom the frost hadn't affected at all. Sadly, he could only summon it and couldn't control it.

Bea walked up next to him. They stared out at the empty icy plains. There wasn't anything alive out there, other than the monsters, of course.

They knew little about the Realm of Boundless Frost. The main consensus made by researchers was that this Realm never had living organisms.

From Gates, monsters populated the Realm, but there was nothing else. The only ruins the scouts found came from other Realms and accidentally ended up in this one.

They had found multiple of such Realms before. The researchers called them Dead Worlds, since these places were never supposed to support life.

They watched the plains for a while longer, before Damien finally had enough.

"What do you want?" he asked in his growling voice.

"I might have a way to save the town, but I need your help and we have to hurry."

She still wasn't looking at him, but what she said piqued his interest. He narrowed his eyes and stared at her with doubt. He didn't trust her at all, but if there really was a way for the others to survive, then he would help without a second thought. Experience new tales on empire

It was painful to watch all his soldiers die before his eyes. Especially from something that wasn't affecting him at all.

"Care to elaborate?" he asked, and Bea began telling him everything.

After a few minutes of quick explanation, Damien nodded. "I know the monster you are talking about. I haven't been there myself, but I have met the scouts who discovered it. There is a high chance this won't work, but we have no options."

He said nothing else, just jumped over the wall and transformed in the air. He landed on his four enormous paws in his white saber-tooth form.

Bea jumped after him without protest. She landed on his fluffy back, blinked, and soon they disappeared in a snowy wind.

When she opened her eyes again, they stood in the middle of an empty field of ice.

Damien smelt the air, then began running in a specific direction. Bea wasn't sure what was happening, but she guessed that their prey had somehow moved.

She saw no sign in the endless desolation, but Damien was running with determination, like he knew where to go.

As the bitter cold air hit her in the face, she leaned down and hugged around the warm fur of the tiger. Damien growled in annoyance, but Bea ignored him and just continued to hug him.

He seemed to shake his gigantic head and sigh, but didn't make any other sounds of protest.

His back was barely moving as he ran. With each leap, she felt a rhythmical force hitting her. It was similar to a boat's movement on the waves, but more gentle.

Her eyes slowly closed, and she got close to falling asleep. Damien's fur was so warm and comfortable, combine that with her horrible sleep deprived state, and she just couldn't resist.

"Hey! Wake up, you fool! Do you want to die?" asked a male voice, far away from her mind.

"Just... Give me... A minute..." said Bea in a sleepy voice.

Her breathing got slower as she neared unconsciousness, but just as she was about to fall asleep, a piercing pain assaulted her wrist.

"FUCK!... Dammit! What was that for?!" she shouted at Damien, while jumping to her feet.

He still held her wrist, which had a layer of frost all over it. Frostbite had already set in, and if she could regenerate limbs, she would've lost a hand.

"You idiot! Haven't you read what your prey can do? Do you have a death wish!?"

As he spoke pointed towards the gigantic tree behind him. With her sudden regained awareness, Bea finally saw everything around them.

The first place she looked at was the tree. It was strange to see something that looked so alive, surviving in this white hell.

The tree was a few hundred meters in height. Its branches went for another few hundred meters to the side. The trunk was about three dozen meters in width, but it could've even reached fifty.

Bea watched the tree in awe, then yawned. Her eyes felt sleepy again, but the piercing pain appeared again.

Only now did she remember the power of the tree. Most of the scouts didn't make it back after reporting it.

With her newly focused eyes, Bea looked over the field in front of her. There wasn't any snow below the branches of the tree, but there were other objects...

Skeletons. Thousands upon thousands of skeletons...

The tree's roots grow all over them. There were even a few partially dead beings around it. The roots pierced their skin and continuously sucked the life out of them.

The most interesting and terrifying part was that the monsters who wandered here just took it. They walked as close to the trunk as possible, then fell asleep. They were food for the tree.

From here Damien and Bea saw hundreds of horrifying creatures, just peacefully sleeping and withering away.

"Well, shit... I didn't think there would be this many. This tree supposed to be only a 3rd Tier Corrupted. How can it send even Horrors to sleep?"

Damien didn't answer immediately. He just began walking towards the tree, with Bea in tow. The skeletons broke and crunched under their feet, but they both tried to block out that sound.

"I think it evolved into a Horror too, but even before that, it could probably send Horrors to sleep. The problem with forced sleep as a power was that there are no sure ways to counter it!"

Bea looked at him with confusion, and nearly stumbled as a large bone broke in two below her feet.

"I don't understand. With this pain method you use, I can stay awake. Isn't that a simple solution?"

Damien just chuckled. "It only works because the tree is passive, and its power is broken between hundreds of creatures. Imagine its concentrated effect! We couldn't even react before falling asleep!"

A shiver went down Bea's spine, and it wasn't from the cold. She yawned again, and another wave of pain washed over her.

"Damn, that sucks!... Wait, how are you staying awake?" she asked out of curiosity, since she hadn't seen him spasm in pain yet.

With his other hand, he reached below his shirt and pulled out a purple necklace. There was a strange emblem hanging from it, with a black crystal in the middle.

"It's a charm. It keeps me awake at all times. It makes mental and physical fatigue disappear."

Bea pouted and grumbled under her breath about being a lucky bastard. Damien just chuckled and sent another wave of pain, causing Bea to yelp.

They stopped dead in their tracks, but the creatures didn't seem to care about the loud noise. They just continued living in their tranquil death sentence.

Bea and Damien breathed a sigh of relief and made a silent agreement about shutting up.

The tree's trunk was only a few dozen meters away, but as the monster count increased, they had to move around them. Some of them made sighs or growls as they walked past them, causing Bea's heart to beat faster and faster.

Her hand was trembling by the time they reached the trunk. But then another problem arose...

"Uh... How do I kill it?" she said in a whisper, but Damien didn't answer.

He dragged her around the tree, while intensely looking all over the place. Bea was starting to believe that her friend had lost his mind when the ground cracked under them.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

It wasn't like when the bones were breaking, but a much louder and deeper crack.

"Oh-oh," said Bea, before the ground broke below their feet and they fell into a deep pit.