The troops all came to a halt, weapons tightening in hands, heads whipping around. Even the mages flying above paused, halting their circle formation to scout the horizon.
Then came the roar.
It wasn't an animalistic cry. It sounded like a crack of thunder wrapped inside a dying engine, one that had been dragged through a thousand winters. Even the snow shook. Everyone turned east, toward where the fog was thickest.
The ground split.
Out of the rising dust and churned snow came something none of them had ever seen before: a gigantic mammoth, easily twice the size of the ones they had just fought, twenty meters tall, muscles bulging under dirty white fur matted with ice and dried blood. Its tusks were massive, spiraling upward like curled stone pillars. One of its red eyes had a long claw mark across it, the other glowing with eerie golden light.
Raika stared, eyes narrowing. "That... is not one of the regulars."
"You think?" Zarvana snapped, already reaching for her sword. "It looks like it eats the regulars for breakfast."
Seyna blinked. "Maybe we should retreat—"
"No time," Chrysanthemum barked from above, floating in her usual circle of glowing rings. "If that thing charges, we're looking at a full platoon wipe in one go."
Obsidian stepped forward, sword already in hand, ice glinting on her gauntlet.
"All right, paladins, prepare to—"
"Wait."
Still seated on the back of the massive white snowcat, his arms crossed casually like he was at a hot spring, not a battlefield.
"I'll handle that one," he said, half a yawn leaving his mouth. "It will be too annoying."
Everyone paused.
Raika leaned forward on her stag. "I—wait, he's serious?"
"He's always serious," Chrysanthemum muttered, eyes widening. "That's the problem."
Vastarael hopped off the mount with an elegant slide, his boots landing softly on the snow. He rolled his shoulders once, cracked his neck to the side, and walked straight toward the twenty-meter mammoth like it was a lost cow in someone's backyard.
Vastarael came to a stop. The beast, as if sensing something off, roared again, this time louder, enough to blast snow in all directions. Even the snowcat and wolf holding Shimmer, Runner, and Vienna flinched.
The glaive was already in his hand.
It shimmered with cold sapphire light, the blade humming gently like it had been pulled from the heart of a glacier. The air around Vastarael shifted—not heating, not freezing—just displacing. Like it wasn't meant to be around him anymore.
He raised the glaive with one hand and pointed it toward the beast.
"Plenituse Form..." he muttered.
Everyone tensed.
"First Technique, Viridescence."
He slashed the glaive down.
Just one vertical cut.
Nothing happened at first. No giant beam. No explosion. Just a faint vertical line in the air, like someone had sliced the world along an invisible seam. And then, the air itself snapped in half. The cut didn't just hit the mammoth. It carved through the entire mountainside behind it, dividing the storm clouds, and even slicing a hole through the sky that opened sunlight down like someone pulled back a curtain.
The mammoth didn't roar. It was split dead center from the top of its head down to its belly, it just peeled apart, two symmetrical halves falling on either side of the new canyon that had just been made where the army once stood. Chunks of fur and frozen blood burst into the air like exploded snow.
The air pressure was insane. Winds hurled outward in a shockwave, knocking back soldiers, guards, even the flying mages above. Horses reared. Stags screamed. Raika's mount almost sat down.
Veyn ducked and shielded his face.
"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!"
"That's... he calls it Viridescence?" Seyna stammered. "THAT was just the first technique?!"
Obsidian looked unfazed. "Yup."
Chrysanthemum grumbled under her breath. "He's showing off again. I just fixed my cloak..."
Zarvana blinked repeatedly, hair wild from the shockwave.
"Who the hell uses a battlefield to redecorate nature?!"
Shimmer screamed from atop the wolf. "DAD THAT WAS AWESOME!!"
"YOU CUT WINTER IN HALF!" Runner shouted, almost falling off again.
Vastarael just turned, brushing a bit of snow off his shoulder like he tripped and caught himself. He sheathed Calimostria back onto his back and looked up at the sky hole he accidentally made.
"...Tch. That's going to ruin the wind patterns."
Then he looked over at the stunned crowd and blinked.
"What?"
The army remained frozen for a second longer. Then the paladins dropped to one knee. Even the mages landed, eyes wide, breaths shallow.
Chrysanthemum finally broke the silence.
"Next time, just throw a rock, master. Some of us are trying not to soil our robes."
He shrugged. "It was either that or let it charge."
Obsidian walked up beside him, arms crossed.
"So. On a scale of one to ten, how bored were you?"
"Seven," he replied casually. "It was a big target."
He hopped back on his snowcat like he didn't just create a legend.
"Let's keep moving," he said, turning the beast around. "The girls are getting hungry."
Raika watched him disappear over the horizon, hand slowly raising toward her forehead.
"That man... is not okay."
"No," Zarvana agreed, her voice deadpan. "And somehow, he's their boss."
And with that, the army moved again.
-----------
By the time the sun had lazily started to dip behind the northern peaks, throwing slanted gold over the battlefield turned snowy graveyard, the army had been through hell, or at least a snow-covered version of it.
They'd fought waves.
First, came the tundra direwolves. Fast, lean, feral bastards with bone-like armor plates over their shoulders and an instinct to tear throats out first and ask questions later. Three thousand of them, full pack. Didn't even give a growl warning. they just stormed out of the forest like the snow owed them money.
Obsidian's paladins formed walls within seconds, shields glistening with tethers, while Chainless and her assassins flowed through the enemy like oil in gears. Blade after blade slid under ribs, into necks, between snarling jaws.
And Raika? She was just grinning through it.
"I like these ones. They bark like jerks, but they die like paper."
Second, came the ice wraiths, two hundred of them, hovering like ghosts made of frozen fog, glowing purple from their cracked skull-like heads. They attacked the mages, which was a bad idea. Chrysanthemum and her eight senior mages unleashed plasma circles and searing blue fireballs that lit up the sky so hard, it looked like a second sun had been summoned just for the drama.
Veyn whistled from the ground, shielding his eyes. "And they say I'm too flashy."
Third, the sky howlers, mutated eagle-beasts with six wings and a scream that could crack glass and drain energy, flying nightmares that came in at a dive from above. Obsidian's paladins covered the rear, but it was Shimmer who snapped her fingers and sent out arcane shock pulses that burst in the sky like fireworks, blowing feathers and burnt wings across the white plains. Runner even caught one of the falling feathers and kept it, calling it her "monster trophy."
Then, of course, came the mammoth stampede, forty-something ten-meter snow mammoths barreling toward them like an avalanche with legs. That was where the three commanders went nuts.
Obsidian charged first, slicing tusks with brutal vertical cleaves that cracked bones like branches. Her style was all offense and sharp enough to scare off the wind.
Chrysanthemum was a storm cloud in a gown, floating above as a moving artillery piece, casting massive wide-area spells. Her mana barrages were like tiny suns being born in front of them. She even tossed a meteor the size of a wagon into a group of three mammoths and called it "just a warm-up."
Chainless? She didn't even blink. She vanished between charges, reappeared on a mammoth's tusk, ran up its face, stabbed it in the eye, and hopped off without a single word.
The soldiers watched those three with reverence and mild horror.
But nothing topped what Vastarael did next.
When the twenty-meter alpha mammoth arrived, all ego and tusk and old-man mammoth rage, he walked out alone. He just drew Calimostria, said one word—Viridescence—and cut winter in half, again.
Literally.
Half the army missed what happened because the actual landscape was split in the process. The snow, the mammoth, the ridge, the sky above all got a big, crisp, vertical line down the center. That evening, they made camp along a half-frozen riverbank, tents pitched with perfect symmetry under Obsidian's watchful organization. Mages created warm zones with heat circles, and Chrysanthemum even let out a quiet Heat Circle that melted snow around the circle and made the atmosphere cozy enough for a banquet.
Tonight's main course?
Mammoth.
But mammoth meat is tough. One cannot just carve a ten-meter beast with a kitchen knife. The butcher team brought axes, saws, and enchantment runes just to start hacking into the alpha's corpse.
It didn't go well.
The saws dulled. The axes got stuck. And one rune cracked and electrocuted a poor soldier into a puff. Finally, someone just sighed and looked at Vastarael.
"...My lord, would you mind...?"
Vastarael blinked.
"You want me to cut dinner?"
"Please."
He walked over, not even pulling Calimostria all the way out. Just the edge of the blade was revealed as he held the sheath steady. One flick and the entire slab of alpha mammoth fell into perfect slices. He just stepped back, sat down, and accepted a hot mug of tea from Shimmer like this was just another evening.
The soldiers froze then cheered. It was over the top, how loud the roar of approval was. Even Raika raised a mug and screamed.
"TO THE CALAMITY KING!"
Veyn nodded sagely, arms crossed. "We should probably put a warning label on him."
Vienna, still wrapped in blankets beside Runner and Shimmer, looked over and deadpanned, "He just made mammoth slice without struggling."
Chrysanthemum handed her a piece of grilled mammoth skewer.
"And somehow it's the most tender thing I've ever tasted. I swear, I'm gonna marry that glaive."
Vastarael didn't say a word He just calmly fed Runner another slice of meat while patting Shimmer on the head.
And so the army rested, stomachs full, hearts calm, and slightly more respectful of the man who could split winter, flatten monsters, and slice dinner into five-star portions without blinking.
Tomorrow would be hard.
But tonight?
Tonight, they were camping with a living natural disaster.
And he brought his glaive.