20 Rime Mountain Range...

The commander took a deep breath, "I order you to not reveal what we speak of here from this point onward."

The cuffs Andrew was wearing flashed a brilliant blood-red and red sparks of energy ran across his body. The pain was excruciating, it felt like his skin was being torn off repeatedly. The only reason he didn't fall unconscious was because he had experienced it before and by sheer will power.

After a moment, the red light subsided leaving Andrew panting and trying to catch his breath again. The commander had an apologetic look on his face. "I'm truly sorry, but for this matter I have no choice but to use the cuffs."

Andrew just shook his head, "It's fine, It's a small price to pay if it means helping the kid in any way."

The commander took out a small black bead from his pocket. He looked at it for a moment until he threw it to the ground, shattering the bead. A barrier of wind formed around them. Andrew immediately knew what it was, it was what's known as a 'Silencing Bead'.

Silencing Beads were a consumable artifact that would seal an area of sound from the outside world so no words leaked out. Many important figures used them when holding important meetings or discussing matters of importance to prevent their plans from leaking. They were somewhat expensive, but even harder to get a hold of because of their crafting complexity.

The commander had just casually used a Silencing bead, that showed Andrew the severity of the matter.

"For this to make sense, I would have to start a little bit before that kid was born..."

-=-=-

The commander, who's name is Axel, was a gold ranked leader for the Dralos Kingdom. The Dralos Kingdom was one of the five big powers of the world and Axel was relatively high up in the chain of command. Axel was given an emergency dispatch by his superiors to go to the north of the kingdom and traverse deep inside the Rime mountain range.

They were a month into their expedition and the Rime mountain range certainly lived up to it's name. It was constantly under an intense snowstorm and winds that could blow away a house easily. On top of that, there were countless Ice type beasts. Ice was the Tier 2 form of water magic and only a beast of Stage Two or higher could wield it at minimum. It should be known that it would take a mage or enchanter being Stage Three in order to even attempt at wielding a Tier 2 magic.

Even worse is that the Rime mountain range was an ice type mana zone, this increased the strength of the Ice type magic substantially. There was never any sunlight and they were constantly in darkness and shade of the storm. They also had limited vision due to the snow storm and could only see a little more than 15 meters ahead of them at a time.

Axel had decided to only come with around ten of his closest comrades in arms due to the severity of the mission. His comrades were all silver ranked and were only a little below him in terms of military influence, but he still trusted them regardless because they had all been adventuring together for several years.

They decided to join the military because they had lost one of their closest friends to an enemy power several years ago and wanted to make a difference and get some revenge on the kingdom that killed their friend.

They were currently in a cave they had dug out taking shelter from the storm and resting to recover their stamina and mana from the many battles they had fought to get so far into the mountain range.

"Axel, do you think we are close to the objective yet?"

"Sigh, I've already said this multiple time Zaria. I don't know for certain, but we should be getting close."

A younger version of Axel was sitting around a fire with ten others, three of which were Zaria, Markus, and the tattoo man with a silver prosthetic who's name was Nate.

Thanks to dimensional storage artifacts, they had no shortage of supplies. They had enough to last for several years if need be. They didn't know what to expect, so they thought it better to be prepared for the worst.

Axel pulled out a map of the Rime mountains from his dimensional storage ring. He gestured to a circle, "We need to get here for our mission." pointing to another point on the map he said, "We are currently here more or less. In order to get to the location, we need to pass through this mountain trail. Unfortunately, the Frost King makes his nest in that general area. We might encounter him, we might not. As such, we will need a plan just in case. Anyone have any suggestions?"

Zaria raised her hand. "Teacher Teacher! Pick me!"

Axel just sighed, he was already used to Zaria's shenanigans. "Yes, Zaria..."

"I have a plan! Let's just shove fireballs up it's ass till it's the Water King!" Her eyes sparkled imagining the funny expression of the Frost King.

Axel just face-palmed. "That's not a plan. How about this? Nate and Zaria will block his attacks. Zaria will use her mix of Fire spells to weaken the Frost King's attacks then Nate will use [Flame Guard] and [Flaming Guardian] to tank the hits with his shield. While they are doing that, the rest of you will run like there's a Titan-Class beast on your tail and then I will get them out with my magic."

"Sounds good. But when I have an opportunity, I WILL be shoving a fireball up it's ass." Said Zaria.

Nate agreed as well. "I don't mind either." Nate turned to Zaria. "But Zaria, please don't do that... It might keep going after us and then I'll have to deal with it."

Zaria just rolled her eyes.

Someway or another, Markus got his hands on a mug of beer and was drinking it to his heart's content. "Being like this, *Belch*, it's like we are all adventuring ag-"

"..."

The mood instantly turned bitter. It just wasn't the same. They were missing one of their closest friends and the mentioning of adventuring would only bring the past and painful memories that were once joyous.

Markus became slightly ashen. 'I shouldn't have said that...'

His face filled with regret, but there was nothing he could do now.

Seeing that the mood had changed, Axel decided it was a good opportunity for everyone to get some rest. They didn't need to worry about any beasts approaching their cave because of their Stages were all Three or higher and the highest Stage beast in the area was also only Stage Three. It would be foolish for it to fight eleven Stage Three or higher individuals, even if beasts had stronger physiques than the three main races and many of the smaller races.

(A/N: let me know if I accidentally spell "beasts" as "beats" by accident with a comment or something, I've been making that mistake every so often)

"Let's all get some rest. We will need to be at our peak state in case we get unlucky and encounter the Frost King."

They all wanted to get rid of the tense atmosphere, so they all agreed and decided to get some rest and went to their tents for the remainder of the day.

...

After packing up their supplies again, they trekked out of the cave and into the never ending snow storm. They were lucky, they had a lot of frost protection gear on. Previously, when various nations had tried to explore and lay claim to the region, the never ending snowstorm had claimed the lives of countless soldiers. Not even mages and enchanters were spared as some of them also fell to the cold and their bodies were claimed by the white sea.

They traveled through the snow in silence out of fear of attracting any beasts. It's not that they couldn't handle it, it's just that fighting one group would attract another due to the sounds of battle and they would have to keep fighting until they fell from exhaustion.

They were only around half an hour away from entering the territory of the Frost King. They all put their guard up and put their full focus to their surroundings. If they were ambushed and any one of them were to die, they would lose another close friend. Not to mention their mission would become substantially harder.

They finally reached the territory of the Frost King after half an hour. The storm was picking up pace and they could only see 10 meters in front of them. The wind was howling as if it were a wolf to the moon but that wolf was ten times louder than normal. Through the snow, they could make out many silhouettes of the Rime mountain Range. The Frost type mana was getting denser and slowly overpowering their protective gear. They only needed to get past the Frost King then they could find a place to make camp. The rest of their mission would only be easier from there.

Axel couldn't help but get an ominous feeling. They were in the core of the Frost King's territory and there had yet to be any sign of said individual. It was very unnatural because the Frost King was extremely territorial.

Suddenly, as if they were facing down a natural disaster, they felt an overbearing pressure of chilly mana and blood lust.

Two icy-blue eyes glowed in the storm. The eyes seemed as if they wanted to freeze everything they looked at.

The Frost King had arrived.