Yuri was like a bolt of lightning while Andrea was graceful and unstoppable, even while surrounded by hundreds of Eidolons, they both held the upper hand. Every time an Eidolon attempted to surround Yuri, she was already gone, her body flashing through the blizzard before another creature could even understand where she had disappeared to.
Her blade followed her movements, cutting through her opponents with frightening precision. Andrea was far less subtle. She moved through the battlefield with overwhelming force, her enchanted blade tearing through anything that came within reach while her physical strength allowed her to simply smash through attacks that would have forced other Awakened to retreat.
"Even if they left the giant laser beam, it still doesn’t explain how they were able to sneak up on us." Yuri said.
Andrea’s blade swept across the neck of an Eidolon before she stepped forward and drove her shoulder into another. The creature was thrown backwards, crashing into several others behind it.
Yuri appeared beside her for only a moment, her sword already stained with dark blood.
"unless they didn’t sneak up on us."
Andrea glanced at her. Yuri’s eyes remained fixed on the blizzard.
Another wave of Eidolons rushed towards them.
Andrea’s sword cut through the first creature while her free hand caught the spiked club of another. The Eidolon tried to pull the weapon back, but Andrea’s grip didn’t move. She yanked it forward instead, dragging the creature towards her before smashing her forehead into its face.
She released the club and drove her sword through its chest.
Yuri was already moving through the gap Andrea had created.
Three Eidolons charged her from different directions. She lowered her body, slipped beneath the first attack and cut through the creature’s leg without slowing down. The second swung at where she had been, but Yuri had already moved behind it. Her blade flashed across its throat before she turned and drove the tip straight into the third one’s eye.
The creature collapsed.
Yuri pulled her sword free and looked towards Andrea again.
"There are too many."
Andrea looked around.
She had already killed hundreds, yet the Eidolons kept coming.
The blizzard continued pouring down around them, swallowing everything beyond a certain distance. She could barely make out the figures fighting farther behind them, and even the sounds of battle seemed strange. Sometimes a scream would reach them clearly, while other times the wind would swallow an entire clash of weapons as though it had never happened.
Andrea narrowed her eyes.
She had fought in the frozen wastelands long enough to understand its storms.
They were brutal, unpredictable and often lasted for days, but they weren’t completely random. The storms had patterns. The winds moved according to the geography of the land, and the snow generally came from the west before spreading across the frozen wastelands.
This storm was different.
Andrea watched a stream of snow pass between her and Yuri, drifting sideways before suddenly being pulled backwards into the storm.
Her expression hardened. "Could the chief have found a way to manufacture the blizzard?"
Yuri glanced at her.
Andrea raised her sword and blocked another incoming attack. The spiked club struck her blade with enough force to send sparks into the snow, but Andrea immediately pushed it aside and cut through the Eidolon’s shoulder.
"How does one manufacture a blizzard? " Yuri asked.
Andrea didn’t answer immediately, she looked towards the sky.
The frozen wastelands had always been covered in blizzards, but they were natural in the sense that anything in this world could be called natural. They came from somewhere. They travelled across the land.
Andrea’s sharp eyes pierced through the cold winds. She couldn’t see beyond the veil separating the blizzard from the normal world, but something was pulling at the back of her mind.
Fatal Inkling.
Her Dormant Ability had always been difficult to understand, but she had learned to trust that feeling. It was pointing towards something beyond the storm.
Andrea’s lips curled into a cold smirk. She had a feeling she knew exactly what it was.
"Let’s go ask the Priest."
Snow exploded beneath Andrea’s feet as she took off.
Her strength and speed were monstrous, so much so that even Vincent’s raw physical prowess couldn’t compare to the sheer force behind her movement. Her body tore through the battlefield, her enchanted blade flashing through the storm like dozens of flower petals opening at once. Every Eidolon caught in her path was cut apart before it could react, their bodies collapsing into the snow as Andrea continued forward without slowing.
Yuri wasn’t far behind.
In fact, she was right beside her.
She was the only other Awakened fast enough to keep pace with Andrea while maintaining the same level of lethality. Her body flashed through the blizzard with every step, her katana appearing and disappearing as she cut through anything that attempted to slow them down.
The two women moved together.
Andrea tore through anything in their path with overwhelming strength, while Yuri slipped through the smallest openings and erased anything that survived Andrea’s assault.
Their combined might carved a path of death through the Eidolons. The blizzard raged around them, but neither woman slowed.
Ahead of them, the strange boundary separating the raging storm from the normal world finally came into view.
Andrea didn’t wait for permission. Without even slowing down, she and Yuri burst through the barrier.
The contrast was strangely unsettling.
One moment they were fighting through a raging blizzard, surrounded by freezing winds and swirling snow, and the next they were standing beneath clear skies. The sudden silence made the battlefield behind them feel distant, almost like they had stepped into an entirely different world.
But the weather wasn’t what drew their attention, several Eidolons stood ahead of them, forming a loose circle around a familiar figure.
The newly elected Priest stood at the center.
He had finally grown to the same size as the previous Priest, his massive body covered in thick white fur and his frozen antlers rising above his head. His appearance had become far more imposing, yet one thing was still missing.
He didn’t have a ritual staff.
The moment the Priest noticed Andrea and Yuri, his eyes narrowed.
He pointed directly towards them.
"Go kill them, kill them all."