The snow fell heavier as Adam ventured past the vanguard's retreat, turning the sky into a blanket of white.
Further north,ot the valley narrowed into a jagged ravine known as the Blood-Snow Pass. It was the primary battleground between the Frostholm Empire and the native northern tribes a choke point where thousands had bled over generations. The rocky walls were stained a dark, permanent purple from decades of spilled blood, and the air reeked of iron, ozone, and old death.
Adam walked down the center of the ravine. The sheer cliffs towered hundreds of feet above him, blocking out what little sunlight managed to pierce the storm clouds.
High above on the rocky ledges, shadowy figures watched his approach. They were not imperial soldiers, but tribal warriors clad in heavy dire-bear pelts and bone armor. Painted with white war-flourish, they wielded massive jagged axes forged from dark iron.
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
A war drum echoed down the ravine, shaking loose small avalanches from the cliff faces.
From the shadows of the rocks, twenty tribal berserkers dropped down, landing on the icy floor with heavy impacts that cracked the frozen earth. Their eyes glowed with a feral, red rage a manifestation of the blood-frenzy technique unique to the northern clans. They did not speak, issue warnings, or demand identification. To them, anyone walking from the southern empire was an enemy to be slaughtered.
The chief of the warband, a hulking warrior standing seven feet tall, slammed his dual-headed greataxe into the ice. A wave of crimson blood-mana erupted from the blade, carving a deep trench straight toward Adam.
Adam kept walking.
When the crimson wave reached him, it hit an invisible wall and instantly vaporized into a harmless mist of hot steam.
The tribal chief bellowed a battle cry, swinging his massive axe in a heavy arc aimed directly at Adam's neck. The bone-carved edge hummed with destructive force, carrying enough raw strength to chop through an armored siege tower.
Adam raised his left hand, catching the massive iron blade between his index and middle fingers.
The immense momentum instantly vanished upon contact. The chief's arms snapped back from the violent sudden stop, his boots skidding through the ice as he strained with every muscle to move the weapon. The axe remained completely frozen in the air, clamped tightly between Adam's two fingers.
Adam exerted a tiny fraction of force through his fingertips.
The heavy iron axe shattered into a cloud of metallic dust. The force of the disintegration blew outward, hitting the chief in the chest and sending his massive body flying backward through the air. He crashed hard into the rocky cliff wall, slumping into the snow, breathless and unconscious.
The remaining nineteen berserkers froze, their feral red eyes wide with sudden shock.
Adam looked at them, his dark eyes cold and calm amid the swirling blizzard. "Your chieftain lives. Take him and leave this pass"
The tribal warriors hesitated for a single breath, their instinct for survival warring against their primal blood-frenzy.
Then, driven by sheer madness, three berserkers lunged at once. One thrust a barbed spear toward Adam's chest, while the other two swung heavy bone-cleavers at his flanks. Their strikes were fast, brutal, and aimed to kill.
Adam took a single step forward, slipping past the point of the spear.
He tapped the shaft of the spear with his knuckle. The weapon exploded into wooden splinters. Continuing his movement, Adam swept his right arm outward in a simple, fluid motion. A shockwave of pure compressed air struck all three warriors simultaneously, blasting them off their feet and slamming them into the snowdrifts thirty feet away.
The remaining fifteen warriors abandoned all thought of honor or pride. They turned and scattered into the surrounding rocks, pulling their unconscious chieftain into the shadows as they fled up the cliffside.
Adam lowered his hand, his expression completely unbothered as he continued walking through the pass.
As he cleared the narrow gorge, the landscape opened up into a vast, sunken basin. At the center of this frozen plain stood a massive ancient structure: the Sunken Fortress of Glacialis. Built entirely from indestructible blue frost-crystal, it was a remnant of the old world an stronghold currently occupied by the high command of the Frostholm army.
Dozens of heavy elemental ballistas sat mounted along the fortress walls, their massive iron bolts enchanted with explosive frost runes.
The moment Adam stepped out of the pass and onto the open basin, red warning lights flared along the fortress battlements. Horns blared across the frozen plain, signalling a maximum-level threat.
"Intruder on the southern approach!" a commander shouted from the walls, his voice amplified by magic. "All batteries, fire on sight! Obliterate him!"
The heavy ballistas released in a deafening chorus of snaps and thuds.
Fifty massive iron bolts, each glowing with destructive ice magic, rained down from the sky toward Adam like a hail of deadly meteors. Each bolt was powerful enough to level a stone fortress tower.
Adam stopped in the middle of the open basin. He looked up at the sky, his dark hair whipping in the wind created by the incoming volley.
He casually swept his hand upward into the air.
An invisible wave of gravitational force surged skyward. The moment the fifty explosive ballista bolts hit the pressure wave, they crumbled instantly into iron filings and pale blue ice dust, raining down onto the snow as a harmless, glittering powder.
On the fortress walls, the defensive officers stood petrified, their hands gripping the stone battlements in absolute terror.
Adam lowered his hand, taking another calm step forward across the basin toward the massive crystal gates of the fortress.