The Rise of the Winter Wolf - Book 5 - Chapter 39 - Punishment (Patreon)

The Holy Empire

The Friar feels panic for the first time in millennia as he hears the reports from his late commander’s second in command, the commander himself having been frozen solid on the Progenitor’s Battlefield. And to make matters worse, he repeatedly finds messages appearing warning him of repeated attacks by an unknown force.

Damnit! What is going on?!

Their plan was a simple one at first. To have Dafid’s third son go in alone to attack the Reaper of the Blue Moon and the Bringer of Eternal Night’s parents, drawing the Bringer of Eternal Night into an ambush set up by the commander of the Holy Empire’s military himself. But things immediately started going wrong when the Devil Sovereign’s third son never arrived personally, with only his subordinates attacking the family. Then The Friar’s commander was forced out of his ambush by some of their own men freezing alive right as the Bringer of Eternal Night was passing by with the fae.

And communications between the commander and The Friar were immediately cut off after that.

The only one to make it out alive was the second in command, who reported the entire incident as some sort of mass freezing conducted by an unknown assailant.

Was it the boy’s daughter? But she would be too weak to do something like that to my forces. All of the army were at least level 5000, and she’s only close to level 3000.

Then a possibility enters The Friar’s mind right as a frost begins to build up in the temple all around him. And before any of his soldiers can react to the intrusion, they all begin to freeze alive from the ground up.

“Who is it! Reveal yourself!” The Friar shouts, hoping against hope that his suspicions are wrong.

But his suspicions are proven right the moment a strange portal made seemingly entirely of ice element appears at the center of the temple hall, following which dozens of other smaller portals appear all around the hall’s edges. And under his terrified gaze, large wolves step out of each portal with the occasional golem of ice and humanoid being stepping alongside them.

The wolves all have stark white fur with glowing blue eyes and are radiating more ice element than The Friar has ever seen before in his life, meanwhile the golems are made of even more ice element than the wolves. But the few humanoids amongst them are what terrifies The Friar the most.

Because each and every humanoid amongst them have power that far eclipses anyone within the System clearly visible from The Friar’s throne at the end of the hall. They each have glowing blue eyes with sharp canines in their mouths and slightly pointed ears, glowing blue lines running across their bodies, and stark white hair flowing down from their head to their mid-backs.

No… it can’t be… is he really that important to him?!

The denizens of the Eternal Kingdom, plane of the ice elementals and realm of the Progenitor of Ice, march through The Friar’s temple until they all stop surrounding his throne at the bottom of the raised dais. And as they walk, the ice brought along with them slowly freezes the walls, ceilings, floors, and even the air. So without hesitation, The Friar attempts to teleport out of the room, only to find the ice somehow freezing time and space itself, stopping him from teleporting completely.

Then The Friar feels absolute numbness filling his feet, making him look down to find his feet frozen solid to the top of the dais beneath him as he continues sitting on the throne.

He looks up again as a deep voice echoes throughout the throne, seemingly bouncing off of the ice-coated walls and ceiling, “Ruler of the Holy Empire, for the crime of attacking the one Blessed by our Lord, you will be consigned to eternal sleep. Forever awake, never falling asleep, and never again to leave your own throne.”

The Friar’s gaze quickly locks onto the owner of the voice, finding it to belong to what appears to be a frost giant that had stepped out of the large portal without his knowing. But when he tries to identify the frost giant, all he gets is a System Notification telling him that he being is not part of the System or their universe.

Before he can say anything, he feels the absolute numbness spreading up his legs, bringing his gaze back down to find his legs slowly freezing solid.

He raises his head again, a look of despair covering it as he asks, “Why?”

None of the ice elementals say a word, simply watching with a mixture of scorn and indifference as the man slowly freezes from the feet up. And by the time the freezing is complete, all that can be seen is what appears to be a frozen statue of The Friar sitting atop his throne.

But The Friar can still see what is going on around him, even if he can’t feel a thing.

So he watches as all of the ice elementals retreat back through their portals, leaving him behind in silence, frozen on the throne.

Time passes by, and it doesn’t take long for The Friar to lose track of it completely. Meanwhile people from various other nations and occasionally some of his own people arrive at the frozen temple to see him and occasionally even attempt to break the ice with no success, but every single one of them appears to assume him to be dead. Except for the most powerful of visitors.

Like the latest visitor who immediately has The Friar feeling extreme anger just at the sight of him.

Dafid. The Sovereign of the Devils.

“Looks like I was right to be cautious,” the man eventually mutters after staring at the frozen Friar for several seconds.

Then he turns around and walks away without another word.

And silence once again reigns in the throne room, leaving The Friar to do nothing but brood in his own anger as he stays frozen to his own throne, numb all over his body yet still alive despite not having eaten anything for longer than he knows.

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