Lord of the Frozen Winter: Starting with Daily Intelligence Reports

The sunlight was completely blocked by steel. The bloody water and wreckage that had been churning from the explosion just moments ago were instantly pressed into a cold, gloomy darkness.

"Thud."

The gangplank slammed onto the ground with a dull, heavy sound.

A squad of fully armed Red Tide Knights quickly fanned out.

Louis walked at the very front, his steps steady. He didn't look like he was landing in enemy-occupied territory, but rather like he was inspecting his own back garden.

The air on this island was simply unbearable.

The scents of blood, scorched flesh, and an overly ripe, cloying sweetness were churned together, as if a pile of fruit and corpses had been left to ferment in a sealed jar for a month.

Pink mist flowed sluggishly between the broken walls and towers; it was visible mental pollution.

If an ordinary soldier stood here, their brain would be burned to mush in less than three breaths.

The breathing of the knights became noticeably heavy.

Cold sweat dripped from the edges of their helmets down their temples, and double vision occasionally flickered across their retinas, but no one stopped.

Louis, however, showed no reaction.

The primal heart inside his body rotated at a leisurely pace, and a stream of platinum starlight flowed through his blood vessels to every part of his body.

The illusions trying to burrow into his mind vanished with a sizzle the moment they touched this layer of light, like snowflakes falling onto a furnace.

He didn't need a map; that nauseating malice guided the way like a lighthouse.

Through the corridors, over the stone steps, until he pushed open that incredibly heavy oak door.

The door's hinges emitted a high-pitched scream of long-term disrepair.

The sight in the hall caused the muscles of the following knights to instantly tense up.

In the very center was a throne.

It wasn't made of wood or stone, but entirely of human skulls.

They were polished smooth but assembled crookedly. Hundreds of empty eye sockets stared at the door, a terrifying sight.

Two "people" stood beside the throne.

One was Balke. He wasn't wearing a hat, and his skull had been neatly sliced in half. Pink brain tissue was exposed directly to the air, pulsing rhythmically.

Several thin tentacles were embedded deep within the sulci of his brain, making a squelching sound with every contraction.

The other was Meriel, wrapped in a black robe, with no shadow beneath her feet.

Or rather, her shadow had come to life; several wet, slippery tentacles were slithering along the ground, leaving behind trails of glistening slime.

Balke turned around.

In that instant, the air pressure in the hall felt as if it had been vacuumed out.

It wasn't exactly killing intent or pressure; it was pure... disgust.

It was a rejection reaction hardwired into the genes, like a lower organism seeing its natural predator or something filthy that shouldn't exist at all.

The pupils of several Extraordinary Knights snapped to the size of pinheads. Their hearts pounded wildly, and cold sweat soaked through their inner linings.

This was no longer a question of whether they could win.

This was biological instinct—their bodies screaming at them to turn and run.

Just as this cold pressure was about to suffocate everyone... "Hah!!" A thunderous roar exploded.

Weil took a step forward, the movement looking as if he intended to crush the floorboards.

The bloodline power within him was completely ignited.

A pale red glow radiated directly from his body, instantly expanding into a translucent sphere with a radius of eight meters, shielding Louis and the knights behind him.

This red light looked thin, like a film of water, but its toughness was immense, capable of blocking an attack from a Peak Knight.

That maddening aura crashed against the shield like waves against a reef and was forcibly repelled.

The ear-ringing whispers vanished. Even the dust floating in the air came to a standstill.

Absolute silence.

Weil stood at the very front, arms slightly spread. The veins on his neck bulged like earthworms, and sweat dripped from his chin.

He stared fixedly at the two monsters, his voice raspy, every word forced through gritted teeth: "Protect the Lord! These two... aren't right! Form up!!"

Even though he was already a half-step Peak Knight, he could still sense the terror of the two people by the throne.

The knights were still adjusting their formation.

The red shield was like a taut drumhead, keeping the slimy malice of the hall at bay. The air pressure was so low it was hard to breathe.

Just as Weil was prepared to fight for his life, a hand wearing a black leather glove rested on his shoulder.

"Don't be nervous, Weil," Louis said. His voice was not loud, and it lacked any inflection.

Weil's entire body stiffened.

He snapped his head back and watched as Louis took a step forward, as if he found the room too stuffy and wanted to open a window for some fresh air.

Under the horrified gazes of all the knights, Louis voluntarily stepped out of the red light they considered their lifeline.

He walked toward the throne alone.

At that moment, Balke moved. There was no starting motion, no charging process.

One second he was standing by that pile of bones, and the next, a crisp sound of tearing cloth echoed in the air.

That speed was unnatural.

It was an inhuman speed erupted from muscle fibers being forcibly overloaded and bones enduring extreme pressure.

When he reappeared, a sharp claw was already pressed against Louis's Adam's apple.

The distance was less than half a palm's width.

Weil's pupils shrank to pinpoints, but the "watch out" in his throat couldn't even make it out in time.

But in Louis's eyes, this was too slow.

It wasn't that time had slowed down.

His bloodline talent named Trajectory had already deconstructed this instant into countless static diagrams.

From the moment he entered the door, the twitching frequency of Balke's left leg muscles, the angle of his spine's forward lean, the signal delay of the brain parasite... all the data had been processed in Louis's mind.

This wasn't an ambush at all; it was cooperation.

Louis didn't even lift an eyelid as he said softly, "Too noisy."

His tone was as flat as if he were scolding a barking dog.

Just an instant before the claw touched his skin, Balke's movement suffered an extremely minute pause.

It was a signal disconnect between the parasitic brain and the physical nerves at extreme speed.

A 0.1-second physiological bug that only Louis had predicted.

That was the flaw.

Louis raised his left hand. Dark red battle qi exploded from beneath his cuff, and his muscles instantly gorged with blood and expanded.

Simultaneously, a wisp of greedy, dark purple mist emerged from between his fingers, like a snake opening its mouth.

"Snap."

With a crisp sound, the claw capable of slicing through steel plates stopped mid-air.

Louis's hand had, at some point, accurately clamped onto Balke's throat.

The position, angle, and force were perfect. It was as if Balke had delivered his own neck into the crook of Louis's hand. The massive kinetic energy of the charge was instantly cut off.

"Get down," Louis pressed his wrist downward.

Boom!

The granite floor shattered like a cracker, sending stone chips flying everywhere.

Balke didn't even have time to groan before he was slammed into the ground with one hand.

His body was embedded in the cracked crater, his spine emitting a series of pops like roasting beans.

That claw hung in the air, only a few centimeters from Louis's face.

But it could no longer move.

Louis looked down at the monster at his feet, his fingers slowly tightening, his gaze cold.

In that moment, Balke finally experienced true terror.

The 'Phantom Desire Energy' he took pride in, bestowed by the Ruler of the Deep Sea, should have been able to corrode all steel and will.

But now, as soon as that energy surged out, it was swallowed whole by the purple mist seeping from Louis's fingers.

Balke felt like a punctured abscess. The power, life, and even the consciousness of the parasitic brain within him were draining away frantically through the hand on his neck.

"No... what is this..."

The cartilage in his throat rattled as he tried desperately to struggle, but his body honestly went limp as its energy was drained.

Louis maintained his one-handed downward press.

His gaze was indifferent, the golden light deep in his pupils like someone reading values on a dashboard.

"Too noisy," he said softly, his fingers suddenly tightening.

Crack!

It was a sickening, wet, crunching sound.

There was no brilliant exchange of magic, nor any world-shaking techniques.

Louis had simply applied an unbearable amount of physical pressure.

Balke's cervical vertebrae shattered like a dry biscuit.

Next was that pink brain parasitic on the outside of his skull.

Under the immense grip, it didn't even have time to emit a final mental shock before it was crushed like an overripe tomato.

Squelch.

Pink fluid exploded outward, only to be instantly blocked by the layer of purple mist outside Louis's glove.

Balke's body twitched violently once, then became a pile of limp meat as if its bones had been removed.

Louis let go and shook his hand in disgust.

Balke's headless corpse lay there like a pile of trash.

Meriel, standing in the shadows, did not retreat. She didn't even spare a glance at the corpse.

Screech—!

A sharp noise burrowed out of her throat.

The sound didn't seem human; it was like two pieces of wet rubber rubbing together frantically, making one's scalp tingle.

The originally loose black robe was instantly torn apart, cloth fragments flying everywhere.

There was no woman left under the robe.

It was a tangled mass of pink meat and tentacles, like a giant pulsating heart, squirming incessantly.

Where the head should have been, only a mouth with bright red lipstick remained, hanging on that pile of rotten meat, looking both ridiculous and disgusting.

Boom!

The pink mist exploded.

The air instantly became viscous, like a bucket of expired honey had been poured in.

An overly ripe floral scent mixed with the stench of a corpse burrowed into their noses.

Weil let out a muffled groan. Even from several meters away, his gaze began to wander.

Ripples spread across the surface of the red shield.

This thing didn't hurt the body; it hurt the mind.

It wrapped around you like warm water, breathing into your ear, urging you to put down your sword, to walk over and merge with that warm, wet nest of flesh.

Louis stood in the center of the mist, not even furrowing his brow.

The primal heart inside him rotated steadily, like a cold, platinum star.

He shook his hand, flicking off the remaining bit of brain matter from his fingertips with a casual movement, as if he had just finished washing his hands.

"Put away these tricks." His voice wasn't loud, but it cut directly through those seductive sounds. "I have no interest in mollusks in heat."

Buzz—!

Platinum starlight rippled outward with him as the center.

The pink mist trying to burrow into his pores emitted a sizzle the moment it touched the starlight, vanishing instantly like snowflakes on a red-hot iron plate.

Louis was no longer holding back.

Crimson air currents rose from his body, like a roaring cloak of fresh blood.

Simultaneously, dark purple light darted around his fingertips, turning into invisible little mouths that clicked and snapped.

He raised his eyelids, and deep within his pupils, those pale gold vertical slits fully opened.

Meriel's nest of flesh shuddered violently.

Dozens of pink tentacles with barbed suckers snapped out like a forest of spears, tearing through the air toward Louis.

Louis moved. Crimson power erupted instantly, and he pulled into an afterimage in the air, moving so fast that even the tentacles couldn't react.

"Get lost."

With that low shout, the pressure of an Ancient Dragon at the top of the food chain smashed down like a heavy hammer.

The tentacles that were about to kill visibly recoiled in mid-air—the instinct of prey seeing its natural enemy.

A thick tentacle slammed down in front of him.

Louis reached out his right hand, his five fingers wrapped in purple mist digging directly into that mass of slippery meat.

Meriel let out a terrified scream.

She felt it—the purple power was climbing up her tentacles like crazy, greedily gnawing at her main body.

The pink energy was forcibly drained away, flowing into Louis's body like water into a whirlpool, then crushed and purified by the primal heart into clean fuel.

Louis dragged that rapidly shriveling tentacle and walked forward step by step.

Three-colored light intertwined on his body, making him look like an unshakeable divine statue.

"You don't even qualify as a living being," his voice echoed in the hall. "You're just a pile of rotten meat heaped together."

A crimson fist was raised.

Boom!!

In /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ the next second, a shockwave directly penetrated the entire pink nest of flesh.

Meriel's scream stopped abruptly.

That massive body exploded like a punctured balloon.

Before the pink slime filling the air could even hit the ground, it was swallowed whole by the purple mist.

The cloying stench dissipated.

The hall returned to its cold emptiness.

Louis stood in the middle of the mess, the light on his body slowly fading until only a sliver of platinum starlight retracted into his body.

He straightened his cuffs, looking once again like a well-dressed young noble, his trench coat crisp and without a single wrinkle.

Weil's arms were still twitching slightly from using his bloodline talent.

What had happened in those few seconds?

He hadn't seen it clearly; he really hadn't.

In the eyes of these battle-hardened knights, the footage was missing.

It was as if someone had crudely cut a segment out of a film reel.

Only a few heart-stopping shadows remained on their retinas: a crimson afterimage tearing through space, a mass of churning purple mist, and that fleeting flash of gold.

Even the sound was delayed.

It wasn't until Louis began tidying his cuffs that the boom of air being pierced and the monster's screams overlapped and belatedly reached their ears.

Weil slowly deactivated his talent, his throat dry.

As a half-step Peak Knight, he knew very well how powerful those two monsters were.

That Balke could pin him down with just his aura, and Meriel was even more of a monster.

But now?

One was crushed into the ground like a cigarette butt, and the other had simply evaporated, not even leaving behind ashes.

An instant kill—a total, absolute instant kill.

"So Lord Louis was actually..."

Weil looked at the back of the figure slowly wiping his gloves. His gaze shifted from blankness to fanaticism, and his mouth uncontrollably stretched into a wide grin.

The Lord hadn't fought for so long that even his guards had developed the illusion that he was just a commander who needed protection.

But today, this sword that had been sheathed for years was only drawn an inch.

And the world had changed.

Weil took a deep breath, pulled his greatsword from the ground, and held it upside down with the tip pointing down.

Thump.

He knelt heavily on one knee, his knee shattering the stone slab.

Following that, a synchronized sound of kneeling echoed through the hall.

No one cared about the lingering scent of blood, nor did they care about the rubble on the ground.

All the knights looked up, staring fixedly at that figure, the light in their eyes frighteningly bright.

It was the joy that only a believer shows when witnessing a true miracle.