The North Gate of the forward camp creaked on its massive iron hinges.
Antares stood just beyond the threshold, his boots sinking into the virgin snow that had fallen during the night. He didn't wait for his escort. The restless energy in his veins, fueled by his cheer excitement, made sitting still feel like a slow death.
He looked out toward the southern horizon. There, rising from the mist like the jagged teeth of a forgotten god, was Stagfall Forest. Even from five kilometers away, the scale of the trees was staggering, they looked ancient pillars supporting the sky.
The wind whipped across the plateau, a biting, bone-chilling gale that would have frozen a lesser man's marrow. But to Antares, it was intoxicating. The cold hit his face and lungs with a refreshing sharpness.
As he stood there, watching the snow swirl in the wind, a strange, long-dormant impulse stirred in the back of his mind. The Earth-born soul within him looked at the pristine, white drifts and saw more than just a tactical obstacle.
I could do it, he thought, his eyes tracking a particularly deep bank of snow. A snow angel. Or a snowman. I could even build a small fortress out of ice.
He imagined the look on Yajin's face if the "King of the Ants tribe" was found rolling a giant snowball or flapping his arms in the slush. The mental image brought a genuine, hidden smirk to his lips. For a fleeting second, he wanted to abandon the "King" persona, to let the inner child play in a world that hadn't yet been stained by blood.
But then, he felt the weight of Eos against his hip. He felt the gaze of the sentries on the wooden battlements behind him. He was a symbol now. A symbol of strength, of survival, and of impending conquest. A King did not make snow angels. A King made empires.
He straightened his posture, his bear-fur coat billowing in the wind, and buried the impulse deep.
High above on the camp's wooden ramparts, two figures stood like statues cast in iron and shadow. Yajin and Velas watched the lone figure of their King standing in the white waste.
"He is impatient," Velas remarked, his voice a low gravelly rasp. He adjusted the strap of his twin daggers, his eyes never leaving Antares. "He stands there as if he could leap to the trees in a single bound."
"He has the fire of the youth." Yajin replied. The leader of the Arcanis stood with his massive arms crossed, his heavy cloak damp with frost. "But he is reckless. We should have gone with him, Velas. My instincts tell me that something is wrong with all this."
Velas shifted his weight. "He ordered us to stay. To prepare the trade mission. If we defy him now, we undermine his authority and you know lord Alexis wouldn't have liked that." He paused, his gaze softening as he looked at the group of warriors finally emerging from the gate to join the King.
"Besides... your son is with him together with best hunters and warriors."
Velas placed a massive, heavy hand on Yajin's shoulder a rare, silent gesture of solidarity between two men who had spent years as rivals. "Have faith in the King, Yajin. And have faith in your boy. They are the new generation. They are meant born to accomplish great things, maybe we are just to old to understand their need to prove themselves."
Yajin nodded slowly, the two old warriors standing in a rare moment of friendship as they watched the procession depart.
-----------------------------------------------
"We are ready to depart, my Lord," Yanrid announced as he reached Antares's side.
He had brought a specialized unit of forty Antmen. Twenty were veteran hunters—lean, agile scouts armed with long bows and vials of paralyzing toxins. The other twenty were heavy warriors, their iron plates polished and their serrated blades gleaming. Among them were Levi and Eli, the twin guards, their eyes sharp and expectant.
"Let's go then," Antares said, his voice clipping the air. "We've wasted enough time ."
The five-kilometer trek was a study in transition. As they descended from the rocky plateau, the ground changed from barren stone to a thick, frozen peat. The air grew heavier, filled with the scent of damp wood.
Yanrid walked half a step behind Antares, his voice a constant, low drone as he briefed the King on the ecology of Stagfall.
"The forest's ecosystem is very interesting as it is deadly, Sire," Yanrid explained. "Because the trees the Iron-Oaks are so massive and packed together, so for today I suggest we hunt on the outer layer of the forest, for safety purposes."
Antares listened, his eyes scanning the horizon. "And the serpents you mentioned?"
"The Stonefang Serpents," Yanrid said, his expression darkening. "They are the reason the Goblins never pushed further south. They aren't just snakes; they are living siegeworks. Their scales are as hard as stone, and they hunt in groups and crush their preys with their weight. If one lands on you, the weight alone will crush you and make you one with the ground before the fangs even touch you."
Antares hummed, his hand tightening on the hilt of Eos. "I look forward to meeting one."
An hour later, they reached the outer layer of Stagfall forest.
The transition was jarring. One moment, they were in the bright, white glare of the snow-covered plains; the next, they were swallowed by a world of emerald twilight. The Iron-Oaks were even more majestic up close, their trunks were the size of small towers, their bark a deep, stony grey, and their purple leaves forming a canopy so thick it choked out the sun.
Snow still covered the forest floor, but here it was different—it hung in heavy clumps on the massive branches, occasionally falling in "snow-bombs" that thudded against the mossy earth with the sound of a fist hitting a drum.
Antares stepped into the treeline, his boots silenced by the deep moss. The forest was eerily quiet. There were no birds, no insects only the distant, rhythmic creak of the massive trees swaying in the wind.
"Stay here and coordinate the perimeter," Antares commanded Yanrid, his voice echoing slightly in the stillness. "I want to see the scale of this place for myself."
"Sire, I would advise caution—" Yanrid started, but Antares was already moving.
He walked deeper into the woods, his senses dialed to the maximum. He marveled at the robust nature of the trees; they made the redwoods of Earth look like mere saplings. The shortest among them easily topped 130 meters.
Ten minutes of walking yielded nothing. No beasts, no tracks, no sounds. The silence began to grate on his nerves. The "Wild Beast" within him grew impatient, demanding action, demanding a foe.
If they won't come to me, Antares thought, I'll go to them.
He triggered his mana-circuits. With a sharp, metallic clack, his insectoid wings unfurled from beneath his bear-fur coat. They hummed with a high-pitched vibration, glowing with a faint red hue. With a powerful thrust, he launched himself straight up.
He blurred past the massive trunks, the wind whistling through his armor. He climbed fifty meters, eighty, a hundred. He wanted to see the top of the world.
He reached the 120-meter mark, nearly at the top of an Iron-Oak, when the silence was shattered.
From a thick, horizontal branch that he had mistaken for a part of the trunk, a shadow detached itself. It was a movement so fast and so fluid it defied the laws of physics.
A massive, reptilian head, the size of a carriage, swung through the air, mandibles wide, fangs dripping with a clear, viscous venom. It was the Stonefang Serpent.
Antares's heart hammered against his ribs. He was in mid-air, his momentum carrying him up, while the beast was lunging down. He was a fly about to be swatted.
"SIRE! DOWN!" a voice roared from below.
A streak of brilliant, icy blue light cut through the dim forest light. It was a spear—not of wood or iron, but of pure, condensed frost. It whistled through the air, trailing a wake of freezing mist.
Thwack!
The spear struck the serpent directly in its left eye. Upon impact, the mana destabilized, triggering an Ice-Burst. A sphere of jagged frost exploded outward, flash-freezing the side of the serpent's head and sending a shockwave of cold through its skull.
The beast shrieked—a high-pitched, grinding sound like stones rubbing together. The momentum of its strike was broken, but its massive body still collided with Antares in its frantic fall.
The impact was like being hit by a falling building. Antares was sent spiraling toward the forest floor, his wings buzzing frantically to stabilize his descent. He crashed through several smaller branches before slamming into the deep moss and snow at the base of an Iron-Oak.
The Stonefang Serpent
Antares scrambled to his feet, his vision swimming, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He was visibly shaking—not from fear, but from the sheer force of the impact and the surge of adrenaline.
He looked up. Yanrid was sprinting toward him, in his hand another ice spear was ready. Levi and Eli were just behind him, their blades drawn, their faces masks of pure focus.
But Antares's attention was fixed on the beast.
The Stonefang Serpent had hit the ground twenty meters away, and it was already recovering. It wiggled and coiled like a worm poured on salt, the ice on its face cracking and falling away in jagged shards.
Now that it was on the ground, Antares saw the true horror of it.
It was nearly fifty meters long, its body thick with compact muscle. Its scales weren't like that of a normal snake's, they were hard, cracked plates that resembled weathered granite. Slate-gray with veins of mossy green. Along its spine ran jagged, blade-like spikes— true natural armor.
Its head was a nightmare of angular bone and sharp ridges. Its eyes—the one that wasn't a mangled mess of ice and blood—glowed with a fierce, amber-golden light. It wasn't the dull gaze of an animal; it was the sharp, hateful intelligence of an resentful predator.
Antares reached for the hilt of Eos. As his fingers closed around the grip, the weapon responded to his rage. The blade began to glow with a deep, pulsing crimson light, the Knight Force bleeding into the steel.
"Let's dance," Antares hissed.
The serpent didn't wait. It launched itself forward, its body coiling and uncoiling with terrifying power. It didn't slither; it bounced, its rock-hard scales grinding against the earth.
Antares met the charge.
He flared his Knight Force, his aura expanding until he looked like a crimson comet.
As the serpent's head descended, Antares sidestepped with a burst of speed that left a crater in the ground. He swung Eos in a wide, horizontal arc. The blade struck the serpent's neck, but instead of the wet sound of cutting meat, there was a deafening sound of collision like with two swords met each other.
Sparks showered the snow. Eos had bitten into the stone scales, but the serpent's natural armor was incredible. Antares felt the vibration travel up his arms, threatening to numb his grip.
The serpent whipped its tail around using it as a massive, spiked club. Antares leaped, using his wings for a momentary hover, and watched as the tail shattered the trunk of a nearby tree.
"Yanrid! Stay back!" Antares roared as he saw the scouts closing in. "This one belongs to me!"
Antares dived. This time, he didn't aim for the scales. He aimed for the fractures.
He channeled his mana into Eos, the blade extending a few inches in a tongue of pure energy, a skill he learnt while training with the twin. He thrust the spear-sword into a gap just behind the serpent's skull.
The beast roared, its body thrashing wildly. Antares held on, his boots dragging through the mud as the snake tried to shake him off. He twisted the blade, unleashing a burst of Red Knight Force directly into the wound.
Crr-ack.
The stone scales around the wound shattered. Black, foul-smelling blood sprayed across Antares's armor, steaming in the cold air.
The serpent, realizing it was in danger, reared up, its amber eye glowing with a desperate light. It opened its jaws to unleash a spray of corrosive venom, but Antares was faster.
He kicked off the serpent's chest, somersaulting in the air, and brought Eos down in a vertical overhead strike.
"DIE!"
The blade caught the serpent right between the eyes. With the full weight of his falling body and the concentrated density of his aura, Antares drove the steel through the skull, through the brain, and deep into the earth beneath.
The serpent gave one final, violent shudder, its tail lashing out and shattering a tree, before falling limp.
Antares stood atop the carcass, his chest heaving, his armor covered in gore. The white snow was now a macabre, blood-red carpet.
His senses jolted. A primal instinct, sharper than any scout's warning, screamed at him to look up.
He slowly raised his head.
On the massive branches of the surrounding Iron-Oaks, they were waiting.
Eight pairs of amber-golden eyes stared back at him.
They were larger than the one he had just killed. Some were covered in moss, suggesting they all had been dormant during the winter, others had spikes so long they looked like crown-ridges. and smaller ones that Antares did not bother to count.
They didn't hiss. They didn't move. They simply watched.
One by one, they detached themselves from the canopy.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The ground shook as the eight Stonefang Serpents landed in a circle around the blood-stained clearing. They moved with a synchronized grace, their stony scales grinding like tectonic plates.
At that moment, Yanrid, Levi, Eli, and the twenty warriors arrived, forming a tight circle around Antares.
"My Lord..." Yanrid whispered, his voice trembling slightly as he looked at the wall of scales surrounding them. "We are outnumbered. We should retreat to the camp."
Antares didn't look back. His irises were a burning, incandescent red.
"Retreat?" Antares laughed, a cold, jagged sound that made the serpents hiss in unison. "We didn't come here to retreat, Yanrid. We came to remind this forest who owns it."
He pointed Eos at the largest serpent—a beast nearly eighty meters long with a scarred, white underbelly.
"Hunters, stay back and provide cover!" Antares roared, his voice carrying the authority of a King. "Warriors! We don't have time nor the ability to parlay with these shitty worms. Let's kill these fuckers and go home for dinner!"
For a heartbeat, both sides remained in place—a tableau of steel and stone, frozen in the emerald twilight.
Then, the largest serpent let out a deafening, earth-shaking roar.
"CHARGE!" Antares screamed.
The forest exploded into violence.