CHAPTER 94: WELCOME TO THE WINTER REGION

The Winter Region.

It was a location in the game that no matter how hard you tried, you could not enter.

Some player posted a video on the fandom about being outside Winter gates too long and being forced to fight against the guards, and the guards didn’t even have HP bars... They were faster and stronger too.

It was the zone that could not be entered.

In the game’s lore, it had been introduced as a forbidden zone, there was no quest to go in and no way too, people speculated that the developers hadn’t designed it.

It was a mirror to Earth’s Antarctica, but far crueler — home to secrets the developers had deliberately left unexplored.

Players would always speculate what lay beyond the shimmering walls of ice, crafting endless theories on forums, but the answer had been simple: the Ice Goddess forbade it.

The Winter Region was her sanctuary.

Her decree was absolute — no outsiders could set foot here.

And yet, calamity didn’t discriminate.

When the Children of the Sky descended — beings of myth so powerful that their mere presence distorted the land, the Winter Region had been one of their chosen targets.

Entire glaciers shattered, mountain ranges sank into the sea, and Icicle City, the only known stronghold in the region, stood as the last bastion.

But unlike the other regions of the world that were helpless before the Children,

the people of Winter resisted.

They cut down fifty of the hundred divine invaders before falling.

That was the kind of power that slept here.

And now Azel was sailing straight into it.

...

The moment the ship passed through the shimmering gates of the territory, Azel felt it.

The air shifted.

The biting cold that had wrapped around his body like a second skin vanished, leaving him oddly bereft.

His veins, which moments ago thrummed with a predatory vigor, calmed until he felt unnervingly ordinary.

His heightened senses dulled; the battle hunger that had clawed at his chest evaporated.

It was like someone had snuffed out a fire inside him.

He exhaled and muttered under his breath.

"...It’s warm."

[As warm as my bosom~]

Azel naturally ignored her.

A guard who stood near him turned at those words, chuckling knowingly.

"Oho, then you were feeling it."

"Feeling what?" Azel asked, his tone sharper than intended.

"What we call the Battle State," the guard explained.

His voice carried the steady rhythm of someone who had lived his whole life in this cold. "When your body is exposed to Winter’s breath, the blood in your veins reacts. You feel stronger, sharper — your instincts sharpen and your thirst for combat awakens."

"Thirst... for combat?" Azel echoed.

The guard’s eyes gleamed. "Bloodthirst. While you stood outside, did you not feel it? That itch in your hands to cut down anything in your path? That madness has been rooted in us since the first of our line. It is the mark of those who carry the Winter blood."

Winter blood.

[Hehe~ Hubby’s a killer]

Azel’s grip tightened on the railing.

For a heartbeat, he said nothing.

His gaze drifted beyond the man’s words to the horizon ahead, and there — he saw it.

The port of Icicle City.

Azel had thought he was prepared.

He had seen the capital of Starbloom but this...

The port stretched endlessly across the frozen bay.

Ships of every size — hulking war galleons sheathed in enchanted steel, swift cutters with sails woven from beast fur, even massive icebreakers whose prows were shaped like wolf heads rocked gently against the docks.

There must have been hundreds, perhaps thousands.

Together they formed a sight that could have swallowed entire empires.

"This," the guard said with unmistakable pride, "is the Winter Fleet. The shield of our land, commanded by Captain Bridgefrost himself."

He paused, as though waiting for Azel’s reaction, then added, "You may not remember him. But when you were a child, he was the one who carried you."

The words struck Azel like a blade between the ribs.

"...Carried me?" he asked quietly.

The guard nodded with certainty. "Aye. You were no taller than his knee, bundled in furs. Every warrior of Winter knows that story. The prodigy son of our clan... though fate, it seems, carried you far from us."

’Prodigy? My mana was 2!’ Azel thought.

Azel didn’t speak. His jaw clenched as his thoughts spiraled.

’So... I really did possess the body of a child of Winter.’

It explained too much — and yet raised more questions than it answered.

How had he ended up in Deymoor?

The Winter Region was supposed to be isolated, cut off from the rest of the world by divine will and geography alike.

No outsider could enter, and no child should have left.

And yet he had not only left — he had been sold to slavers.

It didn’t add up.

None of it did.

Convenience.

There was too much convenience.

But there was no time to dwell on the knot in his chest.

The ship slowed as it glided into one of the port’s designated lanes.

The sailors bustled, ropes were cast, anchors dropped.

The wooden hull creaked against the frost-slick docks.

And waiting at the end of the boarding plank was a man.

He stood alone, yet he filled the space as though no other presence could matter.

Towering nearly seven feet in height, he bore a physique that seemed sculpted by gods: lean muscle over a frame of raw power, wrapped in a cloak of pure white beast fur.

Around his neck hung the head of the beast itself — a Cold Wolf, its eyes forever frozen in rage.

The rank three predator was supposed to be untouchable, its hide impervious to steel, its fangs laced with frost venom.

Azel had only seen sketches of it in the game’s lore — he had never expected to see one slain, much less worn as a trophy.

The man radiated power.

The kind of presence that crushed lesser men to their knees without a word.

Even the emperor didn’t radiate this kind of power.

And then his gaze found Azel.

For the briefest heartbeat, silence.

Recognition flared in the man’s eyes, followed by a smile that carried pride.

When he spoke, his voice was rich, resounding like the crack of glaciers splitting apart.

"Son."