The Ruined Death Knight

In those frozen lands, warm lacked its presence and the chilling cold took prolonged residences on those lands. The sun had still its mercy to shine down on those frozen lands to bring light and warmth.

While the latter attempt was futile on those lands, the sunlight still shined down.

Illuminating those who lived there.

The most common thing that was to be seen on those lands was hunting. Be it animals, essential beings, or a mix of the two, the hunt for food was essential to survive.

And among those hunters, the ice trolls of the frozen lands were among the supreme beings that brought death to their victims once spotted.

Ironically, what those hunters would have never expected was for the day to come when the dead and their prey would start hunting them.

****

*Pouf~! Pouf~!

"Run!!!"

With a piercing voice, one ice troll said to all the others that were following him.

Each of their steps was powerful and heavy, leaving footprints on the snow and hard earth.

The one who yelled to run was the most muscular of all of them, but compared to the others who held weapons, that one held a staff that circled in the end, and in the middle of the circle was a skull that was being held by several strong strings and wolf teeth as decoration.

No matter how you looked at it, that was no weapon for melee combat.

He was no ice troll hunter, but a rare caster of the ice troll race.

"Leader! Why are we running and not fighting!? They are mere fox meat and walking bones!" One of the ice trolls yelled as they followed the ice troll "caster".

"Shut up fools! We are lucky that this "thing" isn't chasing after us! Until it decides otherwise, we have to cross as much distance as possible!" The caster yelled with rage as strong pain run through his chest.

Gritting his teeth, he places one of his arms on his chest, on top of a large slash wound.

The wound was large and had black color surrounding the edges of the wound, clear evidence that he was cut with a weapon filled with miasma.

'Why doesn't it recover!?' The "caster" yelled internally as his regeneration failed to close the wound despite the time passed.

Other than rage, he felt an immense fear against the being who wounded him and the army of the dead behind him.

He was lucky that today he decided to walk through the woods to familiarize with the nature's spirit and having met those beings before they reached the village to evacuate his layout subordinate and leave the rest to buy some time for them to escape.

'I was lucky to escape him once with my reserved totems, but a second time will be the death of all of us.'

In that he was certain.

They barely managed to bring their rations in the form of a living fox and the things that their chieftain commanded to obtain before the cursed army with fox people came to raid "their" village.

"But leader! We left most things that the chieftain wanted behind! How can we face him if we go empty-handed like this!? We have to go back and fight

Even if they left most things behind, it was better than dying at the hands of that being.

Because he understood this, he felt extremely infuriated with others not understanding the situation at hand.

"It doesn't matter! We got the majority of spears with us, leaving a few behinds is no big deal! Moreover reporting what happend to the chieftain is way more important!"

Just as he said that, though the distance, one white and black-haired fox woman and a man with bone-reinforced claws in his hand were in the lead of chasing after the group of ice trolls with several undead trailing from behind them with few other fox people.

"Leader! They are chasing after us! We got to fight back!" Another ice troll said while a web made out of sturdy string, inside containing several naked fox people let out quite growls of pain.

"No matter! Keep running! Don't fight!" The "caster" said without even glancing at the ones chasing after them.

Of course, the ice trolls following him weren't very happy about this, but still decided to follow their leader.

Alas, they were few exceptions.

"I have misunderstood you, leader! Running away against a few fox meat and bones! You are a coward! Brothers! If you don't do it, I will uphold our honor and crash them." The same ice troll that held the "rations" said and stopped in his tracks together with 2 other ice trolls.

Unfortanently for the caster, from the 3 of them, 2 of them were the ones who were carrying the fox people. Effectively leaving the bigger group with only 1 string web full of fox people.

Essentially cutting their rations in 2/3.

"Fools!!! Come back!" The caster yelled, knowing that running away without the rationing, even if they escaped, they wouldn't be able to go far.

Ignoring the "casters" words, the 3 dashed towards their chasers, releasing their war cries in the ear.

"Mere fox meat! I will show you the place where you belong." The ice troll in the front said as he got closer to the black and white-haired fox woman.

The latter had a mischievous smile on her face, looking at the ice trolls as if they were idiots.

"As expected of muscleheads." She whispered to herself as they closed the distance.

Once each party reached the 8 meters mark, the black and white-haired fox shadows suddenly stretched towards the ice troll incredibly fast before rising and manifesting in physical form.

"Wh-!?" The ice troll cried out in surprise, but before he could react the robed shadow grabbed his head with one hand.

"Die." The shadow said with a cold voice, that had little traces of the woman's voice, barely noticeable.

In the next moment, the head of the ice troll exploded like a balloon.

The other 2 ice trolls were shocked by the sudden appearance of the robed shadow, but that didn't stop them from reacting.

"How dare you!"

"Monster!"

One ice troll swung his axe mercilessly and cut through the shoulder down to the waist of the robed shadow while the other ice troll pierced with his spear the arm of the shadow just in case it reached out to them to do the same that it did to their brother.

Alas, moments later, the shadows that seemed about to disappear at any moment, expanded at immense speed and reformed the body of the robed shadow.

"What!?"

"What!?"

The 2 ice trolls of course were shocked by that.

The robed shadow didn't care about their shock and just moved forward with his hands reaching out towards them.

Scared of its touch, the 2 ice trolls stepped back to create distance, but before they could their thighs were pierced by 2 shadow spokes that were being held by 2 set by another robed shadow under them.

Making them unable to move away from the first robed shadow, his touch landed on each of their chests.

At first, nothing happend, but if one looked closely before the robed shadow's hand landed on their chest, they could see one each hand, spikes of wind turning around like a drill.

"Experience the gift of the creator." The first robed shadow said while an ethereal dark green eye flared up under the shadowy hood, revealing a skull with only his left eye socket still there.

The ice trolls in question only felt like a small dagger piercing their stomach, but the next moment, the wind spike suddenly started to expand while still on their chest in an instant, crushing and twisting their inside before a burst of air happend.

Leaving a clean, large hole through their chest.

Leaving their fate to death sealed, regardless of their vitality kept them alive for a few more seconds.

The other group of ice trolls who were watching was shocked by the performance of the robed shadow.

The caster cursed internally for having lost their "rations".

"Tch, leave the meat! We got to run!" He yelled at the others.

But once he turned his head around in the distance, his eyes widen in shock as slowly, another 6 robed shadows appeared in front of them and effectively blocked their path.

Fear started to reach his heart, but he knew that their only chance was to break through the shadow robes and run for it.

"We are breaking though! Use the reserved spears!" The caster yelled, making the other ice troll hesitate.

"Leader! The spears are for the chieftain! If we use them-!"

"No matter! If we die, the chieftain would get none of them anyway." The caster yelled, cursing the stupidity of his race.

Unable to refute their leader, the ice trolls equipped the spears with many thick needles before throwing them like javelins at the 6 robed shadows.

The shadows didn't stay idle and moved towards them.

They started dodging their spears, but a few of the shadows got pierced and dissipated.

The "caster" didn't stay idle and threw 2 small totems looking like foxes.

Using its magic, the totems became alive, revealing two large blue foxes made out of mana and life force. They were very similar to elementals, but compared to elementals, they had no soul essence of their own.

The foxes dashed and clashed with 2 of the robed shadows, making an opening for the ice trolls to run away.

Alas, the foxes made out of mana and life force were destroyed in an instant with black lighting.

In the next moment, dark mist escaped from one of the shadow robes and entered the ice trolls' bodies, one by one.

While that happend, the other robed shadow raised his hand towards them.

And by the next moment, a blue mana disc appeared around the legs of the ice trolls.

At first, it seemed like it did nothing, but the next moment, the blue disc closed in, cutting one leg off the ice legs.

Cries of pain were everywhere to be heard, but the "caster didn't dare to turn around to watch the fate of his subordinates.

He knew that if he was caught, death awaited him.

Nonetheless, shortly after he felt 2 presences coming closer to him.

'No way! The shadows reached up to me!?' He thought terrified as he turned his head.

And what he saw wasn't the robed shadows, but the blacked and white-haired fox with the claw-hand fox running beside him.

"Tch! Piss off, fox meat!" Raising his staff, he conjured 2 floating wolf heads that went flying toward the two to bite them.

But what he didn't expect was for the two to dash forward and dodge the fox heads.

Before he could react, the fox-clawed hand went and swung his claws at his calf, resulting in the "caster" to unable to put the weight of his body on his leg, making him collapse and roll to the ground.

"Ghwwwuh! You!" The "caster" ground his teeth in anger before aiming his staff at the culprit.

Or at least he tried to.

"Man-eating bastard!" The black and white-haired fox said as she dashed from the side, arriving in front of his face thanks to the power around her legs.

"!!!"

"[Shield of Fro-"

Before the caster could finish his spell, the black and white-haired fox kicked his jaw with immense force.

Dislocating his jaw and shaking his brain.

'No! I don't have the time to deal with those two, I got to run-'

Before he could finish his thoughts, the black and white-haired fox dashed on top of his body and punched him in the face mercilessly.

"Take that you bastard! How dare you! Treat us! Like mere food! Bastard!!!"

*Bough! Bough! Bough!

Punch after punch, they fainted the consciousness of the ice troll "caster" became.

"Stop, he told us to bring him to him~" The clawed-hand fox said as he put his hand on her shoulder.

"Tch, you are right~" she said before punching the ice troll once more in his face.

*Bouughh!!!

That was the last thing he heard before the caster blanked out cold to the ground.

***

And after a few hours, the ice troll hunter woke up.

Not to the ground that he remembered, but under one of the houses of the villages.

With half of his body frozen by sturdy ice.

"I-I alive?" He mumbled in relief.

Alas, his relief was short-lived as in the view of his eye, he saw a being wearing a black plated armor, with a skull filled with ethereal dark green eyes, staring directly towards him.

"You are alive, for now." The chilling voice said to him while drawing a long sword filled with an ominous aura.

Seeing that, his heart was plagued with dread and fear.