The timeline shifts slightly forward…
Blood Calendar 4077, December—that is, just before Christmas at the end of January…
Over a thousand kilometers north of the Central lay a vast primitive forest, uninhabited and teeming with dense foliage. A graceful figure rode alone on a black horse through the woods, maintaining a steady, unhurried pace.
Beneath her knight’s cloak gleamed panels of pure silver armor, and on the back of the cloak was embroidered a pattern of blue-and-white interwoven roses—the emblem of one of the Four Great Duke Families, the Hill Family.
She stood roughly one meter eighty-five tall (a touch shorter without her knight’s boots), her ice-blue hair cascading to her waist and tied into a high ponytail with a pure white ribbon. The long ponytail fluttered in the wind alongside her cloak. She wore a regal center part, her side locks tucked neatly behind her ears—slightly tousled, yet somehow impeccably precise. At her waist hung an ice-blue knight’s sword.
Her features seemed sculpted to perfection by the hand of God himself, flawless from every angle.
Her eyes were the alluring almond shape of peach blossoms, their irises an icy blue, yet they held the serene depth of an ancient well without ripples. She was a walking paradox, like a snow lotus blooming in a frozen wasteland, radiating an aura of cold detachment that kept all others at arm’s length.
This was none other than Snow Hill.
About a month prior, she had completed her pilgrimage to the True Ancestor and was now en route back to the Hill Family’s territory. Her journey was drawing to a close.
Once she crossed this primitive forest and passed through a few northern towns, she would arrive at the Hill Family Manor—her destination.
At that moment.
As she rode on, Snow Hill abruptly reined in her horse. She sensed something approaching… not danger, precisely, but a presence that drew near without posing any real threat. Sure enough, in the next instant, over a dozen tall, brutish beastly silhouettes emerged from the thick underbrush. Each measured three or four meters in length, tiger-like in form but with grotesquely exaggerated fangs protruding from both upper and lower jaws, sharp as scythes.
These were mid-level Titans—the Destruction Saber-Tooth Tigers.
Formidable behemoths, every one capable of matching a Silver-Rank Knight in combat.
Though the True Ancestor had long withdrawn from worldly affairs, many years ago, under the unified oversight of the Three Great Families, knights had established a standardized ranking system: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, and Diamond.
Why three families and not four?
The Hill Family was the outlier, an eccentric entity that stood apart. For generations, they had guarded the Far North Land, maintaining scant contact with the outside world and upholding an eternal stance of neutral arrogance.
The world hailed Snow Hill as the era’s most perfect and powerful noblewoman and knight, the bearer of the title Ice Princess—like a millennium-old snow lotus devoid of emotion. Nothing could be further from the truth. Snow Hill saw herself as a person of deep feeling, tempered only by utmost rationality. She abhorred conflict and killing alike, and from the moment she took up the knight’s oath, she vowed to fight solely for protection.
To protect the Blood Race!
To protect the Northern Region!
To protect the Hill Family!
To protect the glory of the nobility!
And above all—to protect the weak!
Thus, in that instant, Snow Hill remained astride her black horse, her ice-blue eyes fixed expressionlessly on the pack of behemoths. There was no fear in her gaze, not even the slightest preparation for battle.
To her, they were nothing more than the weak.
However.
Her eyes flicked across them, and Snow Hill noticed flecks of human blood staining the fangs of two saber-tooth tigers. With a long exhale, she drew the knight’s sword at her waist.
“It seems they’ve already taken human lives…”
Meanwhile.
Two figures crouched in hiding atop a towering ancient tree deep within the forest. Both were youths who appeared fifteen or sixteen years old, standing around one meter seventy tall. Even amid the winter snows, they wore only fur cloaks, their chests bare, fur-trimmed pants on their lower halves, and feet unshod.
They looked human at a glance, but a closer look revealed subtle differences: thick body hair covered their skin, rendering them utterly impervious to the biting cold.
“Young Master Shika… maybe we should turn back? That’s a knight from the legends… we can’t afford to mess with her…”
“Sigh… Wolvo, can’t you show a little manly spirit as one of the proud Werewolf Clan? Relax—I’ve set loose all the saber-tooth tigers from the tribe’s pens. Once they wear that woman down to exhaustion, I’ll swoop in and take her down! I need to prove to the elders that I’ve grown up!”
Wolvo replied nervously, “Young Master, you’re not seriously thinking of joining that emergency summons, are you? Please don’t—the clan leader gave strict orders. Our tribe isn’t participating…”
“Shut your mouth, Wolvo! The horn of war has blown! The King has revived! We’re not just going to revive the Ancient Titans—we’ll show the world that werewolves are the true masters of the North!”
As he spoke.
The werewolf youth named Shika flashed a grin brimming with overconfident bravado, wild and recklessly bold. My precious saber-tooth tigers—attack!
But in that fleeting moment of distraction, when he looked again, Shika stared in shock: all a dozen saber-tooth tigers lay dead, and the woman had vanished.
“Wh-what the hell happened!? Those are the tribe’s saber-tooth tigers, raised for years—each one as strong as a Silver-Rank Knight! How in a single instant? Damn it! Time for this young master to handle it personally…”
Just as Shika moved to act, a horrifying realization struck: no matter how he willed them, his legs refused to budge. Glancing down, he saw they were frozen solid. Looking back, Wolvo had it worse—encased entirely in ice, save for his face.
“Young Master… I’m cold…” Wolvo shivered, looking every bit the fool.
Shika: “…”
Werewolf constitutions were uniquely resilient; they could bare their torsos in temperatures dozens of degrees below freezing without mortal risk. Shika knew the woman had gone easy on them—there had been no killing intent.
Which made freezing them into human popsicles all the more humiliating.
“Damn it!”
…
The Far North Land was no single city but a loose confederation of city-states. Its northernmost settlements, along with the Extreme North Mountain Range, fell under the Hill Family’s domain. The Hill Family Manor lay within the North’s grandest city—Wembuni.
Nestled against the Extreme North Mountain Range, Wembuni knew only eternal winter, blanketed in snow year-round, with average temperatures lingering below zero degrees Celsius. Snowmelt was a rare sight, visible perhaps only in the height of summer.
This was due not merely to geography but to the peculiar nature of the Hill Family’s 【Mana】.
Unlike other houses, where members wielded varied elemental affinities, the Hill Family passed down a uniform legacy of ice-and-snow power. Differences lay only in potency, never in essence.
Wembuni might have been the North’s largest city in name, but it remained woefully underdeveloped—impoverished and backward, even. Frozen tundra offered no prospects for agriculture or husbandry, let alone any tertiary industries.
Some claimed the Hill Family safeguarded this land.
Most insisted the Hill Family was eroding it.
With the passage of time, whispers grew about the legend of an Ancient Titan sealed within the Extreme North Mountain Range. Was it true, or merely a convenient excuse for the Hill Family’s baleful influence? Perhaps no such Titan existed at all—their powers sealed nothing but instead steadily corroded the earth.
The Hill Family never oppressed humanity. In other noble territories like the Central, lords stratified humans by class, deflecting racial tensions onto social divides.
Yet in the North, no such hierarchies existed; all were equal. As lords, the Hill Family even aided and shielded humankind. Still, recognition eluded them. You guard us from foes, from Titans and werewolves alike—but without food or shelter, what differs that from slaughter?
The frozen soil bred irreconcilable strife.
