Even the most vicious dire wolves trembled like startled rabbits in the face of the incomparably violent blizzard.
They desperately crowded closer together, huddling into mountains of flesh and using the warmth of the pack to withstand nature's harshness.
Yet among the dire wolves were several small, humanoid figures with sparse fur, shivering in the cold.
They were naturally ratfolk slave laborers like the Ancient Dream Saintess, responsible for tending the dire wolves.
Meng Chao had heard veterans of the Great Horned Legion speak of the Ancient Dream Saintess's origins.
Before receiving the Great Horned Rat God's revelation, she had been a slave in some wolf clan settlement, tasked with caring for the wolf clan's most valuable assets—the dire wolves that served as mounts.
This was no easy task.
Dire wolves were savage and unruly by nature, entirely different from warhorses.
Anyone other than their owners who dared approach them could easily become a meal in their bellies.
And Turanze, like the Monster Mountain Range, was affected by subterranean spirit veins and was a place frequently plagued by extreme weather.
Once extreme weather struck in the wilderness and the dire wolves were provoked into a frenzy, their handlers would find it even harder to escape being torn to pieces and left without even a burial ground.
Such horrifying, nine-deaths-and-one-life trials—
Were the Ancient Dream Saintess's daily routine before she turned sixteen.
Meng Chao had originally believed that Dragon City teenagers living through the era of the Monster War already lived lives where morning offered no guarantee of surviving till night, lives too bitter to bear.
Compared to the Ancient Dream Saintess, he realized that Dragon City's teenagers were practically flowers in a greenhouse, living lives of unimaginable happiness and stability.
Following the Ancient Dream Saintess's River of Memory, he continued