In the barren, desolate wilderness, it was as though a dormant glacier deep underground had suddenly burst its banks.
Terrifying cold, like tangible blades, spread at high speed over the withered yellow turf.
The season was forcibly stripped of late autumn's lingering warmth and dragged in an instant into deathly cold. Within this tiny patch of sky, huge flakes of goose-feather snow came crashing down mournfully.
The snowflakes were scarlet, like sprays of blood freshly cut from the carotid arteries of gods and demons.
Each ice crystal that fell to the ground forcibly drained a trace of life from the surrounding air, and the true meaning of slaughter and extinction completely anchored this wilderness.
Within the central crater, dark-red frost grew madly like a living thing.
Dago's face twisted into an extreme grimace. The blood vessels beneath his skin writhed like a nest of snakes, while muscle fibers throughout his body warped, snapped, and reformed under pressure far beyond mortal limits.
Like a demon or monster, he drove all ten fingers savagely into the hard frozen earth.
His nails shattered, and dark-red fungal frost spots surged backward through the soil into his palms.
"Behelet, Despair Frost!"
"Behelet! Despair Frost!"
Countless sharp, slick syllables, seemingly barbed, scraped hysterically against the depths of his eardrums.
The same ancient true name was chewed and screamed by hundreds upon thousands of throats at once, like countless rough meteorites being dragged desperately across smooth glass. The chaotic torrent of information carried within the sound waves stabbed directly at his soul defenses, driving him mad.
It was the remnant will that belonged to Behelet, surging forth from the Sea of Despair, filled with tyrannical, evil, cruel, and violent consciousness.
The six pale-gold Soul Crystals symbolizing a wizard's foundation now resembled lighthouses swaying on the verge of