On the eve of spring, gray snow fell like rain over the deathly silent wilderness.
This vast stretch of level ground lay beyond a canyon defense line north of the Empire.
Now, on this uninhabited snowfield, a ferocious army was quietly completing its muster.
Dark silhouettes circled overhead.
They were no ordinary birds, but infected reconnaissance creatures-Vine-Feather Crows.
Vine tendrils trailed from their wings as they circled silently. Snow landed on them only to be shaken off, exposing feathers as gray-white as bone.
Deep, heavy rumbles rose from the ground.
They were drumbeats, sounded on ritual war drums fashioned from their enemies' bones. Their dull notes resembled the panting of some beast.
With every beat, the vast formation ahead stirred like a tide, shifting a fraction forward as though a living organism were slowly breathing.
The army's formations were strict and eerie.
At the very front stood herds of savage, frenzied war-slave beasts.
They were mutated Ice-Digging Apes, Tundra Wolves, snowfield boars...
These Magical Beasts differed from ordinary ones. Vines tangled beneath their skin, and green phosphorescence glowed in their eye sockets. Some had woody vessels embedded in their shoulders; others had vine thorns sprouting from their limbs. Every last one was ferocious and crazed.
The center held the largest contingent: the Mutated Barbarian Soldiers.
These Barbarian warriors were no longer human in shape. Patterns of "agony-burning vine" crawled across their exposed skin, like flames burning beneath it.
They wielded great axes and massive hammers, their pupils red and their arms unnaturally swollen, their rage seemingly ready to explode at any moment.
Hundreds of Frost Giants towered over both flanks.
Each stood more than four meters tall, with a deep-purple Flower Crown mark carved into its forehead, signifying complete subjugation.
At the rear stood the Command Corps and Priest Corps,