Snow fell upon this silent land where even sunlight refused to tread.
Thomas, captain of the White Night Knights, swung down from his horse and landed on the frozen snow with a soft click.
His pauldrons bore the Red Tide Fief's emblem of a sun crossed with a dagger, a symbol of the White Night Squad's glory.
The fourteen Transcendent Knights behind him also dismounted and awaited his orders.
Thomas looked up at the depths of the canyon ahead, swallowed by snowy mist. That was their destination.
"I'll repeat the lord's exact words: no unauthorized entry, no reckless advances, and survival comes first. Report anything unusual immediately. Do not venture deeper on your own."
Though Thomas could be witty and humorous in private, his tone now was solemn, without a trace of jest.
All the White Night Knights nodded in unison to show they understood.
"Move out."
The moment he spoke, fifteen figures swiftly melted into the white wilderness, advancing toward their destination.
The climate in Ancient Abyss Canyon was harsh enough to snuff out almost any life in its winds, but to these Transcendent Knights, it was nothing.
They surveyed their surroundings along the way, avoided a sleeping high-tier Frost Bear, and skirted several groups of Ice Plains Boars rooting through heaps of rotting corpses for scraps of bone.
Unfortunately, they were not here to hunt. Otherwise, it would have been quite a haul.
At last, as they approached the outskirts of the location Louis had given them, the air grew unusually oppressive.
It was an almost imperceptible fluctuation, faint yet cold enough to pierce the marrow, as though some rotten, frenzied will lurked within the wind, gnawing at their ears.
"Something's there." Kane, a scouting knight, raised a hand to signal the squad to halt.
He possessed a