Before they could fully adjust to their new environment, the snow to their left erupted upward, and five shapes burst out of the drifts where they had been lying in wait, buried deep and motionless, their white coats blending into the frozen ground so completely that even Moon’s swept gaze had missed them.
Frost Stalkers. Wolf-type beasts, lean and long-limbed, their fur a pale silver-white, frost crystals rimming their jaws and coating their claws.
Five of them, and every one carried the aura of a Five Star Evolver.
"Ambush! Form up!" Vela’s shouted, her war hammer swinging off her back and into her grip as she planted herself between the pack and the rest of the team.
Her heavy chest-plate caught the first Stalker’s lunge on her raised guard, the impact ringing dully as beast claws scraped across reinforced steel. Vela was barely able to hold herself together against the attack, but she activated one of her skills, just managing to do so.
The team weren’t elite for no reason, they immediately adjusted to the ambush, snapping into formation around Vela.
Kayn moved the instant Vela absorbed the charged attack. His twin blades cleared their sheaths and he flowed past her flank in a low, fast arc, cutting into the exposed side of the Stalker she had blocked.
His swords opened two deep lines across its ribs before it could recover, and he was already sliding to the next target, his mobility carrying him through the pack like water finding the gaps between stones.
Elsa raised her bow and she began releasing arrows, each shaft trailing frost landing in a joint or an eye or the soft flesh behind a foreleg.
She wasn’t trying to kill outright as that would be difficult, but rather, she was crippling, slowing, and peeling the pack apart so the melee fighters could finish them cleanly.
Marek shifted to Vela’s side, his shield raised, ready to catch anything that broke past her guard and to further support her.
Theo blended in with the white background, his stealth class swallowing him into the snow. He reappeared a heartbeat later behind the rearmost Stalker with dagger striking to the base of its skull.
The Stalker felt the danger and moved at the last moment. It managed to avoid the fatal injury, but was still seriously injured.
Theo immediately retreated after landing the attack, dodging a powerful sweep by the angry Frost Stalker.
Nina engaged on the right in an aggressive exchange with a Stalker that had tried to flank the group. Her knight class improved her overall close range ability, which made her a versatile warrior.
The Frost Stalkers controlled ice, sending powerful icicles and other projectiles towards the group from time to time. The attacks were dangerous, and could prove fatal. So, Moon’s fire became the team’s answer.
Elsa’s ice arrows slowed them, but the element didn’t threaten them the way it threatened ordinary beasts, their affinity made them more resistant to their own domain.
However, what they weren’t resistant to was his fire.
Moon didn’t dominate the battlefield, that wasn’t what the team needed, and it would likely cause problems within the team later on. Taking all the kills and rewards would make a few resent him, and cause bad blood, which was something he certainly wanted to avoid.
Not that he was afraid of trouble, but it simply wasn’t worth it. Moon knew that humans were petty creatures, and understanding that made one avoid much trouble.
He fell into the role of a mage, a strong one, a contributing one, and he worked with the people around him rather than around them.
He layered fire onto the targets the melee fighters had committed to.
When Kayn engaged a Stalker, Moon washed the beast’s flank with flame a half-second before Kayn’s blades landed, breaking its ice armor and its resistance so Kayn’s cuts bit deeper.
When Vela held a Stalker pinned against her guard, Moon burned its exposed underside, and Marek’s follow-up shield bash caved its ribs. When Nina’s exchange stalled against her target’s frost defenses, a burst of Moon’s fire cracked the ice sheath and let her blade through.
The pack fell apart under their attacks soon after.
[You have killed a Level 59 Five-Star Frost Stalker]
[You have gained 3,120 Lives]
[You have killed a Level 59 Five-Star Frost Stalker]
[You have gained 2,825 Lives]
The notifications flashed, and Moon noted them without slowing. The Life gains were healthy, these were proper Five Star beasts with reasonable spiritual foundations, they were also far better harvest than the physical Cragbrutes had offered in terms of spiritual energy.
Within a couple of minutes, all five Stalkers lay dead in the reddening snow.
The team held their formation for a little longer, weapons ready, eyes sweeping the drifts for a second wave but none came. The wasteland fell quiet again, the wind and the falling snow the only movement in any direction.
Vela lowered her hammer first, breathing haggardly from the front line position.
"That was clean. Good coordination for a team that’s never fought together." She glanced around, her eyes settling briefly on Moon. "The fire helped a lot."
Moon gave a small nod and said nothing more than was needed.
The team stored the Stalker corpses in a shared storage ring and regrouped to decide on a direction.
The problem was that there was no direction to choose. They were standing in the middle of an unbroken white expanse with no unique landmarks, trails, or any visible objective in any direction. The previous team had left no clues, or if they had, the snow had buried them long ago, swallowing whatever markers might have pointed the way.
"Let’s pick a direction and move together," Moon said. "We don’t split up in an unknown environment. Whatever killed the last team is still in here, and it did it to fighters who were probably just a little less capable than we are. Staying together is the only smart play until we understand what we’re dealing with."
The team agreed, including Nina.
Moon caught the small irony in her nod. Inside the S-Rank gate, she had been the one pushing to split the team into smaller groups to search the interior faster. She had learned from her previous mistake, and her agreement now came without hesitation.
After conversing as a group, in the end, they settled on north.
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