Throne of the North.

Chapter 601 Frost Demons and Skeletons, the Secret of the Grand Duke's Extraordinary Legion

Ryan finally had a complete understanding of this extraordinary world.

It's roughly a painting, with a World Tree at the very center. Strange life exists in many parts of the tree, including the sun and the abyss. The only things that move in the painting are the leaves that sway without wind.

However, these leaves are no longer golden, but cold white. They drift until one day they fall into the soil called the abyss beneath the tree, where they rot and become part of it.

This is the complete world, a vast and complete world that countless lives cannot see.

Ryan put away the simple drawing in his hand and placed it in the center of the study.

Then he looked at Signy, who was standing opposite him, and said:
This world is different from Sławnier. It has many nobles who are more powerful than us, as well as a papacy that serves the sun. If you are curious enough about this world, you can start by learning about the black swans.

“They’ve been quite active lately. Luckily, I have you all. I plan to make a batch of coffins for them, hopefully enough.”

Ryan gained a lot of direct support, with thousands of Shadow Vanguards ensuring he would never lack assassins under his command.

……

Svafnir, Llane's conquest of this world is not yet complete; human natives and frost demons still inhabit this place.

Griff was tasked with finding the Frostfiends' habitat, so naturally he had to head north.

The North exists in the world of Svafnir, manifested only as frost covering the wilderness. The swamp forest is the boundary between the north and south. Human natives live in the south, but their numbers are dwindling. Llane has sent people to slowly search for and gather them. In the north of the swamp, in the uninhabited wilderness, Griff can always spot the shadows of frost demons.

They drift aimlessly in the air above this world, standing a few meters above the ground. When there is no external stimulation, these frost ghosts drift like a thick fog.

I don't know if they are asleep or have plant-like characteristics, as they don't like to move.

Griff hid among the crevices of several moss-covered rocks, watching a cloud of white mist in the distance. The frost demon had been standing still for some time. After thinking for a moment, Griff grabbed a rock and hurled it at the creature.

boom!
The stone passed through the Frost Demon's body and hit the ground with a crisp sound. Just by passing through the Frost Demon, the stone was already assimilated by the frost and became fragile.

The Frost Demon was also awakened by the sound. Its cold eyes looked around in confusion. It did not find any trace of Griff. As for the Blood Eagle high above, it seemed to have no awareness of this and did not pay attention to any of the Blood Eagle's actions.

The Frost Demon wandered aimlessly around for a long time. After that, the wariness brought by the stone completely disappeared, and the Frost Demon once again floated quietly in mid-air.

It was late at night, and the Frost Ghost didn't like to move at this time. Griff silently approached the Frost Ghost without making a sound. The Frost Ghost was completely unaware that a human had appeared in front of it, since in the past, the humans from the south of the swamp had never appeared here.

Griff stood in front of the Frost Demon for a long time, observing it, but in the end he did not disturb it. He turned around, put on his invisibility cloak, and walked further north.

Blood Eagle guided the way, allowing Griff to always observe the Frostfiends in this wilderness. They seemed to be monsters that spawned at fixed times, and the further north one went, the less they moved over large areas.

This is also a unique aspect of what Grieve discovered.

Two days later, Griff stood before a frost demon once more. This time, he was bolder than before, kicking a rock that smashed into the frozen ice. The immense force cracked the ice, and the sound of it shattering was particularly jarring in the silent wilderness.

However, the frost demon still hadn't woken up. This thick white mist floated in mid-air like a sleeping cloud, instinctively 'breathing'.

He fell into a deep slumber, and it was also more powerful than the Frostfiend that Griff had seen before.

The Frostfiends have their own unique ways of communicating and gathering, so Griff didn't expose himself and awaken them. In the following days, Griff discovered more of these powerful Frostfiends, all of them in a deep sleep.

The air temperature was getting lower and lower. Griff was very familiar with this feeling. When he was living alone in the world of Herresweg, many places were just as extremely cold, and even he didn't want to go near them.

Now that he has entered the extraordinary realm, he is much stronger and can adapt to this cold, but he still instinctively rejects and resists it.

The air grew thin, making breathing difficult, so Griff crawled into his sleeping bag and lay down to sleep in the open wilderness, with no shelter around him.

But this world was so special that, apart from the frost demons who were hard to wake up, there was no threat. Even after sleeping for twenty hours in the wilderness, Griff's only feeling was that he had slept very well.

After packing his sleeping bag, Griff gently stroked the Blood Eagle's feathers. Although he was alone, he was not lonely. He enjoyed this solitude; he could remain silent for a very long time. As long as the eagle was by his side, he possessed the world.

The food they brought was almost gone, but that didn't stop the natural falconers, who could find what they needed to eat in any extreme environment.

“I can sense that there is a huge bone field around us.”

The falconer and his falcon can obtain the resources to survive from the bones.

"Go, find it."

Griff spoke, and the Blood Eagle spread its wings and flew into the sky. Before long, more Blood Eagles appeared; they were always there.

As darkness gradually dissipated, the last two hours of daylight arrived, and the Blood Eagles' vision expanded clearly as they searched for the 'Bone Field' of this world from its high vantage point.

Following their souls' instincts, the Blood Eagles gradually circled above a piece of land, circling and confirming to Griff that they were now standing on the Bone Field.

He dug down with the metal dagger in his hand, and the next moment a violent tremor came back. Griff looked at the frozen ground beneath his feet. The hardness of the frozen ground had exceeded that of metal, so he could not find the bone field by digging.

However, Griff was not in a hurry. He put away his dagger and carefully searched the surrounding environment.

There must be a way through.

Griff was a natural scout; no subtle change in the environment could escape his eyes. He sensed that this land was very different from other places, but when asked to speak, he could only give an answer based on his sixth sense.

But it doesn't matter, Griff has plenty of time, he can wait.

The bone sites that eagles seek are special; sometimes, they can be alive.

And so, Griff stayed there until one day, when the food was completely gone.

Without food, one should panic, but Griff didn't. He was already used to surviving in all kinds of extreme environments; this was a test for the falconer.

In comparison, the food we carried along the way was practically cheating.

However, this world did not allow Griff to begin his battle for survival. On this day, at the cusp of night and day, Griff felt a slight tremor. At the same time, the Blood Eagles in the sky conveyed an uneasy feeling. They were afraid, and their instincts made them stay away from this place, because they were not worthy to appear in this sky.

Griff quickly saw the reason: a dark rift had appeared in the earth, as if the world had been torn apart, and from within that rift emanated an icy white aurora. Frost demons were born from the aurora, and Griff approached, seeing a colossal skeleton deep within the earth.

Griff couldn't make out the skeleton's appearance because he only saw part of the corpse.

"These must be the remains of the serpent spirit that Lord Ryan mentioned, right?"

"A great being, leaving behind its remains deep within this world. It exists in every corner of the wilderness, but only those with the right destiny can see the rifts exposed by the earth's faint breath."

"So this is how the Frost Demon was formed."

As the saying goes, when a whale falls, all things are born. When the great being of the world of Svavnir, the Serpent Spirit, fell, his remains also gave birth to new life.

——Frost Ghost.

When a god dies, his divine essence dissipates, but his bones contain a great deal of precious energy. This energy condenses into drops of crystals that are insignificant to him. These crystals absorb the most active elements after the northern lands are covered, forming a unique elemental life.

This is the origin of the Frostfiends. Griff felt that these Frostfiends were like the marrow of the gods, the marrow of the dead.

"It's troublesome."

Griff lamented that Lord Ryan might not be able to kill all the Frostfiends unless he could annihilate the corpses of the great beings. Otherwise, the Frostfiends would continue to appear as easily as microorganisms in rotting forest soil.

The earth trembled slightly. After a brief period of confusion, the newly born frost demons came to their senses and began frantically returning to the rift in the wilderness. They felt the immense benefit the skeletons brought them and were unwilling to leave this paradise.

However, the newborn Frostfiends were like toddlers learning to walk; they did not exhibit the coordination and control over their elemental powers that the Frostfiends who had started the war against Llane's army possessed.

Compared to the speed at which the cracked earth closes, these frost demons are as slow as snails.

In the end, one after another, the Frost Demons crashed into the frozen earth, which even Griff's dagger could not penetrate, let alone these elemental beings.

Gradually, the nascent frost demons began to accept their fate, realizing that they could never return to the original ocean, and began to follow some kind of instinct, drifting southward.

They... cannot adapt to the cold here. This is the far north, the coldest place in Svafnir, where only the powerful frost ghosts can stay. This is also the territory of those powerful frost ghosts.

The new Frostfiends can only travel south, to the relatively less cold south, to bring their own warmth to the land.

This is how the North invaded the world. In the beginning, the North was just a small piece of land.

Later, the Frostfiends appeared. One Frostfiend covered the land within a radius of several thousand meters with frost. When a large number of Frostfiends appeared at the same time, the resulting frost cover became the new border of the North.

From north to south, one day, the Frostfiends' cold will take away the last bit of warmth from this world. At that time, there will be no difference between the South and the North; only endless desolation.

That was probably the time when Signy entered the Legendary era, fell into a deep sleep, and the world didn't even have a minute of daylight.

……

When Griff returned to the Frozen Territory, it was already ten days later. Ryan got the answer from him and couldn't help but be very surprised.

After combining the two worlds, he finally realized what was wrong.

Swavnier, no snow.

Standing atop Rhinoceros Horn Mountain, Ryan looked up at the northern sky. The Northern world was covered in snow, the vast and boundless天地 (heaven and earth) shrouded in blizzards. In the Northern world, blizzards were the most common weather phenomenon.

But not in Sławnier. Not a single snowstorm ever occurred; only the frost on the barren grass served as evidence that the world there was not easy.

Snowstorms are the weapon of the North, as they are on the continent of Norris, and in all the worlds. But not in Svafnir, where the North possesses a more advanced weapon: the Frostfiend.

"Perhaps I understand why the Mage Guild values ​​Frost Ghost Crystals so much."

Ryan shared his guess with Avril beside him.

“Those mages discovered a power within the Frost Demon Crystal that was completely different from magic. This power was related to a domain, and those mages could study the Frost Demon’s special elemental domain to compare it with their own path to transcendence.”

"It's even possible that they could find out how they became demigods from this."

The path to transcendence leads to legend. Strictly speaking, even demigods belong to the legendary rank. However, because they possess the power of a domain, they are absolute rulers within their own domains, able to freeze flames and burn ice. Thus, the term demigod is used to refer to these extraordinary beings who are powerful enough to alter the rules.

Frostfiends are not demigods, but when a large number of Frostfiends gather together, they can create their own advantageous home field. Isn't that what a domain looks like?
Griff brought him the answer: the Frostfiend's methods came from a great being, an elemental life form born from the remains of the god Svafnir. Wasn't it only natural that it possessed power in a similar domain? That world was the realm of the gods, His kingdom.

"The Frost Demons are the soldiers of that realm, that kingdom, they..."

As Ryan was thinking, he suddenly froze on the spot.

"Soldier……"

He suddenly became curious about something: the empire's original nobles obtained the extraordinary legion through blasphemy, thus making the empire powerful enough to resist the Dawn Church.

How did the nobles create the superhuman legion back then?

"The four Grand Dukes of the Empire are not merely symbols of status, but also because they possess power that surpasses that of other nobles. I have always believed that this superior power is some kind of object, some kind of inheritance, or even that the families of the four Grand Dukes all possess demigods, which is why they are Grand Dukes."

"Now it seems... the real answer is the demigod realm? Their extraordinary legions can create 'realms' that only gods can possess, just like the Frost Demons?"

Ryan was stunned. It seemed that only this could explain why the nobles of the empire were all blasphemous nobles.

“For Earl Clayton to become the fifth Grand Duke of the Empire, merit is secondary. After all, the Emperor has already exhausted all rewards for the great nobles. If he wants to become the fifth Grand Duke, there is only one thing he must do.”

"That is to make the Flame Dragon Knight Legion as powerful as the Nightmare Knight Legion and the Elemental Legion."

"To seize...the authority of the gods."

Ryan's breathing quickened; he never expected to discover such a huge secret because of Frost Ghost.

(End of this chapter)