Chapter 235 - Everwinter

"Gahh!"

Michael uttered a painful scream as his body slammed on the wooden wall.

"F*ck! The large difference in our levels is really annoying, or else this Boss would be dead by now!" Viper angrily yelled while running and jumping around trees and boulders like an agile cat as the BOSS angrily chase after him from behind.

"Goddammit! Need a little help here!"

Boom!

Viper quickly rolled at the side as a huge shadow descended on his previous spot as dirt and stone flew everywhere, and Viper quickly regained his balance and took out a healing potion from his [Storage] and drank it, bringing his health back up to seventy-five percent.

"Curses! This bastard is too damn overpowered!" Michael felt incredibly annoyed as he too quickly drank a health potion, and then he hurriedly ran towards Amanda who was having a hard time keeping the BOSS occupied after pulling the aggro from Viper.

"Just hold on!"

...

"Koraaa! We're here! Where is that bastard!?"

Finally, two minutes later, the people they had been waiting for, finally appeared as twenty soldiers came running uphill and arrived inside the rebel camp after passing through the now destroyed gate.

'Finally, these bastards are here' Michael quickly gave a huge sighed of relief when he saw their reinforcements heading towards them, and he quickly pulled Amanda towards him and fled from the scene, just hair's breadth away from being decapitated into two by the BOSS' saber.

"Morgan! We finally meet again! This time-"

"I will cut your head off!"

Morgan, one of the Captains of the Blood Guards cut him off and quickly attacked Van'er as his ax shined with a green hue and collided against Van'er's weapon who hurried to block Morgan's attack.

While the rest of the Blood Guards just calmy encircled the two, creating a combat arena just for the two of them.

"Why!? Why did you rebel against the Duke!? Tell me...brother!" Morgan angrily shouted at Van'er as both of their weapons collided, staring at each other with vicious faces as the blades of their weapons grounded against each other.

"Brother? They're brothers!?" Viper couldn't help but exclaim in disbelief, even Michael and Amanda weren't an exception, and both of them felt that this quest is more complicated than they thought, as there seems to be a deeper story behind it.

"Hahaha!"

Van'er didn't answer him and instead kick Morgan on his abdomen, sending the latter groaning and stumbling backward.

"You gave me no choice!"

"DIE!"

A few minutes later.

The battle is finally over, Van'er is kneeling on the ground with his head hung low and his saber embedded on his chest towards his back.

[You have gained a level!]

[You have gained a level!]

[You have gained a level!]

As Michael, Viper, and Amanda managed to tick off at least fifteen percent of the BOSS health earlier, they at least got their due rewards after his death.

Sadly, they weren't the ones who took the last hit on the BOSS, or else they would have received more.

But there were two weird things that they noticed after the defeat of Van'er, the first one is that Van'er didn't disappear after his death, and the second one is that the level of the Blood Guards had suddenly become question marks oppose from earlier where they could see their levels that were between Level 37 and Level 40, but now, everything are just filled with question marks.

Then Morgan walked over towards Michael and the rest, while the other Blood Guards started cleaning up their surroundings.

"You guys did well, and thank you for your help!" Morgan started laughing as he gave them a small bow.

"Are you okay?" Amanda asked him concerned while her eyes darted towards the kneeling dead body of Morgan's brother.

"It's fine, we are half brothers actually. He is my father's son from his first wife, my older brother" Morgan sighed while looking at his brother's dead body.

"What happened?" Michael said as he could certainly smell a follow-up quest as Morgan doesn't seem to mind answering their questions.

Morgan chuckled then said, "You must have heard from those bastards shouting earlier that we are not the Earl's soldiers but members of the Blood Guards who are the personal bodyguards of the Duke"

"My brother…" Morgan suddenly scoffed with a smile on his face as he seems to reminiscence something good.

"He was the Commander of the Blood Guards, a trusted aide of the Duke, but one day, he led some of our brothers and some unsatisfied lesser nobles into a rebellion"

"Long story short, they were defeated and the remnants of those rebels retreated here"

"Of course, I wouldn't have defeated him if he wasn't heavily injured due to our constant skirmishes with them, but until now, I still don't know why he led the rebellion"

Morgan laughed bitterly, and seeing him laughing with blood on his face made Amanda creeped out.

"You mean...you guys could have handled them even without our help?" Viper said as he realized something from the words that Morgan said.

"Of course, we just invited you folks because we wanted to see the disciples of two of the Sages in action and maybe make friends with you two" Morgan gave them a thumbs up while laughing heartily, then some of the members of the Blood Guards also laughed with him when they heard what he said.

'This guy is unexpectedly honest, but his eyes, contains complicated thoughts' Michael thought and at the same time, disappointed, as there doesn't seem to be a follow-up quest, but other than that, he was also relieved as he doesn't want to be delayed more on reaching their original destination.

"Are we done here then?" Viper asked while picking up a fallen mace lying on the ground near him, before throwing it inside his [Storage].

Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!

Suddenly, a gust of wind suddenly blew towards them.

"Holy shit! That was freaking cold" Viper wrapped his arms around him as his body shivered from the cold winds, even Michael and the rest of the people weren't an exception from it.

"How come the wind is so cold like the winter winds when its still Autumn?" Amanda said while rubbing her palms against her arms.

"Hahaha!"

Morgan then suddenly laughed and said, "Come, I'll show you guys something"

Then he led them out of the former rebel camp and led them towards a narrow path as they ascended the mountain.

The direction that Morgan is leading them to? It was on the other side of the mountain.

"What the!?"

Michael, Viper, and Amanda grew startled when they finally saw what Morgan wanted them to see.

"The sight before you is…"

"Everwinter"

"Why the hell is it snowing over there?" Amanda pointed at the land before them, as she can't believe the scene before her.

A vast expanse of land, just a kilometer away from the mountain that they are standing on is covered in white, the colors of the trees can't even be seen because of how thick the snow is, with the rivers frozen in ice.

The land before them was like the Ice Age that the real world was before.

"What is the reason behind the abnormal climate on that land Captain?" Viper glanced at Morgan as he continued to study the abnormal phenomenon before their eyes.

"No one knows, probably the people who know the reason behind this abnormality are the Sages" Morgan shook his head.

"Whose land owns it then?"

"No one, this place...are where exiles or criminals would run off to, but I heard that this place was once a boisterous land a hundred years ago"

"That means that this place wasn't like this before, and no one would survive in this place, better to call it the Dead Lands rather than Everwinter" Viper chuckled.

"Anyway, let's go. We have more work to do" Morgan said as he turned around and started making his way back, with Viper and Amanda quickly following behind him.

"Michael, are you coming?"

Amanda noticed that was missing, and when she turned around, she saw him just staring into the distant land filled with snow.

"Ahh...yeah! Coming!" Michael was a bit startled, as he quickly followed after them.

Then he stopped and gave another look towards the land of Everwinter before he hurriedly followed after Amanda and the rest.