“Oh my God, it’s so fucking freezing!” Even though her crimson wings were literally on fire, Iris was still the first person to complain about the sudden temperature drop.

Alexander Island was a fairly large chunk of land and since the portal was in an underground crystalline cave, it took a while for them to reach the surface. For as far as they could see in every direction, there was nothing but icy mountains and gigantic glaciers.

Cain and his group had decided to take a different gateway, but they were only a few days away. Both teams had the same destination, so they would meet up eventually either way.

Luke’s silver armor was starting to glow, as it radiated a decent amount of heat upon everyone. As they all started trudging through the ice and snow towards the northeast, he complained “Iris… I really don’t think you should have come on this mission. You do realize you’re pregnant, right? Like, not a little pregnant either…”

She yelled “Fuck you, asshole! Besides, it’s always the people who stay behind that end up getting raped and murdered while everyone else is gone!”

Butter started laughing hysterically, “Dude, calm down~… This is reality, that kinda shit only happens in movies and TV shows! Oh, yeah, I totally forgot that the new episode of ‘The Crawling Dead’ comes on tonight! Damn it, Adam’s gonna be pissed that I didn’t watch it with him…”

Blademaster snickered, muttering “Ever since season five, when the entire cast died in reality, I kinda lost interest… Now most of the characters are actual zombies and they totally changed the entire dynamic and direction of the show. It’s just not the same… Aside from that, it’s totally turned into a soap-opera now days. They have a bit of action in the beginning of the season and at the end, just so that people will keep watching it.”

The shivering goat-girl grumbled “Uh, guys… I think I really underestimated how cold it was gonna be. Feels like my hooves are gonna fall off!”

Beatrix took the giant sniper-rifle off of her back and held it in her arms, preparing to use it at a moment’s notice. Then she whispered “Linda, I warned you that even though we were traveling to one of the warmest parts of Antarctica, it would still be below freezing. There is also an incredibly high chance that we’ll be facing magical beasts who can use Cryo-Magic.”

The three-meter tall minotaur held a huge bronze warhammer in each hand, as he chuckled. With a deep voice, he bellowed “I think it’s actually kinda nice out here!”

That gigantic rat-dragon practically slithered across the ground, as she constantly spewed out obscenities. While it’s intelligence was actually fairly high, its ‘chaotic’ nature was preventing the beast from truly being able to converse properly.

“I was wondering when you would arrive…” A terrifyingly deep and ominous voice spread out across the entire icy island. The ground beneath their feet, hooves and paws started to rumble violently, as glaciers in the distance collapsed. Some of those mountains actually started erupting, spewing lava and smog up into the white clouds.

Iris yelled “I changed my mind! I’m too pregnant to deal with this shit! Luke, let’s get the fuck outta here, now please!” She grabbed her husband’s right arm and tried to pull him back towards the cave entrance, but it swiftly collapsed.

“Hohohoho~! It is far~ too late for regrets now, puny humans!” Several miles away from them, near the center of the island, the icy ground split apart. Slowly but steadily, an enormous monstrosity emerged from beneath the earth. At the same moment, thousands of purple octopus tentacles erupted from all around them, forming an enormous wriggling demonic forest.

As Butter pulled out both of his black fifty-caliber revolvers and shouted “No fuckin way! Hahahaha~! Dude, dude~ it’s a goddamn penguin!”

Blademaster unsheathed his massive daikatana and dashed off into the wiggling woods, followed by Hammer-Guy and Knife-Girl. To the north was three-hundred meter tall flightless bird, so they chose the opposite direction to flee. Of course, the giant minotaur did roar “Don’t worry, we’ll clear out an escape path!” From each of those tentacles, giant blue spiders with bird-like heads were emerging at a rapid pace, so they really did need to fight their way out.

Luke pulled out his sword and asked “Trixie, what’s the plan? I’d rather not expose our trump cards in front of Cain… I know he’s probably out there somewhere, just waiting for a chance to catch us off-guard.”

Beatrix lifted her rifle up and aimed it at the gargantuan monster’s crimson, snake-like eyes, and murmured “The mission is aborted… I estimate that we would be able to defeat Cain and the penguin, but we would need to sacrifice at least thirty-percent of our forces to achieve victory.”

Linda frowned, grumbling “I really don’t like any plan where we lose people… Let’s just get out of here Sis.” As she unholstered her revolvers, she immediately started shooting at a gigantic polar-bear that was running towards them from the northeast. It roared in agony as it’s left shoulder and lower back exploded, but then it started regenerating rapidly. Those crimson eyes glared at the nervous goat-girl, as it’s head launched off of its neck like a missile. Pitch-black tendrils burst out of its gaping maw, and wrapped around her arms and legs, while the mouth bit down onto her right flank.

She screamed “Ow, ow, owwie~!” as her brown fur suddenly turned bronze and transformed into sharp metallic needles, which managed to protect her tender flesh from being torn away.

Butter teleported over and casually used a single bullet from his left pistol, to totally obliterate the demonic bear’s head. Once the brain was destroyed, the tentacles went limp for a moment and Linda was able to jump way, before they started wiggling around again.

“Shit, shit, shit~!” Blademaster’s voice could be easily heard, getting louder by the second. Then the three who were attempting to flee before, had ended up back near the collapsed cave-mouth.

Hammer-Guy roared “We’ve got a really big problem guys!” He was carrying Knife-Girl in his left arm, while swatting away the dog-sized demonic penguin-spiders as they lunged at his huge body. Their purple beaks sprayed out green corrosive poison, which managed to severely damage his brown platemail.

Behind the giant minotaur, was an old ‘friend’ of theirs. The five-meter tall colossal obsidian knight, swung that ominous and enormous scythe, sending out thousands of human-sized phantom skulls. That blade easily slashed through those tentacles and the illusory attack, did manage to slaughter plenty of the demonic beasts, but they also targeted Luke’s group of eleven.

Cain growled “I think it’s about time that we settle this little ‘dispute’, right Cameron?!” Out of everyone there, the one that he hated the most was actually Butter. That was understandable though, considering their dubious history together.

However, the moment she saw that monster, Aoi screamed “Finally! Hahahaha~, I finally have a chance to fucking kill your evil ass!” When her leather boot hit the ground, a cyclone erupted around her lower body and the six-foot tall High Elf was lifted a few dozen meters into the air. She drew her bow, while a magical ‘Arrow of Wind’ formed and by the time it was totally materialized, she fired it towards the giant.

Isabelle soared up into the air and used two shortswords to slash apart the vicious tentacles and demonic beasts that were trying to attack her girlfriend. Meanwhile Beatrix whispered into all of their minds “Lucas and Butter, the two of you need to defeat Cain. Huntress One and Two will provide minor assistance. Linda, stay with the Knife, Hammer, Katana trio and try to stay alive. Iris, Violet and I shall attempt to defeat this Demonic Emperor Penguin Emperor…”

***

As the battle was raging down below, there was a small, unassuming black wisp floating around above the island. Next to it was an illusory elven woman, whose face was blurry and indistinct.

“Hey Kana, so~ are you sure we shouldn’t, ya know, do something? I mean, if one of those Seeds dies before it hatches or whatever the fuck is supposed to happen… ain’t that kinda bad? Also, I don’t really feel comfortable watching my friends get killed either.” Michael transformed into his ‘normal’ shape, though his skin was still entirely obsidian. His eyes were just glowing crimson orbs, without the finer details.

Arcana giggled, murmuring “For the time being, you are no longer a Player. Until you have returned to your original unfused state, your existence is much closer to mine… In this world, there are no limits to your power. You could could betray me and become a God in this universe. There are others, like Lucas, who have done the same. However, they seem to have ‘sealed’ themselves, in order to protect this world from themselves. Unless it was someone else who placed restrictions upon them? Regardless, the current Seed-Holders have quite powerful souls… I find it very unlikely that any of them would perish in this skirmish. Most of the others should be able to survive as well. It should still be several years or decades before you will need to ‘harvest’ any of them.”

Next Chapter!

The Dao of Eros!