I followed the pack of ice wolves from a safe distance, my presence masked by the swirling fog. They were focused on their prey, their glowing blue eyes locked on the trail in the snow.
The trail led them to a large, frozen chasm, a deep fissure in the ice that split the landscape in two. The wolves stopped at the edge, growling and sniffing the air. Their pack leader, a massive beast with a scar running down its left eye and icy spikes on its back, let out a low, guttural snarl.
They had cornered their prey.
And that's when I saw it.
Huddled in a small crevice in the chasm wall, shivering and covered in a thin layer of frost, was a small, furry creature.
It looked like a large, six-legged fox, with snow-white fur, big, innocent-looking blue eyes, and a fluffy tail that was wrapped around its body for warmth.
It was... cute.
'What a weird-looking creature,' I thought, tilting my head.
The six-legged fox let out a terrified whimper as the pack of ice wolves started to gather at the edge of the chasm, their glowing eyes fixed on their helpless prey.
They were like a group of hungry bullies ganging up on a small, defenseless kid.
However...
'What the hell!' I thought as the little fox's eyes suddenly glowed with a bright pink light.
Before I could even blink, the six-legged fox let out a piercing shriek that was anything but cute. It wasn't the sound of a scared animal, but a predator.
The pack of ice wolves—beasts made of literal frozen death and malice—instantly froze in their tracks. The aggressive snarls died in their throats, replaced by bewildered, dopey whines. Their icy tails began to wag slowly, and their glowing blue eyes melted into a state of sheer, mindless adoration.
The little six-legged fox opened its mouth.
No sound came out. Instead, a wave of pure pink mist rolled out of its throat and washed over the entire pack.
The wolves started trembling.
Then their ice-shard fur began to melt.
Not from heat. From pure, overwhelming lust.
I watched in absolute silence as twenty deadly ice wolves started humping the air, the ground, each other, anything they could reach. One of them even tried to mount the scarred alpha and got a frozen claw to the face for its trouble. The whole pack dissolved into a chaotic, panting mess of blue light and melting ice.
The little fox just sat there in its crevice, eyes still glowing, looking both terrified and weirdly smug.
I couldn't help it.
I started laughing.
"Pfft—hahaha! Are you fucking kidding me right now?!" I wiped a tear from the corner of my eye. "A charm-type monster? In Niflheim of all places? Kid, you just turned a pack of apex predators into a bunch of horny idiots."
The fox's glow flickered. Its big eyes finally noticed me standing on the ice ridge above. The pink light died instantly. It shrank back into the crevice, wrapping its fluffy tail around itself again, looking like it wanted the ice to swallow it whole. It started shivering, but not from the cold.
"Hey, hey, no need to be shy," I called down, my voice echoing slightly in the chasm. "That was some impressive work. Got a name, little guy?"
It just stared at me with those huge, terrified blue eyes before it suddenly exploded into a pink mist of particles.
For a second, I thought he died.
Then the mist particles gathered and formed a small orb of pink light that shot away from the chasm at incredible speed.
"Huh?... Wait!" I shouted, but it was too late.
The orb vanished into the fog.
"Tsk," I clicked my tongue in annoyance. "Well, shit. There goes my chance at a pet who can weaponize boners."
I looked back down at the wolves. They were still a mess, but their movements were slowing down, the pink mist fading.
"At least I have some training dummies," I smirked. I jumped down from the ridge, landing softly on the chasm floor amidst the panting, melting pack.
"Alright, boys, playtime's over."
The alpha wolf, whose ice spikes on its back were now droopy and pathetic, managed to shake its head, its blue eyes clearing. The lust was fading, replaced by confusion, then rage.
It locked its gaze on me.
A new target.
Its ice fur re-froze, sharp and deadly. The pack regained their senses, one after another, shaking off the pink haze like dogs shaking water. Twenty pairs of glowing blue eyes snapped toward me in perfect, murderous sync.
"Hehe~... there we go," I grinned, rolling my shoulders. "Welcome back to reality, boys. Hope that little trip to horny town was worth it."
The alpha didn't waste time with growls this time. It lunged.
A blur of jagged ice and frozen malice shot across the chasm floor straight at my throat. I didn't dodge. I stepped into it.
My right arm turned into a whip of living blood mid-swing. The alpha's jaws clamped down on empty air as the blood-whip wrapped around its neck and yanked. The whole beast flipped over my shoulder and slammed into the ice wall hard enough to crack it.
Before it could recover, I was already moving.
Two more wolves came from the sides. I let my left hand explode into a swarm of blood needles and fired them point-blank into their open mouths. The needles expanded the second they hit the back of their throats, turning into barbed spikes that shredded their frozen brains from the inside. Both corpses hit the ground in a spray of blue ice shards and dark blood.
Ding!
..
[You have slain Frostfang Wolf (Level 72)]
[You have slain Frostfang Wolf (Level 68)]
...
"Ahh~... how I missed this notification."
The rest of the pack learned fast. They stopped charging one by one and started circling, using the fog and the uneven ice for cover. They were coordinating.
Smart.
For frozen mutts, anyway.
I cracked my neck.
"Herma, keep the cabin waypoint hot. If this gets messy, I might need a quick exit."
I wasn't talking about the ice wolves. I was talking about the fog. I could feel it pressing in, a physical weight against my mind. It was already trying to nibble at the edges of my memory, trying to blur the recent images of Lora's smiling face, to fuzz out the memory of Lucy's annoyed sighs.
Fortunately, years of serving as the High Queen of the Unspoken Realm had turned my horny mind into a fortress. And I had a very, 'very' strong reason to keep remembering them.
"AWOOO"
The alpha recovered and howled. The remaining seventeen wolves answered as one. Then they attacked together.
Ice spears erupted from the ground. Frozen mist tried to blind me. Claws the size of daggers came from every angle.
I stopped holding back.
Blood claws wrapped around my fists as I charged with equal ferocity.
BOOM!
My right fist connected with the nearest wolf's chest, the blood claws instantly liquefying its frozen heart before detonating the rest of its body into a cloud of red and blue mist. I didn't even pause.
Ding!
[You have slain Frostfang Wolf (Level 56)]
Another one tried to come from behind. I twisted, blood wings flaring just enough to launch me sideways, and backhanded the bastard so hard its head left its body and bounced off the chasm wall like a frozen football.
Ding!
[You have slain Frostfang Wolf (Level 73)]
Crack! Crack!
Ice spears erupted from the ground beneath my feet, trying to impale me, but I used them as stepping stones, vaulting into the air.
"Blood Domain: Scarlet Rain!"
A hundred tiny droplets of my blood detached from my body, suspended in the air for a fraction of a second, before hardening into crimson darts that rained down like a firing squad.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The chasm erupted in a symphony of shattering ice and dying yelps.
Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!
...
The fight was over in less than a minute.
I landed back on the ground, not feeling satisfied at all. My breathing was steady. My heart rate was normal. There was no adrenaline rush. No excitement.
It was like chopping vegetables.
"Too easy," I sighed.
All that remained was the alpha, its glowing blue eye wide with a mix of terror and fury as it stared at the remains of its pack. It was the only one left.
It let out a defiant howl and charged.
But this one I won't kill.
I raised my right hand and...
SMACK!
"Sit."
I slapped the poor thing across the face with the back of my blood-covered hand.
It flew sideways, crashed into the ice wall, and slid down to the ground with a pained whimper.
[Why did you not simply kill it?] Herma's mental voice echoed in my mind. [Do you have a plan to 'tame' this one as well?]
"Nah, I'm not going to tame it." I shook my head. "An idea came to my mind."
[What idea?] Herma asked, then, before I could answer, she suddenly realized what I was about to do.
[Morgana, don't tell me..."
"Yup," I said, "I'm going to fuck it."
[...]
"What?" I asked with a smirk. "Don't give me that silent treatment, Herma. These ice wolves adapted to their environment, so by letting it breed me, I should be able to unlock a special wolf form."
[Typical Morgana logic,] Herma replied.
"Hey! It's valid horny logic!"