Frost monkeys.
They came in droves, scampering across the frozen landscape like a tide of white shadows, their screeches echoing in the hollow silence of the north.
They were similar to the Wraiths he had faced not too long ago.
Their bodies were lanky, their limbs too long for their frames, and each movement seemed jerky, animalistic, yet frighteningly coordinated.
A lesser man would have frozen in fear at the sight of dozens of pale, razor-toothed creatures closing in.
A lesser man would have felt his heartbeat clawing against his ribs as the ice beneath him cracked with each movement.
But Azel was no lesser man.
He leapt off the jagged ice sheet, and as he did, the platform shattered into shards, exploding beneath the force of his legs.
Aura flooded his body like a second bloodstream, strengthening every muscle, every tendon, every nerve.
His daggers gleamed.
The first five Frost monkeys didn't even have time to scream properly before his blades severed their spines.
