In the early morning.

A portal opened under a tree near the eastern coast. One person emerged from it, ready to continue their journey.

"Another cold day. I guess that's what you should expect when you try to go south."

Orion, and none of the girls had a problem with colder areas. They trained their body not to get influenced that much, though Amelia was still easily affected by it. She was but a human compared to the others.

As he looked at the sky, its rosy orange showed that the storm had cleared a long time ago. The sun had just showed itself in Triazils, and Orion was about to move to Logran, Dylan's village.

'Hmm?'

Orion looked toward the distance, further south.

'What is this feeling? I don't remember being able to sense magic this clearly before.'

He felt a large mass of magic in the distance, but he didn't knew what it was, or how he was able to feel it.

'Maybe it has something to do with the connection I formed with Velridar. Who knows. Anyways, time to move.'

Picking up the pace, while also not really knowing where was that beastman village, he warped away.

...

'Why am I feeling uneasiness the more I move south? That pressure is not normal.'

Orion grabbed his chest while frowning, hoping to remove that feeling.

As he stopped to take a break, he found himself far inside the southern area of Triazils, where the snow was a natural occurrence, and where the air was the coldest.

'The diversity of our continent is quite surprising. Triazils possess a desert, lush areas, snow fields, and even mountains.'

Thinking of the continent's location, he thought about the position of Triazils in the world.

'From one of N's book, I remember him saying something about the planet's poles and hemispheres. We have low temperatures because the poles are where the sun's heat is less effective, and high temperatures because the closer you are to the center, the equator, the easier it is for heat to take place.'

'That means that Triazils is on the lower hemisphere.'We don't know how large the Frigoria Plains are, but we can expect it to be quite large from the number of corrupted beasts coming from it.'

Placing a head on his chin, he tried to understand a little bit about his next stop, Turric, and the wall protecting the continent. That was also a way to forget about the feeling of anxiety he had.

'I don't understand the reason why corrupted beasts are coming from that area. The only reason would be that this is where the Miasma is currently, creating them before releasing them to attack our cities, but that doesn't make sense either.'

His eyes became sharper, letting his inner thoughts escape.

"Miasma isn't so stupid as to waste the ressources he has. I am sure of that."

"There is not a single chance of this being the Miasma's product. There is something else behind this problem."

Pacing left and right, he finally stopped.

"I need to check this. It is way too unusual to leave it like that."

He didn't knew why, but he had a need to look for the reason.

Having a new aim in sight, Orion prepared himself to warp.

And once again, after regaining some magic and stamina, he warped closer to the south, looking for Logran.

But that didn't last long.

"Someone! Please help us!"

"Damn it! There's no one around us!"

"I can't die here!"

In the middle of a warp, Orion heard the terrified voices of multiple people requesting aid.

'What is happening? Is there a corrupted beast around here?'

Without waiting, Orion warped in the direction of the voices.

From afar, he saw a caravan on its side, with around ten people trying to lift it back in place, while two others, looking like fighters, were holding their weapons against three beasts resembling cats.

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Not tiny one, they were huge. Two meters high, and three meters long without the tail. Their grey ash fur and black lines was the sign that they were fighting corrupted beasts, but the red eyes was the most pronounced confirmation for Orion.

"Hold it! If they manage to put the cart on its wheels, we can escape."

"I wouldn't hope on that, friend. Do you think we can hold three of them?"

"..."

The two fighters prepared themselves to their inevitable end, as one of the cats pounced on the leftmost fighter.

In an instant, a crunching sound echoed, with the lower half of the man remaining on the ground, blood splattering everywhere.

The corrupted cat returned to its previous position with the now dead man between its jaws.

"I was right, you know."

The rightmost fighter's legs began to tremble, but he remained strong.

'Damn it, I was too late!'

Orion, who was still far away, unable to warp directly to them because of the distance, was only now in range.

The next thing he saw before his last warp was one of the beasts leaping with its claws moving downward on the man.

He defended one of the attack with his sword, which shattered to pieces, while the second attack ripped his clothes and chest, causing life threatening injuries to him.

*Cough*

As blood exploded everywhere, Orion finally warped in front of the caravan.

At his sudden apparition, the three beasts growled and took a step back.

"W..ho?"

Orion glanced behind him, and looked at the dying man on the white snow, his blood coloring it a diluted red.

"Don't talk, I'll come for you in a minute."

His magic got released, and two crossbows appeared in his hands.

'Alcyone, Taygeta, let's make it quick.'

Without waiting, he threw himself toward the three beasts.

The cat in the middle came running toward him. It jumped at Orion without bothering about anything else. It didn't care about his two other companions.

Orion dodged and fired a slowing arrow from Taygeta, but the beast jumped over it, before trying to pounce at him a second time.

This time, he jumped too, higher than the cat. He flipped his body while falling down, and kicked downward at its face.

'Second Gear. I'll crush your head.'

*SLAM*

A big rumble took the ones lifting the caravan by surprise making them notice the battle that was happening, as well as the state of the two fighters.

The cat beast came crashing on the ground, its head crushed, with its eyes bulging out of it. Dead on impact, just like Orion wanted.

As he began to fall to the ground, he noticed the two other cats trying a pincer attack on him while he was in the air.

The moment the beasts tried to jump at him, he fired a pulse arrow above him, forcing him to fall to the ground faster.

He looked as the two beasts colliding against one another, and pointed a crossbow at each of them.

Taygeta fired a slowing arrow on the left beast, and Alcyone fired a swift arrow on the right one.

The slowed beast fell to the ground like it should, but felt incredibly sluggish, while the other fell to the ground convulsing, a hole in its chest, blood seeping from it.

Not caring to finish it, Orion fired a bleeding arrow toward it, before looking at the last beast trying to shake the effect of the arrow. He then decided to warp on top of its back.

'I don't have time for you. Now just die.'

He pointed Alcyone at its head, and fired without hesitation. The body fell to the ground lifeless, with the beast not knowing it had died.

The last agonizing beast finally expelled its last breath too, from excessive bleeding.

Orion jumped from the beast's back, and rushed toward the bleeding fighter. He kneeled and got ready to heal him.

"I'll heal your injuries, stay still."

As he was about to start, the man placed his hand on his with difficulty.

"Y..ou don't h-ha...ve to. Thank... you."

Just before Orion was about to start, the man's life came to an end, right in front him.

'...'

Orion closed the man's eyes, and stood up, staring at the man's smile.

"I can't say you two fought well, but you stood valiantly. Be proud."

He let the man there, and moved toward the caravan. Everyone near it moved away, looking at him with fear and interest.

Grabbing the top of the cart, he activated the Arm Overdrive, and lifted it back on its wheels, under the eyes of the shocked travelers.

"Alright, now you can go. But before that."

Turning around, he crossed his arms and placed his back on the caravan's wooden frame.

"What happened?"

~

"Fuck... This is bad."

Orion watched as the caravan drove away, with the people waving at him inside.

He nodded to them, before turning around, creating a portal back to Horizon.

The moment he stepped out, he warped immediately from the portal hub to the front door of the house.

Opening the door, he surprised Amelia and Karteira who were talking in the dining room, sipping coffee and eating cookies.

"O-Orion? You're already back?"

"I thought it would take longer than that?"

He shook his head. Without panicking, he closed the front door, and walked to his chair before sitting down.

"I have bad news. Very bad news."

The mood immediately turned heavy.

'You're not lying...'

Karteira, who could understand him better, realized how serious it was.

"Did something happen to Logran and Dylan?"

The first thing in Amelia's mind was that something bad happened to their current destination, but Orion shook his head once again.

"Don't worry, it has nothing to do with Dylan. Or at least, for now."

"For now? How bad of an event are we talking about?"

Noticing the little details, Karteira asked.

"We're talking about 'Corrupted Invasion from the Frigoria Plains' kind of event."

"!"

Both girls instantly understood. This was a threat to Triazils as a whole, that couldn't be ignored.

"How far are you from the wall currently?"

Amelia asked, readying herself to move at any moment.

"Maybe an hour with constant warping. I just saved a bunch of people getting attacked by corrupted beasts that managed to get past the army deployed at the border to stop the invasion, but it seems that the amount is unusual."

"People are getting worried that they would die, so some of them are fleeing. Which wasn't their best idea so far if I have to be honest."

Saying that Orion stood up.

"The moment I arrive, I will open the portal to my location. I want you two to prepare for that moment."

"We will."

With a nod, both finished their drink, ate one last cookie, and stood up. Amelia took a bunch of cookies and gave them to Orion.

"Here, eat that. We don't know when we will be able to eat, so take them."

"Thanks."

A water bottle flew toward him, which he caught without problems.

"Drink too. You are tired, right? Better be hydrated than not during such a time."

He smiled, and placed the bottle in a pocket inside his mantle.

"I will."

The girls watched him before walking out of the room together to prepare whatever was needed during that battle.

'What would I do without these two?'

Orion looked at the empty doorframe leading to the corridor, and bit into one of the cookies.

"White chocolate."

He walked out of the house with a number of cookies in his hands, a smile on his face.