Flying over the dragon sea, as they slowly approached their destination—The Winterlands, the winds slowly turned freezing and they began seeing icebergs jutting out of the waters.

Further approaching the continent, the calm warm waters slowly began turning frozen, icebergs jutting out of the waters as they flew deeper. Eventually, they finally crossed into the continent of eternal winter.

A continent of winter filled with eternal snow and freezing winds. No human would have chosen to live here, but there were still human kingdoms on the continent, as well as a race of ice elves.

Flying deeper, they began crossing kingdoms' airspace, most of them ruled by monarch cultivators, so they weren't aware of their passage. But the few ones ruled by spirit lords immediately noticed them—judging by the different awareness that had swept over them. He wasn't sure if they were aware of who he was, but since nobody flew up to confront them, he let it go.

Approaching the western part of the continent where the weather was the coldest, they slowly began gliding down, reducing their altitudes until eventually, they saw their destination in the distance—A large castle made out of ice with towering spires jutting out of it. It had its own walls, fifty meters tall, clearly made by ice cultivators. It was guarded by sentries standing on the walls. Inside the castle walls was a large estate with dozens of smaller buildings, mostly two-storeys. He could see hundreds of people moving around on the estate grounds despite the terrible weather.

They floated down until finally coming to a stop—levitating in front of the walls. The guards weren't showing any signs of panic at the powerful cultivators that suddenly appeared. He reckoned they'd already been forewarned.

A petite woman floated off the top of wall to come greet them. She had brown hair and blue eyes and was wearing deep blue priestly robes—a monarch realm cultivator. Bowing to them. "The high priestess awaits you inside." She said, gesturing at the large castle.

Following, they flew passed the walls and into the castle compound. There were dozens of soldiers and religious figures moving about, going about their different duties. Instead of landing on the ground like normal visitors, they followed the priestess as she led them floating towards one of the open balconies on the castle.

The moment they landed, Damien immediately felt the cold pervading the large castle. It wasn't that he was being affected, quite the opposite for someone of his level. The cold was just something he felt, but didn't really notice unless he paid attention to it—like the wind.

The balcony led into a short hallway that finally opened into a large hall. He entered to a group of clergies engaged in whispered arguments.

The church of Winter was a cult that worshipped the celestial of winter, or anything that falls into the purview of cold—as their clergy used to say. He didn't know much about the celestials, only that they were otherworldly beings with vast powers.

The cult was one of the most powerful organisations on the planet, having more than half a dozen spirit lords. They seldom acted, always preferring reclusion, which was why they'd built their temple in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by large forests standing between them and the rest of the civilizations on the continent. But when they did act, they always left a mark.

"Menoe! Long time no see!" Keilan greeted with enthusiasm as he rushed to give the high priestess a hug, never mind the group of clergymen watching.

"Long time no see, indeed. Nice to see you again, Keilan," the woman returned the hug, a lot more reserved than the overly enthusiastic young man. "Last time I heard, Damien here had a clash with the sun emperor. Before I could come find you, you'd already vanished."

Damien scratched the back of his head, a little embarrassed for no reason that he could find. "Well, we had to make ourselves scarce. I was kinda injured and couldn't fight half a dozen lords at the same time," he said.

Menoe was a tall woman. Had long white hair—courtesy of her ice affinity, and a matching white frosty eyes. She always spotted a motherly smile, calm and reassuring, except when she faced enemies, that was when people got to see the other side of her motherliness.

They had encountered her during one of their travels, on one of the times when they'd gone off-grid. They'd been travelling from one monster populated region to another—fighting, until they had encountered a monster that wasn't supposed to be where it was, as only lord realm to early monarchs were the usual occurrence. But they'd been unfortunate to encounter a peak-level monarch monster. Menoe had saved them an hour or so into their fight for survival, eventually treating Keilan and Damien for the wounds they had accrued. It turned out that the reason the monster had been there was because of her. As while they had been training, she had also been doing the same a few kilometres away from them, resulting in the nearby lesser monsters having to flee the spirit lord's battle.

Stolen story; please report.

They had just been unfortunate to encounter one of those monsters. But she had apologised and even treated them, which was very unusual for Cultivators at that level. She had then decided to accompany them out of the region, as they were far from any settlement.

It was during their journey that they eventually got to know more about each other. She'd told them about herself, how she came to become a leader in a prominent organisation. It was strange at first having to witness a higher-level cultivator talk to them without the usual haughtiness that came with it, but they'd eventually gotten used to it. Keilan had been the closest to her since he was always the cheerful one.

She'd also given them good advice on their paths to spirit lords, advising them on avoiding errors that she'd made. It was from her that Damien got to learn that as a higher realm cultivator, you didn't need to be prideful towards people lower than you. Regardless of your status, you needed to treat everyone with respect until given a reason not to.

Their journey together had eventually ended when they'd finally gotten back to civilization, saying goodbye and then parting ways.

Menoe studied them, a bemused smile on her face. "It feels weird that the last time I saw the both of you, you were just wee little early monarchs struggling to fight a peak monarch. And now, you've come to me as powerful spirit lords, making enemies of powerful empires and dragons," she laughed when Damien looked at her with raised eyebrows. "I heard about your fight with those two lords on the Desolate continent, and I reckon people on both the Greensend and Winterlands continents could feel your fight with the dragon, or the end, I guess."

"To be honest, I tried for a peaceful resolution," Damien defended himself, even though she wasn't judging.

"I'm not judging you," she said as if reading his mind. "Dragons are not known for their agreements to peaceful resolutions, and their elders are even worse,"

"Prince," Keilan said, running his blabbermouth. "Damien and I fought a dragon prince."

For the first time since they'd met, Damien saw the shock on the high priestess's face. "You killed a dragon prince?" She asked, still shocked. The other priests and priestesses all had pale faces.

Damien nodded. "Renogoth, heir to the Ren's nest," he then began explaining what had led to it.

When he was done, one of the priests shook his head. "Dead, all because of pride. I bet their king wouldn't care if you explained to him, they're going to come for your head."

Menoe nodded. "He's right, their king wouldn't care even if they found out their brood started it. Hope you're prepared to be hunted."

"We'll find a solution," he said.

"If you need protection, we could offer you sanctuary in the temple. The dragons would be fools to attack us this deep into the continent.

Damien shook his head. "No. Thanks for the offer Menoe, but I'll be damned if I start running again from anything that threatens my life. We'll find a way out of this, even if it means fighting," he said, his tone brooking no argument.

For years, he and Keilan had mostly been on the run. Either from the empire or the many other kingdoms who wanted him chained down. They'd thought that reaching spirit lord would put an end to that, but it only made it worse when he'd killed that empire lord years ago. They'd begun hiding again—this time not from the lower lords or monarchs but from spirit lords. Now that Damien was strong enough to take on multiple lords by himself, he'd be damned if he started another round of running.

Menoe nodded in concession while the other priests looked at him as if he was stupid. It wasn't often they saw someone reject an offer of sanctuary from a powerful organisation such as them.

"Besides, that wasn't the reason I came to you," he continued.

"Oh, and what did you come for?" she said, confusion and intrigue plain in her voice.

"I need your help against the empire," he said.

There were varying emotions amongst the gathered clergies, but none chose to interrupt.

"Why? I thought you could handle them. You must have if you decided to get into an open war with them."

"It's not them exactly. I can handle the empire, now more than ever. It's the allies that'll fight with them, or one exactly."

"The inferno cult," she guessed.

He nodded, "Yes. The empire's enough for me and my emissaries to handle, but the fight would take a drastic turn if the inferno cult decides to join."

The Inferno cult was the counterpart to the church of Winter—specialising in pyromancy. They were the opposite of the winter church in almost every way, choosing the art of constant war over the seclusive nature of the winters. They mostly never started wars or battles themselves, but they were always seen in every large-scale war in the Greensend continent, and even beyond. Their higher hierarchies were so suicidal that they'd choose to go battle Red dragons in the red lands—A continent of Smoke, ash and lava, and home to a species of red dragons and other beasts. They were chaos incarnate and he didn't want a group like that interrupting his war and throwing every plan into the waters. He preferred to have their counterparts handle them.

He hoped that the winters were up to the task.