With the Great Northern Wolf outlining around Alina’s body, she darted from the top of one building to another, her footprints gently pressing the snow even as the soldiers pursued after her on the various chariots from above.

“Stop her!” The Fang city guards leaned off the side of the chariots they rode before cornering Alina from both sides.

“Please…don’t do this.” The captain plead, thinking back to all the memories he shared with Alina before his entire world was turned upside down, “Please…”

“Sorry, captain.” Alina dashed in front of him, her Manifestation growling and freezing him in place with her pressure in the Wave alone. The captain forced himself to slowly draw his blades against the resistance when Alina kicked him lightly in the back, shoving him to the ground, "None of you can stop me even if you tried."

“You are not going anywhere, traitor!” The soldiers called out simultaneously, forming a massive wall as countless Casts flew in her direction. Tuning up her strength, Alina conjured the Great Northern Wolf around her body before the great beast of Talonia charged straight into the wall of Casts. As the soldiers' eyes opened up wide, they saw the massive jaws of the Great Northern Wolf opened up before it ripped apart the spanning structure Cast.

“Too weak! Your formation is garbage!” Alina shouted, and the guards instinctively saluted and apologized before realizing that they were no longer in a training exercise with the Valkyrie’s general.

“Sorry ma’am…I mean…stop rightthere!”

However, before they could react, Alina had already leaped over the walls of the Fang city, disappearing into the whiteness in the great beyond. She needed answers, and there was only one place in the world where she could get it.

Retracting her manifest back into her body, Alina then traveled on foot, enhancing her own movements with the Wave as she leaped from one tree to the next, allowing the chilling winter winds to rush by her ear.

The training grounds for the Valkyries were located in a town twenty minutes away from the outskirts of Fang. Alina was certain that it had already been overrun by the security forces from Fang city. There’s no point returning there regardless, as the standard protocol for the Valkyries in this state of emergency would have been them scattering and going into hiding all on their own.

That was supposed to be the protocol, anyway. Alina knew from the moment that she was put under the influence of that weakening Cast, her Valkyries would be coming after her. The Valkyries are strong, some of the strongest individuals in the entire kingdom, but compared to someone like Icy…

To be frank, even Alina was shocked by how strong Icy was.

Shaking her doubts away, Alina ignored the thought that countless Valkyries had died to set her free. She needed to keep going, and she needed to find her creator, the man who gave all of the powers and purposes in their lives.

He will know what needs doing at this dire time.

The hideout of the man was only revealed to her after she had successfully become the general for the Valkyries through winning an internal tournament, and that was also the time when she learned of his name. Approaching a set of caves hidden behind massive rocks and invisible trapping Casts, Alina raised her hand, injecting a small portion of her Wave before the sets of glowing lines pulsated once, confirming her identity.

Scanning the snow-covered Earth behind her once again, Alina then stepped through into the dark.

“Alina…You have returned at last…” From the moment her feet touches the ground that was covered with soft fur, a shaking voice pierced through the dark and the soft sweet aroma filling the interior of the cave rushed out to greet her, “It’s a bit of a crazy world out there, is it not?”

“After what had happened at the Academy, the opposition to the Valkyrie’s program had teamed up with the Descendants of Winter to frame us for attacking the royals…” Alina said, choosing the most succinct way to summarize her current situation, “We were…hunted down and I was caught. Too many died to set me free…”

“Oh…my poor Alina…” From beyond the darkness, a man with an exceedingly handsome face, deep eyes, and tall nose strolled towards her. Caligo, the man that had always dominated Alina’s mind and body, placed his cold fingers around her face as he examined her closely, “You feel…guilt, anger, and pain. Tell me, child...what do you seek?"

"I seek a purpose..."

"And in that, I shall grant you…purpose of revenge. You may unleash your fury upon the heretics of Talonia, you may unleash your powers on the believers in the descendants of winter, and you may…”

A thin veil of mist extended out from Caligo’s finger before it slipped straight through Alina’s nostril.

“…You may start with the grand priest of that wicked religion. Execute him publicly, and show the kingdom what happens if they believe in the falsehoods of fake gods…” Caligo hovered his

Tiny white cracks formed over Alina’s face, and she lowered her head before replying monotonically, “Understood.”

In the meanwhile, Wu and Lera had successfully escaped attention from the Fang city guards as their identity Casts were accepted without any issue. However, it certainly wasn’t easy asking about the directions towards the Polar Prison. For starters, it wasn’t marked out anywhere on the maps that were given to them, and it wasn’t exactly an easy conversation to strike.

So far, they just have to take what was given to them by Alina and roll with it.

“Southwest…” Lera murmured, holding up a compass Cast in her hand before Wu pressed her head down as they hit out of sight from an entourage of Chariots flying overhead, “That’s such a vague description, my scouting eyes couldn’t see anything either.”

“Yeah…” Wu murmured, spotting yet another train of chariots flying in from the direction of the city. However, something was different about these ones as individuals contained within semi-transparent prison casts moved quickly through the air, “Unless we happen upon a prisoner transport…”

“Unless that happens, yeah.” Lera tilted her head as she reconstructed the chariot and hopped on, “Good eye.”

If the Fang city was a castle built from dark iron, then the Polar Prison was one made from thin blue glass. It shined like a tower of blue crystals, reflecting the sun’s lights as sweeping beams that lit up the mountain valleys it was located in.

“Ok…” Wu and Lera glanced at each other before slowly parking their chariot in behind half a dozen trees, “Guess we are breaking in through a prison…from the outside?”

“Sounds like it.” Lera said, conjuring up the Void Domain scalpel before she recycled her Cast array around her body, mapping out the outskirts of the prison for any traps.

To her surprise, there wasn’t any. In fact, there was absolutely nothing in the Wave beyond the glass walls of the Polar Prison. Then, there were spanning shield Casts the shape of a dome preventing anything from going in and out with guards patrolling at each and every level of the prison.

“Ok, allow me to suggest something…” Wu said, putting his hands up. However, Lera already knew what he wanted to do and she started shaking her head right away.

“Nope, you are not getting captured.” Lera said, “Alina said she will meet us here, so we will wait for her.”

“And what if she doesn’t show up, what do we do then?” Wu asked.

“I…don’t know yet…” Lera lowered her head, “Let’s just…wait.”

And so they did. They buckled down and set up a small camp in the line of sight of the Polar Prison from the trees and they waited for Alina’s arrival. However, she never did come to meet them, and Wu and Lera soon both acknowledged the fact that they simply cannot stay here forever while waiting for something to happen. Who knew if Alina made it all the way back, and that whoever she's dying to see would actually give her what she wanted (spoilers: he didn't).

If nothing happens by the end of the third day, then they plan to return to Fang city and check on what had transpired since then. However, right as they started to pack up and move away, it appeared that fate had other plans.

“Another chariot for prisoner transport had come in…” Lera said, her eyes casually glancing at the output of the Scouting Eyes Cast when suddenly, his body started to tighten, “Is that…Wait…no way…”

“What?” Wu pressed onto her shoulders as Lera tilted her head and showed Wu the content of the Scouting Eyes. He drew his attention towards the chariot dragging a prison Cast in the middle of the focus, and his jaws nearly dropped when he spotted the one who was sitting in the middle of the prison Cast.

With her arms tied together, and her expressions calm and relaxed, Ita Leodora sat with her skinny back leaned against the light blue railing of the prison Cast.

“Oh shit…” Wu opened his mouth, “Ok…this is certainly unexpected…”

“Is it really her?”

“Yeah. I can recognize that look from a mile away...She’s from Talonia, but why the hell would she be imprisoned?” Wu murmured, “I…need to find out…”

“I know.” Lera sighed, knowing that Fate had just forced their hand. Regardless of whether Alina will return to meet them at the Polar Prison, they simply have to find out what Ita was doing there, “That was a prison Cast full of girls…so I guess I will sneak in there as one of the prisoners.”

“I thought the plan was for me to be captured!” Wu protested, but Lera instead pressed her finger onto his lips.

“I never agreed to that.” She said with a smirk, “But it will be your job to help us and the rest of the Valkyries escape after we figured out what the hell is going on. Plus, I was the only one who can use the Scalpel.”

With great annoyance, Wu finally nodded in agreement. Then, the two of them crawled through the snow until they found themselves under the trajectory of the chariots. In an instant, Lera activated her Cast array, bathing everything in darkness as she propelled her own body into the air with growing vines. Leaving behind her book of Casts to Wu, Lera then shoved her hands forward with the Void Domain Scalpel at the ready.

“What is going on?!” The guards looked around in a panic as Wu darted over the front of the chariot distracting him while Lera worked in the back, sneaking herself through the prison Cast and sitting down. Ita glanced towards her with a look of confusion when Wu’s initial blast was slammed away by the soldier.

He retaliated, conjuring a ranged blast that shoved Wu out and away into the snow as the dark veil surrounding the chariot suddenly vanished.

“Chase after him!” The soldiers ordered as a small trio broke off from the main formation and pursued after Wu, who vanished into the Wave like a ghost. Then, the ones guarding the chariots turned to examine the integrity of the prison Casts.

“Huh…a fruitless attack, I guess…”