We saw our first monster the moment we entered the biome, or should I say monsters. They circled us and before we knew it a pack of frost wolves had us trapped.

“Careful, stay close. Eris watch our rear. Alexa back me up.” I charged the closest wolf hopefully, the alpha.

The main distinction other than the pristine silver fur was their frightening ability to control the weather in their natural habitat. We saw the effects as a thick snow fog formed, engulfing the wolves into a smokescreen.

There was barely a gap in between the receding wolf’s head as my dagger managed to slice it wide open before completely vanishing. This new dagger was impressive, cutting smoothly as it severed flesh and bone with ease. Though it left me confused as to the reason why not a single drop of blood splattered from the slash. There wasn’t even any blood on the dagger at least not anymore. All of the blood seemed to fuel the daggers.

The other wolves reacted to the kill by transforming the fog into a thicker hail of ice shards.

“Get ready to strike!” Alexa shouted as formations formed around her.

Alexa glowed, no not metaphorically but also literally as white light encompassed her figure like a descending goddess. She focused a beam of light no larger than a meter in width that shot forward, blasting a hole in the fog of hail. The high-density beam cleared a perfect circle allowing us to spot a hidden wolf. In a flash my body ended up next to the wolf, surprising it before my daggers stabbed into its side.

Part of me hoped to frighten the wolves away with my crazy speed as the wolf howled to death. Then made it back to the others before the circular hole had time to fill back up with more fog. We tried the same scenario only to fail due to their constant movements. Before we could initiate a new strategy, the hail that sped around turned into pointed shards. They flung at us in every direction with no end in sight. I tried my best to block every shard from the front while Eris could only cover enough area for our rear with her mana barrier.

One managed to fly past and stabbed Veera in her arm, freezing the immediate surrounding skin.

“Alexa blast a hole for us!” I yelled continuing to deflect shards.

We were at a clear disadvantage staying within the encirclement since we would have to constantly defend against the ice storm. Alexa focused again, blasting a hole large enough for us to escape through. Eris took care of helping Veera bring the carts, not able to heal her yet.

The moment we retreated two wolves jumped out of the fog to attack us. I sliced the closest one, but couldn’t reach the other in time. The frost wolf bore its sharp fangs straight at Veera attempting to finish its kill.

A beam of light no larger than a gold coin blasted from Alexa’s finger, piercing a clean hole through the wolf’s head. I couldn’t tell how far the beam continued into the sky but saw the fatigue plastered on her face.

Catching hold of Alexa before she fell over, I placed her in the cart behind us. “Eris. Veera, get in the cart!” I got behind the front cart’s handlebar and booked it.

The assisted magic already made the carts move at high speeds with the other carts tethered to the main one. Everyone was bumping up and down even though the terrain was snowy and smooth. My cart pulling provided multiple occasions of air time as our scary speed forced the frost wolves to end their pursuit. I was pretty sure some cargo ended up falling off and cried a little inside each time it happened.

We arrived deeper into the snow biome reaching the base of the mountain. I found it odd we were no longer chased and that there were no signs of nearby monsters. Eris had fully healed Veera’s arm while in the cart. I wanted to give everyone some time to recoup and stopped the carts for a rest.

“Alexa will you be okay? Don’t push yourself.” I couldn’t help but worry as this was only the beginning of the day and there was still much more to come.

Alexa took a deep breath and controlled her breathing, “Yes, normally I can only do that attack two or three times in a given day. Sorry to worry you, master.”

This was troubling to hear. Creeping in the back of my mind was the possibility of not being able to protect everyone. Would it have been better to come with only Eris? It was pointless to ponder this now as I assigned Eris a task. “Protect Alexa and Veera. Don’t worry about me anymore.” I didn’t wait for her to respond and continued up the mountain at our original pace, leaving Eris to unwillingly nod as if I said something wrong.

The mood grew worse as the snowfall intensified. We climbed the mountain to the point we could no longer see a few meters in front of us.

“That’s strange. This snowfall isn’t natural, it's almost like a magic array to keep others from entering.” Veera who was familiar with this region and weather patterns could tell something was amiss.

My mind faltered, and I made the decision for us to pull back and leave. “Let’s head back. This isn’t worth-” A pair of floating blue lights interrupted and pulled my attention.