The Art of Winning Hearts

The bitter cold wind swept through the narrow pass and over the dense pine forest.

The fluffy needles shook, and piled snow scattered down in flakes.

Unknown gray-brown birds cried sparsely through the haze, their sharp calls ringing coldly through the air.

Ox hooves trampled the frost-covered weeds flat, and white mist sprayed from black beastly nostrils.

Todinis, the war-horn beast, pushed aside the shrubs, and a forest path wide enough for two carriages to pass side by side appeared before his eyes.

He could see the orderly and chaotic wheel tracks in the snow.

Those were traces left behind by civilization.

Human creations had once passed through this land.

Anger surged within him.

The hatred and fury hoofed beings felt toward civilized races ran deep into their bones.

Chaos energy had granted them forms unlike other humanoid creatures, making them closer to beasts.

Their rejection by other races had forced them to hide in caves and forests where the sun never shone, and their twisted, gloomy minds had grown throughout years of suffering.

Revenge was the only reason they gathered together.

Hatred was the only force driving them to slaughter and destroy.

The civilized world was destined to become a ruined wilderness beneath the trampling of hooves.

Todinis looked to his side.

A massive herd of Ungors was lying in ambush within the shrubs, sharpening their arrows.

Todinis then looked behind him.

More than a dozen Centigors crouched on all fours beneath the pines, and the swiftest runners in the herd were currently washing their war blades with snow and frost.

Farther still, from the deeper forest, countless dim yellow lights glimmered.

The heavy breathing of the Gor warriors sounded like the pounding heart of the earth itself.

This was a premeditated ambush.

Some important figure was about to pass through this place.

The information had come from an ally, a Klogotia informant hidden among the humans.

As the leader of the beast pack, Todinis had chosen to personally lead the attack.

He would tear apart these high-ranking figures, who seemed noble but were in fact fragile and weak.

Then he would drink their blood and feast upon their remains.

Just like the religious convoy made entirely of women that had passed along this road a few days ago.

They too had been ambushed and slaughtered by the beasts under his command.

The orderly sound of footsteps and horse hooves came from the north.

Todinis raised his right hand, which was covered in messy, withered yellow hair.

An Ungor servant hiding in the shrubs immediately vanished with agile movements in the direction of the sound.

Soon, it returned to him and presented intelligence on the formation ahead.

One carriage and more than a dozen well-equipped guards.

They had set out southward from Kohl Town and were carrying a large amount of supplies.

Todinis let out a heavy, low growl.

Rustling sounds answered him from within the forest, and every hoofed warrior was eager to move.

The urge to destroy was swelling continuously in the depths of their twisted hearts.

At last, the carriage convoy drew near.

Just as the scout had reported, there was only one exquisitely crafted carriage, pulled by two horses, with a large amount of supplies loaded on the packhorses behind the group.

Todinis saw that the guards around the carriage looked tense, glancing around anxiously, and he vaguely felt that something was not quite right.

But this was the best moment to attack.

No one would give up at such a time because of a few insignificant doubts.

The war-horn beast raised his head and let out a long roar.

War drums and horns thundered from both sides of the forest, and arrows fell like rain.

Yet Todinis, who had unleashed his battle cry, did not get to see those humans’ fragile bodies pierced through by the dense rain of arrows as he had wished.

A huge ice-blue barrier enveloped the carriage convoy.

Half of the arrows fired by the Ungors were deflected by the solid ice surface, while the other half embedded shallowly into the ice layer.

The human guards inside suffered no harm at all.

There was a powerful spellcaster nearby.

Todinis realized that the situation was bad.

He judged that they had to end the battle quickly.

A thunderous bellow once again rang from the throat of the war-horn beast.

The Centigors that had long been lying in ambush charged out from the deep woods on both sides.

These monsters, with humanlike upper bodies and horselike lower bodies, possessed astonishing explosive power.

With a light leap of their powerful hooves, they could soar several meters high.

They were natural cavalry units, able to swing the battle axes in their hands and cleave through enemies while galloping at full speed.

Ordinary warhorses were like helpless little donkey foals before them.

The ground seemed to tremble beneath the charging herd.

The frost barrier that had blocked the arrows was fragile beneath battle axes and hooves.

They soon smashed cracks into the ice surface, while the human guards behind the barrier were left with nothing but trembling and prayer.

They were nothing but a pack of cowards.

Todinis believed that everything was already over.

Even a spellcaster could not save such a collapsing situation.

He prepared to order all the hoofed warriors to launch the final pounce.

Yet the earth was still shaking violently, and that sound did not come from the trampling hooves of beasts.

Metal horseshoes.

That was the sonorous ringing of civilized creations.

Todinis lifted his head and looked north.

Against the backdrop of the snow-white peaks, silver-white armor shone brilliantly beneath the dawn light on the horizon.

Cold forged iron clung tightly to every inch of those reckless bodies.

Long, narrow metal visors exposed only their eyes and noses, while the roar of iron hooves echoed through the entire pine forest.

A unit of armored cavalry charged unexpectedly from the direction of Kohl Town.

The knights on horseback held long swords and lances wreathed in flowing flame.

The Centigors gathered outside the frost barrier were almost burned to ash without any chance to resist.

The threat posed by these human-bodied, horse-legged monsters existed only when they were sprinting at full speed.

Once stopped, they were nothing more than trapped beasts waiting to be slaughtered.

Templars!

Just as Todinis made his next judgment, the carriage inside the barrier suddenly exploded apart.

Bone-chilling frost flowed from the cracks like liquid, and snow pellets whirled across the entire battlefield.

Fine snow tangled in luxurious platinum-blonde hair.

Frost flowers bloomed from beneath the soles of high heels.

The one who walked out of the carriage was not some fragile person in need of protection.

Her Highness, the Saintess of the Blazing Sun Church, was herself a terrifying weapon.

As the sea-crystal staff in her hand swept through the air, ferocious, sharp ice thorns burst from the surface of the frost barrier, piercing through the surviving Centigors.

Todinis realized that this was a trap.

They had been misled by the intelligence provided by the informant.

They had to retreat, even if that was a disgraceful act for hoofed warriors.

At this moment, the beast pack’s camp was empty.

If they suffered too many losses here, the very concept of the beast pack would cease to exist.

He would no longer be a beast pack leader, and that terrifying “Trampler” would neither acknowledge nor accept a fallen loser.

Driven by instinctive fear, Todinis let out a low growl of retreat.

However, the warriors no longer obeyed his commands.

They charged toward those iron-clad riders, and their so-called assault ultimately turned to dust within platinum-white flames.

The weaker Ungors fled in panic without any sense of direction.

Many of them even blindly crashed in front of the iron cavalry’s hooves, only to be crushed beneath the violent warhorses.

By the time Todinis came back to his senses, he was already completely surrounded.

Those silver-armored knights pointed blazing sword edges at him, and a stinging heat reached the tips of his fur.

The knights opened a path.

A girl with platinum-blonde hair slowly walked forward from among them.

She was so slender and frail, forming a sharp contrast with the fully armored knights around her.

In Todinis’s eyes, perhaps this was his only chance.

Driven into a dead end, the war-horn beast leader suddenly erupted into action.

He raised the axe blade in his hand and swung it toward the seemingly fragile girl.

A shocking cold rushed toward him head-on.

He felt as if he were facing an open ice cellar.

Everything froze.

It was as though time itself had stopped.

Todinis discovered that he seemed forever unable to approach the girl.

His movement stalled in midair, and not even a whimper could escape his throat.

Frozen drops of blood fell onto the snow, striking small pits into the white ground.

A sharp pain spread from his throat throughout his body.

Only then did he discover that a slanted, razor-sharp ice spike had extended from beneath the girl’s feet at some unknown moment.

It had pierced the war-horn beast through the neck.

The girl lifted her head slightly.

She coldly met the gaze of this trapped beast.

Ice-blue eyes, as if a thick layer of frost forever covered them.

In the final moment before Todinis lost consciousness, all he felt from the depths of those eyes was endless, bone-piercing cold.