RD 4 Ch 30

"What are we doing here?" Nyx asked, her voice sugared despite the harsh circumstances. At the moment, her serpents were wrapped around her body, stretching out like a living coat. "I thought only penguins lived on this island."

After their first two weeks, when they learned of my new plans, my women had insisted on coming with me. It had been two weeks of me rushing about to make sure each of the fortresses were as protected as I could with my inscriptions. I used that time to come up with a plan to counter the Demon Lord.

"How do you think an island that has nothing but penguins actually got so many protections?" I replied with a smile. "There was something to hide."

The area seemed more like a floating ice chunk than an island, though supposedly there was land under all the ice. The giant floating ice chunk was cold beyond any mundane reason.

I knew the real reason. After realizing an inevitable clash was coming, and the other side had a greater advantage than I had initially assumed, I knew that I was going to need more allies. Allies that were completely off the Demon Lord’s radar. The kind that I could take some of my own burden off my shoulders and let run loose once again in the world.

As a result, we were now on this freezing chunk of ice.

"There's no one here, Bran," Simone said.

In response, I activated soul gaze, my eyes glowing and piercing the enchantments surrounding the sect.

My little trick caused the illusion over the island to waver, and Simone gasped.

"What is that?" She breathed as a massive castle made of crystal clear ice flickered into view, along with dozens of women wearing chilling expressions. Simone was giddy with excitement.

One of the women spoke up with her chin raised. "We are The Sect of the Frozen Moon. Certainly among the top sects in the world. To come here uninvited is certain death."

"I'm glad you spoke, I half expected you to pretend we didn’t exist, but I’d warn you not to do more," I retorted.

As the ice palace disappeared, the woman stepped forward. With a wave of her hand, she parted the curtain of illusion.

Simone was still happy, like a young woman who had just seen an excellent magic trick, despite the gazes we were getting from everyone present.

"Uh, Bran, should we be here?" Nyx hesitated.

Meanwhile, Merlin stood back with a warry familiarity. Given her age and her affinity for ice magic, I should have guessed she was familiar with this sect.

"Did you bring them here?" The woman scowled at Merlin.

"Trust me, Bran already knew you existed. I didn't need to bring him here. He's well aware of more information than I think I can even give him credit for." Merlin replied

"Well, thank you," I said before turning back to the women who very much did not want me to step foot in their sect. I bowed politely to them. "Are you going to make me stand here, or let me in? I know you have no love for men. I assure you that you'll benefit from my presence, and Madame Delery and I go way back."

The woman in front of me scoffed before she began laughing. "Now I know you're absolutely full of shit."

"Well, you're welcome to try and gut me to see if that's what comes out, but if you really insist on going that direction, I must warn you, I will fight back." I used Soul Gaze on the woman in front of me. "Is that what you want, Natalia? For me to fight back so you have an excuse to draw your weapon?"

Her gaze flickered to me strangely. Of course, she was hoping to irritate me enough that she could act in self defense.

I watched her. “After all, no matter how important you are to the sect, your sect leader doesn't make exceptions. You break the tenets, and she'll break you. Most likely, she'll turn you into a giant ice sculpture to display in front of your peers for, oh, I don't know, ten or fifteen years before she holds a ceremony. Then, some nearly powerless student will crack that ice sculpture easier than a fancy plate of china, just to show how weak you become once you break the tenets of the sect.”

The more I spoke, the more the woman in front of me's face fell into disbelief. 

"Who are you?" she hissed. 

"A friend. Well, friendly. I certainly couldn't join your sect. I'm not that nice." I answered.

She scoffed. "I doubt 'nice' is the term most people would use to describe us.”

“No, they'd probably be a little more blunt and call you insular, isolationist. After all, you've gone as far as to live amongst the penguins so that you don't have to deal with people, and particularly men." I stood with my arms crossed behind my back and a giant smile on my face, doing my best to project confidence and only confidence as I strode through their barrier.

These women could be more brutal than demons if they sensed any weakness. 

She tilted her head to the side as if she was listening to something. "Please, come right in." 

"Don't mind if I do." I turned to look at a small inscription at the corner of the entrance. "Thank you. I'm glad after all this time I can still at least pop by and say ‘hi’. You've been so out of it for so many years. I bet you don't even know what's happening back with the rest of the world." 

"I am well aware," a woman’s frigid voice echoed in the room. "However, given your pertinent knowledge, I will refrain from saying that I know more than you. Because you seem to have a knack for knowing things that you shouldn't." 

"Born with it, I'm afraid." I smiled at our guide and gestured for her to lead us in deeper. Everyone was giving me strange looks as we went through the parted curtain of their enchantment. 

"Was it wise to upset her?" Merlin asked, referring to the disembodied voice of the sect leader.

I put a finger to my lips. "It's better to assume you are always being watched in here. I'm more than happy to talk more later." I glanced meaningfully at her and then the rest of my group. 

Simone shrugged without a single care in the world. "I'm just here for the free meal. You said it would be a good one, right?" 

I chuckled and couldn't help the smile that threatened to split my face. "Yes, Simone, I'm sure we'll be treated to a fantastic meal. But they won’t get friendly until after the meeting."

We were led up through the sect, spiraling up through the tower.

The entire palace was full of women who looked like they hadn't seen the sun in decades. Their skin was various shades of pale, as if it was a competition to see who could look more like a ghost.

Simone bobbed her head in some sort of assessment as she followed our guide. "This would be a very good place to recruit," she said, and I winced. 

"Probably best you don't try that. You will understand more in a bit." I told her.

Normally in this type of structure, the most powerful individual would live at the very top. But that wasn’t the case in this situation. We went straight into the heart of the ice palace, and down each step, growing significantly colder, to the point I even saw Simone cast a barrier over herself to keep the chill at bay. 

Finally, we entered a regal hall, and our guide stopped. "She's at the end. Please don't have any wild ideas. Know that if you give us an excuse, the entire sect will be happy to turn you into slush." 

"Friendly," I said, folding my arms behind my back and waltzing down the hall, only to kick open the big door at the end. "Finally, it's been too long," I boomed, as the woman flinched at my exuberant entrance. 

"I'm racking my mind, and I'm fairly sure we have never met," she said, trying to pin me in place with her eyes, but I dismissed her efforts. Madame Winter Delery was as most initiated beautiful, her skin so pale she looked nearly like an ice sculpture with long white curls that framed her very angry face.

Waltzing into her study, making myself at home, I picked off a few hard frozen berries from a plate. "I do wonder how you get food here. I mean, I assume you do eat more than just penguin eggs?" I asked, somewhat hesitating as the berries crunched. 

"We do not eat penguin eggs. Perhaps if you knew me well enough, you'd know the mere concept of that is insulting.” She replied. 

"Winnie, you and I go way back. So far back, in fact, that I brought you a gift." I swished my hand in the air before presenting a bracelet I had made out of the Hivnara chiton that we had gathered.

It had taken significant effort to bend one of those plates around to make the bracelet. I had diluted S-rank acid in order to make it soft enough for me to bend it, and then I had wasted two more pieces of chiton in order to reconstitute the first once I had bent it in the correct shape. Beyond that, inscribing enchantments on the tiny jewelry had been a pain. Not to mention Winnie had an ego that needed to be smoothed by adding a few jeweled flourishes and design.

She glanced at the bracelet, inspecting it before her eyes flew open wide. Disbelief flashed through every inch of her form. The look only lasted a second before she snapped the bracelet on and inspected me once more.

I wasn't going to give her that satisfaction, so I dismissed the inspect.

"Now, now, the polite thing to do is ask. Or perhaps I should introduce myself." I rolled my hand and dipped my head in a small bow. "Pleasure to meet you. I am Bran Heros. Yes, Heros Clan, though I didn't grow up there. I would say, at best, I use them for their resources." 

Simone coughed into her hand, muttering some comment. 

"What was that?" I asked, looking over my shoulder.

"She said you use them," Winnie accused, "You use them for their women." 

I put on a thoughtful expression and rubbed my chin. "I guess that's fair," I admitted. "I've been putting Circe and her Odyssey branch to work, and of course, Nyx Heros is my girlfriend... or whatever exactly we should call it. I don't think the two of us have really put a label on it yet. Perhaps that's something we should do. What do you think, Nyx?" 

I looked over at the serpent-haired woman, whose locks had stretched up and down, nearly hiding every inch of her body save her eyes in an effort to stay warm. She blinked and gave a muffled reply that I couldn't hear through the serpents. 

"It seems she's a tad uncomfortable here," Winnie observed.

"It would seem so," I said with a grin as I turned back to the sect leader. "But now that I've given you my name, you can leave this horrid room. Isn't that right, Winnie? Perhaps you can even go get revenge on the Heavenly Fist Sect." 

The woman's cold exterior nearly shattered with burning fury at the mention of the Heavenly Fist Sect.

I leaned against a chair, happy to see she was as incensed as I remembered. 

"Is that why you've given me this?" she demanded, her passion undiminished. She glanced down at the bracelet on her arm. 

"What if I were to tell you that the Heavenly Fist Sect has been co-opted by demons?" I asked.

Her eyes narrowed into pinpricks. "Are you mocking me?" she asked. 

"No," I frowned, tilting my head before my eyes went wide. "You've known. For how long, Winnie? You never told me that." 

Ice escaped her as if she had lost control over her strength. It was strange to watch ice freeze a second time. It apparently could grow so cold that it froze a second time, snapping and crackling along her desk and across the floor between us.

Even my regeneration kicked in just being close to her.

"Quit your games and explain to me who you are now, Bran Heroes," she demanded. 

"I'm the man who wants to destroy the Heavenly Fist Sect," I said calmly. "Because they are trying to kill me."

She would join as would the other eleven that hadn’t participated in the first Demon War for a myriad of reasons. The Clans clearly wouldn’t bend a knee to me and become my forces.

Which meant to fight the Demon Lord and his generals, I needed my own.