The Frostwalker base was called "Mountain Father," and it was extremely easy to spot; one could see that towering mountain range from a great distance away.
Dotted with pristine white snow, the mountains stood solemn and dignified, yet across the surface of the peaks ran countless veins of gilded gold, and along those channels flowed a liquid like molten gold, pouring down into the great lake ringed by the mountains, while steam like billowing clouds rose up from the ravines.
Countless streams of metal and mithril fused with the mountain itself, until the two were nearly impossible to tell apart.
Ring upon ring of mechanical circles encircled the peaks, rippling with iridescent waves of light, sending out wave after wave of silvery bell like tones, and the forests trembled in the cold wind.
An entire mountain range transformed into a super fortress, a colossal structure of such magnificence that it left one truly awestruck.
A wonder. An undeniable wonder.
Faust nearly held his breath, staring up at the mountain drenched in molten gold, his eyes wide.
Though he had long known that this world held all manner of splendid and fantastical things, having never left his own country in his first twenty years of life, the greatest "wonder" he had ever laid eyes on had been the River of Aurum back home.
Beautiful, certainly, but it could hardly be called a wonder.
"What's wrong? Frightened?"
Selena had been watching Faust's expression the entire time, and the moment she caught his look of astonishment, she pounced on the opening as though she had found some weakness to exploit:
"Heh, well, that's hardly surprising.
In that remote, cramped little kingdom of yours, you probably wouldn't see relics from the ancient world like this in your entire lifetime.
But it's not just you; even envoys from the world conquering Radiant Dynasty fall silent before this Mountain Father."
"No need to hold yourself back. Feel free to praise and marvel all you like. There's plenty more to come that will astonish you."
Every word out of Snow White's mouth dripped with the superiority of a local showing off her home turf; this was her attempt to get the upper hand over the man.
"......"
Well, now he was just the country bumpkin.
Faust had no grounds to argue back; he truly had been stunned, and to keep arguing the point would have been shameless. The Prince of Aurum could only concede this particular defeat, and said:
"So this is the truth behind how Wintertide holds off the Empire? Their legions don't even dare set foot past the border?"
"It's not quite that dramatic, there was a battle fought once. After that, though, the Radiant Dynasty declared Wintertide a nation not to be conquered."
Selena seemed quite satisfied with Faust's concession of defeat. She gently brushed a snowflake from the man's forehead, tugged at his sleeve, and tilted her exquisite face upward.
"Come along, my knight. Escort me into the Mountain Father."
The two of them made their way through the wind swept forest, drawing closer step by step to the Frostwalker fortress.
It was then that Faust noticed something strange.
"We're just walking right in like this, out in the open, and there isn't a single guard anywhere nearby?"
The whole way there, Faust had not spotted a single trace of a human presence anywhere around the Frostwalker base, and even farther out, there wasn't so much as a single Wintertide settlement to be seen.
"What would there be to guard against? A Frostwalker's intelligence surpasses most people's anyway."
Selena had never been one to hold back her judgments of others; whether this counted as a sharp tongue or not was hard to say, since Faust agreed with her assessment entirely, practically finishing her thought for her:
"Some people only avoid being classified as feeble minded because they can still take care of themselves. By comparison, even the lowest ranking Frostwalker seems more like a living, thinking being than they do."
"Besides... the Frostwalkers aren't tools that the Wintertide people can order about as they please. They follow their own principles of conduct.
The higher ranking Frostwalkers mostly stay hidden deep within the mountains and forests, forming a nation of their own.
Only a portion of the lower ranking Frostwalkers come out to serve the kingdom, and those are the only ones we Wintertide people can actually command."
Selena traced her slender, delicate fingers across her cheek, wind bitten and frost touched, and said flatly:
"Come to think of it, we Wintertide people rarely venture near the Frostwalker domain ourselves either.
Any Frostwalker that hasn't left the mountains won't obey our commands. They're more like neighbors who simply happen to share this land with us."
Faust: "Tch... so after all that, you don't actually have a solid guarantee of anything?"
The prince's tsk of disapproval earned him a displeased huff from Selena, who crossed her arms and said:
"If there is anyone in this world capable of truly taming the Frostwalkers, it can only be Wintertide royalty! My knight, are you questioning my charm? That is hardly becoming of a proper knight."
Sure, let's just go with that, then.
Faust yielded gracefully, conceding that as the local, she was surely right about everything.
The two continued onward.
As the saying goes, the mountain that looks close enough to walk to will still run a horse to death; though the silhouette of Mountain Father had already come into view,
it still took the better part of the day before they finally arrived at its base.
Before the great bronze gate, the Frostwalker standing guard leapt lightly into place before Selena.
"Princess."
It spoke in a flat, synthesized voice devoid of all inflection, and asked:
"Do you have any orders?"
Snow White said plainly, "I wish to see your leader."
Without asking for a reason, the Frostwalker gave an immediate nod, returned to its post, and took hold of a massive metal horn.
It input a command, and at once, the horn's call rang out and echoed through the mountains.
Hummmm
After the long, drawn out blast of the horn faded, Selena lifted her head and said:
"Here they come. Those are the leaders of the Frostwalkers, the Titan Gods."
Titan gods? What?
Before Faust had time to process what Selena had just told him, a tremendous boom reached his ears.
Boom
Then came another tremendous boom.
Boom
Boom
.......
Seven successive tremors shook the earth in turn, and when Faust looked up again, the cold wind and frost had been swallowed in shadow: seven enormous Frostwalkers were leaping down from high up on the mountainside, absorbing the impact through a series of controlled motions before landing steadily on the ground.
They bore a form nearly identical to an armored knight, their mithril forged shells covered from end to end in pale and deep blue engravings that shimmered with a faint, rippling glow.
Each Frostwalker gripped an enormous spear-blade with a spiraling, deep blue tip, striding across the open, level wilderness with heavy, measured steps, and every time a foot met the ground, a bone rattling tremor followed.
Steel constructs over a hundred meters tall, their magnificent, towering forms gleaming beneath the sunlight, nearly stunning one into silence.
Whoa. There were Titans too.
Having already witnessed Mountain Father itself, these colossal figures, estimated at some hundred and fifty to sixty meters tall, failed to shatter whatever threshold Faust had left for astonishment.
Or perhaps it was simply that he had already braced himself with some guess and expectation beforehand, not to mention that Mephisto had already cut straight to the heart of the matter.
[Hmm... how long has it been. Back in the Golden Age, the Sons of Man used constructs like these to build the Tower of Babel. And now, here they are, called Titan Gods?]
This left Snow White, who had been hoping to catch the prince off guard, feeling somewhat disappointed.
She clicked her tongue, then finally lifted her gaze to the sky spanning Titan Gods towering before them.
One of the Titan Gods knelt halfway to the ground and spoke to Selena, its voice deep and resonant, as though arriving from all directions at once:
"Princess of Wintertide. You have summoned us. For what purpose?"