Enormous slabs of ice smashed into the ground, bursting apart with deafening thunder. Shards skittered down the slopes of the snowy plain, carving deep gouges across the thickly packed snow as they slid toward Winterhold.

The moment the upheaval began, the Grand Duke's residence and the city's guards took note of the anomaly at the frozen ruin. After a brief moment of observation, orders rippled outward through the chain of command, reaching every patrol and watchpost across the city.

"What's going on out there? Is the ruin outside the walls moving? But the Duke's office and that shabby little adventurers' guild in town haven't issued any notice of an excavation, have they? Don't tell me some money-grubbing fool snuck in on his own and tripped the ruin's defenses?"

On the streets, citizens had stopped where they stood, staring in confusion toward the St. Anna Peaks. As the ice continued to peel away, the outline of the ancient city sealed within the mountain grew ever clearer.

"Brr... it's freezing. Don't you feel that? The wind's picking up. Why's it suddenly this cold? Even this winterwolf coat isn't keeping out the chill. Damn it all."

The companion of one traveler exhaled. The mist of his breath froze almost instantly into glittering frost, scattering along the invisible current of that wind before falling in brittle flakes to the street.

"It's not just wind. The ice elementals are stirring," came a sharp voice from a nearby shopfront. A magitech merchant leaned out the doorway, his eyes narrowed. "Didn't anyone ever tell you not to stand around gawking? Get under cover, now! If the gale grows any stronger, staying outside will be suicide."

The two men exchanged glances, realizing the magician was right, and turned to hurry home.

But before they could take more than a few steps, the St. Anna Peaks themselves blurred from sight. The world turned white, so thick with snow and wind that not even the sharpest eye could pierce it.

"Inside! Quick! The ice is in upheaval! If you aren't strong enough, those clothes won't save you. Get in here before you freeze where you stand!"

The biting cold hit seconds later, sharp enough to sting through fur and leather alike. The crowd finally understood that something was terribly wrong. One by one, they bolted through the door of the shop.

The door slammed shut. The runic sigil carved into its frame flared to life, sealing the shop from the outer chill. Inside, the crowd stood shivering, still dazed by the suddenness of it all.

"Mister, what's happening out there? What's with that ruin? Why did this start all of a sudden? This isn't going to be a disaster, is it?"

Someone turned to the magitech merchant, hoping for answers.

"How should I know?" he snapped. "All I do know is that if you were still outside, you'd already be frozen solid."

He pulled a crystal sphere from behind the counter—a magic-eye conduit, linked to an alchemical lens mounted above the shop—and focused it toward the outside world. But when he saw what it showed, his face darkened immediately.

The streets had turned to haze. Visibility had fallen to less than ten meters, the air filled with a maelstrom of wind-driven ice crystals and swirling snow.

The magic-eye could usually pierce such interference, but the very air was now saturated with raw ice mana, clouding even the enchanted lens.

"Damn it," the merchant muttered. "No one ever said Winterhold had this kind of weather. How did Selwyn folk live in a place like this?"

In one corner of the flickering image, he caught sight of a lone man standing against a wall, staring blankly toward the storm. The blizzard reached him a heartbeat later.

In an instant, the man stopped moving. Frost raced across his body, binding him to the wall. Within moments, he was a statue of ice and snow.

The gale hurled chunks of ice and rock through the streets, hard as bullets. They struck the frozen figure, shattering the brittle flesh beneath. Strips of frostbitten skin flaked away, revealing red-raw muscle beneath. He became a grisly sculpture of life devoured by cold.

The merchant's crystal sphere gave a sharp pop, and the image collapsed.

"Great. The concentration of ice mana is so high that even the magic-eye's blind. We'll just have to wait it out." He sighed, rubbing his temples. "Anyone here from the Church of Nightfall? If so, reach out to your people in the city. Find out what's going on."

He set the useless sphere aside. He was a magician of only modest might. If even his instruments were being disrupted, his own spells would be worthless.

The others had seen the images too. Gratitude toward the man who'd taken them in mingled with a growing unease. Two members of the Church of Nightfall exchanged a glance, then quickly began to channel mental energy into the Prayer Network, reaching for their brethren elsewhere in the city, seeking any clue as to what this storm truly was.

"Squad Two, raise the mana barrier! We don't know when this blizzard will stop. If it keeps blowing like this, ordinary houses without anti-magic protection will start collapsing!"

The soldiers of the Grand Duke's estate and the city guards were among the first to sense the coming storm. Their strength was formidable. Even under the scourge of this freezing wind, their fighting spirit was enough to keep the cold at bay. But not every resident of the city was a knight or a magician. For the common folk, this storm would be death itself.

"Understood. The magicians are charging the array now. The sigils are about to—no, already active!"

The response came quickly. Along the city walls, runes began to gleam, and arcs of mana flared to life.

A barrier of blue-white light slowly rose, climbing from a few meters high to several dozen as the flow stabilized. Inch by inch, it walled off the elemental gale howling from the St. Anna Peaks, sealing the city of Winterhold within a fragile calm. The snow that had raged through its streets at last began to settle.

But the elemental surge had struck too suddenly. Though the soldiers and guards of the Grand Duke had reacted swiftly enough to prevent the storm from slaughtering the citizens sheltering indoors, not everyone had been so lucky. Many were caught in the open. Ordinary townsfolk who had no time to flee were frozen mid-motion as the blizzard's breath consumed them, leaving behind human-shaped sculptures of ice fused to walls, carts, and doors.

"The Grand Duke and Commander Uller are both away. We need to make a decision now. Do we send a team to investigate what happened at the ruins, or do we hold the barrier and wait until they return?"

From the battlements, the acting commander in the absence of both Uller and the Grand Duke of the North gazed toward the St. Anna Peaks, which remained veiled in a whirling curtain of snow. 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

Moments ago, those peaks had blurred and vanished behind a roaring white tide. It had started with a wind that was too sudden and too powerful, ripping the snow from the slopes and coalescing into a storm that swallowed the mountains whole.

"Send word to the Grand Duke and Commander Uller immediately. Have Squad One equip the magitech suits treated for extreme cold, and bring along a few of the city guards with barbarian blood in them—they'll serve as guides. Those bloodlines know how to survive out there."

The commander made his choice and issued his orders. Someone had to find out what had happened at the ruins of the St. Anna Peaks, and how it could have triggered such a storm.

If the blizzard continued, it would become a disaster. The mana barrier that now protected Winterhold was a modified version of the array Selwyn had once designed to keep the city from being buried under the region's perpetual snowfall.

But this... this was far beyond any normal weather pattern. The array could hold for a day, perhaps two at most. If the storm lasted longer than that, they would be in serious trouble.

The report was compiled swiftly and dispatched toward the capital, while the expeditionary team equipped with the North's finest magitech gear set out into the white expanse.

Time passed. The commander watched as the team, led by their barbarian-born guides, vanished into the storm. Then came the first reply, relayed through the Prayer Network by the Nightblades stationed within the Grand Duke's estate.

"It's not just Selwyn's domain," came the message. "Across the continent, ruins are behaving abnormally. Some have collapsed. Others are erupting with strange phenomena. A huge sinkhole erupted over the Ashen Plains, revealing the entire City of Sin beneath. The orcs were in the middle of a civil war, but an inland sea burst from the earth and drowned half the battlefield..."

The commander stared blankly at the words. So it wasn't just the St. Anna Peaks. Similar events were happening everywhere.

Yet that realization only deepened his unease. If it touched the entire continent, then this was no local disturbance—it was something vast, perhaps catastrophic. What that meant for them, he dared not guess.

There was, at least, one piece of good news: the Grand Duke and Commander Uller were already on their way back, and reinforcements, including the Nightblades, were en route.

"..."

The commander's eyes lingered on the white horizon. Even after years under the Grand Duke's banner, a veteran of countless northern winters, he had never seen a storm like this. It didn't feel natural. It seemed to have been summoned. He only hoped the investigation team would find something before it was too late.

While the city's attention was fixed on the towering wall of snow that blotted out the sky, few noticed the quiet movement within Winterhold itself. Its defenses were weaker than most cities of comparable size, leaving blind spots that could be exploited.

Under cover of the storm and their own cloaking magitech, a small group approached the city wall from the outside. Scaling it with practiced ease, they slipped inside the city.

Their garb and features matched those of northern locals, so they drew no suspicion. Beneath their heavy winter coats, however, they bore insignias marking them as agents of the Sarybin Empire, one of Aleisterre's neighboring realms.

They moved in silence, as if they had foreseen this storm and timed their arrival perfectly. Working quickly, they carved a breach through the outer mana field and passed through.

Within minutes, they were among the disoriented crowds of Winterhold, faces half-hidden, expressions dazed and convincingly panicked, as though they too had barely survived the blizzard's onslaught.

No one looked twice. And so, unnoticed amid the chaos, the spies of Sarybin melted seamlessly into the heart of the city.