Alkayne stood in the front, despite his large stature and heavy equipment, his feet did not sink deeply into the snow, the fur cape was thrown around senselessly by squalls of cold winds, engaging in a winding path in inbetween two mountain who nearly touched one another, if an avalanche were to occur right now, he and his companions would absolutely be buried.
Considering the walls of snow he had to traverse on the way, such an event wasn't unheard of around these parts, but the zombie wasn't worried about that and just kept moving until reaching some sort of small plateau surrounding by tall peaks from every direction, the path taken to get here being one of the few available from the looks of it.
"Is this the place?" asked the minor lord as he took in the unusual scenery, the plateau in question was situated multiple meters lower than the undead at the moment, as though a roughly circular patch of the earth had been pushed into the soil by the titanic foot of an elephant.
The place itself was surprisingly lacking in snow, only a few piles were to be seen scattered around, the majority of the area was occupied by shallow unfrozen water, or rather, only the very surface of it was frozen by a fragile layer of translucent ice, somehow, the rest was spared from the biting cold.
Thin trees, not much taller than Alkayne himself were growing from the water, completely formed out of the same translucent ice, a few of them bearing fruits that just look like apples carved out of ice.
Surprisingly, these trees and fruits did in fact bear life force, although the amount they bore paled in comparison to what was laying hidden inside the cave standing opposite to the zombie.
"Absolutely! The Schneebiest should be watching over its patch of heissblooms inside that cavern" spoke Jiji.
"Patch? So there are multiple?"
"Well, those who managed to snatch some used one for their marriage to a nun, but since the rest can't be used for the same purpose as they were plucked by that same person, I was told that they were used to create wondrous potions of heating!"
"I see, and despite it all the Schneebiest is still alive and well?"
"Yup, no kalt can seriously challenge it on their own, and besides, who would grow the heissblooms if it died? Only the Schneebiest knows how to do it" the nun was tightly wrapped in much clothing, making her look perhaps twice as thick as she is supposed to be, that didn't actually impair movements, but she was anyways carried around by Cecili, who had pulled both arms from beneath her cloak to hold onto the living girl.
"In that case, you two can leave" Alkayne only needed Jiji to show him the right path to this place, otherwise, he wouldn't have bothered to bring her along.
"On our own?" questioned the living, but as an answer, her vision was spun around, the nightbird jumping back into the air, her kicking off the ground did not leave as much as a footprint in the snow, vanishing alongside the living into a burst of feathers.
Alkayne nodded as he watched the lustrous feathers fall to the ground, knowing that asking for Cecili to perform this technique over a long distance and whilst carrying someone else, a living of all people, was rather demanding as this was originally meant to be a short-distance travelling technique, but he trusted that she was good enough to do it.
'Now…' although the main purpose of his visit here was not one he very much enjoyed, he could console himself with the Schneebiest, from the sounds of things, it was not only a unique creature, but one that was rather skilled to grow the heissbloom, after all, Jiji had explained that it could be used for heating potions and that its worth was simply incredible as it was said to inherently carry some of Dame-Sommer goodwill.
If that was true, then being capable of cultivating them was a remarkable trait, having the Schneebiest join the truth and become an undead would surely be rather precious in his soft-conquest of the kalt, especially of the church itself, he would be able to claim that he himself had learned how to grow this flower.
Stepping off the edge, rather than crashing down on the thin ice, Alkayne was slowed down by frigid winds, these ones manifested through his ability, the power it held seemed rather useless in a realm where everything was used to extremely low temperatures, and it was true that this facet of his innate ability had lost in usefulness here, but contact with the cold here was only granting further insight in how to make his own winds colder.
'I was short-sighted, General Loimos, my abilities can still grow' he thought to himself, his casual steps still cracked the ice as he advanced toward the cave, but by surrounding himself with wind, he ensured that the sounds of it did not reach further than a half a meter from their source.
Despite the caution, he felt a low rumble shake the ground, and then another, followed by another as something vaguely humanoid emerged from the cave, covered in ruffled, snow white fur, its pelt was dense and long, most certainly making the creature appear much larger than it truly was.
Although humanoid at a glance, Alkayne felt like there wasn't much to be called human about this thing in truth, its arms were longer compared to its legs, like an ape, hands and feets were devoid of hair and instead covered in thick, dark skin.
It didn't have nails, but what was clearly claws, in fact, coupled with the shape of its head that the zombie could somewhat discern through the fur, it was like the Schneebiest was some sort of mixture between a gorilla and bear.
Standing at nearly three meters tall when standing perfectly upright, Alkayne wasn't too impressed, this thing was shorter than a hunched over Herlbe.
The beast seemed to want to roar at the intruder for a moment, but changed its mind, crouching down, it began moving from right to left, and left to right, its fist down on the ground, pushing the ice against the ground and breaking it.
'Unwilling to leave the cave unprotected' noted Alkayne, he did not know why the Schneebiest grew heissblooms for, but it was clearly important enough that it wouldn't even be willing to attack from the side and instead just stand there, unwilling to attack first as it was faced with something it did not recognise.
The zombie saw no problem in this approach, he raised his halberd up, the banner wrapped around it swaying in the wind as dark lightning gathered around the weapon, arcs dancing all over equipment and Alkayne himself.
The last time he had had an actual fight was a while ago, back then, he hadn't given it nearly his all.
And for once, there was no need to do some preaching about death, his opponent was a beast, too deeply enthralled by life to understand the benefits of undeath, so he simply went for the kill.
A powerful bolt of necrotic lightning fell right on the dumbfounded beast, uncertain how such a thing could happen when no such storms was around, or how this could occur without thunder alongside it.
Howling in pain, muscles suddenly tensed up by the lightning coursing through its body and into the unfrozen water, but somehow, the bolt of lightning wasn't the worst part as patches of necrosis formed upon the creature's body, bits of fur falling off.
Indeed, Alkayne's ability carried the full properties of true lightning, none of it was lost by the addition of its capability to inflict necrosis as well.
'Jiji did call it immortal, did she not?'
The bear-ape's resilience was remarkable, it's heart didn't even skip a bit from that, neither did its ocular globes explode, it was stunned momentarily, but instantly leapt up to the air with ease as soon as its muscles became controllable again.
Crashing down upon the zombie, unleashing its bestial fury without restrain.