The Sunrise mountains rose in snow-white brilliance, giving a silent invitation for the soul to accept its beauty. Upon the glimmer of sleeping sun on the horizon, the forest was so snowy white. The white blanket of snow rested upon the trees, boulders, and the ground as if it were a feather cushion, soft and warm. It covered the ocean of trees in perfect white, revealing the engrained beauty of winter.
The snowflake took her dance in the wintry air, pure water made all the more beautiful by her crystalline form. The rain of snowflakes looked like they came to earth from heaven itself, blessing the living beings on the ground.
Amidst the rain of snowflakes, two figures flying towards a snow-covered building in the distance. One of the figures looked exactly opposite to the white rain, Michael.
"It's beautiful" Michael reached his hand out to catch the snowflakes like a little kid while flying towards the sect with Christopher, who now looked vigorous and less emaciated because of his cultivation level. His greyish patches of hair grew denser and black as his body slowly turned into look like fifty years old Sylvester Stallone.
Whoosh!
A small swirling stream of fire brushed past Michael as he turned to see the baby dragon soaring through the sky, melting the mighty snowflakes with his dragon breath.
"Save your breath dicky" Michael chuckled expecting a funny reaction from the baby dragon and as he expected, the baby dragon lunged at him biting his head like a cute little puppy.
"Don't..call me that"
While the baby dragon was exacting revenge for calling him dicky, Christopher started to slow down
"Sect Leader, are you okay?" he noticed that the closer they got to the sect, the slower Christopher flew.
"It has been fifteen years" Christopher stopped flying as he looked at the building in the distance. Unlike Michael who was excited to return, Christopher's heart and mind fought with each other to accept the new reality.
Fifteen years ago, he left the sect with his son on a journey to search for a way to break the curse. At that time, he was afraid that the curse might transfer to Claire. He knew Claire would either accompany them or won't let them go, that was why they decided to leave without telling her the truth.
"What do I tell her about her father?" Christopher looked at Michael as he was really expecting an answer from Michael.
Michael sighed in his mind. Usually, he would try to avoid sticking his nose into others' business but anything related to the sect was his business because it would directly affect the Sect's legend and the number of badass points he would get.
Before hearing Christopher's story, he had a soft spot for the elves, not because the female elves looked gorgeous but in the books he read and the games he played, the elves were portrayed as an oppressed race. For instance, many novels he read had the elves enslaved by humans. After transmigrating to this world, he couldn't completely put aside these books as just fictional books, considering he transmigrated to this world with the system.
However in this world, elves were not enslaved or oppressed, on the contrary, each race had its own kingdoms and empires. Slavery was considered unlawful and punishable by death in few kingdoms and although slavery was not completely got ridden, it was also not as bad as some books described, at least, not in Elon Continent.
"Tell her the truth Sect Leader, she deserves it '' Christopher took a long breath before nodding. Both of them then picked up speed, soaring through the snowflakes towards the sect.
******************************
At the same time in the sunrise sect, a group of children led by Cindy and a group of disciples led by Jack was running around the building, taking cover and hiding from an unknown danger.
"Take it suckers!" a voice echoed through the area. In seconds of the warning, the air was thick with snowballs so compacted that several feet solid and icy.
"Not again," said Jack, looking at the snowball flying towards his face in slow motion. The very next moment, the snowballs made of freshly fallen snowflakes burst open on the impact with his face, showering crystalline fragments that glint in the wintry light.
"Take cover!" little Cindy shouted at her little army before frantically running behind the stack of bricks and making a stockpile with her little hands to retaliate with. From the lull in the action, she knew Sister Aelia is doing the same to replenish what she already used,
"Today we white walkers are gonna win, Sister Aelia!" Cindy taunted from behind the stack of bricks.
"Today will be no different than yesterday little girl" came the calm voice of Gaya. "get ready to get your little buts kicked"
Plop!
Plop!
Plop!
Just after the voice disappeared, Cindy and the kids were hit by balls of ice with no mercy from above.
"RUN!" Cindy frantically crawled away to avoid the balls of snow while Gaya stood atop the building roof and kept hitting the little children with deadly accuracy.
"Come on, attack her while she's distracted with them" Jack had enough of getting attacked mercilessly by Aelia. He started this snow fight to exact revenge on her for constantly bashing him but ever since the snow fight started, it was him and the little kids who got their butts kicked by Aelia, it didn't go as he planned, not at all. Furthermore, each passing day, Aelia was stepping up her game as it had become nearly impossible to hit her.
Until now, only Claire managed to land a couple of hits and after that, she was buried in snow by Aelia.
"Hey Jacky, are you trying to sneak up on me?" Jack's neck hair stood straight up hearing Gaya's voice. He slowly turned up to see her wickedly smiling at him with watermelon-sized snowballs in each hand.
At that moment, Jack knew he had no chance to escape but to take the snowball like a man.
"Attack he-"
Plop!
Before he could even order his buddies to attack her, he received yet another snowball to his face. This time the force was so great that Jack stumbled back into the pile of snow on the ground.
"RUN!" realizing they have no chance of retaliating against her speed of attack, the disciples chose to strategically run away rather than stand there and get hit by the snowballs.
"Fear me bitches as I am the Queen of Snowball fight!" her laughter of triumph echoed through the mountains.
Plop!
Just as she was evil laughing stood atop the roof, a huge snowball soared through from the sky and blasted her down to the ground.
"Who the fuck hit me in the back?!" she was enraged to lose her winning streak. Plus she was stunned at the attack's speed, she did not even sense the attack coming.
She quickly picked herself from the ground and stared in the direction of the snowball that just hit her down. In the sky, she saw another snowball flying towards her.
"No you don't!" she quickly dodged out the snow ball's way before it hit the ground where she was a second ago.
"Attack!" Cindy and her minions returned to the spot after seeing Gaya fall down and Jack too gathered his group to utilize the moment. However, they didn't expect the rain of snowflakes would become the rain of snowballs as countless snowballs rained on them, hitting their bodies.
"Show yourself damn it!" Gaya yelled while evading the snowballs but still many snowballs hit her right in the face.
"You should play with some in your size" A wide grin emerged on Gaya's face when she heard the voice. She turned her head in the voice's direction to see Michael descending from the sky.
"Brother Ghost!"
"Senior Brother Ghost!"
"Senior!"
"Brother Ghost is back!"
Cindy, the little kids, and all the disciples who saw Michael came running to him as he landed on the ground with Christopher. For a few moments, none seemed to notice the old man. Just as they were running to Michael, the baby dragon descended on Michael's shoulder gracefully flapping his wings.
"Ghost" Gaya approached locking her eyes with Michael and the baby dragon. The baby dragon stared at her with love before quickly changing his gaze to a slight enmity.
"What took you so long?" she locked Michael with a long warm hug ignoring the old man standing beside him and staring at everything in wonder.
"Nothing big, just a few mutated beings and life-threatening dangers in the Treacherous ocean"
"What?!" her embrace tightened the moment she heard the name 'Treacherous Ocean'
"I'll tell you everything later" Michael gently pushed her away to look at Christopher,
"Sect Leader, you should go meet Sect Leader Claire alone"
"Sect leader?" The disciples wondered as they all looked at the old man before their eyes widened in utter shock, their bodies felt weak and even Gaya took a step back further away from the old man in disbelief.
"Soul Refiner" while they were staring at Christopher speechlessly, Michael turned towards Jack.
"Jack show him Sect Leader Claire's house"
It took Jack several seconds to come out of the shock of seeing a Soul Refiner with his own eyes.
"Yes...yes...Sect Leader Claire...yes..got it..." Jack stuttered.
Christopher took a deep breath before slowly following Jack towards Claire's house to meet his granddaughter after fifteen years.
They all including Michael and Gaya stared at Christopher in silence.
After his figure disappeared, Gaya turned her gaze towards the baby dragon and started an intense staring contest with the scaly creature.
"Dicky"
"Shitface" the baby dragon replied and shocked everyone around them.
"The baby dragon can talk!"
"Oh my god!"
While the female disciples were staring at the baby dragon with sparkling eyes, only Jack's group realized the danger the baby dragon in,
"She's going to turn that noble dragon into a foul-mouthed bastard"
"Brother!" Just after Jack and Christopher left the place, Michael heard Cindy's voice as he looked down with a smile to see the little girl throwing herself at him.