Meera let them come in a little closer. After all, what was the point of showing them that she had seen them? They were careful in their gait, making as little sound as they could, but unfortunately for them, she had super hearing. Sometimes she wondered if she had become too strong for the likes of these Frostweavers. But she was sure there must be someone in this frozen tower who was her match.

Beside her, Ilona was shaking like a leaf. Meera placed a hand on her shoulder. Instead of calming her down, the girl flinched. Meera couldn't help but wonder if she wouldn't have been this scared when she had first arrived in these worlds. Then she remembered her first encounter with those Nightsatalker Monkeys and retracted that statement.

The Frostweavers were quite close now. There were about ten of them, and not a single one was over level 450, which was good for Meera. She figured she could gain a few levels and acquire new skills to combine with her existing ones.

Then, finally, Meera couldn't wait any longer. She pulled off a level 2 chakram from her arm. It was fortunate that she had converted them all to level 2 and reduced about half of them to the size of a regular chakram. She knew doing this would come in handy. She was about to hurl the chakram to the closest Frostweaver on her right when the woman coming down the middle spoke.

"Whoever you are, you've wandered off too close to our home," the female frostweaver said. She had a deep voice for a woman. It was rather unsettling. "The penalty for laying eyes on the Winter Spire is death."

Meera turned and shrugged. "Sorry, didn't know."

It was nice seeing their reaction when they laid eyes on her. Either they knew her face somehow, or they knew her from her class. Either way, more than a few of them were taken aback to find Meera standing there.

"You," the woman said through gritted teeth. "What are you doing here?"

"I got lost and ended up here," she replied casually. "Quite a place you've got here. Made entirely of ice, looks like. Don't you all get terribly cold?"

One of the Frostweavers on her right stepped forward menacingly, but the woman clicked her tongue, and the man stopped, but the hate on this face was evident enough.

"Oh, what happened? Did I kill a friend of yours?" Meera asked. "If it's any consolation, they probably attacked me first."

"You killed my father and brother." He was trembling with rage. "I've been praying to Lord Aetheron that he gives me this chance to avenge them."

"Father and brother…" Meera tapped her lips. "There was a father and son, I remember. Wait, don't tell me you're the son of that Elder that was sent to Gethys."

"His name was Sidrian."

She snapped her fingers. "That's it. Sorry, I had to make an example out of him. But all things considered, he still got a better death than being dissolved in acid by most of your brothers and sisters that fell prey to Aksha's daughters."

"You sawed him in half," he barked.

The woman interjected now. "Control yourself, Norhan."

But Norhan looked like he was past the point of controlling himself. He lashed forward, and she let him. Norhan gripped her by the neck and lifted her clean off the ground. He squeezed, but her armor held back the brunt of his strength.

"I'm going to enjoy killing you slowly," he growled.

Meera looked at the woman. "Just so you know, it was your man that started this fight."

Then she activated Druvis Might, gripped his wrist, and crushed it with hardly any effort at all. Sidrian's son screamed as he let go of her. She dropped to the ground and must've been an entire head shorter than him, but that didn't matter. It still looked like she towered above him.

"Didn't your mother teach you not to put your hands on other women?" Meera asked.

He tried backing up but didn't get two steps before his head fell clean off his shoulders. He didn't even see the chakram that Meera had flicked towards him. She had propelled it with Mirror Bolt and finished Norhan, just like that.

She turned to the woman with a smile. "Right, so where were we?"

All pretense of civility died with Norhan. The Frostweavers were like a pack of wild dogs waiting for their leader's command to attack.

The woman whom Meera figured was the leader glared at Meera. "You are as feral as they say you are."

"Who's they?" Meera asked. "Considering there weren't many that survived Gethys. So, who is it that has been spreading all these false rumors about me?"

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The woman didn't respond and gave the signal to attack. The signal was an ice arrow shot from her hands, which came straight for Meera.

For an arrow, it was relatively slow, or maybe she was just that fast. She side-stepped the arrow with ease. Ilona cowered behind a tree, but given the number of enemies, Meera could easily be swept away from her side, and it was probably better that she did.

She activated Spectral Dominion and called forth two shadow warriors, and commanded them to stand watch over the scared sorceress.

"These will protect you," Meera said. "I'll go finish this up quickly."

She ducked the ice sword that was coming for her head without even looking at it. Then she activated Nightstalker Bindings before he could swing his sword again. Then she pushed the immobile Frostweaver with the horrified look on his face in front of the coming lance.

Her human shield cried out as the lance pierced his side. Poor guy couldn't even cry out, but his attacker let out a gasp. Meera pulled out the bloody lance through his body and jammed it into the back of his neck. He crumpled to the floor immediately.

"Tch, tch, tch…" she shook her head. "Oh, look what you did to your friend."

"You whore," said the aggrieved man. "I'm going to skin you alive."

"We'll see about that."

She shot forward using Mirror Bolt and activated her armor's ability to litter the forest floor with tiny mirror shards. Those close to her flinched, thinking she had used an attack. She hadn't, and she was going to refrain from using anything flashy this close to the Spire. After all, this was supposed to be a reconnaissance mission. It would fail if the enemy learned of their presence so soon.

Then the real fun began. She jumped from shard to shard, hacking off limbs and delivering killing blows to the cultists. She could've used some skills, but she didn't want to accidentally set off some alarm in the Spire or have someone notice their fight in the forest, who was patrolling on the wall. But then again, they could hear the screams of their dying comrades. So, she made sure to cut out their throats as she went along.

After she had killed her third Frostweaver, something changed in their dynamic. They huddled up together and formed large ice shields. These shields were more like walls. They covered them from head to foot. Then, for added protection, the ice extended over their heads and covered them entirely. It was like Meera was facing an igloo.

She had half a mind to turn around and continue with the work that they came here to do, which reminded her to check up on the scared little sorceress.

She teleported beside her, making her yelp and fall on her behind.

"Relax, it's just me." Meera gave her a hand and got her on her feet. "Listen, they are going to be annoying, and I'm going to keep them busy while my shadow warrior watches over you. So, you have nothing to worry about. Just continue on your work and keep jotting down as much as you can, and we'll figure it out back at camp."

"O-Okay," Ilona said, giving a wary glance at the igloo. "Can you take them all?"

Meera smirked. "I killed way more of them back on Gethys, and I was more than a hundred levels weaker back then. I think I'll manage."

She frowned. "What is your true level?"

"That's a secret."

Meera was still veiled, with her level morphed down to mid-three hundreds. It came in handy because people always tended to underestimate her, seeing that she was at a lower level than they were.

With that, she left the sorceress to do her work and teleported before the igloo, but kept her distance. She walked around it in a circular motion, surveying it, like a predator surveyed its next meal.

"You know, I can just break through it like this." She snapped her fingers.

"Then why don't you try?" came a man's muffled voice.

She shrugged. "Okay, when you lay dying, just know that you asked for it."

She hurled two chakrams at the ice shields. Her chakrams got wedged in the ice wall, but they didn't break through. What else, the ice started to encase her chakrams. She extended a hand and recalled. They smashed through the ice to return to her hand.

Then, without warning, a bunch of javelins shot out of the ice wall. They came straight for Meera, but she was long gone by the time they reached where she was. Then, more javelins came for her, and she teleported to safety once again. Then some more. It was like a barrage of ice, and at one point, they shot ice javelins out of every direction, so she would have nowhere to hide.

She activated three layers of Mirror Tower Shield, but she needn't have formed so many. Even two would've sufficed. The first shattered after a volley of ice javelins, but it took the bulk of the attack. The others held. The Frostweavers' ice javelin volley finally stopped.

Meera quickly checked on the sorceress, and she was fine. She had been hiding behind a tree, quickly tracing the symbols in the ice wall, and mumbling something to herself. She was gushing over the symbols and how they managed to learn these letters, or better yet, turn them into runes.

Meera floated the Tower Shields to protect Ilona, as she didn't want her to catch an errant attack as she battled the cultists.

Meera stared at the ice wall. "Was that it?" No reply came from the igloo. "My turn."

She formed a fist and punched the air, unleashing Quaking Fist, but kept the Mana output to a minimum as this skill did devastating amounts of damage, even with the minuscule Mana that she had used, producing a result that she had not expected.

The igloo was smashed to bits. It was shredded into tiny shards, and the cultists went flying. One hit a tree trunk, and there was an audible crunch as he broke his back. The others got lucky and didn't die on impact, but they littered the forest floor, groaning and moaning.

Meera descended on their leader, who was still on the ground, coughing up blood. She was bleeding from her forehead and had many cuts on her arm.

Meera gripped her by the collar and readied her chakram to end her life. "Any last words?"

She gave Meera a bloody smile.

"M-Meera!" Ilona cried. "Something's happening."

Meera didn't need to look back to see what was happening. A hole had formed on the base of the boundary wall, and through it, a great number of cultists were rushing out, roaring and waving their weapons about.

Some of the Frostweavers raised their hands and shot ice beams into the air, which pierced through the foliage to act like a beacon to call their brothers and sisters.

The woman in Meera's hands coughed. "You think we wouldn't have sent a runner to the Spire to inform them of your coming?" She gave a coughing laugh. "Can you fight them all, Reverent Lady?"

Meera gritted her teeth and slashed out the woman's throat. She teleported to Ilona, who was backing up from the coming horde. She didn't wait to count how many there were. She had no time. She gripped Ilona around the waist and blasted off out of there.

"This is bad," Ilona muttered. "They know we're here."

"Yes, the war with the Cult has officially begun."

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