Cold Is Our Weakness, So Is Water Yours.

Eliana went a bundle on watching the sessions taking place before her naked eyes. Eagles had to be racked with blur vision for they looked everywhere with unfixed gazes, and had been trying to widen and squeeze their eyes close before reopening them time and again.

Some of their necks already collapsed, evincing the deluge of weakness, flooded their blood-sucked, venom-filled body. Not long after, lifeless bodies adorned with violent and disfiguring injuries kissed the ground, uplifting a tiny feathers-storm in the air.

The snakes, desiring skin to skin contact, of course, found the feathers separating their nude bodies an eyesore. Hence, they plucked out each and every feather like peeling off their partners' clothing in the haze of desperate impatience, during the course.

"This is a pretty nice work of art." Eliana commented, good-humor flowing out of her voice. Greenish-purple color painting beneath the feathers, was bare for her to lay her eyes on. A sight, she would save in her brain and lull herself to sleep with. "Come back, girls. That's enough for today."

The little devils dropped their broken toys and retreated, shrinking their sizes. They hissed and rubbed their heads on her, as they hung loosely at her back and shoulders. Some even twisted themselves to fall loose at the sides of her face, and licked her cheeks.

"Flexing a good mood, huh? Be good and go back to sleep now."

The tiny snakes whined; they flicked their tongues on Eliana's satiny smooth body, filling their lungs with her innate sandalwood fragrance, refusing to part with her physical form.

An adoring smile bloomed on Eliana's mouth. "How about I promise you guys another feast when opportunity presents itself?" The proposal seemed to have satisfied the snakes. Ensuring this, one by one, they dissolved themselves into black hair that cascaded down her back, veiling her curvy back and plump ass.

Eliana circled her hands around air, and it stacked up all the carcasses into a pile. Producing fireballs in the palms, she hurled them at the tiny mountain of corpses, burning them thoroughly.

Eliana opened her mouth wide, and shot an orange-size fireball to the ice mantled ground, which sank into it, and dug a deep abysm. This was something Hades Costello Alarie taught her years ago, when they went on a mission together.

Come to think of it, he was perhaps to some extent as foolish as her, to let an outsider learn the secret battle techniques reserved only for his clan.

Eliana commenced reciting a conjuration, one of many, her grandmother made sure she thoroughly committed to her memory. The monotonous sound forming the chant rose and fell, air howled and quietened and the gray vestige of eagles took the form of a big snake, before slithering down a hundred meter depth chasm.

"What a nuisance! To think I have to give my arch enemies proper cremation and burial!" Grumbling nipping on her heart bubbled over with a surge of indignation. She, however, was locked in the bound of helplessness.

After all, the circumstances didn't serve her any other option! Knowing him, he wouldn't sit quiet when the incident of thirty missing eagles slapped his calmness hard for they were a part of his royal knights. Moreover, first-staged magicians were potential talents for eagles.

He was the last person to tighten his butt and hold up the shit! His stubbornness, a trait he developed over the years, would continue biting him on the ass, until he kicked open the veil from the mystery and quenched his thirst for curiosity.

Not only did she not wish to be bothered by the vengeful spirits, but also she didn't want him to find any trace crawling at her.

Eliana retracted her gaze upon the black abysm filling up and the ground regaining its previous appearance. She rotated her forefinger, eyes following its swiveling, as wisps of smoke emitted out of it, and curled up in the air. "Lead me to the escapee."

Soon, an invisible energy pulled Eliana to the southern north; towards the eagle writhing on his stomach on the blanket of ice, covering the mud. As predicted, he did try to change his direction. "Here you are..."

The second-in-command, out of instinct, tried to twist his neck at the sound source, however, the invisible trap Eliana laid for him pinned him to the ground. At that point, her orotund voice felt extremely deceitful to him, which alone drove him to the breaking point.

"Let me go, I beg you!" The eagle's breathy voice ripe with anxiety stumbled out. His enlarged eyes, to set which on Eliana, he had to exhaust a big amount of strength, mirrored the raging tempest brewing inside his heart. And, his clenched jaw quivered for he rose it with difficulty, before that ghosty energy shoved his face down again without an iota of clemency.

Nonetheless, his pleading was lost on Eliana. In fact, she responded to it with a ring of laughs that surged upward from the core of her heart, conservatively clothed in sarcasm. She looked down at him from six meters above, something eagles adored doing. The switch of their regular position threw colors of complacency on her face.

Eliana clicked her tongue, a gesture screaming her lack of sympathy. "I don't have a choice in this matter, do I? How in God's name can I let you off the hook? Won't it spell more dangers in my way?" She posed the question, then snapped her jade fingers, breaking the spell of runic magic, and liberating the escapee from the ponderous weight the intangible runes stamped on him with.

The second-in-command sat bolt upright, peering up into Eliana's golden globes. All sorts of pride had been wiped out by his survival instinct, as prostrated himself. "I will contain whatever happened today in my stomach. I swear not to breathe a word of it to anyone!"

"Heh!" Eliana shot out a contemptuous titter; memories etched into every cell of her body, flashed red light. "When it comes to your race, I have absolutely retreated to a fortress of my own making." Eagle's animosity for snakes was acquired from their birth, and they harbored it in their breaths and curved it in their souls.

Even eight hundred year's close acquaintance and the red rose of love that blossomed from it had been viciously squashed under the shoe. Not a single hint of remorse surfaced on that sinisterly handsome face, she used to spend hours staring at, while he dragged her from the bed of flowers and cruelly threw her on the heap of thorns!

"Your request for trust can't ever be met for the quota has been shut down a hundred years ago! I would choose for you to take our secret to your grave over you assimilating it."

The second-in-command inched rearward, dragging his buttock on the ground. His horrified eyes regarded her, as understanding seeped into them.

Eliana swiped her gaze over him, and glanced at the frozen spring. "Perfect spot. Cold is our weakness, and water is yours." She slammed her tail onto the subglacial water body and cracked open the sheet of ice.

However, as the temperature was far below the freezing point, soon another thin floating layer of ice appeared by the shore, which persisted in thickening and stretching towards the center.