Well, at the moment I can say for certain that my muscles want to leave my body and go die in a ditch somewhere. Isn't the cold supposed to numb pain like this, how the fuck am I feeling it even more intensely now. It feels like somebody is pulling my muscles out of me and wringing it like a cloth.

  Cold and pain have defined my being for the last couple of hours. Right now we are climbing what can be considered to be one of the steepest paths that I have ever seen in my life. (I am a child of the hex mountain. We know steep paths when we see one.)

  Well, I have discovered that there exist mountains in the truelands and that the blood tribe makes these mountains their home. (I thought that the storms of this place would be able to crush any mountain here to fine dust.) They can move through the narrow paths of this mountain like a goat. I am sure even the soldiers of the legion would be surprised about this capability of theirs.

  I have experience in climbing the largest mountain on the continent (the hexmountain is much steeper than this place). Compared to the hexmountain, this place is still a tiny hill with a gentle slope. The hexmountain has always been unique.

  Well, the fact that it exists is just as impressive as the hexmountain in my eyes. If the hexmountain is a sword standing unsheathed to its full glory. Then the mountain here is a sword as well but broken to its hilt.

  Right now, I am one of the two people that is struggling to deal with this ascent. Before my fellow soldiers of the legion begin their teasing, My problem with climbing this mountain is the weather. If it was cold down there, then it is freezing up here. I can feel the chill (the normal kind) even through the protection that the blood tribe has provided us all. My muscles feel like somebody has been crushing it into a paste for the last couple of hours now. (I mostly blame the cold for this. I refuse to believe that climbing this mountain is so physically draining.)

  I struggle to keep moving, feeling my body steadily lose heat. At the moment I am envious of the soldiers of the blood tribe. They are wearing some kind of fur skin that is kind of like the coat that I am wearing right now. (well, I had worn it for going to the frozen peak. How was I supposed to know that I would be going to a place even colder where it would be useless.) It also works to isolate the person wearing it from the surrounding ice mana. It is way better at it though, than even the coat that I am wearing now. They look downright comfortable in their skins, while I feel like I have taken a bath in a block of ice.

  I could ask them for a fur skin, but I cannot look weak in front of them now. I am going to their home and they are charged with my defense. Already it feels like I have given them too much control over me.

  Well, if my problem is with the temperature, cloak struggles with the climbing. The man is like a blind bull charging up the mountain, often slipping. Where he should be still the man moves and where he is supposed to move like his life depends on it the man simply refuses to move. Twice, the man has simply slipped and fell down the mountain. A less powerful man would have broken every bone of his body. The man is not even harmed though. (More importantly, the cold seems to be barely affecting the man as well. A normal person would have frozen to death if he did not have the necessary protection.)

  I can see why the Blood tribe can afford to piss off all the other tribes. If even a man like Cloak (I am sure that other weaker beings will have even less control over their body and certainly way less durability.) is struggling to climb these mountains, then it is the ideal place to build a fort.

  Well, I guess that I should explain how we have ended up here climbing a mountain.

  The blood tribe and their soldiers escorted us across the lands of the truelands since the meeting began. Unlike my expectation of traveling via a sledder, we started this journey on the ground.

  We traveled across the plain on caravans made up of some kind of rock like wood. The only reason that the caravans are even able to travel across the truelands is due to that totem.

  It is a statue, made up of a blood-red rock. I think it is supposed to be showing a man stabbing some kind of a bird through its heart. Based on what I can tell, it is supposed to be some kind of an eagle (or a phoenix. I can't tell those two apart). Statues like this are very common. When every village has a hero who has killed a terrible beast, such statues are really common. A bit too common honestly.) The unique thing about the man is that he isn't the usual hero type.

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  Most people tend to depict their heroes as the soldierly kind. Muscular, well armored and often with a massive sword. Here they have depicted the man as a scholar. He is dressed in scholarly robes that would better suit a court mage than a hero. And even his weapon is a staff that looks like it should be snapping under the weight of the beast. Heck, even the man looks ancient compared to the usual idea of a hero.

  Looking at the statue I am left wondering the story behind it. Well, I will have to smother my curiosity for now. The curiosity of someone from the black mountain is the thing that will most likely get him killed, they say. I don't want to offend the blood tribe by asking questions now.

  Anyway, where was I? Yeah, the only reason that we can travel in this land is due to this blood-red statue. It is a totem that emanates a massive bubble protecting us from the storms. In this bubble, the storms of this place are almost nonexistent. There is still a leakage of ice mana here but that is quite manageable. After all, I can still manage even with this coat. It just leaves me very miserable and cold.

  Without it, we would have already fallen to the storms of this place within a few minutes. Somehow things are getting worse the further north that we are going. Even now the only thing that is visible beyond the boundary is the white of the storm.

  If before the weather here was like a white void, now it has taken on a kaleidoscope-like quality. It is just that unlike a kaleidoscope there is only one shade of color here. I have trained myself not to look beyond the boundary or I find myself getting nauseous. Vomitting certainly won't make me look strong now, can it?

  I am sure that if I were to take a step beyond this boundary the only thing that will be left of me is a block of ice. The magic that is being used by the blood tribe is very fascinating to me.

  As far as I can tell, this magic seems to be a portable version of the magic that is maintained by the council. Just like that bit of magic, I have no idea how this works.

  All I know is that this magic of theirs is very closely related to tattoo magic and is at the same time very different from it. For one thing, it is way more mana-intensive. This must be unique to the blood tribe. This idea is more instinct than logic though so don't ask me to justify it.

  Each of the lords who were in my trial has been powering the statue in shifts. I am not even able to tell how they are powering the device. They are just sitting in front of the statue, meditating and their mana is leaving their body. They are releasing enough mana that ten of my mana cores would have become full.

  Well, it would be wrong to call it ridiculous. I would say that it is somewhere between the mana being emitted by a snowlord and the mana being emitted by Cloak. (with cloak it is an estimate since I have never seen him get serious.)

  Soon the mud of the plains gave way to the rocks of the mountain. Our traveling speed has greatly reduced after that.

  The main reason for that is Cloay. I can somewhat keep up with the Blood tribe soldiers. (What can I say, even I am surprised. I was sure that I would struggle to climb this mountain. I guess you climb one mountain you have climbed them all.) The only problem with me is that I am forced to take frequent breaks due to the cold. If I were to force myself beyond a point, I might lose my limbs due to frostbite.

  As I have said, the climbing speed of Cloak is atrocious. Without him, it would be quite easy for us to double our speed. Right now, the man is being assisted by a group of soldiers who are helping the man climb. Even they seem to be struggling at doing it though.

  Without them, the man wouldn't even have an idea of how he is supposed to be climbing the place. Well, not that he is doing any better with their help. After all, he has still slipped a couple of times since the beginning.

  Both times that he fell the man ended up taking at least a couple of hours to return. That is the reason that we were forced to waste time when we could have been climbing. Well, part of the reason that he is so bad at it is how much he is being rushed. We could be taking it a bit easier and we would make the same time. Hells, we would make better time.

  I don't think at the moment they are even realising that they are rushing so much. I think they are expecting somebody to attack them. I am not sure about this though.

  I am basing my judgment on small actions of theirs. The way the soldiers are cutting their rest short even though they are not that well rested. The way the lords have been expending more and more of their mana to keep the statue active for longer. It would not give them any benefits to keep it activated for that long. The way that cloak is trying to climb the mountain as quickly as possible.

  The people are moving as if they are about to be attacked even here and they don't want that to happen. (I think it would be more precise to say that they are shit scared.) I am tempted to ask them what they are running from, but I always hold myself back. I don't want to know what could have scared a man like cloak. The man would have been able to challenge the commander, who is one of the strongest people I have seen in my life.

  All of this haste is not helping them though. If anything it is slowing us down. We have made pretty decent progress and we should be at this "bloody city" soon enough. Listening to the name of the place I must say it sounds very ominous. I guess I should not judge though. These people are why I am safe right now after all.

  Well, recording this log has only caused my worry to grow now. I had started the thing to calm myself down. Sometimes I wonder why I throw myself into a panic like this.