It was cold.
Cades was slowly walking through the frozen kingdom consisting of ice that hadn't melted in centuries, ice that hadn't even seen the sun.
The "demon of the mountain"....
They were indeed located around the mountains.
But the were neither on the mountain nor were they wyverns nor were they one.
The monsters that he was hunting were harpies, a race reminiscent of an avian with the only real difference being that their whole body was covered in feathers unlike with the "normal" avians whose feathers only covered the upper half.
The harpies were each about seven feet tall and lived in a nest of over a thousand.
They had sharp teeth hidden under a white beak and eyes like those of a hawk.
When he had first come here, tasking the raven to find some things he needed, he had made the mistake of flying in the air.
The harpies had seen him and thirteen demi-lord beings attacked him at once.
He was barely even able to win.
Luckily the last of the harpies had led him to the entrance of this ancient cave system.
It was dark, cold and ironically very dry.
The caves weren't of stone but instead they were filled almost entirely with ice, and they were unimaginably big.
After spending an entire month and making a few maps of this place he finally knew where the nest was located.
He was on his way there.
There were countless harpies guarding their king, it would be very difficult to kill all of them and then, after all of that, kill their king but Cades knew that he would be able to do it.
He felt as if he had done this before.
Cades didn't know how it was possible but in the underground, icy cavern there was a massive snowstorm more powerful than any storm he had ever experienced before and more than that, Cades felt as if the storms power became more and ore powerful the closer he got to the only part he hadn't yet explored, the only part where the harpy king could really be hiding.
And Cades could feel it.
He could feel countless flying creatures inside of the humongous storm, they were flying undisturbed by the very storm that even annoyed him.
They were the harpies he had previously fought.
Vile, annoying creatures.
Cades knew what he had to do.
He had made countless strategies for this very scenario, although he hadn't thought that there would be such a storm defending the harpy king.
Cades used telekinesis magic and shot a huge deformed boulder towards the harpies that were caught off guard and fell down from the caverns ceiling, towards the ancient, frozen ground.
He had already known that the boulder wouldn't nearly be enough to take care of them, the ice in this cavern was ancient, but they were beings of the demi-lord rank, strengthened by a high lord, they wouldn't be killed by a blunt weapon mad of such a, relatively, weak material.
These harpies were only scouts, at least that's what cades thought regarding the reason as to why they would be this far out.
And, truly, Cades saw no more of the flying monsters until he saw the core of the nest.
There they were, sleeping, curled into their white wings and laying on the frozen ground, undisturbed by the eternal, torturous cold that permeated every square inch of this godforsaken place.
Cade knew what he had to do.
The clash between him and the harpy king would be more than enough to wake them up.
Cades was fairly certain that he wouldn't be able to fight against the harpy king and its nest at the same time so he began carefully casting a spell which he had learned while being stuck in this cavern.
It was a spell that would let some of the ice crumble down from the caverns ceiling and consequently wound those that were hit by the icy boulders.
They wouldn't die, but Cades didn't have a spell that could kill that many demi-lord rank beings with a single attack, so he would just have to disorient the few hundred harpies that were sleeping and the few dozens that were still squirming there.
As he finally finished the evocation it began.
He forcefully broke apart the ancient ceiling and humongous parts of the eternal, icy ceiling that had protected the harpies for over five hundred years finally fell downwards, wounding all those that were beneath.
And yet those harpies that just laid there weren't dead, barely any of them were even mortally wounded, but they were disoriented and Cades would utilize that flaw in their defence to kill them.
He rushed towards the convulsing mass of white harpies and began the slaughter.
It was easy for Cades to kill them, it didn't take too much effort as he could strike through their entire body in one or at most four strikes, but there were many, far too many.
He had killed about two or three dozen when the harpies finally noticed him and a terrible screeching sound resounded throughout the entire cavern and the harpies began fighting back.
An avalanche of white bodies began flowing in from all sides like a thunderous, all-consuming storm of vengeful, violent, birdlike monsters, each with the power to crush boulders under their hands and some even survive a lightning strike.
And yet, Cades cut his way through that seemingly never ending avalanche of monsters.
After some time it all went red for him, the enemies were nor enemies, they were prey, they were like a blockade and he would smash that very same blockade.
Cades sent strike after strike, spell after spell, he didn't even think anymore he just killed, he just attacked as soon as he could, uncaring of anything else.
His old anger, his old hatred was coming back and these were his targets, he wanted to kill them, to take their lives just as all of those he cared about were killed.
And then everything went white.