"Let's go."
Seeing the sparse group, a team of only seventeen people, Sejuani mounted Bristle's back and spoke.
"Warmother!"
A woman blind in one eye stopped them at the front of the camp.
"What? Even when I'm taking only ten people on an operation, you still want to stop me?"
"Vrynna."
Sejuani's voice was cold, carrying a dense killing intent.
The small number of people had already put Sejuani in a bad mood, and now she spoke to her Second Claw with no mercy at all.
"I wouldn't dare!"
Vrynna hurriedly lowered her head and explained, "Warriors will inevitably grow hungry on the road. I hope you will take these with you!"
She called it food, and it did look like a fairly large portion.
But according to Caleb's estimate, if each person ate only until they were about seventy percent full, it would last two or three days at most.
"Take it."
With a glance from Sejuani, a fully armored man naturally stepped forward and accepted the bag.
"May you all return victorious!"
There was an extremely frightening scar over Vrynna's right eye. The long claw mark had almost torn across half her face.
Not only did she not hide it, she proudly exposed that part of herself instead.
Generally speaking, the main claw and the second claw were supposed to operate separately, supporting each other from a distance.
But now that Sejuani was setting out toward the Ursine territory on Volibear's mountain, Vrynna, as leader of the Second Claw, naturally took over the position of leader.
If Sejuani could not return, Vrynna would also become Warmother of the Winter's Claw as a matter of course.
At that point, after suffering the blow of this brutal cold, the Winter's Claw would no longer have any need to distinguish between main and second.
"No scars?"
Looking at the only new face in the group, Caleb, Vrynna let out a disdainful snort.
In the Winter's Claw, that was not a compliment.
Having scars meant one had faced the great axes and blades of enemies, and the lunges and bites of wild beasts.
Only weaklings in the tribe who had not yet undergone trials, and warmbloods responsible for logistics, were normally scarless.
"I just haven't found an opponent capable of leaving one on me yet."
Caleb returned a polite smile, but the words he spoke were outrageously arrogant.
In truth, if one insisted on counting his opponents, of course there had been some.
But Yaanogel had already helped him deal with them, so Caleb simply treated those opponents as though they had never existed.
"I hope I get to see you all come back alive."
Sejuani truly had brought very few people this time. Including Caleb, there were only seventeen.
Aside from a younger Wildclaw spirit shaman, and Olaf, who was full of rage, the rest, excluding Caleb, were all warriors who looked extremely ordinary.
They had no special traits, only layers of dull gray iron armor and battleaxes of their own.
"In that case, move out!"
At Sejuani's order, everyone slowly took the first step forward.
"If anyone wants to go back, there's still time."
Even someone as steadfast as Sejuani sounded somewhat discouraged at this moment.
A team of seventeen people, with only three and a half elites among them.
What was this? If this wave failed, would they just lie down and give up?
However, even though Sejuani's words were unpleasant, no one turned back to return to the tribe.
As ordinary Iceborn, they naturally wanted to prove that they were exceptional too.
If they could win this battle, even simply surviving would make them legends to be praised.
More importantly, in battle, they would definitely protect Sejuani.
The title of oathfather might very well be earned at a time like this.
Although they could not compare to Frost Priests, or the various spirit shamans, every man with Iceborn blood wanted to become one of the men behind a successful woman.
Who would not want an exquisitely adorable little girl, then raise her until she became the tribe's next Warmother?
For that, even these men who had not originally stood out much were ready to risk everything.
Caleb still did not know what these people were thinking.
Aside from Bristle, a descendant of a demigod, the front of the team consisted of Caleb, Olaf, and that Wildclaw shaman.
"My name is Zev!"
He introduced himself to Caleb with great enthusiasm.
As a Freljordian, he rarely saw outsiders coming here.
Even Noxus only mined some ore in the mountains near the Freljord to use as raw materials for producing weapons and equipment.
There was no helping it. The Freljord's resources were simply too scarce.
Across such a vast region, the population had barely grown over the years. Instead, people still had to go raid towns in Demacia and Noxus.
And as a port, the Freljord did make it convenient to travel to Ionia, after all, the sea in that direction was relatively calm and suitable for sailing.
"Caleb."
Seeing that Caleb did not have much of an imposing manner either, Zev became even more excited.
"Do you carry Iceborn blood? Did you come back from Ionia to visit your roots?"
There were quite a few Freljordians who had gone to Ionia, and many had never returned.
"I have a little, you could say, but I'm not here to visit my roots."
Caleb smiled, answering Zev's question.
"You brat, did you think I couldn't see through those little schemes of yours?"
Olaf lightly patted Zev's thick chest with the flat of his axe and burst into loud laughter.
"You just want to show off, raise your status as a shaman, and maybe even become bloodsworn with our leader!"
Olaf had no filter. With one careless sentence, he sent out a full-area attack.
"That's not true! I didn't! Don't just make things up!"
Zev's still somewhat youthful face instantly flushed bright red, and the claws bound to his hands slashed toward Olaf.
"Easy now, easy!"
Olaf countered with his twin axes at an unhurried pace. At this point, he was still handling things with ease.
It was worth mentioning that Caleb had once talked with Olaf. As for the ultimate ability that made Olaf immune to control, Olaf himself would be overwhelmed by rage and completely lose consciousness during it.
So once he started fighting, everyone basically stayed far away from him.
That was both to satisfy his wish of dying in battle as soon as possible, and of course, a reflection of everyone else valuing their own lives.
"All right, that's enough."
In the end, Caleb still acted as the peacemaker and stopped the two of them from venting their excess energy.
In the blink of an eye, several days of travel passed.
The mountain where the Ursine were stationed was now close at hand.
But the snow between the mountains was falling harder and harder. By the time Sejuani faced that majestic peak, many of the warriors' steps had begun to waver.
"I guess this is what you'd expect from weather created by a demigod."
Caleb had heard some of the Freljord's legends too. Supposedly, Ornn had brought in seawater to cool his forge, causing thick water vapor to rise into the sky and form the dense clouds that blanketed the Freljord.
"Hold on just a little longer."
Bristle, at the front, shook its head and reluctantly took another step forward.
Only after Sejuani urged it on did it continue moving ahead.
This stretch of road was not especially hard to walk, yet Sejuani still slowed her pace.
"Why does this place look familiar no matter how I look at it?"
Caleb had already moved to the center of the team with Olaf.
The warriors protected Sejuani, while Caleb and Olaf were responsible for protecting the group.
Looking as far as the eye could see, there was nothing but vast, desolate snow. Thankfully, the weather was gloomy. Otherwise, Caleb feared he might have gone snowblind.
Then suddenly, a crack of thunder exploded.
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