A slow, yet chilling breeze blew through the air, freezing everything that dared to stand in its path.
Thick snow covered the entire mountaintop, jagged rocks rising out of it here and there like terrible fangs.
At one end of the mountaintop, the jagged black rocks rose to form several stone pillars of different sizes.
Not too far away from them, a vast field of elegant flowers sprawled across the ground, seeming completely out of place amidst the dreadful scene around them.
Yuko stood at the other end, taking deep breaths to calm his nerves. The charm around his neck glowed frantically, struggling to shield him from the fatal cold.
The boy clutched it with his hand, his expression grim.
He heard a light chuckle.
"Feeling nervous, little brother?", Tai was standing behind him, stretching to prepare for what was to come.
He patted Yuko on the back, "Don't worry too much, it'll be just like old times."
Tai was putting on a brave act, but Yuko could clearly see that he was nervous too.
He sighed.
Their plan was a risky one, but it was their only option at this point.
After a moment, he looked at Tai and nodded, "Let's go."
The two brothers moved forward and right away, an Ice Golems leaped out at them from under the snow.
But before the beast could even get close to the brothers, Niko rushed towards it, knocking it down.
The Golem tried to get back up, but several vines sprouted out from the ground and trapped it.
The chilling winds froze the vines solid in an instant, encasing them completely in adamantine ice.
No matter how much it struggled, the Golem failed to break free from the frozen restraints.
A few more Golems appeared from the snow, all of them meeting the same fate.
Niko briefly turned towards the brothers and nodded, before turning his attention back to the Golems that continued to dig out of the snow.
"Follow me!", Leta called out to them while flying over their heads.
The brothers broke into a mad dash, running after the little bird.
Massive limbs lashed out at them from below as more Golems lunged at them from beneath the snow.
But with Leta keeping an eye out from above, they knew exactly where the attacks would come from.
They leaped and dodged their way around them, nimbly avoiding the monsters without stopping for a moment.
The Golems tried to follow them, but Hana quickly bound them in place with her vines.
A Golem appeared behind Hana, bringing its arms down at her like hammers.
Niko summoned several bone spikes to stop them. The spikes couldn't break through the mystical ice, but they slowed the attack down enough to allow Hana to dodge it.
The Golem tried to follow up with another attack, but Niko had already reached it by then, shattering its legs with a powerful kick.
The Golem fell to the ground after losing its legs, yet it still didn't stop its relentless assault, thrashing about with its arms, until Niko shattered those as well.
Another Golem lunged at Niko, but a pair of tendrils shot through the ground behind it. The tendrils tore through its head, before freezing solid. The Golem tried to keep moving, but it was now bound in place.
The two Spirits worked together to incapacitate the Golems one by one.
Niko knocked them down with his monstrous strength, while Hana tied them in place with her vines. The frigid winds then covered the vines in mystical ice, making them harder than stone and preventing the Golems from breaking free.
But before the two of them could gain the upper hand, dozens of deranged beasts clawed their way up the mountain to attack them.
Wolves and boars lunged at them, snakes coiled around their bodies to trap them in place, and massive birds dove down at them from above, trying to tear the two apart with their massive talons.
But the two Spirits held their ground.
Niko tore the snakes apart with his hands, before raising walls of bone to stop the boars.
The hulking beasts collided head-first into the walls. Cracks spread through the walls, but they managed to stop most of the charging boars.
Then, with a snap of his fingers, he caused countless pale spikes to shoot outwards from the walls, impaling the boars before they could move again.
The wolves leapt over the spike-covered walls, slashing at Niko with their claws. But they were quickly ensnared and tossed aside by Hana's vines, before being eviscerated by more spikes that shot out from the ground.
Then, Hana quickly leapt aside, narrowly avoiding the talons of a massive bird. The feathered fiend quickly rose to the sky to join its flock, and they all prepared to dive in unison.
But Hana wasn't going to let them. She called forth several tendrils, launching them at one of the birds.
The bird dodged and spun, avoiding two tendrils with utmost ease. But a third one came and tore through its wing, and a fourth used that chance to impale its heart.
The mighty bird plummeted to the ground, soon being followed by others of its flock.
With each bird she killed, Hana felt like throwing up.
She hated it. Seeing so many creatures die, having to play a role in their brutal deaths, watching their bodies fall down in a morbid, bloody rain.
She hated it all.
But she gritted her teeth and kept her focus. She couldn't let it get to her, not right now.
The plants she summoned could only move for a few moments, before the blizzard froze them solid.
So, she had to pay close attention, counting the time and summoning the plants at just the right moment.
It was hard, but she would just have to bear it. Besides, someone else had it much worse.
She glanced back at Niko, grimacing when she saw him getting rammed into by a boar.
He didn't even flinch when his ribs were shattered. He simply raised his hand, piercing the boar with a massive spike, before tossing its body at another boar.
He barely had time to heal his mangled body, before a wolf's claws tore into his back. He tried to attack it, but a snake quickly wrapped around his legs, causing him to fall over.
The creatures had recognized him as the biggest threat, so they focused most their efforts on tearing him apart.
More and more monsters lunged at him from all sides, each delivering gruesome wounds.
Yet the boy didn't falter for a single moment.
He gritted his teeth and rose back up, tearing and piercing his way out of the encirclement.
Seeing him, Hana steeled her resolve. If he wasn't giving up, then she wouldn't either.
And while she and Niko continued their deadly battle, Yuko and Tai carried on with their desperate sprint.
Their breaths were heavy, their bodies injured from the Golems' glancing blows, yet the two boys had wide smiles on their faces.
That was because they could see it. Just a little further ahead, there was a large flower field.
Each of the flowers was completely transparent, sparkling as if it were made of crystals. It seemed as if it was made of pure ice, sculpted carefully into the shape of a gorgeous bloom.
The Winter's Breath, dozens of them!
The boys picked up their pace, running recklessly towards the enchanted flowers.
"Hey, wait!"
Leta called out to them, but it was no use. The two of them couldn't afford to slow down now.
Niko and Hana were holding the monsters back for now, but they couldn't keep it up forever.
The two Spirits were already surrounded by the rabid creatures, and many more could arrive at any second.
So, the brothers had to hurry up and grab one of the flowers before that happened.
In their haste to reach the blooms, they almost failed to notice the wolf lunging at them from the side.
Almost.
Tai grabbed Yuko's hunting knife from his hand, driving it into the wolf's head in one swift motion.
He grinned as the beast's lifeless body fell gracelessly onto the ground.
'Once a hunter, always a hunter.'
Tai then walked over to the flower field, crouching down near one of the flowers.
He reached towards it with a trembling hand, gently holding its stem between his fingers.
The icy stem was cold to touch, but not unpleasantly so.
He easily plucked the elegant flower, feeling a sense of relief wash over him as he did.
He lifted it high up, taking a moment to gaze at its beauty, with Yuko soon joining him.
They had done it, they had found the Winter's Breath. Now their father, as well as the rest of the hunters, could be cured of their terrible curse.
They wouldn't have to suffer endlessly not anymore.
The thought of it brought tears to their eyes, and they both started crying with joy.
But they stopped when, suddenly, the flower began to glow softly, a cool aura spreading out from it.
And then, with a sonorous crack...the mystical flower shattered.
The brothers' eyes widened. They stared in horror at Tai's palm.
The shimmering dust floating above it was all that was left of the Winter's Breath.