Victor turned away from the portal and looked at Amber, who was still busy pummeling her father.
The entire ground was covered by pitch-black snow, which gave off an ominous aura.
Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!...
At the same time as Amber waved her left hand forward, hundreds of ice swords and ice spears sliced through the air and formed countless frozen trails as they streaked across the sky in Pluto’s direction.
Pluto narrowed his eyes and waved his free hand through the air, and the metallic armour surrounding his body expanded around him as if it were a transparent dome, protecting him from the outside world.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!...
The ice weapons hit the dome but were shattered into hundreds of tiny ice fragments that fell onto the snow before melting and merging with it.
"My unfilial daughter, do you know what’s more dangerous about undeads?" Pluto said with a malicious smile as he raised both of his hands, and the ground started to shake as thousands of undead emerged from beneath it. "It’s that we never run out of minions."
"Heh." Amber sneered and gently clenched her left hand at the same time as her sweet lips whispered two words, "Army of Ice."
Bang!
All the ice fragments that had accumulated and melted into the snow after thousands of ice swords and ice spears were destroyed suddenly seemed to come back to life, and ice hands shot out from the snow. The former Count did not even have time to take a step back before an extremely robust and unyielding hand grabbed him by the ankles.
"Ah, what are these?!" Pluto shrieked in horror as he looked at the pitch-black eyes staring at him from within the ice.
Pluto panicked and, with great effort, managed to pry himself free from the grip of those hands, but his horror did not end there as knights and dragons made of black ice emerged from within the snow, looking at him and his undead army with menace.
"My dear father, let’s see whose army is stronger—mine or yours," Amber said as she snapped her fingers, and the ice army began slaughtering the undead army. Ice sword strikes, ice dragon breaths, and all sorts of attacks were unleashed, and whenever they made contact, they turned the undead into ice sculptures that shattered at the slightest touch.
"You brat!" Pluto was completely enraged, seeing his army get decimated by what he considered nothing more than a lump of ice, and the smug look on Amber’s face made him even angrier. Without hesitation, he charged toward Amber, who merely looked at him with disdain.
Just as she was about to strike, hundreds of ice chains shot out from the ground and bound him tightly, restricting his movements. If he had not been consumed by anger, he would have easily dodged them.
"Huff... Huff..." Amber’s chest heaved up and down as nearly all of her mana reserves had been exhausted fighting him. If Pluto had been even one level higher, she would not have been able to defeat him.
"Damn!" Pluto cursed, and his pupils contracted when he saw Amber point her finger toward him.
Amber pointed her finger at the undead Pluto, and a large volume of mist advanced as she fed it with her mana.
Starting from his feet, then slowly his calves, and eventually the entirety of Pluto’s legs were covered in ice. The mist gradually made the ice creep upward, and it would not be long before it covered his entire body, sealing and killing him.
Her hair was free of ties and gently swayed in the howling wind. Her beautiful face was like a work of art, and her eyes were devoid of emotion as she watched the man before her slowly being devoured by her ice.
"Die," Amber said in a cold voice as an ice trident hovered above her, ready to be launched at her father.
"Ah, I did not expect you to become this disobedient, my cute daughter... I can’t let you kill my general."
A charming voice sounded from behind Amber, and she felt a chill run down her spine.
Sensing the presence behind her, the first thing Amber instinctively tried to do was move to the side as a ball of fire passed by her. To her surprise and horror, the fireball struck the ice sculpture, and instead of shattering it into pieces, it melted the ice.
"Huff... Huff..." Pluto panted heavily, his eyes filled with horror and anger as he looked at Amber with bloodshot eyes. He would have lashed out at any other time, but he did not dare move a muscle, as he could tell a pair of eyes was watching his every movement.
"Mistress... ahhh!" Pluto was about to explain, but a blade made of orange flames severed his right arm, and he shrieked in agony.
Bang
"Completely worthless... You can’t even defeat a Tier 3. If I hadn’t interfered, you would have been dead already," Fanna said with a sneer as she looked at Pluto. She could not help but wonder how she had ever married trash like him when she was human. Right—it was her family who had forced her into it, and she had also been a bit naïve back then.
Amber watched the confrontation between the two undead, frozen in place with her eyes wide open. Her gaze followed every movement of the undead woman, her heart beating so fiercely that it felt as though it would burst out of her chest. This was the woman who had been the most important person in her life, the one who had become a cold, sadistic woman after her passing—the one person who had loved her selflessly, her mother, Fanna Oreburgh. Even though she was now an ugly undead, Amber still felt a tear slip down her cheek as she looked at the familiar figure.
"Hello, my dear daughter."
Fanna’s voice brought Amber out of her inner thoughts, and when she came to her senses, she realized that Fanna’s hand was only a couple of inches away from her. She instinctively jumped a couple of steps back from her mother.
"Amber, my child... why did you avoid your mother? Don’t you love her anymore?"
Her voice was truly pitiful and filled with love, making it almost impossible to keep one’s guard up.
Amber’s emotions were too chaotic to think things through as she simply nodded blankly.
"Come to your mother’s side. I will punish your father after you join me as an undead, and you can become a princess like you always wanted..."
Amber’s eyes glazed over for a moment as she started walking toward her undead mother, and seeing this, Fanna gave a malicious smile as she looked at her prey.
Woosh
"Huh?"
Suddenly, her pupils contracted to the size of needles, and she hurriedly moved aside as a white sword slash crackling with black lightning passed through the spot where she had been standing.
"Who?!" Fanna roared angrily as her face twisted into a grotesque expression.
Amber snapped out of her daze, and when she remembered what she had been about to do, a chill ran down her spine.
Rumble
"You okay? It seems like she has some skill that can influence emotions or the mind," Victor said with a frown as he stood beside Amber.
"Darling... my mother," Amber said, her lips trembling as she looked at the grotesque figure.
"My mother..." Amber closed her eyes and, like a little child, began to choke back her tears. She seemed to have found a shoulder to lean on as she blurted out her pain. "She’s an undead."
"Amber, your mother is dead... that’s not your mother, just an undead. Do you think your mother would want to turn you into an undead?" Victor said, and hearing this, Amber bit her lip, took a deep breath, and threw a complicated look toward her undead mother. She knew Victor was right, and this was not her mother anymore, no matter how sweet she acted toward her.
Amber closed her eyes and thought, "Even if it were my mother... would I turn into an undead to be with her, even if it meant leaving the man I love?"
Amber thought for a second and shook her head. In her heart, Victor held a higher place than her mother.
"Who is this?" the undead Fanna looked at Victor and shot him a wary glance. She could tell he was only Tier 1, but for some reason, he was giving off an overwhelming sense of mortal danger that made her skin crawl. Not even Pluto, who was Tier 4, had ever made her feel such a threat.
Victor nodded with a gentle smile and said softly, "It’s all right now... You just rest and leave the rest to me."
He then looked at Fanna, and Fanna looked back at Victor, and the situation fell into a tense standstill.