Dungeon of Niflheim

"You performed marvellously young Frost." General Katrina smiled at Frost as he walked to her side.

"So it was all part of your scheme." Frost glanced at her sideways finding that the woman he saw previously and the one standing before him now were completely different people.

Given her eager, loud and rather boisterous personality Frost assumed that General Katrina was more of an instinctive type, one who overwhelms her opponent with force and will rather than keen strategy, but he was wrong, dead wrong.

"Scheme is such an uncouth word Frost I much prefer strategy." She smiled with a knowing look, enjoying seeing the slight surprise in the young man's eyes.

"Seems that I foolishly judged a book by its cover…a mistake I won't make again."

"Oh you likely will young man. People can't help but make assumptions based on visual input as for most that's our primary source of information. The best you can do is be prepared for your analysis to be wrong."

"…..I'll remember that."

"Good, humility in the face of someone stronger and or more experienced will allow you to continue onwards, to further improve. Arrogance though sometimes justified can lead to misconceptions and even the destruction of one's path…." Katrina looked over Frost in his entirety, noticing his stance, the subtle shifts in expression as well as the slight change in the air surrounding him.

"You've advanced to the mid stages…impressive." Her eyes couldn't help but light up.

"Facing off against a worthy adversary made all the difference." After crossing blades with Bella, a foe that was far beyond him and then Bacchus who was supposedly at a similar level to himself, Frost was able to cross the threshold, to understand what he was missing and stabilise his B-rank foundation.

"Was this not your original intention?" He asked wondering how deep the old General's thought process ran.

"Hahahah I may be a master of warfare but accurately pinpointing one's breakthrough especially someone at your level and who I'm unfamiliar with is beyond me." Katrina laughed and shook her head, a little embarrassed by the pedestal Frost placed her on.

"My initial predictions assumed that the battle between you and Bacchus would be hard fought. Though he may not have been at the peak of the early stages his bloodline and innate battle senses should have proven difficult for you to overcome despite you're slight lead but…." She once again looked over Frost in his entirety before continuing. "You truly are a monster; you didn't simply hold your own nor did you leave him with a serious injury but instead you directly claimed his life and rather easily at that." She had to raise her hands in defeat, Frost was way beyond her estimates. A natural born warrior with talent far eclipsing anything she'd ever seen before.

"….It wasn't that easy." Frost refuted with some honest truths. "Our capabilities were fairly even in terms of physical strength, chakra control and even weapon mastery and although my aura was more profound it wasn't to the degree in which I could completely overwhelm him."

"Then how?" Though she could see the fight from her high position upon the northern wall the distance and the overall situation made it easy for her to miss the subtleties of their duel.

"Experience, particularly our experience facing off against superior foes." Bacchus likely had more general battle experience given his age and background but in regards to experience with fighting against a far superior foe he was clearly an amateur in comparison to Frost who was repeatedly brought to the brink of death by his spartan like teacher/girlfriend.

"…Experience against a superior foe huh." A wild expression couldn't help but mar Katrina's face as she imagined Frost's training routine, the depths of his teacher and mysterious background.

"Does me killing Bacchus affect your plans at all?"

"No, the hornet's nest was already thoroughly poked, hitting it again won't make any difference. If anything it's a positive result, an annoying enemy has departed ahead of schedule and sparked a possible issue with the enemy's morale….well-done Frost." General Katrina would never disparage a soldier for going beyond expectations.

"Thank you General." His thanks were genuine as because of her influence he was able to grow and develop as a warrior, a favour he'd be sure to repay in the future.

"Tsk unfortunately it seems that even Bacchus' death as well as the deaths of certain other officers isn't enough to truly drag Vash out from his turtle shell." Katrina loudly clicked her tongue as she noticed the actions of the enemy A-rank generals. They were being defensively passive and even threatening their regular soldiers rather than being filled with a maddened rage when confronting Jared and Danielle.

Frost followed her gaze across the battlefield to see Generals Jared and Danielle working in concert to clash against Duso and Mabak while at the same time keeping an awareness of Lucra. Such a scene confused him slightly. Sapients especially humans as far as he knew were unable to fight against monsters of the same rank unless they were part of a group or a party. The basis of this assumption was from the adventurer guild, a reliable source yet before his eyes both Jared and Danielle were holding their own perhaps even putting pressure on the enemy monster Generals.

He could accept himself being that capable given the fact that despite his form being close to that of a Sapient Frost was actually closer to that of a monster or high ranking spirit but Jared, Danielle and even the common soldiers within the War Ursa Battalion were all Sapients.

"I thought Sapients were at a disadvantage when it comes to one on one fights with monsters of the same rank?" His curiosity forced him to ask.

"Generally that hold true especially at the lower ranks and particularly with monsters that have a naturally powerful body but there always exceptions to the rule." A majestic charisma surrounded Katrina as she smiled and tensed her body with a look of pride.

"The men and women below us are the best of the best Frost, the elites of the strongest Battalion of the mighty Northrend empire. To compare them to regular adventurers is nothing but an insult. Each and every one of them is trained thoroughly and repeatedly under the most extreme methods and are armed to the teeth with the best armour, weapons and magic artifacts that the Duchy can get their hands on. In addition to that we supply every one of them with knowledge in battle formations, weapon skills, spells and fighting styles. We are the best of the best and our Generals are those who surpass those elites to become unparalleled heroes who can easily hold their own against A-rank monsters and even supress them." The War Ursa Battalion couldn't be compared to random adventurers, even elite adventurers paled in comparison.

Frost felt that Katrina's words made a lot of sense. A monster especially in the lower and middle ranks rely heavily on their natural form, their innate strengths which naturally surpass the bodies of Sapients however if the sapient is armed with a high quality weapon that can cut through a powerful carapace or hide with ease or has mastered a weapon style that can easily handle the simplistic attack methods of a monster then their advantage disappears.

The lines become even more grey as one reaches A-rank as Aura becomes the defining trait rather than one's physical form (though it still plays a large part).

"Interesting."

Frost and Katrina continued to observe the battlefield for a little longer, allowing Frost the chance to calmly analyse a battle between multiple A-ranks, a scene rarely seen in the civilised world to the south.

"Frost I'm assigning you to Jessica's Magic corps next, Sergeant Suna show him the way." Eventually Frost needed to be put back to work, his little break was over.

"Yes General, this way Major." A tall woman with partial scales across her skin then led Frost towards the magic corps stationed upon the northern wall.

Frost was initially excited, eager to stretch his mana veins but then he remembered the leader of the magic corps, the lust filled General Jessica who wanted nothing more than to devour him.

"Relax Frost, Jessica knows better than to mix private affairs with official ones." Katrina lightly laughed before waving him off, allaying at least some of his fears.

A few minutes later he was deposited amongst the magic corps and was staring at the image of a bold woman with an impatient expression on her face as she stared down from her perch on the left side of the northern wall.

"Beta team increase your firepower by 10%, Epsilon recuperate, Team Omega swap out your batteries!" The sexy mage woman who earlier wrapped herself around him was giving off orders like a machine, she didn't even look his way, as though he didn't exist, a rather start contrast.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

He had to wait in silence for nearly 10 minutes before she had time to deal with him and even then it was far from positive.

Your journey continues on empire

"Do you know any war magic?"