The Last Paragon in the Apocalypse

One of the beasts Klaus asked to be taken alive is the Ice Banshee. This one is one of the most dangerous beasts in the Forbidden Zone.

It’s a humanoid with long hair made from ice. It has no eyes, but that doesn’t make it blind, for it’s very sensitive to its environment.

It uses sound to attack, harnessing the ice element in the most dangerous ways.

Considering they are meant to take it alive, right from the premise of the battle, it became clear that it wouldn’t go their way despite Klaus sending five powerful ladies after it.

Grand Elder Zaggen is the leader of this team, considering she is one of the powerful ice mages from the moon. She is good with her ice spells.

But she wasn’t the only one. Overlord Sorrine, the overlord of the Ice People, was also on the team, and Lucy, Anna, and Aria accompanied her.

It was safe to say that five of the most powerful mages on Earth are now facing a single beast that was showing them the true definition of ice magic.

The start of the battle showed just how much the five mages would suffer.

Their plan was for Overlord Sorrine to go on the offense, considering she is a combat mage. She uses the spear, so the plan was to make her handle the start of the battle while Grand Elder Zaggen distracts it.

Lucy, Anna, and Aria would come in to ensure it didn’t gain the upper hand in any way.

However, this plan was thrown out the window when, even before they could enter the ice region the Ice Banshee had created, a haunting cry came from within it, trapping all five in a domain of ice.

The domain of ice literally trapped them, making it impossible to even escape.

In fact, escaping was the least of their worries, considering that the moment they were trapped, a large blue painting made of an unknown banner appeared in the air.

From the drawings on the banner, different attacks in the form of ice spears, ice monsters, and so on started raining down on them.

Lucy, who also has the wood element, managed to organise the battlefield quickly, making them start to face the banner they had no idea was one of the lost relics of the Weeping Sirens.

One of the seven lost relics of the Weeping Sirens during the primordial era.

The Weeping Sirens are a race of powerful mermaids that lost their homes due to the evil of men.

Legend has it that when they escaped, their tears never stopped falling, for they swore that until every last man is dead, they wouldn’t stop crying.

The banner was called the “Tears of Eternal Grief.”

It was a cursed relic created from the Weeping Sirens’ crystallized sorrow, forged in the depths of the Abyssal Trenches, where the songs of despair never ceased.

Each brushstroke on the banner was not made with ink but with the sorrowful blood of the fallen sirens, mixed with the deepest ice essence found at the bottom of the world.

Klaus once heard of these relics, but he never saw one. Perhaps this was his chance to meet one of the Weeping Sirens, or more like a future Weeping Siren.

None of them knew, however, that the five of them hadn’t become part of the paintings mainly because the Ice Banshee hadn’t awakened its siren side yet.

As Lucy, Anna, Aria, Grand Elder Zaggen, and Overlord Sorrine stared at the grim painting, they could feel a strange heaviness weighing on their souls, as though their very emotions were freezing over.

This was not ordinary magic. The Tears of Eternal Grief attack the body, heart, and mind.

The five ladies, though strong, aren’t having it easy.

The attacks raining down weren’t just physical manifestations of ice.

Each spear carried a fragment of despair, weakening their fighting spirit every time it struck near them. Even the mist is poisonous to their will as warriors.

The very air is cursed with grief, despair, and danger.

The monsters that rose from the banner as towering ice wolves, serpentine monstrosities, and phantoms of forgotten warriors seemed almost sentient, fueled by the sirens’ endless hatred.

One of the deadliest emotions is hatred, and the weeping sirens carry loads of it. So the battle wasn’t really standing a chance against them.

But Klaus knew why he sent them after the ice banshee. Though he knew nothing of the Tears of Eternal Grief, he knew the battle wouldn’t be as simple as they would think.

Naturally, he knew they would learn a thing or two from the ice banshee. Too bad instead of learning, they are now facing the dangers of what they knew nothing about.

The Weeping Sirens’ lore spoke of an ancient betrayal.

Once upon a time, they were revered beings who guarded sacred springs connected to the world’s lifeblood.

The lifeblood is something no living being should be allowed access to, for it is sacred and holy to the siren race.

However, as human greed grew, armies were sent to claim these springs. The sirens were slaughtered, their sacred waters polluted, and their homes ravaged.

Those who survived bound themselves in an ancient curse of vengeance, forever weeping for their lost kin and forever warring against the race of man.

The Tears of Eternal Grief was their most vengeful relic, a living testament to their hatred.

It was said that those trapped within its influence would slowly have their emotions consumed, becoming empty shells if they could not break free.

Worse still, the Ice Banshee was not merely using the relic but resonating with it. Its existence was tied to the relic’s sorrow, making it far stronger than any normal beast.

It’s not yet a Weeping Siren, but it is very attached to it, considering its soul is bonded to her. It now listens to her commands.

The five ladies were under her constant assault for close to 2 hours until suddenly, Anna stopped attacking.

She closed her eyes and then, without any warning, she began walking toward the Ice Banshee…

The ladies freaked out, so they quickly started drawing attacks for her to move. Lucy knew something was happening to her sister, so she had to allow her to do what she wanted.

As expected, when Anna was a few meters from Ice Banshee, she said something that immediately made the ice Banshee take away the Tears of Eternal Grief.

Then, like an obedient servant, she went down on her knees.

“Sylvarin’thal dreviah noru’tess valra’Siiren.”