The Sect Master of the Winter Lotus Sect sat down over her throne, as she saw the destruction around the palace and the sect members moving around trying to quickly resolve all the issues going on around. She had already taken a big strategy meeting which decided their next course of action, acting defensively was the only way out of this situation, but even then, she had begun to consider surrendering completely to the Dark Shadow Sect in hopes of her people being able to survive in the process, even as prisoners.
"What we have done is a sin that cannot be forgiven… The righteous faction… if they get to know that we singlehandedly let hundreds of innocents die for our own safety… they'll surely label us as a corrupt demonic sect."
She was a beautiful and mature Ice Giant woman of a caste of ice giants that were smaller than others more "savage" ones, as she had revolved into a more refined and compact form, only reaching as far as two meters and thirty centimeters instead of the three meters or more than the Ice Moon Sect ice giants were.
Much like humans, there were many types of ice giants, some were smaller than others, while others were naturally more muscular, strong, and big. There was a particular family in the Winter Lotus Sect, which was labeled as the Lotus Family, they were all smaller than usual Ice Giants who possessed incredibly magical prowess and all sorts of supernatural abilities in exchange for their natural physical strength.
It was a race of ice giants with a paler tone of blue in their skin, white, pink, or gray eyes, and long white hair, not even silvery-white, but white as snow. This family was very unique, and they were even born with a Lotus-shaped tattoo across their bodies, every so often, the number of lotus leaves in the tattoo signified the number of abilities and magic power they were born with, the most talented would have all five, while the weakest only 1, or not have a tattoo at all.
The Winter Lotus Sect Master, simply referred to as Lady Winter Lotus, was a talented five-petal tattoo wielder, her abilities were developed greatly, and things such as the power of Oracles, Shamanism, Spiritualism, Clairvoyance, and Blessings were all part of her arsenal aside from her magic, which was the unique Moonlight Magic, a special type of magic that combined both Dark and Light Magic, compound magic said to be extremely rare, but that the most talented of the Lotus Family can develop.
However, even with all her powers, she was incapable of stopping the war against the Jade Snake…
Everything seemed in harmony until the Winter Lotus Sect offended the Jade Snake Sect when one of their young masters ended killing a young man from the Jade Snake Sect who resulted to be the best friend of the Sect Master's daughter and her future husband too.
This raged a war right away as the sect master of the Jade Snake Sect couldn't calm the sorrow of his daughter and could only avenge her beloved childhood friend and her future husband, whose marriage he had even already arranged.
The war between the two sects began rapidly and caused chaos all across their territory, the Winter Lotus Sect couldn't punish the young master that did this atrocity because it had resulted to be the grandchild of the Sect Master.
"Because of my grandchild's foolishness this entire stupid conflict began and I couldn't possibly let the Jade Snake Sect take over my people, I had to retaliate back… this only caused the war to get even more terrible… I could have sued my own grandchild as a bargaining chip, but I simply can't let such a thing happen… I would never be able to forgive myself if I were to willing throw my own grandchild into the maw of a bear…" sighed Lady Winter Lotus.
However, as the two Sects ended fighting, the Dark Shadow Sect used this opportunity to attack with everything they had at their disposal, annihilating a large chunk of both sect's armies and even pushing them back to their sects in a desperate chase.
"These damn demons! To think they would do such a thing. But they were never this bold before, what exactly provoked them to get so bold? Ahh… of course, the Shadow Beasts they control, such an absurd power. Where could they had possibly gotten it? An inheritance?" she wondered, gritting her teeth as she felt utterly frustrated.
The worst thing was that even after stopping the war between the two sects and pushing both armies back to their territories, the bold army of the Dark Shadow Sect simply split in two and attacked both armies at the same time, chasing down on the winter lotus sect army and eliminating them one by one. When the survivors reached the sect's walls, the Shadow Beasts were still relentlessly following them around, there was barely any hope now, however, the Elders offered Lady Winter Lotus the opportunity to use the hundred of weaklings that lived around their sect as "parasites" to become "useful for once in their lifetimes"…
This ended in the great slaughter and bloodshed of 99% of all the mortals that lived around the sect, the people that actually feed the sect with their farms, vegetables, and cattle animals, all slaughtered because they were corned and had to result in such desperate and monstrous acts to buy time to gather strength and fend off the dark shadow sect members when they had spent all their energy killing weaklings…
But the sect master had no time to grieve as she had been doing all sorts of things inside her sect, while letting the immense and horrendous guilt of what she had let happen eat away her mind, even by thinking that "it was for the greater good", she felt utterly devastated deep down.
However…
"Lady Winter Lotus… this is bad! The Shadow Beasts… t-they're coming back!"
"What? S-So soon?! How long until they reach here?"
"At most… an hour…"
"N-No…!"
