"Ha... why do I always end up in these god-awful situations?"
The Frost Dragon didn't stay to finish us. With a mocking beat of its colossal wings, it retreated toward the summit, clutching six struggling Snow Wolves in its talons like a snack for later. The obsidian hilt of the Sword of Qelo was still lodged firmly in its eye, a dark splinter in a sea of turquoise scales. My heart burned at the sight of my lost weapon, but at least I had a small consolation prize: I got to beat the living hell out of Felo.
The bastard screamed like a newborn infant with every strike I landed. It didn't fix our situation, but it certainly made me feel better.
By the time the adrenaline faded, we were a pathetic sight. Zota, Mola, Lydia, Felo, and I were trembling, our breath coming in ragged gasps of frozen mist. We managed to claw our way up another eighth of the mountain, eventually finding a small, flat ridge tucked behind a rocky outcropping. We set up camp, desperate for a few hours of oblivion.
But peace is a lie told by the weak.
Just as we began to relax, they came out of the freezing dark. The Assassins of the Snow Masters. These are the shadows that haunt the three peaks of Hollow, Holly, and Abys. They are masters of the most gruesome forms of Kyrokinesis and Ice Magic—arts designed not just to kill, but to shatter the soul.
Felo, being the incompetent worm he is, noticed them too late. A blade of conjured ice flickered in the starlight, and his throat was opened before he could even let out one of his signature whines. I watched him gurgle, feeling a flash of irritation. I was supposed to kill him! I was going to frame him for Lydia's murder! Now, the assassins had robbed me of my perfect scapegoat. Bastards.
The ridge turned into a slaughterhouse. Zota managed to gut two of the shadows, but Mola paid the price—I watched a blade of black ice sever her arm at the shoulder. Lydia screamed as a serrated dagger took her left hand. Amidst the carnage, a strange, collective delusion took hold of the survivors. For some reason, in their desperation, they believed I possessed Absorption Magic.
It was the ultimate gamble. Using the fuel of their belief, I activated my Lie. For a split second, the reality of the world buckled. As one of the assassins lunged at me, his Kyrokinesis flared—and instead of dying, I drank it.
I felt the power tear through my veins like liquid nitrogen. It was real. Not a temporary phantom of my Lügen-Magie, but a permanent, agonizing theft. My body nearly collapsed under the magical pressure; it felt like my heart was being squeezed by a giant's fist. But I had it. I possessed true Kyrokinesis, independent of the Sword of Qelo or the belief of others.
One of the bastards managed to slice my left arm, but the pain was distant. A blizzard roared to life, a blinding wall of white that tore our group apart. When the wind died down, I found myself further up the slope, alone with a sobbing, one-handed Lydia.
I stared at her. I could kill her now. I should kill her now. But I realized with a snarl of disgust that she is currently the only reason my "Absorption" belief holds any weight in the world's eyes. I need her alive to anchor the lie until the power fully settles in my marrow.
But the assassins weren't finished.
Five of them had followed us through the storm. They surrounded us in a star formation—two from the front, two from the rear, and one descending from the jagged rocks above.
"Die, demon!" one hissed.
I didn't waste time with words. I used the swirling snow to create a visual distortion, a trick of the light to mask my movements, and then I unleashed my stolen Kyrokinesis. Real magic is different from the shadows I usually conjure. It drains the life out of you. It's heavy. It's exhausting.
I managed to impale the two front attackers on spikes of their own element, but as I lunged to claim their blades, the third assassin drove a dagger through my side. I felt the cold steel slide between my ribs, puncturing the lung. I twisted, snarling like a cornered animal, and took his head off with a desperate swing of a stolen blade.
The two remaining assassins in the rear began to combine their mana, weaving a massive area-of-effect attack of Ice and Water Magic. I looked at the swirling vortex of power and felt a hunger I'd never known. I wanted to absorb it. I wanted to eat their magic. But I knew instinctively that if I tried to take two more elements now, my physical form would literally shatter into red mist.
With the last of my strength, I channeled every drop of my stolen Kyrokinesis into a Dragon's Breath attack. A roaring torrent of frost erupted from my palms, obliterating the two assassins. The recoil was violent; I was thrown backward into a wall of stone with a sickening crack.
Both of my legs snapped like dry kindling.
The pain was a white-hot explosion, worse than anything I'd felt since the day I was enslaved. I lay there in the reddening snow, gasping for air that wouldn't come. At least they're dead, I thought. All five.
Wait.
One, two, three, four... Where was the fifth?
A shadow detached itself from the rock face. The last bastard had used Shadow Magic to hide, waiting for the dust to settle. He walked toward me with slow, deliberate steps, his blade gleaming with murderous intent.
Is this it? I thought, my vision blurring. After everything? After the gallows? After the Hero? No. I refused. If I let myself die here, all those months of suffering would be for nothing.
As he leaned over me to deliver the killing blow, I lunged forward with the last of my primal strength and bit a chunk of flesh out of his cheek. He screamed, dropping his guard as he clutched his face.
In that heartbeat of distraction, I signaled Lydia. I didn't need her to fight; I just needed her to believe I wasn't exhausted. The brief surge of "Lied-Power" gave me the window I needed. I crawled to his feet and used my Kyrokinesis to turn his ankle into a shower of ice splinters.
As he fell, I braced a broken blade on the ground, letting his own momentum drive the steel through his spine. But I wasn't done. As he lay dying, I reached out and touched his shadow.
I began to absorb it.
This was different from the cold frost of Kyrokinesis. The Shadow Magic felt alive. It didn't just sit in my veins; it merged with my blood. It felt like obsidian ink flowing through my heart. The pressure was immense, a crushing weight on my chest that made me cough up a thick, black bile. I am lucky to be alive.
But as the shadow settled into my DNA, something miraculous happened. The agonizing pain in my shattered legs began to dull. It wasn't healing—not yet—but the shadows were acting like internal splints, holding my broken bones together from the inside.
Lydia crawled over to me, her face pale and her one remaining hand trembling. She could have left me. She could have run into the dark and hoped for the best. But the idiot stayed. She used the last of her mana to properly heal my legs.
"Why?" I muttered as the bones knit back together under her touch. She didn't answer, just kept her eyes on the ground.
Once I could stand again, we didn't speak. We just turned our faces toward the summit and began to climb again, the darkness of the mountain swallowing us whole.
Until next time.