"Brr... gods, this mountain is freezing."
My teeth chattered so hard I thought they might shatter. We had finally clawed our way past the forty-percent mark of this wretched peak. Only forty percent! It felt like I had spent a lifetime in this white hell, and yet the summit mocked me from above, shrouded in clouds and malice.
We made a small camp, the fire struggling against the howling wind. Lydia fell asleep almost instantly, her exhaustion finally winning out. Good, I thought, watching her chest rise and fall. Finally.
I couldn't risk using my new magics in front of her. I was vibrating with a dark, electric excitement. I wanted to see what I could truly do. For the rest of the night, while the world was buried in shadow and frost, I trained. I didn't just practice Kyrokinesis or Shadow Magic separately; I began to weave them together. I watched as blades of ice became coated in shifting, oily shadows—attacks that didn't just pierce the flesh but devoured the light around the wound.
For the next five days, we fell into a grueling, monotonous rhythm. We climbed through the dawn, pushed until our lungs burned like fire in the thin air, and collapsed into dreamless sleeps. We covered nearly a sixteenth of the mountain each day. There were no ambushes, no monsters. Just the wind and the silence.
By the sixth day, we had reached the eighty-percent mark. The air was so thin it felt like breathing through a veil of needles. As I watched Lydia struggle through a snowdrift, a strange, alien thought entered my mind. Maybe I shouldn't kill her. Why, you ask? I killed Darren, and I knew him longer. But Lydia... she had a dozen opportunities to leave me for dead during the wolf attack or after the assassins. She didn't. She stayed. In my twisted, cynical world, that almost felt like... debt.
But just as I decided to spare her life, the world turned cold in a way that had nothing to do with the weather.
"Celosia," she said. Her voice was no longer that of a tired healer. It was cold, crystalline, and brimming with authority. "I know what you've done. Disciple of Chaos. You, who attempted to murder the Hero Cassian. You, who nearly took the life of Lillio, leader of the Blood-Red Lily."
I froze. My hand crept toward the hilt of a stolen dagger.
"I, Lydia, Commander of the Swords of the Dawn, hereby arrest you by order of the King of Nordara," she declared, her eyes flashing with a light that wasn't human. "You have been declared the Human Demon. Your journey ends here."
Before she even finished the sentence, twenty-four knights erupted from the snow banks like ghosts of steel. They had been tracking us, hidden by high-tier camouflage magic.
"Bastards!" I hissed.
I didn't wait for them to close the circle. I activated my Shadow Magic, my form melting into the grey haze of the mountain. I became a smudge in the air, a whisper in the wind. Using my Kyrokinesis, I conjured a hail of obsidian-tinted ice spikes. Seven knights went down in the first breath, their throats punctured before they could even raise their shields.
I lunged at another, snatching his own sword from his belt as I drove a knee into his gut. I ran him through and spun, facing five knights simultaneously. They fought with honor, with formation, with "righteousness." I fought with spite. I unleashed a wave of freezing shadow that locked their joints, then finished them with a series of brutal, efficient strikes.
The battlefield was a chaotic mess of blood and steel. The violence was so intense it drew the attention of the mountain's true kings: Snow Bears.
These hulking monstrosities are like a nightmare fusion of Snow Wolves and Snow Ghosts—pure muscle, thick white fur, and the ability to phase through the drifts. They fell upon the knights with primal fury.
I thought I was safe in my shroud of shadows until a sharp, searing pain erupted in my shoulder. I gasped, stumbling as my camouflage flickered and died. I looked back and saw Lydia, her face twisted in a mask of "holy" justice.
"I can see your darkness, Demon!" she cried, lunging again.
The bears attacked everything that moved. One lunged at Lydia, its claws the size of shortswords. As she turned to defend herself, a massive blizzard—stronger than any before—tore across the ridge. It was total whiteout.
In the chaos, I saw my opening. I didn't feel pity anymore. Only the sting of her betrayal. I vanished into the shadows once more, appeared behind her as she struggled with a bear, and in two swift, merciless strokes, I severed both of her arms.
I didn't watch her fall. I didn't stay to hear her scream. I unleashed one final, massive Kyrokinesis blast that buried the remaining bears and knights under tons of shattered ice and snow.
I turned my back on the carnage and kept climbing.
Two days later, near the ninety-five percent mark, I found them: Zota and Mola. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I was actually relieved to see those bastards alive. I knew I couldn't take the Dragon alone—not without my God-Sword.
"Where's Lydia?" Mola asked, her voice trembling.
"An assassin got her," I lied, my voice flat. "She didn't make it."
We spent the day recovering. Zota, ever the helpful companion, bandaged the wound Lydia had given me. We spent the next three days in a tense, silent climb. The summit was finally within reach—maybe three days away at most.
The air was thick with sulfur now. Mola and Zota were at each other's throats, the stress of the mountain finally breaking them. I grew tired of their bickering and went for a walk to scout the path ahead. In a small frozen cave, I found them: massive, shed Dragon claws. They were identical to the ones belonging to the beast that had stolen my sword.
The end was near.
When we finally stood upon the jagged, windswept plateau of the summit, I felt a moment of triumph. We had made it.
"We did it," Mola gasped, clutching her side. "We actually made it."
"Yes," Zota said. His voice had changed. It was no longer warm or encouraging. It was hollow. "Thank you, you two. But the Assassins of the Snow Mountains will take it from here."
Before Mola could even gasp, Zota's blade was out. With a sickening squelch, he drove his sword clean through her torso.
I stood there, watching her blood stain the pristine white snow of the summit. I didn't move. I just looked at Zota, then at the shadows emerging from the peaks behind him.
The real game was just beginning.
Until next time.