Chapter 121: The Ghost of the Hearth
The journey through the frozen wasteland continued, but the air felt heavier now. The team walked in a jagged line, their boots crunching against the ice. Ren walked at the front, his eyes scanning the horizon, but his mind was a battlefield of cold calculations.
If Mina realizes what I am, Ren thought, his sapphire eye flickering with a dim red light, if she ever connects the dots about the Titan's death... I'll have to kill her. No... maybe I can just change her memories. I can rewrite her mind so she only remembers me as her savior. The thought of erasing Mina's personality didn't disturb him. To the Butcher, everyone was a chess piece. But before he could finish his thought, the entire group came to a sudden, grinding halt.
Through the veil of falling snow and mist, a shape emerged that defied all logic. It wasn't a mountain, a Titan, or an outpost. It was a house. A normal, two-story wooden house with a slanted roof and a small porch, looking exactly like something you would find in a peaceful suburban neighborhood.
"A house?" Mina whispered, her hand tightening on her weapon. "In the middle of the Frost-Spire? How is this possible?"
"Nothing is normal here," Ren said, his voice dropping to a low, cautious tone. "This is either a hallucination caused by the extreme cold or a very elaborate trap."
"Then we ignore it," Mina said firmly, her Captain instincts kicking in. "We don't have the time or the resources to investigate mysteries. We keep moving toward the next waypoint."
"No," Ren countered, his eyes fixed on the front door. "I'm going inside. If there's a threat in there, I'm not leaving it at our backs. And if there are supplies, we need them."
"Ren, no! That's an order!" Mina snapped. "We are not going in there."
Ren turned his head slightly, his gaze cold and defiant. "Sorry, Captain, but I stopped following orders a long time ago when they didn't make sense. I'm checking it out."
"Then we go together," Mina sighed, knowing she couldn't stop him.
"No. You stay back. All of you," Ren commanded.
Mina hesitated. I shouldn't let him go alone, she thought, but every time I try to force him, the tension between us grows. I have to trust his survival instincts for now. "Fine," Mina said. "But stay alert."
Adam Lee, holding his bandaged stump, shook his head. "This isn't safe, Ren. We have nothing left—no gear, no backup. If something is in there, we're trapped."
"Trust me," Ren said simply. "I'll handle it."
Ren walked toward the porch, the wooden boards creaking under his weight—a sound so domestic it felt violent in this wasteland. He stood before the door. From inside, he heard a faint sound—the muffled humming of a melody, a sound so familiar it made the hair on his neck stand up.
"Is someone in there?" Ren called out, his hand hovering over the handle. He looked back at the team. "Stay where you are."
He slowly pushed the door open. The interior was warm—unnaturally warm. The smell of cinnamon and fresh laundry hit him, a sharp contrast to the metallic scent of blood and ice outside. The living room was empty, but he saw a small kitchen knife lying on a side table. He picked it up, his fingers gripping the wooden handle.
He moved toward the hallway, his heart beginning to thud against his ribs. He pushed open the door to what looked like a dining room, and then he froze.
The knife slipped from his fingers, hitting the carpeted floor with a dull thud.
A lady stood there, her back to him. She was about to walk out of the room, carrying a tray. She stopped and turned around, her eyes meeting Ren's.
Ren's breath hitched. His vision blurred for a second as his brain struggled to process the image. "No... no, this can't be. How? How are you here?"
The woman had soft, kind eyes and a smile that had been etched into Ren's memory since he was a child. She looked exactly as she did in the real world—before the wars, before the Onyx Reach, before the Butcher was born.
"Mom?" Ren whispered, his voice cracking. It was the first time in years he had spoken that word with anything other than grief.
Outside, Mina couldn't take the silence anymore. "That's it. We're going in."
The team rushed into the house, their weapons drawn. They moved through the warm hallway, their heavy boots tracking snow onto the pristine carpet. When they burst into the dining room, they saw Ren standing like a statue, staring at the woman.
"Ren! Get away from her!" Mina shouted.
Adam had given Mina a small backup pistol earlier, and she raised it now, her aim steady despite her confusion. She didn't see a mother; she saw a Vane-anomaly—a monster wearing a human face.
"Ren, move! It's a trap!" Mina screamed, her finger tightening on the trigger.
Mina fired. BANG!
But Ren was faster. In a moment of pure, unthinking instinct, he threw his hand out in front of the woman. The bullet tore through the air and slammed into Ren's palm.
"AGH!" Ren hissed, clutching his bleeding hand, but he didn't move away from the lady.
"Ren! Are you crazy?!" Mina shouted, her eyes wide with shock. "That thing isn't human! Look at it!"
As Ren stood there, his blood dripping onto the floor, the "mother" began to change. Her kind smile didn't fade, but it became fixed—like a mask made of wax.
A thick, oily dark aura began to seep out of her skin. The warmth of the house vanished instantly, replaced by a cold so intense it cracked the wooden walls. The woman's eyes turned into bottomless pits of black shadow, and the dark aura began to swirl around her like a storm.
Ren looked at his hand, then at the creature standing before him. The realization hit him like a physical blow. The "Ghost of the Hearth" wasn't here to welcome him home. It was here to feed on the one thing the Butcher had left: his memories.
"You..." Ren growled, his sapphire eye turning a violent, bloody red. "You shouldn't have used her face."
The dark aura flared, and the house began to dissolve into a nightmare of shadows.