Chapter : 975
Rosa watched him, her mind slowly, hesitantly, beginning to follow his lead. The warrior in her, the survivor, responded to the quiet, unshakeable confidence in his voice. The fear did not vanish, but it was joined by a new, and far more powerful, emotion. A fragile, hesitant, and utterly profound trust. She had followed him here because she was fascinated by the mystery of his mind. She would follow him now because, in this place of absolute, soul-crushing despair, his calm, logical certainty was the only light she had left to follow.
She knelt down beside him, her slender, aristocratic fingers, which had once commanded blizzards, now deftly and efficiently beginning to sort the coils of rope, her movements a silent, perfect mirror of his own. The unspoken partnership, which had been forged in a shared objective, was now being tempered in a crucible of shared, absolute vulnerability. They were alone. They were powerless. And for the first time in their strange, cold, and silent marriage, they were truly, completely, and absolutely a team.
The silence of Mount Monu was a living entity, an ancient, predatory thing that pressed in on them from all sides. Stripped of the constant, familiar hum of their spirit companions, Lloyd and Rosa were adrift in a sea of profound, unnatural quiet. Every sound—the crunch of their boots on the volcanic scree, the whisper of the wind through the jagged rocks, the ragged rhythm of their own breathing—was amplified, a stark and lonely testament to their absolute isolation.
They had been climbing for hours, their ascent a slow, grueling battle against the treacherous terrain and the thin, biting air. The world around them was a monochromatic masterpiece of grey and black, a landscape of dead rock and petrified, skeletal trees. It was a world devoid of life, of color, of hope.
But it was not, as they were about to discover, devoid of predators.
The attack came with a silent, terrifying swiftness that spoke of a perfectly evolved killing machine. There was no warning roar, no rustle in the undergrowth. One moment, the path before them was an empty stretch of barren rock. The next, it was filled with a tide of lean, grey bodies, a pack of horrors that had seemingly materialized from the very shadows of the mountain.
They were Ridge-back Stalkers, wolf-like beasts the size of ponies, their bodies a corded mass of muscle and sinew. Their most terrifying feature was the row of sharp, serrated bone plates that ran along their spines, a natural armor that looked as if it had been forged from the mountain’s own jagged peaks. Their jaws were massive, designed not for tearing, but for crushing, capable of pulverizing bone into dust.
There were six of them. They fanned out in a perfect, semi-circular formation, their movements a fluid, coordinated dance of death. They did not rush in. They were patient hunters, their intelligent, yellow eyes fixed on their two cornered prey, their low, rumbling growls a promise of the brutal, physical violence to come.
In this spirit-sealed world, this was a death sentence. There was no lightning to call down, no blizzard to summon. There was only flesh and bone, steel and will, against a pack of monsters designed by a cruel and indifferent god to be perfect killing machines.
Lloyd and Rosa fell back-to-back, their bodies moving with an unthinking, instinctive synergy. Their brief, unspoken partnership, forged in the quiet efficiency of their shared purpose, was about to receive its baptism of fire.
"Six of them," Rosa stated, her voice a low, steady whisper, her hand already on the hilt of her rapier. "They're testing us. Looking for a weakness."
"Then let's not give them one," Lloyd replied, his own voice a calm, dangerous hum. The fear, the momentary panic he might have once felt, was gone. In its place was the cold, hard focus of a soldier. The mission parameters had just changed. The objective was no longer to climb, but to survive.
He did not draw his sword. Instead, he raised his hands, his fingers splayed. The general in him knew that a prolonged, defensive battle was a losing one. They had to shatter the pack’s confidence, to break their coordinated assault with a display of shocking, overwhelming, and unpredictable violence.
The lead Stalker, a massive brute with a scarred snout, finally made its move. It lunged, not in a straight charge, but in a low, weaving arc, its jaws gaping wide.
Chapter : 976
Lloyd did not meet the charge. He moved to intercept it. He dropped into a low crouch, and a change came over his hands. A ripple of dark, metallic light flowed over his leather gauntlets. His Steel Blood, the raw, tangible power of his Ferrum heritage, answered his will. It did not manifest as grand, theatrical chains. It was something far more practical, more intimate, more brutal. Two short, vicious, and razor-sharp blades, like the claws of a predator, erupted from the knuckles of each of his gauntlets.
He met the monster’s charge with a surge of his own, his body a blur of motion. He did not try to block the bone-crushing jaws. He slipped under them, his bladed fist driving upward in a brutal, visceral uppercut. The reinforced steel of his gauntlet, empowered by his Void power, slammed into the beast’s lower jaw with a sickening, wet crunch. Bone shattered. The Stalker’s head was thrown back, its lunge turned into a pained, disoriented stumble.
In that same instant, a blur of silver and silver-hair exploded from beside him.
Rosa was a whirlwind of deadly, elegant grace. She did not fight like a brute. She fought like a dancer, her rapier a living extension of her will. As the second Stalker lunged, she did not meet its charge. She moved with it, her body a flowing river of motion. And as she moved, a new, chilling dimension to her power was revealed.
She could not summon a blizzard, but she could command the frost. A wave of her own, personal Void energy, the quiet, deep reservoir of her Siddik heritage, pulsed from her. The ground at the Stalker’s feet was instantly coated in a patch of slick, treacherous, and almost invisible ice.
The beast, its powerful charge built on the assumption of solid ground, was completely undone. Its massive paws slipped, its legs splaying out from under it in a comical, clumsy display. It hit the ground with a surprised yelp, its momentum turned into a helpless, undignified slide.
It was the opening she needed. Her rapier, which had been a simple blade of steel, was now coated in a thin, shimmering layer of deadly frost, the same power that had frozen the ground now clinging to her weapon. She did not slash. She thrust. A single, perfect, and brutally efficient lunge. The frost-coated tip of her rapier slid between the Stalker’s ribs, the super-cooled metal flash-freezing the flesh and muscle around the wound, piercing directly into its heart.
The beast gave a single, shuddering convulsion and then lay still.
The first two attackers were down, one with a shattered jaw, the other dead, in the space of three heartbeats. The perfect, coordinated assault of the pack was broken. The remaining four Stalkers, their intelligent eyes wide with a new and unfamiliar emotion—shock, confusion, perhaps even fear—hesitated.
Lloyd and Rosa stood back-to-back amidst the beginnings of the carnage, their breathing coming in sharp, adrenaline-fueled bursts. The first trial was far from over, but the first move had been made. They had met the savagery of the mountain not with terror, but with their own brand of cold, efficient, and utterly ruthless violence. And the mountain, for the first time, seemed to be taking notice.
The hesitation of the remaining Ridge-back Stalkers was a fatal error. They were pack hunters, their strength derived from coordinated, overwhelming force. That coordination had been shattered, their confidence broken by the shocking, brutal efficiency of their two strange, soft-skinned prey. In the space of that hesitation, Lloyd and Rosa pressed their advantage, their unspoken partnership now a seamless engine of death.
The Stalker with the shattered jaw, still reeling from the force of Lloyd’s blow, tried to scramble back, its eyes wide with pain and panic. Lloyd did not give it the chance. He became the predator. He surged forward, his movements economical and brutally direct. The beast, its primary weapon ruined, tried to swat at him with its massive, clawed paws.
Lloyd’s Steel Blood flowed again, not into his gauntlets, but into his own limbs. He felt the familiar, hardening sensation as his bones and muscles were reinforced, turning his body into a living weapon. He met the Stalker’s clumsy, desperate swipe not by blocking, but by crashing into it. His reinforced shoulder slammed into the beast’s own, the impact a solid, meaty thud. The sheer, unexpected force of the blow sent the half-ton monster stumbling sideways, its balance completely broken.
It was the opening he had created. He did not use his blades. He used his hands. He seized the beast’s thick, muscular neck in a grip of impossible, crushing force. He planted his feet, his reinforced legs giving him an unshakeable anchor, and with a raw, guttural roar, he twisted.