An hour later…
Zerin forced himself upright from the ruin of flesh surrounding him. Beneath his heels lay the bodies of the slain, their broken forms bleeding streams of azure across the stone floor.
His hair clung damply to his face, heavy with their gore, while the wounds carved along his sides bled unchecked—crimson spilling into the misery beneath him until the mingling colors deepened into a dark, mulberry hue.
He was a wreck—no, something worse than that. Every breath burned. Every moment reminded him of the wounds inflicted upon him. There had been too many of them.
An endless tide.
Yet he had cut them all down, one after another, until all fell silent.
And still, the victory felt hollow.
She wasn't here.
The realization gnawed deeper. Worse than the growing awareness of his own condition—the tremor in his hands…
He began to worry.
For his own sake, he reached inward and summoned his Divine Memory: [Living Moment].
The change came instantly as the dreamcatcher materialized around his neck.
Concern dissolved. Pain became only a sensation. All emotion receded like a tide pulled back violently from the shore. Thought sharpened into something precise—something clinical. Just by equipping this memory, he touched the state he had once achieved upon the Crowned Mount.
No.
He surpassed it.
Unlike on that mountain, something clearer emerged, colder and greater than before, as though he stood at the center of the world—unaffected by it all.
Zerin staggered forward, the body lagging behind the mind that now guided it. His boots slipped against the slick stone, smeared with cooling azure blood that reflected a distant torch's light across the chamber's walls.
Step by step, he advanced until the massive door to the next chamber loomed before him.
He reached out, blood-slick fingers trembling no longer, and pressed his hand against the cold surface—ready to continue, whether his body agreed or not.
The door groaned inward.
Zerin pushed it open only a fraction, just enough to look through. One crimson eye peeked in, scanning the chamber beyond while azure dripped from his hair. Behind him were the silent halls he had carved through—every last creature in his path slain during his search through the labyrinth of madness.
He stepped inside.
Cold met him instantly.
A vast circular hall unfolded before him, its stone floor veiled beneath a thin layer of frost that crackled softly beneath his weight. Snow drifted through the circular chamber in slow, lazy spirals. Four massive doors stood equally distant along the curved walls, each an exit… a way out—but Zerin was focused on the center of the room.
Where a figure stood.
Bent nearly double, its spine warped at a painful angle, robes hanging in tatters identical to those worn by the creatures he had already slain. It resembled an old woman, but for a creature like this, that was impossible to achieve.
She faced away from him, leaning upon a shepherd's crook despite there being nothing to guide, nothing to guard—nothing to shepherd.
"One of you…" Zerin muttered, his breath leaving him in a pale vapor.
With a sharp, cracking snap, the figure's head twisted around first, before the rest of the body followed. Upon its face was a mask, carved smooth except for three hollow openings. From within them burned piercing blue lights arranged in a triangle.
The mask left no doubt.
It was one of them.
A broken cackle leaked from behind that mask, muffled yet unmistakably inhuman. The hag slammed the crook's pommel against the floor.
Crack.
Frost burst outward in rippling waves across the stone.
Zerin moved, his body lagging half a second behind the command of his mind.
One.
Another strike echoed.
Two.
The frost raced toward him in branching veins of ice as his stride lengthened.
Three.
Before the final echo ceased, he had already crossed the chamber.
His blade moved in a single, precise strike.
The masked hag's head separated from her shoulders without resistance, spinning silently through drifting snow before striking the frozen floor. The body remained standing for a moment—then collapsed.
Zerin completed the motion in a smooth turn, brandishing his weapon, flicking azure blood from its edge. Droplets scattered across the frost like desecrating paint.
[You have slain an Awakened Tyrant, Aspirer of Repose.]
The Spell congratulated him.
The severed head struck the frozen floor with a dull thud and rolled to a stop at his feet, turning slowly until the masked face stared back at him. Those three lights still burned, dimming only gradually, like stars surrendering to dawn.
He tilted his head, studying it.
When had killing Awakened creatures become this easy?
Only days ago—no, moments ago—it would have felt like more of a fight. Every battle up until now had been desperation—every victory earned with his own blood. Now the act felt… procedural.
As though the outcome had been decided long before his blade ever moved.
By the time the Spell's hollow praise faded from his thoughts, a low groan rolled in the chamber.
Zerin glanced over his shoulder.
Drifting frost across the floor began to rise.
Loose drifts gathered together, compressing as though shaped by unseen hands. Snow folded into itself, tightening, hardening—perhaps a final inheritance left behind by the slain tyrant.
One figure formed, then another… and another.
Until eventually, ten figures pulled themselves together upright from the frozen ground, bodies sculpted from packed snow and ice. Powder sloughed from their limbs with every creaking movement.
They shambled forward.
Both Zerin—and the departing will of the tyrant—remained.
The snow figures lurched toward him.
Zerin's body moved to meet them.
There was no urgency in his movements, yet no hesitation either. Action simply occurred, precise and inevitable, as though each step had already been decided before he took it. The first construct reached him with an arm raised to strike, its frozen joints cracking with effort.
His blade flashed through it once.
The torso separated soundlessly, collapsing into a loose spill of snow before it could even reach him.
Another came from his flank.
The sword turned almost lazily, rising in a smooth arc that split through its shoulder and continued into its head. The construct folded inward, its shape losing its cohesion.
More followed.
They rose only to fall faster.
The blackened blade moved with quiet, unconscious precision. Each strike landed with no wasted motion, no flourish. It was as though his body maintained a rhythm his mind no longer needed to understand.
Step. Cut. Turn.
Snow burst apart around him.
Pivot. Slash.
Another fell.
Zerin advanced through the chamber while brittle figures collapsed in his wake. There was no anger guiding the blows, no satisfaction waiting at their end—only a profound stillness of repose carrying each motion seamlessly into the next.
The final construct crumbled as his blade passed through its core, its form unraveling into a soft cascade that settled across the frozen floor.
His body stopped where it stood, sword hanging loosely at his side.
The Spell's voice returned with praise.
[You have slain a Dormant Monster, Frost Thrall.]
[You have slain a Dormant Monster, Frost Thrall.]
[You have slain a Dormant Monster, Frost Thrall.]
[You have slain a Dormant Monster, Frost Thrall.]
[...]
A dull bang echoed through the doors to his right.
Zerin's head turned.
Another impact followed—heavier this time—the sound of wood splintering beneath it. A ragged cry rose afterward.
More hags.
"They're forcing their way into a room…" he muttered aloud, the sound of his own voice grounding him against the strange emptiness in his mind.