The pain no longer felt like the sting of bees, as Lunaria had once claimed. To Elian, every inch of his body felt as though it were being ground beneath the wheels of a red-hot iron chariot. Neural Burnout wasn't just a magical medical term; it was a reality where his nerve pathways refused to transmit commands for movement without demanding a sickening payment of pain.
"Hah... hah..."
Elian's breath formed thick white plumes in the freezing mountain air. He leaned against the rough bark of a pine tree, pressing his blistered back against the cold snow to numb the burning sensation.
He stared at his left hand. The Ring of Weight felt so cold it seemed frozen to his finger. Yet, its weight had not diminished. With every beat of his heart, the ring seemed to throb in unison, dragging his entire body weight downward, toward an earth that seemed eager to swallow him whole.
Elian glanced back toward the valley, now shrouded in thick fog. In the distance, he could see points of light moving rapidly.
Magic lanterns. The pursuit squad.
"They're fast," Elian whispered, his voice cracking, catching in his dry throat.
He had lured them for six hours. Six hours of running through a brewing snowstorm, intentionally leaving an unstable mana trail for the Inquisitors to track. He had to ensure not a single one of them turned south, where Lunaria was taking Elara.
Elian forced himself to stand. His leg muscles trembled violently—a rhythmic, uncontrollable twitch caused by nerve damage.
Don't fall. If you fall, you die. If you die, Elara has no one left.
He dragged his feet, carving small trenches into the snow. Every step was a battle against gravity and pain. Yet, amidst this suffering, Elian felt something strange. Because his Core was shattered, his mana no longer flowed through the proper channels. Instead, it seeped into his flesh tissues, trying to forcibly repair the nerve damage.
It was a crude regeneration process. It felt like thousands of needles stitching his flesh together simultaneously.
CRACK!
The sound of a snapping twig came from his right.
Elian froze. He didn't turn his head abruptly. He merely shifted his eyes, scanning the darkness behind the trees.
A figure emerged from the shadows. Not a human, but a starving Frost-Wolf. It was the size of a calf, with stiff white fur and pale blue eyes glowing with hunger. This creature was the apex predator of the border mountains, and it had smelled the fresh blood from Elian's wounds.
Elian stared at the wolf. He didn't have the energy for another Gravity Burst. His arms felt limp, and his Karambit felt as heavy as a greatsword in his trembling hand.
"I am... not in the mood... to play," Elian hissed.
The wolf snarled, baring long, sharp fangs. It lunged, a white flash slicing through the snow.
Elian didn't dodge. He dropped to the ground, letting the burden of the Ring of Weight accelerate his fall. As the wolf soared over him, Elian thrust the Karambit in his right hand into the creature's belly.
SQUELCH!
Hot wolf blood sprayed onto Elian's face, providing a brief, ironic warmth amidst the sub-zero temperatures. The creature crashed down with a thud, twitching for a moment before finally going stiff.
Elian didn't rest. He crawled toward the wolf's carcass, burying his freezing hands into the creature's warm entrails to steal a bit of heat to restore his blood circulation.
He knew the pursuing knights were less than a mile away now.
"Elian Vane!" a voice boomed through a magical amplifier, shattering the silence of the night. "Surrender! You have killed a representative of God! There is no place on this continent that will shelter you!"
Elian smirked in the darkness. His blood-smeared face looked horrific under the moonlight that occasionally pierced the clouds.
Surrender?
He recalled Benedict's face as he crushed the man's neck. He recalled the weight he channeled into the Archbishop's body. If that was a sin, then he would become the world's greatest sinner.
He pulled a small bottle from his pocket—the last remains of the Blue Poppy extract. He drank it all at once. An overwhelming bitterness spread across his tongue, followed by numbness that slowly blanketed his nerve pain. This was a forbidden drug that would keep him awake for the next 24 hours but would render him completely unconscious afterward.
"One more day," Elian whispered to himself. "I just need one more day to disappear."
Elian stood tall this time. The drug gave him the false strength he needed. He began to run again, not toward the easy border crossing, but toward The Shattered Peak.
It was a region where gravity was often unstable due to floating ruins from an ancient era. To ordinary people, it was a deadly labyrinth. But to Elian, wearing the Ring of Weight, it was the perfect playground.
Behind him, the Templar squad kept closing in. They were led by a young knight in shining golden armor—Sir Alaric, a prodigy of the Church who would become Elian's future rival.
Alaric stared at the red trail on the snow with a furrowed brow.
"This kid... he's intentionally heading for the Shattered Peak," Alaric muttered. "He wants us trapped in the gravity anomalies."
"Should we keep chasing, Sir?" asked a subordinate.
"Of course," Alaric drew his glowing sword. "If we let him escape, he will become a disaster no one can stop. I can sense his killing intent even from this distance. That isn't the intent to kill a man... that is the intent to kill the world."
Elian continued to climb, scaling the ice wall with bare hands. His fingernails began to bleed from gripping the sharp ice, but he didn't feel it. His focus was singular: reach the peak and make a "leap of faith" into no man's land.
With every inch he climbed, Elian felt the world drifting further away from him. He felt isolated, alone at the top of the world with a burden he could share with no one.
Here, amidst the silence of the icy mountains, Elian Vane began to understand that to protect what he loved, he had to become something no one could love. He had to become a buried secret, a ghost that appeared only to collect blood debts.
"Elara... you must stay alive," he whispered as he reached the edge of a steep cliff.
Below him, white fog covered unfathomable depths. Behind him, Alaric and his squad had appeared at the hilltop, surrounding him.
Elian turned, facing the ten heavily armed knights.
"Welcome to your grave," Elian said softly.
He didn't jump. Instead, he slammed his left hand—the hand with the ring—onto the ice floor beneath his feet.
BOOOM!
It wasn't the ice that shattered, but the gravity around the peak that was forcibly pulled toward a single point: Elian's palm.
The peak began to crack massively.