**[SFX: WOOOO—oooo—oooo…]**
The wind never truly ceased on Blackwind Mountain.
After the venom gale passed, it returned changed—no longer screaming, but keening low and hollow, as if the slopes themselves were mourning. It slithered through jagged stone and broken ice, carrying the stench of blood and burned poison.
The survivors moved like specters.
Boots crunched over snow hardened with frozen ichor. Gray robes hung in tatters. Less than ten servants remained now, drifting behind the armored guards like the dead walking behind their own funeral.
At dusk, when the blue sun bled low across the sky and shadows stretched long and crooked over the ledge, the ghouls returned.
Not as a swarm.
As hunters.
Six of them crept along the upper rim of the pass—lean, jointed silhouettes clinging to rock like insects. Their eyes glimmered wetly in the dying light. They did not rush. They watched. Calculated.
Then they struck.
**[SFX: SKRRAAA—!]**
Pale bodies dropped from above, limbs unfolding midair. They went for the rear—the wounded servants, the limping, the ones whose breath came too slow.
Levi saw them first.
"GHOULS—!" he shouted, his voice tearing in the thin air.
Torin spun, spear snapping up. Mira slammed back against the cliff, hands flaring with faint light. The guards shouted orders—
Too late.
Cassian stepped forward.
Alone.
No command. No warning.
Steel whispered free.
**[SFX: SHIIING—!]**
For half a heartbeat, the ghouls hesitated.
They sensed it.
The predator among prey.
Then they lunged.
Cassian met them in silence.
His blade became a silver arc, precise and merciless. A ghoul lost its head mid-leap—**[SFX: THUK!]**—black ichor spraying across the snow. Another folded as the sword passed clean through its ribcage. A third tried to circle—
**[SFX: SNAP—WHRRR!]**
The whip lashed out, coiling around its throat, yanking it screaming into range. One clean stroke ended it.
The last two never even reached him.
Less than a minute passed.
**[SFX: drip… hiss… crackle…]**
The scouting party lay in pieces, twitching, ichor steaming where it touched the snow.
Cassian straightened.
Breathing steady.
A thin cut wept red along his cheekbone. He wiped his blade on a corpse's hide and slid it back into its scabbard without ceremony.
Torin lowered his spear slowly.
For the first time, his voice held no hostility.
"You kept them off us," he said. "Again."
Cassian glanced back, amber eyes flat.
"I keep the column alive. Nothing more."
Torin shook his head.
"You could've let them take the weak. Saved your strength."
A pause.
"You didn't."
Silence.
Cassian's gaze drifted past him—to Levi. Mira. The few still standing.
Assessing.
Judging.
"…More than fodder," he muttered at last, almost to himself.
"Some of you."
It was the closest thing to acknowledgment they had received.
---
Morning brought no mercy.
The climb resumed—steeper, crueler. With their numbers shattered, the column felt naked. Too few to form ranks. Too few to absorb losses.
Cassian watched them struggle.
At the crest, he made his decision.
"You three."
His chin tilted toward Levi, Mira, and Torin.
"Front rank. Walk with me."
The guards stiffened but did not argue. The remaining servants stared, uncertain.
Cassian mounted his beast and motioned them forward.
"Pragmatic," he said flatly when Torin raised an eyebrow.
"More blades in front means better odds."
That should have been all.
Yet Levi saw it.
A flicker.
Something like camaraderie—quickly buried beneath disdain.
They marched together.
Cassian at the lead, whip coiled, sword loose.
Torin to his left, spear ready.
Mira between them, small but unyielding.
Levi on the right, lungs burning, body screaming—but still standing.
No one spoke.
**[SFX: crunch… crunch… WOOOO—]**
But the formation held.
For the first time, the guards did not drive the servants forward with spear butts.
They moved as one.
---
Night found them in a shallow cave high on the slope.
Torches burned brighter against the dark. Bodies pressed close for warmth. Cassian sat apart at first, sharpening his blade—
**[SFX: shrrrk… shrrrk…]**
—but drifted closer as low voices filled the space.
Then—
The cold returned.
Not wind.
Not sound.
A presence.
**[SYSTEM VOICE: resonance detected]**
The voice spoke inside their skulls—vast, genderless, crushing.
> "Chosen of the Midnight Spell.
> The trials continue.
> Observe."
Light bloomed.
Pale blue-white orbs hovered above the chests of the dead scattered along their path. They pulsed softly—like dying stars trapped beneath skin.
They had been there all along.
Unseen.
> "Soul cores," the voice intoned.
> "Fragments of essence left behind at death.
> Absorb one, and claim a measure of strength.
> Vitality. Resilience.
> Enough, perhaps, to endure."
Silence swallowed the cave.
A gaunt servant reached out—frostbitten fingers trembling.
The orb drifted toward him.
**[SFX: fwooo—]**
It sank into his palm with a soft sigh.
His breath steadied. Color returned to his face.
Cassian watched, unreadable.
"Choose carefully," he said at last.
"Every core taken is a debt."
A pause.
"The mountain remembers."
Levi stared at the glowing orbs scattered like fallen stars.
He remembered his own death.
The rot.
The fade.
Power waited here.
Cruel. Stolen.
Real.
Torin met his gaze across the fire.
Mira's hand slipped into his—trembling, but firm.
They had survived together.
Now the mountain offered a bargain.
**Grow stronger on the bones of the dead.**
**Or remain weak—and be claimed.**
The choice weighed heavier than the cold.
And far above them—
**[SFX: distant rumble…]**
—the summit waited.