**[SFX: WOOOO—oooo—oooo…]**
The cave mouth offered little mercy against Blackwind Mountain's eternal cold, but it was shelter enough to keep death at arm's length—for now.
The torches had burned down to stubs. Their flames guttered weakly, stretching shadows across the stone like grasping hands. Breath fogged the air in slow, uneven rhythms.
Levi lay on his side, back pressed to the frozen wall.
His eyes never left the glow.
Pale blue-white orbs hovered above the nearest corpses, pulsing softly—slow, patient heartbeats trapped in glass. They had waited all night. Silent. Certain.
> *Absorb one, and you claim a measure of the fallen's strength.*
> *Vitality. Resilience.*
> *Enough, perhaps, to endure what remains.*
The system voice echoed again and again inside his skull, each repetition colder than the last.
Only a handful of servants still breathed.
Mira slept beside him, curled tight against the chill, small frame shaking with shallow dreams. One hand lay near his, close enough that their fingers almost touched.
Across the cave, Torin sat propped against the wall, spear across his lap. His head dipped and rose as he fought sleep like an enemy.
Cassian stood watch near the entrance, a dark silhouette against the starlit pass beyond. Unmoving. Unblinking.
Levi could not close his eyes.
The truth had taken shape during the night, sharp and merciless.
This trial was not chaos.
It was design.
Every ghoul ambush. Every venom wind. Every lash of exhaustion had been measured—to thin the herd, to grind hope into choices no one wanted to make. Cooperation had kept them alive this long: shared rations, shared warmth, shared watches.
But cooperation would not take *everyone* to the summit.
The mountain did not want unity.
It wanted sacrifice.
Not of strangers.
Of trust.
Levi's body betrayed him with every shiver. This vessel—this borrowed flesh—was weak. Lungs burned. Muscles trembled. Frostbitten pain lingered beneath the skin.
Mira's healing had slowed his decline.
Torin's strength had carried his weight more times than he could count.
And still—
He was the weakest.
Always.
His gaze drifted back to the cores, and something dark unfurled inside his chest.
A whisper.
Cold. Certain.
*Only the strong reach the summit.*
The thought made his stomach twist.
But the weakness screamed louder.
---
**[SFX: faint crackle… torch sputter…]**
In the desperate gray before dawn—when the blue sun was still only a rumor below the horizon—the camp stirred.
Levi moved.
No hesitation.
No sound.
The shadow inside him answered.
For the first time, it was not borrowed heat or brute endurance—but something else. Something his.
A tendril of darkness slipped free from his chest, thin as smoke, invisible in the half-light.
It brushed Mira first.
She stirred.
Her eyes fluttered open just as the shadow sank into her.
A soft gasp escaped her lips—surprise, not pain—
**[SFX: fwooo—]**
—and then she went still.
The soul core above her chest flared brilliant blue-white, pulsing faster, brighter. It drifted toward Levi like a moth drawn to flame.
It sank into his skin with a sigh.
Warm.
Terrible.
Power flooded him.
Mira's quiet resilience.
Her stubborn will.
The faint spark of healing she had guarded so carefully.
Levi's trembling hands steadied. The ache in his lungs eased, as if the mountain had loosened its grip on his throat.
"Levi…?"
Torin's head snapped up.
Too late.
The tendril lashed out again.
Faster.
Merciless.
It pierced Torin's broad chest before he could rise, before the spear could lift. His eyes widened—not in fear, but in disbelief.
A wordless question froze on his lips.
The core rose from him, bright and unwavering, heavy with endurance. With strength earned through labor and burden and uncomplaining resolve.
Levi absorbed it.
**[SFX: THOOM—]**
Muscle knit tighter along his arms and back. His legs felt grounded, solid. The venom scars along his shoulder faded to pale lines.
The cold retreated.
Just a little.
Torin collapsed forward, lifeless.
The spear clattered against stone.
**[SFX: CLANG—]**
Cassian was already moving.
Steel half-drawn.
Amber eyes blazing.
But he stopped.
Too late.
The act was complete.
Silence crushed the cave.
For several heartbeats, Cassian only stared—at the bodies, at Levi standing over them, chest rising and falling with stolen vitality.
Levi met his gaze.
Guilt slammed into him in sickening waves. He wanted to scream. To retch. To beg forgiveness from the dead who would never answer.
No words came.
Cassian slowly slid his sword back into its scabbard.
The sound was deliberate.
Controlled.
**[SFX: SHHK—]**
He waited.
Then nodded once—toward the shadowed pass ahead, where the Frost Venom Fang slept deeper in the mountain.
"Now it's just us," he said flatly.
"Move."
Levi looked down one last time.
Mira's face was peaceful.
Torin's expression calm.
The betrayal cut deeper than any claw.
He turned away.
Power thrummed in his veins—hollow, borrowed, poisoned by its cost. The frail vessel no longer felt like a cage.
It felt like a weapon.
Cassian walked ahead without looking back.
Levi followed.
For the first time since waking in that rusted chamber, his steps did not falter.
Behind them, the cave mouth stood silent.
Two fading glows sank into the snow.
**[SFX: distant, low rumble…]**
The mountain watched.
And the final guardian waited.