**[SFX: KRRRRAA—THOOOM—!]**
The mountain tore itself apart.
The ridge behind them split open with a sound like thunder cracking bone. Stone sheared free. Snow detonated into the air as the path they had climbed disintegrated, swallowed by a roaring avalanche that plunged into the abyss below.
Levi felt the ground drop.
He threw himself forward, fingers clawing at ice as the ledge vanished behind him. Dust and frost exploded upward, choking his lungs, blinding him.
**[SFX: ROOOOARR—crumble—crash—]**
Cassian cursed.
Not clipped.
Not controlled.
"Damn it all," he snarled, voice raw, stripped of discipline.
It was the first fracture in him Levi had ever seen.
Cassian skidded to a halt, boots scraping stone, amber eyes flashing as he looked back at nothing but falling snow and open void.
"No way back now."
The words were final.
Levi braced himself against a jutting spire, breath ragged. Inside him, the shadow stirred—alert, eager. It fed on the destruction, on the severed path, on the certainty that retreat was impossible.
Smoke-dark tendrils coiled through his veins.
*Forward,* they whispered.
He clenched his fists, forcing the power down, guilt clawing at him even as cold certainty hardened in his chest.
Only forward.
---
They pushed on into the whiteout.
Wind howled like a living thing, flaying them with sheets of ice that cut visibility to arm's length. Levi followed Cassian's blurred silhouette by instinct alone, feet finding purchase where his old body would have failed.
Mira's resilience steadied his balance.
Torin's endurance drove his legs onward.
Each step was heavier.
Each breath thinner.
Yet he did not fall.
**[SFX: HOWWW—WHRRR—]**
Then—gradually—the storm loosened its grip.
The white veil tore open.
They emerged onto a vast plateau, barren and exposed beneath the merciless blue sun. Jagged spires rose around them like the teeth of some colossal, buried titan, enclosing a shallow basin scarred by ancient violence.
At the far end—
The summit.
Close.
So close it hurt to look at.
Black rock thrust upward, crowned by frozen lightning that glittered with rime, arcs locked in eternal arrest.
The mountain trembled beneath their boots.
Waiting.
---
At the plateau's edge, the world went still.
No wind.
No howl.
No echo.
Sound itself seemed afraid to exist.
Before them yawned the Frost Venom Fang's lair.
A vast hollow carved into the mountainside, its frozen floor strewn with bones—human, beast, and things that had never fit either name. Blue-white crystal shards jutted upward like broken teeth, each one hissing faintly as venom dripped and froze again and again.
**[SFX: hiss… crackle…]**
Cold vapor spilled from the hollow in slow, lazy breaths.
The beast was not visible.
Yet its presence pressed down on Levi's skin like invisible poison.
Watching.
Waiting.
Cassian stopped at the threshold.
Levi drew level with him.
For a long moment, neither spoke. Their breath mingled in pale clouds between them.
This was it.
Whatever happened next would decide everything.
They stepped forward together.
**[SFX: low mountain groan—]**
---
They found shelter beneath a massive spire—an alcove shallow but defensible, close enough to watch the lair's heart. Cassian sat with his back to the rock, sword resting across his knees, gaze fixed on the frozen basin.
Levi crouched nearby.
The shadow inside him writhed, restless, sensing the predator ahead.
Cassian broke the silence.
"I've been here before."
Levi looked up sharply.
"Not as a guard," Cassian continued. "As one of you."
The windless air felt heavier.
"Twice," Cassian said, eyes unfocused now. "First time I was younger than you look. Came with my brother. We reached this lair." A pause. "He didn't leave it."
Levi said nothing.
"I left him," Cassian went on quietly. "Took his core. Reached the summit alone."
His jaw tightened.
"Second time… a woman. Lover." His voice roughened. "She shielded me from venom. Died screaming. I absorbed her too."
Silence.
Then Cassian turned, meeting Levi's gaze.
The cruel smile was gone.
What remained was old pain—deep, calcified, unhealed.
"Revenge keeps me here," he said. "Not for the Spell's reward. Against it. Against whatever drags desperate souls through red doors and makes them devour each other to survive."
His eyes burned.
"I guard because it keeps me close. Lets me kill what it sends."
A breath.
"One day, I'll reach the heart of this place," he said softly. "And burn it down."
The confession settled like frost between them.
---
They moved deeper into the lair.
The Frost Venom Fang lay coiled at its center.
Enormous.
A frozen river of scales and sinew. Its body bore the scars of countless challengers—gashes torn open, scales shattered, venom leaking sluggishly from a broken fang to pool and freeze in sickly blue glass.
Its breathing was shallow.
Hissing.
But its eyes—
Venom-green.
Sharp.
Awake.
It sensed them.
The beast reared, coils unwinding with agonizing slowness.
**[SFX: KRRRR—CRACK—]**
Ice shattered as its body rose. The temperature plunged, vapor flash-freezing into glittering needles that hung suspended in the air.
Cassian drew his sword in one fluid motion.
Steel sang.
**[SFX: SHIIING—!]**
Levi felt the shadow surge, tendrils pressing against his skin, hungry.
The Fang's gaze locked onto them.
Its hiss deepened—
Then became a roar.
**[SFX: RRRRROOOOOAAARRR—!]**
The spires shook.
The lair screamed.
And the final battle began.