Step.
A sound, not simple – bone scraping against stone, a joint shattering the silence under incredible weight. Step. It resonated not in the ears, but somewhere deeper, in the very diaphragm, forcing the lungs of anyone who heard it to constrict, as if the space between the ruins had become a giant eardrum, beaten by this vile, ragged rhythm. Another step. Erratic, ragged steps echoed in the ruins, but now their raggedness held a sinister deliberateness. It wasn't weakness, not lameness, but an interrupted ritual, the pauses between filled with thick, viscous anticipation. Each shift of body weight was accompanied by a barely audible creak – not skin on fabric, but rather the friction of something dry, ancient, hidden beneath the coarse weave of a green robe.
The one walking was reciting a rhyme. The voice was like the rustle of autumn leaves over a grave slab – devoid of warmth, devoid of breath. Each word fell into the silence like a stone into a black well:
"Silent glide, a sudden hiss…"
Somewhere ahead, in the shadow of a collapsed arch, something slipped. Fast, silent movement, just a fleeting flash of scaly gleam in the weak light filtering through breaks in the cloudy sky. Not an illusion. Too… concrete.
"A cold embrace you didn't miss…"
The air around the walker suddenly thickened, became viscous and icy. The ragged folds of the green robe froze, unmoving, though a second ago they fluttered in the faint breeze. Damp cold penetrated through any fabric, clung to bones. And there was something personal in it, directed specifically at him, the walker, as if the cold knew his name, knew where to find his pulse.
"Scales like ice, a tightening ring…"
The rhyme continued to flow, monotonous and relentless. With each word, the sensation of a ring intensified. Not physical, but spatial. The ruins around – piles of rubble, charred beams jutting like the ribs of a giant skeleton, half-destroyed walls – suddenly acquired a threatening enclosure. The path he was moving along narrowed, the ruin walls seemed to shift, looming with heavy shadows. The stones underfoot seemed to stir, mimicking the scaly movement from the verse. The light itself, dim and gray, fractured on their surfaces, creating the illusion of sliding, cold scales on every boulder, every column.
Step. Now he stepped more cautiously, as if afraid to crush an invisible snake, but his movement remained… fated. Inevitable.
"Feel the frozen blood it'll bring…"
The walker tilted his head slightly, almost imperceptibly. As if listening to something inside. Or checking. Is the blood freezing? Is it still flowing? The robe concealed everything – face, neck, hands; the deep hood swallowed the light, leaving only a bottomless blackness where a face should be. Not a single glimpse of skin, not a hint of a gaze. Only fabric, old, faded to a dirty marsh hue, threadbare in places, holes revealing only deeper darkness. It didn't just conceal – it absorbed him. It seemed that beneath it wasn't a body, but emptiness itself taking human form, or something so alien that human outlines were merely a temporary, ghastly mask. Movements under the fabric were smooth, too smooth, lacking the natural micropauses of a living being.
Step. Step. Another step. The pauses between steps were now filled not just with silence, but with tense listening. Listening for what might respond to the rhyme. And the ruins responded. Not loudly, not clearly. A rustle – not the wind, but as if something long and dry was crawling over fine gravel somewhere to the left, behind a pile of broken bricks. A light tap – like the tip of a tail on stone, beating the rhythm of the verse. Tap. Pause. Tap. Coincidence? Or… confirmation? The air grew colder still; the smell of dust and decay was suddenly overwhelmed by a sweetish, putrid aroma, barely perceptible, like the memory of long-forgotten carrion.
The walker didn't flinch. He knew. He always knew. And so he approached what seemed like an ordinary pile of stones. Unremarkable amidst the general destruction. Just a chaotic heap of boulders and broken slabs, overgrown with thorny burdock and sickly wormwood pushing through the cracks. But it was here that his ragged step finally halted. It was here that the faceless hood was turned. He stood motionless. The green robe merged with the gray-green tones of the ruins, making him part of the landscape, a living element of decay.
The stones before him suddenly didn't seem so random. In their heap, a certain… threshold could be discerned. Or an entrance. Or an altar. The edges of some slabs were unnaturally even, as if worked, then deliberately shattered. In the crevices between the stones reigned impenetrable blackness, deeper than mere shadow. It seemed that from the darkness between the stones, something watched him. Not with eyes – with the absence of eyes. With expectation. With hunger.
Slowly, with the same monstrous, unliving smoothness, he raised his hand. The robe's fabric slid back, revealing… not a hand. Or rather, not quite a hand. Something long, pale, almost bone-like, wrapped in the same faded rags that hung from the sleeve. Fingers? Too thin. Too many joints. In the semi-darkness, it was hard to make out, but the gesture was clear: pointing. An invitation? An order?
The pale pointer froze for a moment, aimed into the densest blackness between two massive slabs, covered in a strange, frost-like substance, at the base of the pile. The silence after the cut-off hissing became absolute. Even the wind died down. The ruins held their breath. The air crystallized around the green figure and the stone mound. The cold reached such intensity that it hurt even to think.
The walker stood, his faceless mask turned towards the darkness of the stones, his bony finger – the mute pointing digit of fate – still extended forward. He knew. He saw what was to happen next. And the ruins, and the cold, and the very frozen blood in the non-existent veins of the world awaited only one thing: the beginning.
The stone crumbled into dust, revealing three figures: Kun Lian, gripping a rusty sword; Xu Yan, whose fingers were already sliding over the zither strings; and Wen Lan, pressed close to the ground, her wounds still seeping scarlet, but a flicker of will in her eyes.
The Man in the Robe stood motionless, like a shadow itself, animated from the cracks between worlds. His green robe didn't even stir.
"You killed Zhang Wei…" Kun whispered, his voice trembling not with fear, but with rage.
MiR didn't answer. He simply stepped – and space contracted, as if the earth itself pulled itself under his foot.
Xu Yan struck the strings.
The sound didn't just cut the air – it warped it. A wave of invisible blades surged towards MiR, but he merely swayed aside like a reed in the wind. The sound blades slammed into the ruins, leaving deep, smoking furrows in the stone.
Kun Lian attacked in the same instant.
His sword – rusty but lethal – pierced the air with ruthless precision. Throat. Kidneys. Joints. The blows rained down one after another, fast as scorpion strikes. But MiR slid between them, as if foreseeing each swing.
"You are slow" he hissed, his voice like the rustle of snakeskin over ice.
The counterattack came instantly.
MiR swung his arm – and pale, overly long fingers, wrapped in rags, lashed towards Kun's face. He barely managed to dodge, but a claw still scratched his cheek, leaving a thin scarlet thread.
Xu played again.
This time, not a cutting sound, but pressure – the air thickened around MiR, trying to shackle his movements.
But MiR only laughed – a sound like ice cracking.
"You think this will stop me?"
He lunged forward, his robe flaring like the wings of a night bird. Xu barely managed to leap back, but MiR was already beside him – a blow to the chest, precise as a dagger thrust.
Pain. Sharp, burning. Blood immediately soaked his clothes. But Xu didn't fall.
Xu played a new chord.
The earth heaved.
Stones under MiR's feet came alive – they bent, sharpened, turning into spikes tearing upwards like the jaws of a stone beast.
MiR twisted in the air, his body contorting unnaturally, but one spike still grazed his sleeve, tearing the fabric.
Something dripped.
Not blood. Something black, thick, like tar.
For a moment, MiR froze.
"Interesting…" he whispered, and his voice held something besides icy indifference for the first time.
What next? The fight wasn't over.
Kun Lian stood, clenching his sword, his cheek bloody but eyes blazing. Xu Yan was ready to play the next chord. Wen Lan slowly rose, gripping a hidden blade.
And the Man in the Robe…
He looked at them.
And in the depths of his hood, in that darkness where a face should be, something stirred.
The whirlwind of attacks paused for a moment, shattered by a silence heavy as a death rattle. The Man in the Robe stood amidst the stone spikes like an idol of darkness. His torn sleeve bared a pale, inhuman limb, oozing that same black substance – not blood, but something ancient and viscous, smelling of the dust of forgotten tombs.
"Sacrifices…" – his voice, devoid of its former hiss, now sounded like sand shifting in an empty skull, hollow and infinitely weary. "You see only a shadow on the cave wall, children of dust. You are seeds."
He slowly turned the faceless shadow of his hood first to Xu Yan, who, gritting her teeth against the pain in her side, still held the zither, fingers trembling but ready to play, then to Kun Lian, whose chest heaved raggedly, the hand with the sword not lowering.
"Seeds falling into the soil of Eternity," MiR continued, and his words held no malice, only cold, cosmic regret. "The Serpent… He is not a God in your pitiful understanding. He is the World's Hunger. The Breath that was before the first gasp. He is not coming… He is already here. He is in the cracks of reality, in the silence between heartbeats. He is Time itself, devouring itself. And you... you are but a tremor on the Scale of shadows and ice that He cultivates around. Soon... very soon... the Steel Ring Will Tighten. And nothing will remain but Him. Everything Will Become Whole."
At that moment he attacked.
Xu. He moved not with a step, but as if folding into a point and unfolding right before her – unnaturally, like a shadow jumping between light sources. His pale, bony hand, still oozing blackness, lashed for her throat – not to kill, but for a final capture, to sacrifice her right there, at the stone altar.
Xu did not yield. Through pain, through the encroaching darkness, his fingers flew across the zither strings. He played the Chord of Rupture – a desperate, dissonant shriek that didn't attack the body, but tore the space before her.
The air howled and split. An invisible wave of unfathomable sound struck the outstretched hand of MiR. Not the body, but the black substance itself. The sticky darkness boiled, as if touched by fire, and MiR's hand jerked back with a barely perceptible hiss, as if burned. The claws only grazed Xu's ribs, leaving deep, jagged wounds, but not piercing through. She gasped, staggered back, blood gushed from the new wounds, but she held the zither, her eyes burning with fury and pain.
MiR froze, looking at his smoking hand, tore it off — and at the same instant a new one appeared. From the depths of the hood came a sound like dry crackling – surprise, or… irritation.
"Is the illusion of freedom so sweet?" his voice sounded, regaining the icy hiss. "Perhaps… you will stop thrashing like flies in amber? Accept the inevitable. Your fate is to become part of the Eternal Cold. It is not death… it is… transfiguration."
He was distracted. Distracted by pain, distracted by Xu's unexpected resistance, distracted by his own monologue about fate.
Kun did not wait. The pain in his chest burned like fire, fear constricted his throat, but resolve – the kind that flowed in the veins of all Lians – was stronger. He did not shout. He moved. Not straight, but like a shadow, using piles of stones as cover. His rusty sword did not gleam – it was dull as death itself. He did not attack the body – he aimed for the base of the hood, where the fabric concealed the neck.
The blow was lightning-fast and silent. Not the sweeping strike of a warrior, but the precise thrust of an assassin. The rusty blade pierced the dense fabric of the hood right at its base.
And the world tore apart.
The hood didn't just fall – it split in two, as if severed. But beneath it was no face. No skull. Nothing human.
Thousands of snakes.
Small, thin as black veins of night, and large, with scales the color of petrified blood. They writhed, coiled, forming a crude, pulsating oval where a head should have been. Their countless bead-like eyes glowed with a cold, dead green light, staring at Kun. They hissed – not with one voice, but with thousands of tiny voices merging into one soul-chilling chorus, the sound of dry leaves on frozen earth. The same black substance dripped from this living tangle, falling onto the robe's shoulders and hissing upon contact with stone.
Kun Lian recoiled, his face contorted with primal horror. His sword fell from weakening fingers, clattering against stone. The air filled with the hum of thousands of serpentine bodies and the sweetish-putrid smell, which was no longer background, but a physical wave of nausea.
Xu, bleeding out but still holding the zither, saw this. Her eyes widened in horror, but fury also flared in them. Her fingers, bloodied and trembling, touched the strings...
The fight wasn't over. The ruins froze, watching as sparks of resistance tried to ignite a flame before the unimaginable horror.
Thousands of serpent eyes, glinting venomous green in the pulsating "face" tangle, stared at Xu. The chorus of dry hissing swelled, merging into one freezing shriek.
"Well then, Apostates..." MiR's voice was no longer a whisper or a hiss. It sounded from the very core of the snake ball, vibrating in the bones like the hum of a taut string before snapping. "You have chosen not mere death... but dissolution. A path where your screams will become... a poem for the Serpent."
He moved. His body, concealed by the robe, seemed to flow forward. The pale, bony hand plunged directly into the snake tangle depicting his head. There was no blood, no scream – only a sharp, grating sound, like ice breaking under unbearable pressure. From the tangle, from the very thick of the writhing bodies, he pulled out…
A Scythe.
It wasn't just blue. It was the color of a bottomless ice crevasse. Cracks snaked across its surface, not chaotic – they formed intricate, sinuous patterns resembling snakes frozen in the moment of agony. Cold emanated from it, so intense that the air around began to crackle, frosting over. This wasn't elemental magic – it was the extraction of the very essence of his being, his personal Eternal Winter.
A flash. Not of light. A flash of absolute zero. The scythe moved, leaving a trail of crystallized air like the tail of an ice comet. It was aimed at the heart of Xu Yan, who, bleeding out, still tried to play a final chord. The blow was faster than thought, faster than pain, faster than fear itself. It seemed the steel had already touched the fabric of his clothing...
And passed right through.
But there was no squelching sound, no gasp. Xu Yan's body dissolved like smoke on an icy wind. Scattered into ghostly mist, instantly dispersed in the scythe's icy radiance. In its place remained only a trembling ripple of air and a faint smell of almonds and bitterness – traces of a powerful illusion.
Wen Lan. Her face was pale, but her eyes, recently full of fear, burned with a cold, clear fire of resolve. She stood straight, her hidden blade ready, though her hand trembled only slightly.
MiR slowly turned his serpentine "face" towards her. The hissing ceased for a moment.
"Oh..." his voice now sounded almost... curious, like the hiss of a snake scenting an unfamiliar smell. "The Maiden? So, you managed to shake off the paralysis of terror?" The snakes in his "face" moved faster, with a strange, almost admiring rhythm. "The Serpent values Strength. Even a tiny spark in utter darkness. He could... transform you. Make you like me. You could become... beautiful." In the word "beautiful" resonated an inhuman, freezing pride.
Wen Lan straightened up. Her lips twitched in a barely perceptible, defiant smirk.
"Heh..." her voice was quiet but distinct, like the chime of fine glass. "Sorry, but... I find foxes much cuter than snakes. At least their fur is warm."
Instant silence. The cold from MiR's scythe condensed into an almost physical blow. The serpentine "face" froze, then hissed with such fury that the stones around trembled.
"Well then..." MiR's voice lost all shades except the bottomless, absolute cold of the grave. "I offer you all..." He raised the scythe. "...to die. Now."
He didn't dash in pursuit. He drove the scythe straight into the stone beneath his feet.
IMPACT!
Not a sound, but a wave of pure cold, visible as a distortion in the air, surged from the point of impact. The stone didn't crack – it froze solid in microseconds and crumbled into fine, icy dust. Cracks – not earthly fissures, but veins of bitter frost – raced outwards at snake-strike speed. They didn't just split the stone – they turned it into brittle ice that immediately crumbled under its own weight. The floor under the fugitives' feet began to crumble into an abyss of icy dust.
Xu Yan, the real one, hidden behind distant cover and pale from blood loss, understood. Understood instantly. MiR wasn't just destroying the footing beneath them. He had anticipated their flight. These icy cracks were a trap. They would outpace them, converge ahead, turning the path to salvation into a deadly labyrinth of crumbling ice and bottomless chasms.
His fingers, bloodied and almost numb from cold, flew across the zither strings. He played the Chord of Holding. The sound condensed not into blades, but into translucent, shimmering barriers of resonating energy. They flared not around the fugitives, but around MiR himself and his scythe embedded in the floor! Like cocoons of crystalline sound, they tried to seal the source of the icy death, to slow the unstoppable spread of the cracks. The barrier walls trembled and rang under the monstrous pressure of the cold emanating from the scythe, cracking like spiderwebs. This wasn't victory – it was a desperate delay, bought at the cost of his last strength.
"RUN!" Xu's hoarse cry cut through the roar of destruction and the hissing of snakes. It held no command – only a plea and deathly clarity.
Kun Lian didn't hesitate. The pain in his chest was fire, the horror of the serpent visage – an icy lump in his gut, but resolve was stronger. He lunged towards Wen, not running – falling forward, grabbing her arm with all his strength. They tumbled behind the nearest intact fragment of wall, a huge, slanted stone slab that might be their last shield.
EXPLOSION.
Not with flame. With ice.
The shockwave was a whirlwind of icy dust and tiny, razor-sharp shards. It rose like a wall, instantly swallowing all space between the cover and MiR. For Kun and Wen, pressed against the cold stone of the slab, the world shrank to the rumble of falling stones, the howl of wind carrying stinging dust, and the penetrating, all-conquering cold that seared their lungs.
Silence.
The rumble ceased. The whirlwind of icy dust began to settle, slowly, like snow after a blizzard. Kun and Wen barely dared to peek out from behind the slab. Eyes squinted against the remnants of swirling ice.
The picture revealed itself.
At the center of the epicenter, where MiR had stood with his scythe driven in, now gaped a crater of glittering, bluish ice. And in the center of this crater, on his knees, slumped forward, was Xu Yan.
Halfway.
His lower body, from the waist down, was a flawless, shining statue of bluish, perfectly transparent ice. The ice replicated every fold of his clothing, every muscle in the moment of final effort. Through it, the stone floor was visible, distorted as if through thick glass. The upper body... was still human. One arm was still stretched forward, fingers frozen in a last, desperate motion over imaginary strings. His head was thrown back, mouth open in a silent scream, eyes wide open stared into the void with an expression of inhuman pain and horrifying understanding. The blood on his chest and side had frozen in bright scarlet streams against pale skin. A cold of death emanated from him, multiplied a thousandfold.
And above him, unharmed, stood the Man in the Robe. His serpentine "face" looked down at the frozen sacrifice. The hood was torn, revealing the pulsating snake tangle. The blue scythe with its snake-like cracks was again in his pale hand, point down. Cold radiated from him and from Xu's statue, mixing into a haze that distorted the air. He stood motionless, like Death itself come for its due. His serpent eyes seemed to look not at the statue, but through it – at Kun and Wen hiding behind the slab.
The silence after the ice explosion was louder than any scream.
Crunch…
The sound was loud, juicy, utterly out of place amidst the icy stillness and looming horror. Crunch… another one. As if someone was munching an apple with gusto at a funeral.
Jun Le materialized literally out of thin air, landing softly on bent legs between the half-frozen statue of Xu and MiR. He didn't just land – he performed a light, almost careless flip, as if stepping over an invisible stair. In his hand was a huge kohlrabi cabbage stalk, from which he had just taken an impressive bite. He chewed with exaggerated pleasure, looking straight at the pulsating snake tangle replacing MiR's face.
"The Judge has arrived!" he announced cheerfully, as if opening a children's matinee, not standing amidst ruins and frozen blood. He waved the stalk towards MiR like a conductor's baton. "Sorry, old chap, rules are rules. More than two 'disqualified' in one go by a NON-participant – that's overkill. Overspending the state ice budget, see? Not allowed." He took another bite of cabbage, chewing with a loud crunch.
MiR froze. His serpentine "face" hissed slightly louder, countless bead-eyes narrowing, staring at the ridiculous figure with the cabbage. The cold from the scythe and Xu's statue suddenly seemed… misplaced.
"Oh…" MiR's voice sounded from the snake tangle, cold, but with a barely perceptible hint of… annoyance? "So, you knew. Knew I was here…" Pause. The snakes' hissing became more rhythmic, almost thoughtful. "Alright then. This… is what we wanted."
Jun Le swallowed the cabbage and grinned broadly. His eyes, usually merry, now shone with pure, shameless mockery.
"Yeah?" he drawled, feigning surprise. "And here I thought you were checking out the tournament catering! If you wanted to try our famous tournament cabbage – you could've just asked, politely! Fill out an application at the secretariat, stand in line… Like this – violation!" He poked the stalk towards MiR like a pointer. "So now I, as chief arbiter and connoisseur of crunchy vegetables, politely but firmly request: kindly remove thyself from this tournament grounds, dear 'man'. You're not on the participant list, you don't have a pass, and you didn't submit the required cabbage! Formalities, you see? Paperwork – the head of everything!"
MiR's snake tangle seethed. The hissing became furious, piercing.
"Hm…" came from the center of the serpent ball, and this sound held nothing but bottomless, murderous coldness. "What about…"
He didn't finish. His body vanished. Didn't move – dissolved into gray mist and rematerialized already a centimeter from Jun Le. The blue scythe with snake-like cracks, the very one that had pierced Xu's illusion and driven ice-death into the stone, flared with icy light. The blow was lightning-fast, silent, absolutely precise – a straight thrust at the judge's heart, repeating the attack that had nearly killed Xu. Speed against which no mortal could stand. It seemed the icy point had already touched the rough fabric of Jun Le's clothing…
Jun Le simply took another bite of his kohlrabi.
Crunch.
At the very instant his jaws closed on the crunchy vegetable, his free hand flicked downward. Not for a strike. For a parry.
But he didn't draw a sword or shield. He simply… placed the thick, juicy kohlrabi cabbage head directly in the path of the icy blade.
Clang!
A sound rang out, utterly impossible. Not a dull thud against vegetable matter, but a pure, high-pitched, metallic ring, as if the blade had struck tempered steel. Sparks flew from the point of contact – cold, bluish sparks. The blade of MiR's scythe, imbued with the power of permafrost, froze for an instant, embedded in the dense, pale-green cabbage head. Not even a scratch marred the cabbage's surface, only a tiny frost around the impact point, which melted instantly.
Jun Le didn't flinch. Didn't budge a millimeter. He merely raised an eyebrow, looking with exaggerated interest at the scythe stuck in his vegetable like in the sturdiest shield. He chewed his bite of cabbage, swallowed, and smiled broadly, looking past the scythe straight into the pulsating snake tangle.
"See?" he said with genuine regret in his voice, though his eyes laughed. "Without an application – you can't even pierce cabbage. Formalities!" He easily moved the cabbage head aside, as if shooing away a bothersome fly. MiR's scythe, deprived of its point of resistance, slid down uselessly, causing no harm. "So, dear uninvited guest, my verdict is final and non-negotiable." He nodded towards the half-frozen Xu. "Plus a fine for unauthorized use of cryogenic equipment. Scram. Before I start counting seconds of delay. My schedule's tight, lunch break is soon."
Jun Le took another bite of cabbage, his chewing the only sound in the tomb-like silence. MiR stood motionless. His serpentine "face" bubbled and hissed, but the scythe was lowered. The cold emanating from him seemed to subside, replaced by a dull, boiling, impotent rage. He looked at the imperturbable judge, at the cabbage head, at the half-dead Xu, at Kun and Wen trembling behind cover. He understood. The fight was lost not by strength, but by absurdity and bureaucracy. Formality.
Soundlessly, like a ghost, MiR took a step back. His figure began to dissolve into the thickening shadow between the stones, taking the icy scythe and hissing snake tangle with him. The last thing to vanish was the deathly-green glint of countless serpent eyes, full of mute, cosmic hatred for cabbage and rules.
Jun Le sighed, surveying the ruins.
"Well then…" he muttered, taking another bite. "And who's going to clean up this icy mess now? Protocol breached, schedule ruined… Cabbage – it's the only thing keeping me going."
"Alrighty then, kiddos!" Jun Le smirked crookedly, surveying the wounded group. His gaze slid over the icy shards littering the ground, over the ruins still smoking from the residual energy of their battle. "I'll takethe half-statue , and you... keep having fun. This stage ain't over for you yet~"
Before anyone could say a word, he deftly picked up the bloodied blade, then effortlessly slung the unconscious Xu – the one who, against all odds, still breathed, albeit faintly – over his shoulder. And just as suddenly as he'd appeared, he vanished into the shimmering, mirage-like air, leaving behind only a faint cold breeze.
Silence.
Kun slowly sank to one knee, clutching his side where the clothing fabric was soaked dark crimson. Each breath burned his ribs, but he gritted his teeth, trying not to show how much it hurt. Nearby, leaning against the debris, stood Wen. Her usually neat hair was disheveled, her face scratched, her gaze – weary, but firm. She too could barely stand.
The icy crater before them shimmered under the weak rays of the sun, a reminder of how close they had come to defeat. And yet... they had survived.
"So... we're partners now?.." Kun finally spoke, raising his head with difficulty.
Wen paused for a second, then gave a weak smirk. "I suppose so."
Somewhere in the distance, a snake slithered. The wind lifted dust mixed with ash, and for a moment it seemed to them that the world around had paused, giving them a respite.
And somewhere out there, the Tiger and the Tiefling met.