After saying goodbye to Jeraf, Lynch's figure completely vanished into the furious snowstorm leading to the mountain peak.
The steps here were no longer entwined with roots but made of a peculiar deep gray rock, as if frozen for eons, covered with a hard ice shell, smooth as a mirror yet riddled with dangerous cracks. Every step down was accompanied by the crisp sound of shattering ice crystals, and the deep, beast-like heartbeat of decay emanating from the depths of the stone beneath his feet.
The biting cold wind was no longer simply air currents but transformed into countless blades loaded with shards of ice, filled with the will of decay, madly slicing through Lynch's force field domain. The faint glow of the Domain Prototype circulated on his body surface, isolating most of the chill and erosion, but the ubiquitous whispers of decay tried to infiltrate the crevices of his soul like maggots on carrion.
