The air was sharp with frost, every breath like shards in Gray's throat. He didn't have time to think. Aurelle had already rushed ahead, sword gleaming with cold light as his boots hammered against the slick ice.
Gray cursed under his breath and followed. If he stayed still, the monsters would devour them both. The drowned lurched forward with grotesque speed, arms swinging, jaws snapping. Their skin was blue-white, brittle and cracked like permafrost, and their eyes glowed faintly with dead light. And above them, weaving through the icy stalactites, the Cryovigils dangled, pale hands attached to impossible threads, each bearing a single staring eye in the palm. Their shrill whispers crawled into his skull.
Aurelle shouted over his shoulder, voice flat and commanding.
"I'll handle the drowned. You take the Cryovigils."
Gray gritted his teeth but nodded once. Fine. If Aurelle wanted the bigger monster, he'd take the nightmare things overhead.
The Cryovigils moved first, their tendrils slithering like hair caught in a storm. Gray remembered one thing: don't look at the eye. He ducked, weaving, keeping his gaze on the blur of their movements. They were fast, too fast. Each lunge came from a different angle, pale fingers clutching for his throat or skull. He vaulted over one, boots scraping against frozen stone, and rolled aside as another streaked past where his ribs had been.
They kept coming. Their threads cut the air with a sound like knives dragging glass.
Gray exhaled slowly, forcing himself calm. His instincts sharpened, reading the rhythm in their erratic movements. He felt the twitch before one dove, and in that instant he swung. The blade connected with the thin strand of hairlike tether that attached hand to ceiling.
The thing dropped, shrieking. For a moment victory surged in his chest, until the thread simply grew back, knitting itself together in the space of a heartbeat.
Gray's stomach sank. "Damn it. It's just like Aurelle said, I have to go for the eye."
Before he could recover, another thread lashed around his head.
Cold exploded through his skull, not physical but sinking into thought. His vision slowed, sound muffled, his mind wrapped in cotton. He staggered, the sword drooping in his grip. The Cryovigil's touch wasn't just binding his body, it was freezing his mind, locking thought itself.
Gray twisted violently on instinct, slicing the strand with a desperate swing. It fell away, the fog clearing just enough for him to breathe. But the truth was already clear: these things had more than one trick. They could freeze a man without chains, suffocate him from the inside out.
Gray clenched his teeth, rage flaring through the fear.
Across the chamber, Aurelle's fight was brutal and blindingly fast. The drowned charged, its massive arms slamming down like hammers. Aurelle's movements were sharp, every shift of his body perfectly measured. He slipped between strikes that should have crushed him, his blade flashing at impossible angles.
With a flick of his wrist, he carved through the monster's hand. The severed limb spun through the air, crashing wetly onto the ice. Gray thought that might be it, but the drowned only bent down with jerking movements, picked up its severed hand, and pressed it back into place.
A sickening crack, a twist, and the bone reconnected. The hand flexed as though nothing had happened.
Aurelle's expression barely shifted. His calm in the face of that grotesque recovery made Gray's stomach twist.
The drowned roared and hurled itself forward. This time Aurelle didn't dodge. He blocked, sword grinding against the creature's arm, then twisted his whole body into the momentum. With a roar, he flung the drowned into the cavern wall. Ice shattered, a thunderous crash ringing through the chamber as the monster slid to the floor.
For a moment, it was still. Then, with popping cracks, it pushed back up. Unbroken.
It shrieked, a sound that rattled Gray's bones, and sprinted again. Aurelle sprinted too. They clashed head-on, then passed each other.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened. The drowned kept running, steps thundering across the chamber. Two… three… four… before its body split. From hip to opposite shoulder, a perfect diagonal slice opened, and its top half slid from its bottom. The legs stumbled a few steps more before collapsing with a dull thud.
Aurelle lowered his sword, the edge gleaming with pale frost. His breath misted slow and even.
Then something hissed from the shadows. A Cryovigil shot toward him with terrifying speed, eye blazing. Aurelle didn't even flinch. In a blink, his sword reversed, and he stabbed clean through the palm. The Cryovigil shrieked, body convulsing before it thudded lifeless to the ground.
The victory was short.
Creaking noises echoed. Aurelle turned, his gaze cold as ever, to see more Cryovigils dropping from the ceiling. They dragged the drowned's severed halves together, threads weaving its body whole. Bones snapped back into place, muscle and flesh knitting with wet cracks.
Gray, watching from the corner of his eye as he dodged, felt bile rise in his throat. Aurelle didn't even move to stop them. He only raised his weapon again, silent, ready to clash once more.
"Crazy bastard," Gray muttered.
His own battle was going worse. The Cryovigils circled like vultures, their tendrils lashing. He dodged one, ducked another, rolled under a third. He couldn't find an opening, couldn't kill them. Rage swelled inside him.
"Why… why can't I do this?" he hissed, breath steaming. He'd killed that rank C beast. These weren't worse. But he was still losing.
Darkness stirred at his fingertips. He reached into his core, dragging out Vyre. The darkness curled around his hands, twisted into his blade, pulsing with hunger. Each dodge became sharper as he wove the darkness into his rhythm.
He needed an opening. He couldn't risk Severing Bloom, it was too wild, too dangerous here. He'd have to predict them.
Gray shut his eyes. No sight. Just instinct.
The chamber screamed around him, ice cracking, Aurelle clashing steel to flesh. The Cryovigils hissed, their threads slicing wind. His instincts screamed, turn.
Gray twisted and swung with everything he had.
Steel met flesh. A satisfying impact rang through his arms. But when he opened his eyes, he saw it.
The eye.
It stared directly into his.
His heart stopped for a beat. His body froze, mid-motion. The paralysis was instant, absolute. His breath caught in his chest, his thoughts trembling on the edge of silence.
The Cryovigil's cold hand pressed to his skull, fingers digging into thought itself. His mind slowed, then blurred, every idea slipping away like water through cracks. He knew if it continued, he would die.
Panic clawed him. He thrashed inside his head for a solution, but his own mind betrayed him, sluggish and unfocused.
Then, from the edge of his vision, he saw Renn.
The boy stood half-hidden in the shadows, trembling, his hands glowing faintly with Vyre. His lips moved, mumbling to himself, "Never done this before… but…"
Gray's eyes widened. "Don't—!"
But Renn pressed his hands forward.
Vyre surged into Gray's head.
It was agony like nothing he had ever felt. His skull burned as if splitting apart, veins pounding, vision flashing white. He screamed without sound, writhing inside his own mind.
But the Cryovigil's hold faltered. The icy paralysis cracked beneath the searing pain.
Gray gasped as control returned, his hands clutching his weapon. With a snarl he ripped the blade upward, shadows screaming along its edge, and cleaved through the Cryovigil's staring eye.
It shrieked, body writhing. Darkness burned into its hand, flesh curling and disintegrating until the limb fell lifeless onto the ice. The creature convulsed once more and collapsed, wailing as its body dissolved into black ash.
Gray staggered, chest heaving. His head still felt like it was splitting, but he was free.
He turned to Renn, who was pale and shaking, sweat dripping down his brow. The boy forced a small, weak smile.
"Guess it… worked," Renn muttered.
Gray managed a grin, weary but fierce. "You saved me. But stay back. Don't ever try that again."
Renn nodded, still smiling faintly despite the fear in his eyes. "I'll support you… however I can."
Gray raised his blade again, shadows curling around it like hungry serpents. He turned back toward the battlefield, where Aurelle was squaring off once more against the resurrected drowned and more Cryovigils circling the ceiling.
His body trembled with exhaustion, his head pounding from Renn's reckless intervention. But he could still fight. He had to.
Gray launched forward, shadows screaming, rushing at the monsters once more.