Aurelle's chest rose and fell heavily, and though his pale skin was mottled with bruises and dark streaks of dried blood, his face betrayed any sign of weakness. He looked calm, perhaps even steady, as though his wounds had no right to command his body.
His eyes glowed with uncertainty, amd his blade shined with resolution. Lighting up the flame of hope within everyone's hearts.
Korr groaned faintly behind him. His metallic arm trembled as he tried to push himself upright, but his movements were stiff, uneven. Aurelle turned, his eyes softening as he bent down and offered the boy his hand.
"Up," Aurelle said simply.
Korr hesitated, pride flickering across his bruised face, but he clasped Aurelle's wrist. Aurelle pulled him upright in one fluid motion. Korr staggered, half-collapsing against him, and for a moment the two were leaning against one another in silence.
"Your body is seizing," Aurelle muttered, eyeing the jagged way Korr's shoulders twitched. "The steel you are turning into is locking you in place."
Korr clenched his jaw. His skin rippled where metallic veins shone under the light, hard ridges showing through his arms and shoulders. He hated admitting it, but Aurelle was right. His power, once his greatest advantage, was just a prison.
"How...do you know?" Korr coughed out a handful of blood.
Aurelle opened his mouth to answer but found himself unable to.
"Still..." Korr rasped, forcing a weak smile. "You saved me. Thanks."
Aurelle gave him a small nod. "Retreat for now. Your fight is not done, but you should rest."
Korr breathed heavily, then took the words for what they were, permission to live another moment. He stumbled back toward the rear of the group, away from the beast's looming shadow.
Across the chamber, Orrin dragged himself from the jagged staircase of ice he had crashed into. Blood dripped steadily from his lip, his chest heaving, but his grip on his spear was tight as ever. Adel was there in an instant, rushing to his side.
"Orrin!" she called, her voice hoarse. Her white hair clung to her face with sweat and blood. "Are you—are you alright?"
He coughed once, then leaned heavily on her shoulder, still holding his spear upright. "Alive," he managed. "That is enough."
Adel nodded quickly, pressing her hand against his side where his ribs had cracked. Relief flickered briefly in her expression, before the ground beneath them groaned.
The beast had turned.
It loomed tall and skeletal, its icy hide fractured with dark seams of blue light. Its claws flexed with unnatural patience as it stared down at the altar in the chamber's heart. In its hand, it seized the broad bowl carved from frozen stone, the same one overflowing with shimmering liquid.
"No…" Gray whispered from where he crouched in the shadows.
The beast lifted the bowl with both hands. Then, without hesitation, it raised it above its head and drank.
The sound was revolting, a glugging rush as the liquid slid into its throat. Some of it spilled past its jagged teeth, splattering onto the frozen floor where it hissed like acid. The ice beneath melted instantly, steam rising in thick tendrils that smelled of rust and burnt flesh.
When the beast lowered the bowl, its frame shuddered violently. Its body twitched, almost convulsing, as if something inside was breaking loose.
Then its eyes opened again.
No longer dark blue. They were red now, deep and hellish, glowing like twin furnaces. Thin, glowing veins bulged from beneath its icy skin, glowing cerulean against the pale surface. The cracks spread outward, jagged spiderwebs across its chest.
And then the wound Orrin had struck widened with a thunderous snap. The beast's chest split further, ice breaking apart like shattered glass. Within the widening cavity was no heart. No organs. Instead, a smooth metallic sphere rested inside, gleaming faintly. Around it, waves of dark blue energy pulsed, flowing in and out like breath, feeding into every vein of the creature's body.
Gray's eyes widened. His breath caught in his throat.
Adel, kneeling nearby, whispered in a trembling voice, "That looks like… a Vyre core…"
Gray's stomach turned. A beast with a core? His mind reeled against the thought. Was that not impossible? Cores were the anchor of their power, the center of everything that allowed them to even exist in this messed up world. Beasts had no such thing, at least, he thought so.
Unless…
His mind flashed back to the words of the Aurelle. To the way the drowned always seemed to revive. To the shambling husks of human-like monsters they had fought just earlier, creatures whose bodies were completely frozen yet still moved.
Was it possible that the beast had not been born with a core? That it had taken one? Stolen it, absorbed it from someone who once was human?
The horror of it made his throat dry.
And then it grew worse.
The beast reached up with both clawed hands and tore the Cryovigils clinging to its back free as though plucking weeds. Their icy bodies cracked and fell to the ground with sickening crunches. It walked slowly to the nearest ice wall, its frame shivering unnaturally.
Gray narrowed his eyes, forcing himself to watch through the haze of pain coursing through him. His breath quickened when he saw what it did.
The monster pressed its claws into the wall and ripped a chunk of ice free. Not just random stone. A block of crystalline ice infused with faint light. It set it down in front of itself and began carving.
It was not random. It was deliberate.
Slice by slice, stroke by stroke, the beast shaped the block into something humanoid. A body. Shoulders, limbs, a head.
When it finished, the block of ice had become the frozen effigy of a human figure.
And then the beast turned to face them again, as if proud of its grotesque achievement. It raised a claw and channeled Vyre into the statue's head.
The ice cracked. The effigy's chest shivered.
Then it moved.
The figure twitched violently, its limbs jerking. In a matter of seconds, it pushed itself upright. Its face resembled that of a drowned, hollow eyes and frozen flesh, but its body was unnaturally intact. It swayed once, then stood still, a newborn monster waiting for orders.
Gray felt his breath leave him.
A beast that could channel Vyre was already horrifying. But one that could create others…?
This was no longer a battle. This was a nightmare.
His mind quickly pieced it together, each fragment clicking into place like cruel puzzle pieces. The drowned they had fought earlier, how they revived endlessly, how their bodies moved long after death. The strange human corpses animated by unseen power.
It was not just the beast. It was the ice itself.
The cavern, the cliffs, perhaps the entire mountain, it was suffused with Vyre. Frozen, locked, but still alive in a twisted sense. And the beast, with its stolen core, could draw from it, shaping it as clay.
The monsters in Glacierfang didn't run on a heart, or a brain, or any similair thing.
All they needed was Vyre.
Gray's blood ran cold at the thought, several questions popping up in his head. Where had such a wellspring of Vyre come from? What had bled so much power into this region that the very ice was alive? The answer hovered beyond reach, too vast for him to grasp.
The beast raised its hand again.
From its claws, threads of pulsing Vyre shot outward like strings of a puppet master. They sank into the frozen floor, branching across the battlefield. The moment the threads reached the corpses of the drowned that littered the chamber, Gray's heart lurched.
The drowned twitched.
One by one, they convulsed, their broken limbs cracking back into place. Heads snapped into alignment. Flesh shivered with false life.
Then, in unison, they rose.
Every drowned they had slain stood once more, bodies reforming under the beast's will. The advantage they had clawed so hard to earn vanished in an instant.
Gray forced himself upright, pain searing through his left arm. He looked down in horror. The stab wound from earlier, left by that woman, that phantom in the temple, had begun to spread. From the wound, frost crept outward across his flesh, veins of ice spidering up his forearm. The cold was absolute, gnawing at his muscles, numbing his fingers.
He gritted his teeth and raised his katana anyway. His hand trembled violently, the blade glinting unsteadily in the blue glow of the chamber.
That was when Aurelle's voice cut through the storm.
"Listen." His voice rang clear, unwavering, carrying through the chamber like a beacon. "We are not finished. We still stand. And so long as we stand, we fight."
The others turned, their eyes flicking toward him despite the rising tide of dread. Aurelle looked at them one by one, grounding them.
"Those who are weaker, focus on the drowned," Aurelle commanded. His sword dripped with the beast's blood, glimmering faintly in the cold light. "Buy us time. Hold them back."
His gaze shifted. "The strongest, Lira and Orrin, with me. We hold the beast."
Then his eyes flicked to Gray.
"And you."
Gray flinched. "Me?"
Aurelle nodded once. "Can you fight?"
Gray tightened his grip on his blade, feeling the cold creeping up his arm. "Barely." He shook his head. "Not against that thing. I need to recover some Vyre first."
Aurelle did not hesitate. "Then recover it. Recover every drop you can. We will need you before the end."
Gray opened his mouth to protest. He wanted to ask how Aurelle knew their names, Lira's name, spoken with such certainty despite them never meeting. But with the current situation they were in, he resisted.
"…Alright," Gray muttered. He lowered his blade, clutching his freezing arm close. "I will."
Aurelle raised his sword again, standing at the head of the battered survivors. The beast loomed before them, its puppet drowned twitching in unison, red eyes burning through the veil of frost.
The air itself seemed to tighten.
And Gray forced himself to breathe.
They were not dead yet.