Chapter 146: Hymns of Shadow

Chapter 146: Hymns of Shadow

Chapter 146

Hymns of Shadow

Sylas hardly fancied a blizzard that nigh buried him alive, but a blizzard that nigh buried him alive was what he got. Halfway through the night on top of the tiny protrusion he was using to rest, he was woken to the sounds of hissing winds that ripped through the mountainways, carrying with them snow adrift. The winds belted in the high hundreds, and soon snow began to fall. Add on to it the snow of the mountain, it had quickly turned into a storm.

He had to dig a hole with magic into the side of the cliff to latch onto, for otherwise he would have flown off himself, carried onward by the wind. His fingers soon began to bleed and meld into the melting ice, the droplets of water turning pinkish, as he held on for his dear life. He felt it, every pelting--the winds were like the knives cutting into his skin, and though resilient it was, beyond that of armor even, it was still short of perfect defense.

Blood soon began to flow out of the many cuts and he had to grit his teeth to the frostbitten, burning sensation sprawling over his entire body like an army of flesh-eating ants invading it. Hours passed in torture, but he held on--all the way until the winds died down and the blizzard subsided into the mere snowfall. Digging his arm out of the hole, he realized that two of his fingers were broken, and one seemed almost dead to the frost. Sighing, he guided blood into it, slowly beginning to heal. Such was the way of magic--unnatural.

More than once he felt off healing thusly, but by now it had become his second nature. His body would act on instinct even before he thought of it--at best, he could either slow it down or speed it up, but never prevent it.This chapter is updated by nov(e)(l)biin.com

Sitting upright, he glanced over the edge and saw the view clean up--the fog began to ascend and the snow began to thin out as the canopy of the forest below sprawled out. It was greenless still, glazed in white snow, but was like a roof to the world below. As though by magic, colors began to bleed from the distant east and the sun began to rise from beyond the horizon. It was soft yet hard-colored, chilly yet warm.

Quite a few islands had shimmering, blue crystals 'growing out' of the ground like flowers, but past that, there was only a thick layer of snow and a sheet of ice beneath it. He began to island-hop, so it were, while moving forward. The distance was quite deceptive; though the central 'mountain' appeared just 'over the hill', he quickly realized that the reason it was so was that it was simply... insanely massive. In fact, the closer he got, the more abhorrently shocked he got at the sight--the mountain, after all, easily shot past ten thousand feet... at around its halfway point.

The weird shape of the mountain got even more pronounced the closer he came since he began to see more detail rather than just the general outline. What stuck out the most perhaps were the many, many holes in the side of the solitary, erect spearhead, some of which would occasionally shimmer ever so faintly.

It all but confirmed his suspicion that whoever he was after likely resided there. It was virtually the perfect place, out of the way of everyone, sprawling, hidden to the point of insanity. Had he been not pointed directly in this direction, and had he not serendipitously chanced a glance through the mountains, there was no chance in hell he would have ever discovered this place. Hed entirely taken out going into the mountains from his future plans ever since climbing toward the hidden lake and the portal.

While the knowledge he gained was fairly bountiful, the climb itself had nearly exhausted even him. Nonetheless, he'd completed another climb--or, well, was somewhere quarter from there. Looking ahead, he steeled his anger still; it was too early to be losing himself, especially considering that he might genuinely not even make it. After all, he was out of food--completely so. While he could still melt snow and drink it, he had nothing to eat. And though his body could endure for a long while, it still had a limit--he suspected that he would be able to last at most a month, but that was entirely in vacuum.

Considering his daily energy consumption by walking through the glazed wilderness, if it didnt lessen at all, he might not even last half of that. And the last bout of it would likely be spent wallowing and waiting to die, as hed simply have no energy to move.

As such, he took breaks every couple of hours, though he wasnt sure how much they helped. One island after another got crossed, each dementedly similar to one another. Even he had started losing it after some time--the repetition of the same sights, the exhaustion from the cold, the increasingly frustrating realization that he was much, much, much further away from the mountain than he initially expected. Nonetheless, he persisted.

And, just shy of two weeks later, his persistence paid off--for he had begun to hear voices. At first, he thought that his mind was getting the better of him--that the winds had suddenly learned to speak. However, after coming closer, he realized those were genuine voices--of people. His first encounter was with a dozen or so black-robed men walking from one island toward the other--what stood out specifically, though, was that both islands had more to them than just crystals and snow. He saw houses.

He paused and hid behind a rock, swallowing his excitement. Less so, in fact, that hed found people--but more that hed likely found food. After all, they were human too--they had to eat. And so, he waited till the night crept on and slowly snuck onto one of the islands. Luckily, there were no guards or lookouts. Why would there be, anyway? They thought they were cut out from the world and that nobody would ever come. But Sylas did.

Sneaking into the first house, he immediately saw three people fast asleep on a shared bed of straws on the floor. Without hesitation, he walked over and quickly and silently killed all three. Just near them, there was a bowl of fruit seated on top of a round, wooden table. Though just a few measly pieces of fruit, he launched toward them as though they were high-end steaks. He felt refreshed as the juices encapsulated his throat and the first solid food entered his stomach in weeks. He was reborn, in a sense, and ready for far more than just three still-cooling corpses. The purge, after all, was just about to commence.