Chapter 150: Deadly Hunt (1)
Dawn brought no sunlight.
A freezing gray sky hung stubbornly over the ruined temple, offering only a bleak wash of morning light.
Kane finished buckling his leather weapon harness, tossing his steel chest plate onto a nearby stone bench.
"You are leaving your armor behind?" Misha asked.
"Speed matters more than protection today," Kane explained, testing the flexibility of his shoulders in just a tunic and the enchanted cloak.
"Raw agility keeps me alive longer than steel against a beast that bypasses armor anyway. If it spits venom, I want to be light on my feet."
Misha stood quietly by the shattered altar, her golden rings spinning in a slow, trusting rhythm.
She offered a serene nod, fully believing the promise he made in the quiet of the night.
"May the currents guide your blade, husband," Misha whispered, pressing her delicate fingers against Mjoldr’s curved edge.
A faint white glow settled into the metal, leaving a lingering blessing for the hunt.
"I will be back before lunch," Kane smiled.
Walking him to the very edge of the temple grounds, Griselda stopped exactly where the unnatural fog began to swirl over the path.
She pointed a finger directly at her own chest, tapping the exact spot where her divine seal rested beneath her tunic.
[I will repay, Kane. I want my wings back. Do not let a glorified snow lizard kill you.]
"Keep an eye on my wife," Kane ordered with a wry smirk, adjusting the collar of his cloak.
"If anything comes down this path besides me, cut it to ribbons."
[Nothing gets past me]
[Good hunting.]
Stepping past the boundary felt like walking directly into a frozen wall.
The temperature drop hit instantly, biting right through his clothes.
Even with the enchanted system cloak radiating heat around his shoulders, his breath crystallized in the air, falling like tiny diamonds over his boots.
Snow rose past his knees, hiding treacherous rocks and uneven terrain beneath a pristine white blanket.
’Good thing I dumped the plate armor,’ Kane noted, adjusting his stride to wade through the rising snowdrifts.
’I would be a walking popsicle in five minutes with all that steel trapping the cold against my skin.’
Climbing higher up the mountain pass caused the magical fog to thicken drastically. The world turned entirely white.
It was not just a weather phenomenon. It was a sensory prison designed to isolate prey.
Sound vanished.
He couldn’t even hear his own boots crunching against the ice. Visibility dropped to barely three feet in any direction.
’The Saintess wasn’t exaggerating,’ Kane calculated, forcing his breathing into a steady, controlled rhythm to conserve stamina.
’I can’t track it by sight, and sound is completely muffled. Walking blind through a boss room is a fast way to get a game over. Time to change the rules of the hunt.’
Navigating entirely by the subtle shifts in the incline beneath his feet, Kane finally reached the narrow pass the veiled woman had described yesterday.
Steep walls of solid ice flanked him on both sides, shooting straight up into the blinding mist.
The terrain severely restricted his movement, but it also forced any incoming predator to attack straight down the center.
No flanking. No wide circles.
Reaching into his pouch, Kane pulled out the tarnished brass temple bell. He wrapped the frayed crimson rope tightly around his left wrist, testing the knot with his teeth to ensure it wouldn’t slip during a swing.
His right hand stayed firmly wrapped around Mjoldr’s leather grip.
’Ten seconds of visibility when this rings,’ Kane reminded himself, shaking his left wrist just enough to feel the metal bump against his forearm.
’Make every single second count.’
Standing tall and projecting dominance usually kept lesser beasts away, but Kane needed this particular monster to come straight to him.
A predator this adapted to the environment would just wait for him to freeze to death if he looked too dangerous.
Closing his eyes briefly, Kane deliberately suppressed his [Berserker’s Aura].
The comforting thrum of raw power faded from his veins, leaving him feeling frustratingly human against the biting cold.
Forcing his posture to slump slightly, Kane dropped his shoulders.
He allowed his breathing to turn ragged and desperate, panting loudly into the freezing void.
Taking a few clumsy steps forward, he purposefully stumbled, catching himself against the icy wall like an exhausted traveler who wandered way too far past his limits.
’Come on, ugly,’ Kane thought, sweeping his blind gaze across the suffocating white mist.
’I know you are hungry. I smell like warm blood and lost monks. Take the bait.’
He limped another two steps, dragging his left boot through the snow to make himself look completely vulnerable.
’Do you like your meals frozen or fresh?’
The snowbank to his immediate left shifted.
Not a gust of wind, but a subtle displacement of space.
The air temperature plummeted even further, freezing the condensation right off his eyelashes.
Combat instincts screamed through his nervous system.
A shadow detached itself from the whiteout, moving with terrifying grace, completely devoid of sound. Jaws opened wide, aiming right for his blind spot.
Kane tensed his wrist, waiting for the exact fraction of a second to ring the bell.
Instead of a lunging strike, the shadow melted backward into the mist.
’Smart bastard,’ Kane realized.
’It’s testing me. Checking for traps before it commits to a bite.’
Delicate snowflakes started falling around him, cutting through the biting wind.
Then, the whole hill shook.
Ice cracked sharply along the narrow walls.
The ground trembled beneath his boots, nearly tossing him into the freezing snowbank. Kane braced his knees, trying to ride out the sudden earthquake.
Whatever caused that tremor possessed a scale far beyond what the Saintess had casually drawn in the dirt.
Dropping the exhausted traveler act completely, Kane gripped Mjoldr tight.
He ripped the axe forward, planting his feet firmly into a wide, ready combat stance. His suppressed aura hummed in his veins, begging to be unleashed.
Looking up through the falling snow, the blinding white fog parted just a fraction.
High above the steep icy walls, looking directly over his head, two glowing yellow eyes stared down at him.
They were slit-pupiled, unblinking, and floated suspended in the mist like twin lanterns preparing to drop.
"Fuck."
Ding!
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