I can say for certain that my muscles want to leave my body and go die in a ditch somewhere. Isn't the cold supposed to numb pain like this? How the fuck am I feeling it even more intensely now? It feels like somebody is wringing my muscles like a washcloth.
Cold and pain have defined my being for the last couple of hours. Right now, we are climbing what can be considered to be one of the steepest paths that I have ever seen in my life. (I am a child of the hex mountain. We know steep paths when we see one.)
Well, I have discovered that there exist mountains in the truelands. Well, these mountains are just as impressive as the hexmountain in my eyes. If the hexmountain is a sword standing unsheathed to its full glory. Then the mountain here is a sword as well, but one broken to its hilt.
The storms of this place should have ground down any mountain in this place to find dust. The fact that these mountains still exist is proof of just how impressive the place is.
Turns out that the blood tribe makes these mountains their home. To get to the bloody city, we have to go through these mountains. If it were just the blood tribe, it would not have taken them this long. They can move through the narrow paths of this mountain like a goat. I am sure even the soldiers of the legion would be surprised by this capability of theirs.
I have experience in climbing the largest mountain on the continent, so I am not struggling too much, if I am honest. I am not as skillful as they are, but I am still able to keep up with them somewhat.
My problem with climbing this mountain is the weather. If it was cold down there, then it is freezing up here. I can feel the chill (the normal kind) even through the protection that the blood tribe has provided us all.
I struggle to keep moving, feeling my body steadily lose heat. At the moment, I am envious of the soldiers of the blood tribe. They are wearing some kind of fur skin that is kind of like the snowwind coat I am wearing right now. (Well, I had worn it for going to the frozen peak. How was I supposed to know that I would be going to a place even colder, where it would be useless?) It also works to isolate the person wearing it from the surrounding ice mana. It is way better at it, though. They look downright comfortable in their skins, while I feel like I have taken a bath in a block of ice.
I could ask them for a fur skin, but I cannot look weak in front of them now. I am going to their home, and they are charged with my defense. Already, it feels like I have given them too much control over me.
Well, if my problem is with the temperature, Cloak struggles with the climbing. The man is like a blind bull charging up the mountain, often slipping. Where he should be still the man moves, and where he is supposed to move, the man simply refuses to move.
Twice, the man has simply slipped and fallen down the mountain. A less powerful man would have broken every bone in his body just from the fall. The man is not even harmed, though. (More importantly, the cold seems to be barely affecting the man as well. A normal person would have frozen to death if he did not have the necessary protection.)
I can see why the Blood tribe can afford to piss off all the other tribes. If even a powerhouse like Cloak is struggling to climb these mountains, then it is the ideal place to build a fort. After all, climbing this place will just be impossible with somebody attacking you.
Well, I guess that I should explain how we have ended up here, climbing a mountain. The blood tribe and their soldiers escorted us across the lands of the truelands. Unlike my expectation of traveling via a sledder, we started this journey on the ground.
We traveled across the plain on caravans made up of some kind of rock-like wood. The only reason that the caravans are even able to travel across the truelands is due to that totem.
It is a statue, made up of a blood-red rock. I think it is supposed to be showing a man stabbing some kind of bird through its heart. Based on what I can tell, it is supposed to be some kind of eagle (or a phoenix. I can't tell those two apart). Statues like this are very common. When every village has a hero who has killed a terrible beast, such statues are really common. A bit too common, honestly.) The unique thing about the man is that he isn't the usual hero type.
Most people tend to depict their heroes as the soldierly kind. Muscular, well armored and often with a massive sword. Here, they have depicted the man as a scholar. He is dressed in scholarly robes that would better suit a court mage than a hero. And even his weapon is a staff that looks like it should be snapping under the weight of the beast. Heck, even the man looks ancient compared to the usual idea of a hero.
Looking at the statue, I am left wondering about the story behind it. Well, I will have to smother my curiosity for now. The curiosity of someone from the black mountain is the thing that will most likely get him killed, they say. I don't want to offend the blood tribe by asking questions now.
Anyway, where was I? Yeah, the only reason that we can travel in this land is due to this blood-red statue. It is a totem that emanates a bubble protecting us from the storms. In this bubble, the storms of this place are almost nonexistent. There is still a leakage of ice mana here, but that is quite manageable. After all, I can still manage even with this coat. It just leaves me very miserable and cold.
Without it, we would have already fallen to the storms of this place within a few minutes. Things are just getting worse the further up we go. Even now, the only thing that is visible beyond the boundary is the white of the storm.
If before the weather here was like a white void, now it has taken on a kaleidoscope-like quality. It is just that, unlike a kaleidoscope, there is only one shade of color here. I have trained myself not to look beyond the boundary, or I find myself getting nauseous. Vomiting my guts out certainly won't make me look strong now, can it?
I am sure that if I were to take a step beyond this boundary, the only thing that would be left of me is a block of ice. The magic that is being used by the blood tribe is very fascinating to me.
As far as I can tell, this magic seems to be a portable version of the magic that they use at the council. Just like that bit of magic, I have no idea how this works.
All I know is that this magic of theirs is very closely related to tattoo magic. For one thing, it is way more mana-intensive. It also has a much smaller range. For all of this, its effects are much more potent.
Each of the lords who were in my trial has been powering the statue in shifts. I can't even tell how exactly they are powering it. All I can tell is that they are just sitting in front of the statue, and their mana is leaving them like a stream. They are releasing enough mana that my mana core would be drained in a few moments.
Well, it would be wrong to call it ridiculous. After all, the commander could be said to have a ridiculous amount of mana.
Soon, the rocky plains gave way to the mountains. Our traveling speed has greatly reduced since then.
The main reason for that is Cloak. I can somewhat keep up with the Blood tribe soldiers. (What can I say, even I am surprised. I was sure that I would struggle to climb this mountain. I guess you climb one mountain, you have climbed them all.) The only problem with me is that I am forced to take frequent breaks due to the cold. If I were to force myself beyond a point, I might lose my limbs due to frostbite.
As I have said, the climbing speed of Cloak is atrocious. Without him, it would be quite easy for us to double our speed. Right now, the man is being assisted by a group of soldiers who are helping the man climb. Even though they seem to be struggling to do it.
Without them, the man wouldn't even have an idea of how he is supposed to be climbing the place. Well, not that he is doing any better with their help. After all, he has still slipped a couple of times since the beginning.
Both times that he fell, the man ended up taking at least a couple of hours to return. That is the reason that we are forced to waste time waiting when we could have been climbing. Well, part of the reason that he is so bad at it is how much he is being rushed. We could be taking it a bit easier, and we would make the same time. Hells, we would make better time.
I don't think at the moment they are even realising that they are rushing so much. I think they are expecting somebody to attack them. I am not sure about who, though.
I am basing my judgment on their small actions. The way the soldiers are cutting their rest short, even though they are not that well rested. The way the lords have been expending more and more of their mana to keep the statue active for longer. It would not give them any benefits to keep it activated for that long. The way that Cloak is trying to climb the mountain as quickly as possible.
The people are moving as if they are about to be attacked, even here and they don't want that to happen. (I think it would be more precise to say that they are shit scared.) I am tempted to ask them what they are running from, but I always hold myself back. I don't want to know what could have scared a man like Cloak. The man would have been able to challenge the commander, who is one of the strongest people I have seen in my life.
All of this haste is not helping them, though. If anything, it is slowing us down. Well, whatever is chasing us, we have reached the last leg of our journey. We should be at this "bloody city" soon enough. Listening to the name of the place, I must say it sounds very ominous. I guess I should not judge, though. These people are why I am safe right now, after all.
Well, time to get back to climbing, I suppose.