The cold nibbled, not stopping its relentless hunger to spread its cold in every crevice it could find.
Brows turned frosty at it, face turning paler than a ghost's.
But strangely enough.
"...."
It didn't affect Cale, in fact, he felt better than ever after a long nap.
'Is it because of the shard?'
A 'shard', he didn't know what it was, but hearing how the merchant said that it would help when surviving.
Cale couldn't help but blame it right now.
Each minute that passed, he could feel his body gradually change, and not knowing if it was good or not made the feelings in his heart conflict with one another.
'If it helps me survive....Does it really matter if it changes who I am?'
Would anyone truly not take such a price? Surviving by simply tearing a piece of themselves and putting a replacement in the lost limb?
Of course, it wouldn't function normally, but was it not enough? Isn't surviving now and dying later far better?
'I definitely would'
Because in the end, Cale was weak, the feeling of attachment slowly dissipating as he embraced the cold made room for self-hate.
'If I was like this before....I definitely wouldn't have gone so pathetically'
Currently, Cale could feel in his blood that he was at his peak, or at least reaching close to something like it.
However, in the end. Mentality was key.
Reaching the peak performance didn't amount to anything, if that was all it took to kill, plenty would still be alive today.
Being able to hold the ability to kill without batting an eye took true nerves of steel, something Cale did not and will probably never have if everything stayed the same.
'I need to change'
Clearly he did need to. Because what he is doing right now screamed 'incompetence' in his earlobes, a route to death.
'If there were parallel universes with this exact scenario, how many times would I have already died by now?'
Many, many and many times.
Some actions that were taken felt more instinctual to him, luck, but without it? What was he in front of the jaws of death?
"Prey"
That awaited to be nourishment for the predator.
Cale wanted to kill, to kill in order to achieve 'life' that should rightfully belong to him.
So, in order to make himself more desperate for it, more ferocious.
He starved himself to sharpen the edges of his hollow fangs.
He slept and dug the hole deeper and deeper, in order to drink water, snow became the best alternative.
By now, hypothermia should have surfaced and put him in critical condition, however.
'How am I still....'
"Okay?"
The cold hurt, even now, but that was all. It didn't get in the way of things, only accumulating more and more as time passed.
Caressing warm metal in his hand, palm burned under exposure, literally.
The more he held it, the more small burn marks appeared, it made it hard to cut through the snow, so Cale decided that using two pairs of bare hands seemed better. First, he carefully put the knife in its sheath.
"I thought it might've been a bad idea at first"
Eating snow directly in a tundra truly was one hell of a way to die after all.
"But I feel even better than at the beginning"
The cold oddly felt liberating to him, as if waking up after having one of the best good night's sleep in his life.
"Ah"
Snow turned hard after hours of mining and eating, upon scraping it off with the dagger, he found dirt.
'Up?'
His head flicked in a natural motion up.
Face flashed with worry, in spite of that.
Thwack!
Cale still shoved a whole fist in the ceiling, it collapsed shortly after repeated strikes, large masses of snow burying Cale alive inside.
The snow didn't affect nor suffocate him, eating it became easy after doing it so many times. At first, his throat hurt as if icicles were shoved inside, but the more he ate, the more easily his body started to accept it.
Popping a head outside, he checked his pulse.
'Feels...weaker'
Yet he could move fairly unrestricted, not feeling a tinge of tire nor anything weird clouding his mind.
Overall, not a good thing he thought.
'Well, its either I die of hypothermia or by a nightmare'
Lips curled as his body popped out and looked at the surroundings.
"....."
The curled lips shifted into blank as Cale took in the bloody scenery wafting a pungent smell of iron.
At the scene before him, he felt nothing at first.
But as he kept his eyes peeled.
Each mush of flesh that could be spotted fed his hunger that growled for a meal.
Without even realizing, saliva which he didn't know still existed.
Drip!
Sharply dripped to the snow, damping it.
Close to him, a pile of snow shivered before bursting its shell open.
At the sound, Cale instantly locked eyes with the pale-blue turtle.
Before he could even process it.
A fine piece of white thread flowed towards its way.
Paving a path for something.
Something his body realized on its own what it was.
"From Experience"
A cold voice muttered from somewhere. Digging itself deeper into Cale's mind
"Trials revealed it in front of you, feeding you with its own hand again and again, yet not you nor anyone in your position could understand it fully"
Cracked lips stretched, bright red blood flowing in its own rhythm.
It felt like the voice leaned close, whispering once before disappearing.
"And you never will"
It left with those parting words. Cale felt the voice had been different from when in the afterlife, the way it spoke made it seem like it will not drop in again and whisper in his ear.
An object flashing snapped his dazed self, arm by then flicking erratically to the beast rushing, a portion of Cale's cold left as the sharp blade flew across.
Eyes widened slightly when he registered that he had indeed thrown the blade himself.
But the reason for surprise wasn't his body's response to chuck a small blade at the very obvious hard shell of a tortoise.
No, surprise streaked across his face when the blade exploded in its face.
The entirety of the animal's body became engulfed in scorching fire, different from the cold climate.
Cough!
The aftereffects after such a vicious explosion were natural to say the least. Dare I say even underwhelming for the power given.
"Ukh!"
Despite this concept of aftereffects deeply engraving itself onto Cale, the sudden scorching warmth that spread evenly made him choke.
It felt as if all the cold he felt before was used as some sort of catalyst for the fire the knife caused.
'No, but how did I even know?!'
Each movement he made felt pre-made, as if it were a natural occurrence that needed to happen in order to proceed further.
Whirling into his thoughts. White smoke bellowed as the piercing cold began resettling itself deep inside him.
Silver flashed brightly as the smoke cleared, blizzard growing in intensity, replacing the job of the smokescreen.
Szzzzzzz
At the sizzle. Cale twisted his head diagonally, as if something clicked, he looked downwards where a steaming hot knife melted the snow nonstop.
Picking it up carefully, the blade turned colder and colder the more time rushed to the next minute, and the more it rushed.
Guooo!!!!
The more malformed animals grew curious of the heat that threw the balance of cold into an array.
At the realization of getting surrounded.
"Oh hell no!"
Cale turned tail and started sprinting the other way where there was no presence, strangely enough, that action also felt premade.
'Is it....Because of Route Taker?'
Not much was known about the ability itself, just its name ringed, forcing only conjectures to form around what it could possibly mean.
'Ah whatever! What matters is my heart beating right now!'
Cold winds flowed against him, raging wildly to make him stop and turn around.
But Cale did not turn around to the horrors sitting right behind him, waving tourist traps.
He only walked to where silence was disturbed by his steps and steps alone.
Each draw of breath slicing his throat apart with each robust step, tearing it and forcing it to adapt.
Soon enough, the cold blizzard was so intense that it obscured everything, freezing anything that wanted to be ordinary.
"Ha-ha"
A cold chuckle unknowingly left him, Cale could feel the inside of his gasping mouth freeze, eyelashes turning flaky as time told the snow to freeze even that.
He ran, ran and ran until only the blizzard remained laughing in his ears, telling him how ridiculous he was.
As he stopped to catch a calm breath, the whistling flurry of cold snowflakes stopped, only then did the surroundings reveal themselves in all of its majesty.
"Oh"
Due to his voice changing, it couldn't change much in emotion, coming out as monotonous.
So they couldn't express what he felt, why his lips quaked at what he saw.
The border was there, blocking anything that wanted to leave and anything that wanted to move in.
Above the towering snowy mountains was a blazing silhouette of a bird inside a ball of fire, pulsing and thudding like how a heart would.
But garnering his attention wasn't the bird in the sky.
It was the mountains themselves.
Rumbleeeee—!
Cale had wondered hours ago how they would stop them from just leaving the area itself.
Now, in a roundabout way. He got the answer right in front of the shifting mountain.
"Dragon?"
If he wasn't sure before, he was sure now.
That thing was truly what encompassed a dragon. A maw so large it could eat houses and breathe out a forest fire, claws so ferocious they were a natural disaster in itself. Scales so tough it makes steel call it cheating, horns like a crown ordering ants to praise its beauty.
Strangely however, it appeared to be fused with the mountains, giving a small reason why it didn't have wings.
—!!!
Red streaks on where its eyes might have been flashed, finally woken from its slumber.
Its gaze.
Directed at the ball of fire humming a lullaby to the embryo.