The Blood of Vampire: Chapter 12 - The First Ward: Gem of Frozen Tears
The journey north was a punishing contrast to the controlled, spiritual climate of the Aethyr-Wound. The Tundra, a realm of perpetual frost and howling winds, was dominated by harsh, metallic ice that actively resisted the flow of the Shadow-Weave. For Jatex, a creature whose internal equilibrium relied on disciplined spiritual warmth and consumption, the environment was a constant, draining antagonist.
His Shadow-Blood Weave was an engine of internal control, but here, the extreme cold forced him to constantly expend energy to simply maintain his body's core temperature.
He could not rely on the sporadic, discreet siphoning of life force he used in Aerthos; the landscape was devoid of the spiritual abundance of civilization. The Thirst became a gnawing, internal furnace that required continuous, razor-sharp focus to prevent it from surging into a desperate, uncontrollable craving. The scars from the Light-Aethyr backlash on the Imperial Road burned faintly under the severe cold, a painful reminder of his divided war.
He traveled for two weeks, following the relentless pull of the Obsidian Compass.
The Amulet, now fully activated as the Warden's Compass, held a single, shimmering line of crimson-indigo energy that pulsed slowly, leading him deeper into the glacial maze.
The Ice Clans and the Sentinel
The Compass eventually led Jatex to a vast, hidden plateau nestled between two ancient glacier walls, home to the nomadic Ice Clans. They were a people hardened by their environment, their culture built on strength, endurance, and an absolute rejection of any power that did not originate from the ice and earth.
Jatex approached the sprawling, temporary camp—a collection of massive tents made from thick hide and bone—allowing the faintest tremor of his suppressed power to alert the sentries. He wanted to be found, but on his terms.
Two colossal figures, armored in thick, white leather and wielded massive bone axes, emerged from the perimeter. They were silent, their faces masked by hoods, their eyes narrowed against the blizzard, betraying no fear of the dark figure before them.
"Outsider," one spoke, his voice deep and rough, like stones grinding. "The Compass draws you here. The Ward is not for thieves of spirit. We sense the Fire of the Blood upon you. You are of the south's corruption."
Jatex stepped forward, allowing the crimson of his eyes to show clearly. "I am Jatex, the Blood-Weaver, heir to the Iron Throne and Guardian Key of Syldavia. The Ward you hold, the Gem of Frozen Tears, is needed to seal a prison that prevents the ultimate end of all realms. I have not come to steal. I have come to trade strength for strength."
The sentries led him deep into the camp to the main tent, where Jarl Ragna, the leader of the unified Ice Clans, awaited. She was a woman of immense physical presence, her face weathered and stern, seated upon a throne carved from a block of ice. Before her, resting on a pedestal of untouched snow, was the Ward: a fist-sized, perfectly crystalline Gem, radiating a cold, palpable spiritual stillness.
"We know the legends of the Sleeper," Jarl Ragna stated, her voice carrying the cold authority of the mountains. "Our shamans call it the Ever-Hunger. Your ancestors, the Blood Lords, tried to use this Gem's power, and their own hunger nearly unleashed the very thing they sought to imprison. Your Shadow-Blood is a predator's magic, foreign to the preservation of the Tundra. Why should we trust the wolf with the preservation of the sheep?"
The Trial of the Frost-Leviathan
Jatex understood that his power was a badge of fear and historical betrayal. He could not fight them; he needed their consent, and he needed to prove that his terrifying power could be controlled and channeled for preservation.
"The Vaelanar failed because they chose starvation over discipline," Jatex countered, stepping closer to the Gem, feeling its profound, inert coldness. "My power is absolute control. To prove it, I offer to perform the Rite of the Great Hunt—the hunt for the Frost-Leviathan."
The Jarl's eyes widened in rare surprise. The Frost-Leviathan was a colossal, ancient beast of the glaciers—a creature so vast and deeply connected to the Tundra's spiritual core that killing it was forbidden, as its death caused local spiritual collapses. The clans merely contained it.
"The Leviathan is contained within the Glacier Maw," the Jarl said, a challenge in her voice. "It is protected by the Aethyr-Ice—magic you cannot consume without suffering spiritual crystallization. If you kill it, you destroy the local Aethyr and condemn us. If you fail, you become its meal. What is your true intention?"
"My intention is to pacify, not kill," Jatex explained, his discipline tightening to a wire's edge. "I will use the Shadow-Blood Weave to enter the Leviathan's core, not to consume its life, but to Blood-Bind its conscious mind. I will silence the beast, maintaining the spiritual stability, without taking a single breath of its life. If I succeed, you will have a permanent, peaceful containment, and you will give me the Gem."
The Jarl considered his crimson eyes and the terrifying confidence in his posture. "Prove it, Blood-Weaver."
The Pacification of the Leviathan
Jatex descended into the Glacier Maw, a yawning chasm of blue ice that led into the creature's immense subterranean lair. The Frost-Leviathan was a sight of terrifying majesty: a hundred-foot serpentine beast, its scales made of dense, ancient ice, radiating a powerful, defensive cold-Aethyr field that made the air itself crackle.
The beast sensed Jatex—the unnatural warmth of his life force—and attacked, its roar shaking the glacier walls. Jatex dodged the crushing impact of its tail, manifesting his Crimson Edges purely for distraction, not attack. He needed to touch its spiritual core, hidden deep beneath the Aethyr-Ice armor.
He executed the most dangerous technique in his arsenal: Spiritual Infiltration. He suppressed his physical presence entirely, allowing his Shadow-Blood Weave to detach from his body and flow like liquid crimson-indigo energy, bypassing the Leviathan's physical bulk and spiritual armor.
Jatex's consciousness plunged into the creature's vast, ancient spiritual core—a hurricane of elemental power and blind, protective rage. He immediately unleashed the Blood-Binding technique, but instead of siphoning, he applied the consuming power as a relentless, focused pressure, designed to suffocate the consciousness without touching the life essence.
The battle was purely mental, spiritual warfare on a massive scale. The Leviathan fought back with waves of mental cold and paralyzing spiritual inertia, but Jatex's Source Blood, the core of his First Embrace, was pure, disciplined predator. Slowly, agonizingly, he wrapped the consuming darkness around the beast's awareness, forcing it into a state of profound, eternal slumber.
Jatex's Shadow-Blood Weave returned to his body, leaving him gasping, sweat turning instantly to ice on his forehead. The Leviathan collapsed, not dead, but utterly still, its eyes glazed over, its spiritual fire banked into a cold, harmless ember. The spiritual stability of the Glacier Maw remained intact.
Jarl Ragna met him at the chasm's entrance, her stern mask finally broken by a look of respect.
"You have bound the soul of the mountain beast without taking its life," she conceded, her voice low with grudging admiration.
"Your darkness is one of control, not merely destruction. The Gem of Frozen Tears is yours, Guardian Key."
She carefully handed the Gem to Jatex. The moment his cold skin touched the Ward, the Obsidian Compass pulsed violently. Jatex felt the Gem's immense, cold spiritual pressure lock into his core, granting him a sudden, intuitive understanding of its purpose: the Gem acted as a Spiritual Anchor, stabilizing the emotional and magnetic field of the realm to prevent the Sleeper's subtle, psychic influence.
The Jarl provided a final, crucial piece of information. "The Gem was entrusted to us by the Sun-Weavers, the keepers of the desert. We warned them against the ways of magic, and they warned us against the ways of blood. We maintain a fragile, ancient non-aggression pact. If you seek the next Ward, the Chalice of Silent Light, you must travel to the south and approach the Sun-Weavers with extreme caution. They are wise, but they will never trust the blood in your eyes."
Jatex secured the first Ward, but the path to the second was already complicated by ancient, cultural mistrust. He had gained a formidable spiritual artifact, but his journey was now entangled in the very political prejudices he sought to end.
The first Ward is secured, and Jatex now has a clear direction to the South for the next artifact.