My bedroom was a small wooden box with a single window facing the pine forest. Here, beneath fur blankets that were meant to feel warm, I felt like an insect trapped in a cocoon. The air in this room was too still, too static.
There was no hiss of Abyssal energy burning the skin, no low growls from creatures hiding behind dimensions. There was only the ticking of the old wooden wall clock—tick, tock, tick, tock—each second feeling like a drop of water hitting a prisoner's forehead.
I couldn't sleep. Sleep is a luxury for those who don't have shadows chasing them from behind.
I rose without a sound. The wooden floor, which usually creaked under my father's weight, didn't make a single noise beneath my feet. Malphas had taught me how to shift my weight to the tips of my toes, how to become a ghost before becoming a killer. I grabbed a thin mantle and slipped out through the window, landing in the soft snow without a ripple.
The outside world was a vast white canvas, lit by a pale, cold moonlight. The Cyberian wind began to rage, carrying ice particles as sharp as thousands of tiny needles. For the citizens of Nordvik, this was a signal to lock the doors and huddle by the fireplace. To me, this was freedom.
I walked toward the forest. Every step sank deep into the snow, yet I felt no fatigue. On the contrary, every fiber of my muscle began to vibrate with anticipation.
"Show yourself," I whispered to the darkness between the pines.
I wasn't speaking to a god. I was speaking to something more primal. In the Abyss, I learned that nature has its own language. Not words, but vibrations. I closed my eyes, letting my consciousness seep out of my body, merging with the frozen ice and the sleeping earth.
And there, I felt it.
Deep within the density of the forest, there was a heartbeat that was out of sync with the earth's rhythm. It was fast, heavy, and filled with pure hunger. The Great Snowbear. My father was right about its existence, but he was wrong about the numbers. There was more than one. There was a boiling rage coming from the direction of the mountains, an unstable elemental energy beginning to leak into this world.
I began to run. Not a run of fear, but a run to meet it.
My movements were no longer human. I leaped from one tree branch to another, using my body's flexibility to slice through the storm. The scenery around me turned into a blur of white and grey streaks. In my head, Malphas's voice echoed again, a lesson carved with scars on my back:
"Never fight elements with elements, Leon. Fight them with your will. Elements are merely tools; your will is the hand that holds them."
I stopped at a clearing, an open circle in the middle of the woods surrounded by dead trees. In the center, the ground was exposed, revealing giant footprints already frozen into sharp ice. The musky scent of a beast mingled with the stinging smell of ozone.
I knelt, touching the track with my fingers. The cold didn't freeze my skin; instead, it seemed to be absorbed, feeding the darkness dwelling within my chest.
"You are heading toward the village," I murmured to the tracks. "You smell their fear, don't you? You smell the warm fish soup and the tender human flesh."
Suddenly, a low growl rumbled from behind the frozen bushes. A pair of glowing red eyes emerged from the darkness, followed by a massive snout venting hot steam. A polar bear, but no ordinary bear. Its body was encrusted with ice crystals protruding from its skin like natural armor. The beast had been exposed to the seepage of wild elemental energy.
It didn't attack immediately. It stared at me with confusion. In the beast's eyes, I was not human. I was something it didn't recognize, an anomaly in the middle of the ecosystem it ruled.
I stood up slowly, letting my hands hang limp at my sides. I had no weapon. No sword, no bow, no axe. Just me and the darkness I had studied down there.
"Come," I challenged, a small smirk forming at the corner of my lips. "Prove to me that the upper world isn't boring."
The bear roared, a sound capable of shaking the snow from the surrounding branches. It lunged with a speed impossible for its size. The ground vibrated beneath its heavy paws.
One second before its giant claws could tear through my chest, I moved.
I didn't dodge far. I simply pivoted my body slightly, letting its coarse fur brush against my mantle. As it passed my side, I slammed my palm into the side of its head. It wasn't an ordinary strike. I channeled a fragment of the vibration I had learned from the Abyss, a resonance designed to shatter structure from within.
CRACK!
The one-ton beast was hurled sideways, crashing into a pine tree and bringing it down. It whimpered, trying to rise, but its legs trembled. The ice crystals on its back cracked and shattered.
I walked toward it with a casual pace. The adrenaline in my veins began to boil, chasing away the remaining cold. "Is this all?" I asked with genuine disappointment. "In the Abyss, even the rats are faster than you."
The bear stared at me with pure terror before finally succumbing to its internal injuries and ceasing to breathe. I stood over the carcass, staring at my hands, which were still vibrating from the energy I had spared.
The vibration in the ground hadn't stopped. In fact, it was getting stronger. From the mountains, I could feel a larger pack moving. They were no longer just looking for food. They were being called by something. Perhaps they felt my presence. Perhaps they wanted to challenge the new predator that had just claimed this territory.
I looked up at the Cyberian night sky. The falling snow felt so soft, such a contrast to the violence I had just committed. I knew that tomorrow morning, the village of Nordvik would no longer be the same. The real storm wasn't coming from the sky, but from this forest.
And I? I would wait for them here. At the border between humanity and monsters.
"Come," I whispered to the howling wind. "Bring them all to me. I need a reason not to be bored."