The storm had passed, leaving behind a world carved in absolute silence.
I stood at the edge of the precipice. Below me was a sheer drop of ice, jagged rock, and swirling snow. Above me, nothing but the howling wind, pushing against my chest as if trying to finish what the battlefield had started.
'Jump,' the wind seemed to whisper. 'It's easier.'
"You fucking bastard," I hissed through chattering teeth. "Focus. Unless you want to die like a moron."
I needed a plan. My mind, usually a fortress of logic, was fraying at the edges. Pain has a way of doing that—it erodes the identity until only the raw instinct to breathe remains.
I stripped the dead soldiers huddled nearby in the cave mouth. I didn't take their armor; I took their fabric. With stiff, frozen fingers, I tore the ruined tunics into strips, braiding them into a crude, heavy rope. I lashed a jagged stone to the end for weight.
"Hold it up there," I muttered, my voice a dry rasp.
I swung the makeshift grappling hook. It clattered against the rock face above, slipping once, twice, before finally catching in a crevice. I pulled. It held.
Then began the torture.
Climbing with two arms is a challenge. Climbing with one arm and a stump that feels like it's being cauterized by a blowtorch is a special kind of hell. I hauled myself up, inch by agonizing inch. My right hand was a claw of frozen flesh. My legs did the heavy lifting, finding footholds where there should be none, jamming boots into cracks barely wider than a coin.
Anko's body was resilient. It moved with a muscle memory I didn't possess—a shinobi's grace trapped in a cripple's frame. I focused on the rhythm: reach, pull, step, breathe.
I leaned into the mountain, hugging the cliff face like a terrified lover. My phantom left arm kept trying to grasp rocks that weren't there, throwing off my balance.
'Move like a shadow. Move like water.'
I was making progress. I was surviving. It was all fine. Until I heard it. A sound in the distance... a chatter? A hoot?
I ignored it, my vision blurring from exhaustion. Then I saw it. Jutting out from the mountainside, defying gravity and logic, was a structure. A broken statue, majestic even in ruin, holding a shattered stone sword toward the heavens.
A treasury of a lost generation. A hidden checkpoint. Salvation.
Having a visual goal anchored my fracturing mind. It pulled me back from the brink of despair.
...Just reach the statue... just reach the ledge.
But the noise grew louder. A cacophony of screeches. As I reached for the next hold, I felt something fuzzy under my right hand. Strange. Moss?
I looked up. It wasn't moss. It was fur. Grey, matted, stinking fur.
A pair of beady, intelligent eyes stared back at me. A flat face. A mouth full of yellow teeth.
A Snow Macaque.
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me."
Of all the beasts in all the worlds. Monkeys. I hated monkeys—aberrations that looked like men but acted like demons. Chaotic, smelly, and loud. The beast blocked my path, crouching on the very ledge I needed.
"Hi... friend," I wheezed, forcing a smile. "Care to help the humble me?"
The ape blinked. It looked at me with a gleam of profound indifference, mixed with a touch of 'you are disturbing my nap.' It scratched its armpit. It looked at the ground. It picked up a ball of hardened snow mixed with something brown and distinctly biological.
My parents used to love taking me to the zoo. I hated it. Now I knew why.
The ape stopped scratching. It looked me in the eye. We shared a moment of connection across species. Then the brat threw the ball of frozen shit directly at my face.
"Shit!"
I ducked, losing my rhythm. My foot slipped. As I cursed myself, two more shadows appeared beside the first. Big brother, little brother. The whole damn family reunion. They stood side by side on the ledge, grinning. They chattered, a sound that was suspiciously like laughter.
Then came the barrage. Snowballs, rocks, and excrement.
I tried to shield my face, to hold on. But a rock hit my good hand, making my fingers go numb. My grip failed.
"I HATE NATURE!" I screamed as gravity reclaimed me with gleeful enthusiasm.
[Grace]: Loved by destiny like always, Firekeeper. Truly blessed.
I fell.
I hit a sloped roof. The tiles shattered, wood splintered. I crashed through the ceiling, tumbling into darkness, hitting beam after beam until I slammed onto a dusty wooden floor.
SLAM.
"More broken bones," I groaned, lying in a heap of debris. "Add them to the collection."
I coughed, waving away clouds of ancient dust. I was inside. The wind was gone and the cold was dampened. I was at the foot of the statue. Or rather, inside the temple built around its base.
Decrepit vermilion pillars. Tattered banners hanging like ghosts. It was an ancient shrine, forgotten by time and gods alike.
It was creepy. It was old. It was perfect.
I checked my status, ignoring the symphony of pain in my ribs.
[Status: ...almost starved. Death imminent.]
"My lucky day again," I rasped. "Nothing could be worse."
I tried to stand, but my legs refused. So I crawled like a worm, like a slave. I dragged myself into the main hall. It was sparse. A few smaller statues of unrecognizable deities. Two altars. One held tarnished golden pots, empty of offerings.
The other held... food?
I squinted. There, in a rusted steel bowl, sat a pile of dried berries. Beside them, some dubious-looking nuts. They looked ancient, preserved by the dry cold or perhaps by the lingering mana of the shrine.
My stomach roared, a beast more ferocious than the monkeys outside. Anko's body was running on empty. It needed fuel to heal.
I dragged myself to the altar. The berries were wrinkled, dark purple, almost black. The nuts looked like petrified wood. To a normal man, this was garbage. To me, it was a Michelin-star feast.
"Beggars can't be choosers," I whispered.
I reached out. My hand hovered over the offering bowl. Technically, this was sacrilege. Bad karma. I clasped my single hand together with my invisible left one, bowing my head in a mockery of piety.
"Sorry, whoever God, Kami, or Priest this is for," I muttered. "Consider this a loan. I'll pay you back when I rule the world."
I grabbed a handful of berries. I didn't chew; I just swallowed them whole. Dust, dry skin, and all. Next, I grabbed the nuts, cracked them with a rock found nearby, and ate the meat inside.
I looted the few coins scattered around. I found three more blue crystals hidden under the bowl, and I stuffed my face until the bowl was empty.
'What a feast.'
I sat back against the altar, feeling the food hit my stomach like stones. Then, the text appeared. Not red, not gold—purple. The color of bad omens.
[System Alert]
[Sacred Offering Consumed]
[You have desecrated the Shrine of the Boundless.]
[Curse Inflicted: CURSE OF GREED] Effect: Hunger increases. Material desire is amplified. The more you have, the more you bleed.
"Worth it," I whispered.
Then, I heard it. Not the wind, not the monkeys... footsteps. Heavy ones, rhythmic, like metal dragging against wood.
Something was coming from the shadows of the inner sanctum. Something that wasn't human. Too heavy.
It was coming... and it sounded hungry.
The Argument with Reality
The floor cracked.
THUD.
The Guardian emerged. Three meters of volcanic stone carved into the shape of a wrathful deity. Cracks spider-webbed across its torso, glowing dull red like magma beneath cooling earth. It held an iron tetsubo studded with rusted spikes.
[Grace]: Oh, this is going to be fun. Recommended strategy: Run.
I laughed. The sound scraped my raw throat. "You know what, Grace? I'm tired of your shit."
The Guardian roared—a sound like an avalanche compressed into pure vibration. It charged.
I couldn't run. My legs were held together by spite. I couldn't block. My left arm was gone. Survival is an equation: Mass times velocity equals death. Unless you change the variables.
I didn't throw the blue crystal I had found. I crushed it in my palm.
[SYSTEM ALERT: Curse of Greed Active]
The crystal didn't explode; it imploded. Mana was violently sucked into my core, bypassing skin and muscle, going straight for the bone marrow. Anko's circuits groaned under the pressure.
The Guardian swung. I lunged toward it, into the dead zone between its body and the killing end of the club. My fist slammed into its stone knee. Not a punch. A Concept.
"Stone was once liquid. Stone can remember that state. Stone should return to what it was."
Reality considered my argument. And agreed.
BOOM.
The Guardian's knee shattered into glowing shrapnel. I climbed its back, my single hand digging into the glowing fissures.
"My turn," I hissed.
I pressed my stump directly into the main crack on its neck. I let the Curse of Greed loose. I wasn't hitting it. I was eating it. The red glow drained into me like water down a pipe. The Guardian shrieked as I sucked the animating mana from its core.
It tasted like molten lead. The Guardian collapsed, its stone body crumbling into lifeless grey dust.
[Grace]: Analysis complete. You're an idiot.
[Warning: The shell has been broken. The real host is waking up.]
The Yasha and the Monk
The ash didn't settle. It swirled into a vortex. From the remains, something thin and white began to uncoil. A Yasha—a spectral parasite wearing the memory of humanity.
In her hand was a nagamaki carved from frozen moonlight. The temperature in the shrine died.
[Grace]: Entity identified: Spectral Yasha (Rank: Calamity-Fledgling)
She flickered. Spatial displacement.
CLANG.
I barely raised a broken crystal shard. The impact didn't vibrate; it froze. My right hand went numb instantly. The nagamaki cut the soul.
"Grace! Give me something!"
[Grace]: Curse of Greed is active. Everything in this room is fuel. Including her.
The Yasha appeared in front of me, raising her blade. I didn't move. I looked into her void.
"You're hungry too, aren't you?"
I threw my remaining two crystals into the air. She reached for them—instinct, greed incarnate. I triggered the golden cubes in my chest, but instead of discharging, I linked.
"Burn."
Gold and blue collided inside her essence. The Yasha shrieked, pinning me. I felt my life draining.
"Go to hell," I whispered, grabbing her ghostly throat. The Curse of Greed flared. I was absorbing her.
I was winning, but I was dying. The world faded to grey.
Then a shadow fell over us. A hand—the size of a dinner plate, calloused and warm—reached down and grabbed the Yasha by the neck. The entity froze in genuine existential fear.
The man holding her was a mountain in human form. Three meters of bronze flesh wrapped in heavy saffron robes. He simply squeezed.
CRACK.
The Yasha shattered into nothingness. Erased by sheer presence.
I lay there, covered in frost and black bile. I looked up at the titan. A Monk. Shaven head. Serene face.
The Monk sat. The ground groaned. He reached into his robes and pulled out a small wooden bowl of white rice. He placed it between us and gestured for me to eat.
It was Order.
The chaos in my circuits stilled. The Curse of Greed quieted to a whisper. When I finished, the Monk stood. He looked toward the distant, sickly green glow on the horizon—the Ashen Temple.
He tapped the top of my head. Once.
"The fire remembers," he said. "Even when you don't."
And then he ceased to be.
I examined the wooden bowl. Worn. Unremarkable. Except for the inscription carved into the bottom. A symbol.
Burning gold when I tilted it into the light.
The same symbol from my Inner World tree. The same symbol the figure in black wore.
"Not his symbol," I whispered. "The symbol of whoever I used to be."
[Grace]: Gift received: The Monk's Mercy.
[Status: Curse of Greed suppressed (12 hours)]
[New Objective: Descend the mountain.]
I stood, body feeling lighter than it had in lifetimes. I gripped the bowl like a talisman. The real game had just begun.
[Distance to Ashen Temple: 47 km]
[Time remaining: 46 hours, 52 minutes]
[The Asura is 38 kilometers away and closing.]
[The Divine Blood knows your name.]
[Grace]: Move, Firekeeper. Or die here.