Adam walked closely behind Hellig as he led the group through a billowing snow storm. Less than a half hour ago the weather had been warm and mild, with light winds and only a few clouds in the sky. For an evening at the end of summer to be exhibiting such weather patterns, it wasn’t hard for Adam to recognize that powerful magic was at work.

  He made sure to keep Hannah in sight with his peripheral vision. He trusted Hellig to lead them, but it was difficult to see more than a few feet in these conditions. If he needed to, Adam was confident he could manage to make his way to the imperial palace, but he also knew that trying to find anyone in the blizzard would be next to impossible between the snow and wind.

  Hellig was constantly radiating out an aura of warmth and light that just barely made the environmental circumstances bearable. Even so, none of them were prepared for the cold to such a degree. If they weren’t walking uphill and in close proximity to Hellig, they probably would have already had frostbite.

  When they got to what Adam believed to be roughly the half way point, his head suddenly became dizzy. A splitting headache followed shortly thereafter as he dropped to his knees, clutching his head with his right hand. Hannah rushed over to him, but he couldn’t make out the words she was trying to say. All he could hear was the wind, and all he could feel was a resounding pressure in his mind, as if it were being hammered on by a battering ram.

  Hellig quickly raised his head high to search into the sky. His arms outstretched in the manner fit to praise the sun. After a moment of resistance stemming from the surrounding blizzard, the smell of maple syrup and pumpkin began to slowly enter the noses of everyone in the group. A tingling warmth began to permeate their bodies despite the snow and wind, and they could each feel the Mind Most High grant its warmth to them. Hannah, Gusto, Hellig and Jezebel all felt relieved and secured. Adam however, felt a much more mild effect. It allowed him to stand and alleviated his pain, but he felt no warmth, and certainly didn’t feel pure.

  Hellig waited until Adam caught his breath before saying anything. “I shall let Vice Admiral Flos know and request his input.”

  Adam didn’t turn to face Hannah. He didn’t want her to see his face.

  …

  The group continued onwards, making slow progress. Ordinarily, the walk between the Pride Square and the imperial palace would have been able to be completed in roughly an hour, but their progress was slowed by the billowing winds and thickening snow. Adam’s head remained slightly hazy, despite Hellig casting an additional two purification spells on him.

  Eventually, they made it to an intersection between two main roads, Crow Street and Emperor Street. This marked the final leg of their journey- if they followed Emperor Street, they would make it to the imperial palace at the top of the hill that overlooked the capital within another few minutes. Even counting the weather, they had perhaps another 15 minutes of walking ahead of them before safety.

  But Hellig had stopped. He unslung his halberd from his back and slightly crouched down as if preparing to enter combat. Without making a sound, he turned his head to look at Adam and mouthed two words.

  “Run ahead.”

  Before Adam could act on this suggestion, Hellig sprung into action, dashing to the back of the group and swinging his halberd to block an incoming lance made out of ice. In the process of him deftly swatting it away, he caused the halberd to glow with a golden yellow light, and the blizzard in the nearby area seemed to abate. Adam could see further now, and saw that off in the distance behind them was a pair of figures.

  One of them was about 1.7 meters in height, with a vaguely leather like cloak around her. Her white face was nearly indistinguishable from the snow around her. Even at this distance, Adam could make out the chill of her ice blue eyes. In her hands was a dark black halberd with an edge the same color as her eyes.

  The second figure was much larger, a hulking 2.8 meter tall monster with white hair that extended down almost to the ground with scraps of a dark tunic embedded into its flesh. It was hunched over as if burdened by an invisible weight, causing its long claws to scrape against the ground every time it exhaled. The monster locked eyes with Adam, showing its hazel colored eyes. Adam had a brief pounding headache that nearly caused him to collapse, but Gusto managed to come to his aid to support him from falling.

  “Gusto-”

  “I know. I see it too.”

  The pair had both seen the embroidery on a part of the tunic on the monster. They weren’t just faced with an enemy- they were facing Marc!

  Hrime outstretched her right hand, keeping Marc behind her momentarily. She smiled. As she was 10 meters away from the group, she was confident that Marc could close distance quickly while she could shoot from range with her powers.

  “Hellig, dearest brother. I have a simple request of you, if you would like to hear it.” Her smile widened, becoming almost predatory.

  “Sister. I shall not give up my inheritance from our father. Nor would I expect you to give up yours.” Hellig caused the light on his halberd to increase in intensity as he rebuked her.

  Hrime likewise increased the intensity of the blue light on her own halberd. “Your protector isn’t here to save you from me now, brother.”

  Hrime gripped her halberd with both hands and Marc shot out like a cannonball, covering the distance between the two groups in half a second. At the same time, Gusto shouted out with a booming voice SHUNK, causing a controlled shockwave to pulse into Marc, forcing him to stagger briefly and recalibrate.

  Hrime wasted no time in conjuring a series of icicles at her back, sharpening and elongating them into darts that hurled towards Hellig, who spun his halberd in a circle in front of his body in order to block them. He sidestepped closer to Marc, but was impeded by Hrime as she conjured a large wall of sharp ice spikes in between Hellig and the rest of the group.

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  Adam looked towards Hannah, who nodded and took out the ruby spear charm that her uncle had given her. But Marc was quicker. He shot out towards her, avoiding another sonic boom from Gusto as he did so, which hit the cobblestone pavement instead, causing noticeable damage.

  Adam attempted to react by outstretching his spirit towards Hannah, but without having harmonized with any applicable Realm, the best he could do was create a light barrier with little strength.

  Marc’s forearm swiped into her side with the sound of bones cracking, causing Hannah to lose her grip on the ruby charm as she was flung 7 meters away, sliding on the rough cobblestone and ice as she did so. By the time she stopped, her arm was visibly broken, her head was bleeding and she was unconscious.

  Adam was momentarily shocked by this, having not expected the monster that his friend had turned into to be so fast and lethal. He had thought that some power of past friendship would have caused Marc to stay his hand at the last second as his humanity overcame whatever vile ritual was conducted on him.

  But the world doesn’t work like that. Adam knew that the process of transforming into a monster like the one before him caused the soul itself to fray beyond repair, and often to be lost entirely.

  Meanwhile, Hellig had no opportunity to intervene. Hrime launched repeated lances of ice at him. Every time he got within a couple of meters, she would create a column of snow to block his path. He was on the back foot often, spending most of his time defending just himself. He knew that if this continued, they were as good as dead.

  He disengaged from the close quarters combat and channeled his energy, releasing a massive stream of light high into the sky that evaporated the snow in its vicinity. Hrime frowned, but ultimately decided the matter to be of little concern.

  Gusto slammed Marc with another shockwave, causing the creature to briefly stagger. But it served little use other than to cause the beast to turn its attention towards Gusto instead of Adam or Jezebel, who was currently cowering near a building on the side of the road, entirely aware that she was powerless in this situation.

  Adam regained his senses after a moment and took stock of the situation. He saw Hellig barely keeping Hrime at bay, he saw Jezebel cowering at the side of the street, he saw Gusto SHUNK Marc twice more, barely managing to use his powers to stay out of the way of the monster as he began to bleed from his nose and cough. And he saw Hannah beaten and barely breathing off to the side. If the road were anything less than the main thoroughfare into the imperial residence, Adam knew that she would have flown into a building and probably died on the spot.

  Hannah…

  Adam’s eyes lingered on her figure laying there, and he resolved himself. His head was pounding unnaturally as he dove for the ruby charm on the ground that had been half covered in freshly fallen snow.

  As he grabbed onto the charm, he felt a vague sense of distortion, as if colors and space around him was blending inwards. But this distortion was nothing compared to the headaches he had been subjected to in that strange Realm. Clutching the charm, he thrust his right hand outwards towards Marc just as Gusto had managed to barely dodge another attack.

  Red light poured out of the charm, condensing into a particle lance that shot outwards towards Marc. The monster attempted to raise its hands to block, but the lance split the creature straight down the middle with a sizzling pop. It vaporized the snow in its path and even superheated the cobbled stone underneath it, but as soon as it had passed through Marc’s form, it did not cleave a single extra centimeter, instead leaving a rounded hole the size of Adam’s fist. One could look straight through both of Marc’s arms as well as his freshly emaciated chest. The monster turned its deep hazel eyes towards Adam and let out its first sound since losing its soul- a wet, throaty gargle.

  It proceeded to collapse as the remaining purified energy started to turn its form into flakes of dust.

  Adam felt no pain like he expected. In fact, even his headache was dispersed after using the charm. He confidently stood up and looked across the street towards Hrime. Gusto likewise stood. Despite coughing up blood, he was still able to fight. Hellig, though wounded from a series of shallow cuts, was in mostly fine condition to continue the fight.

  Faced with two Chosen and a Passenger, Hrime knew she had little opportunity to hold back. Her halberd glowed with an even more intense blue light, and Hellig answered with his own.

  As suddenly as their halberds glowed though, they dimmed. The snow began to disperse, and Marc’s body, though still flaking away on the wind, had its process slowed dramatically.

  At the edge of the area, the assembled mortals saw a figure in tengu styled garb floating as if the billowing winds of a blizzard had no effect on its form. Its red skin was thick and leathery, and it had a perfectly clean katana in its hand.

  Hrime’s eyes widened as she jumped up into the air, shooting out a series of icicle darts at both the Red Oni and at Hellig. At the last chance, she caused the darts to explode with steam, causing a fog to envelop the area. Once the fog cleared, Hrime was gone.

  The Red Oni glanced at Hellig, Adam, Gusto and Jezebel, before slowly floating towards the unconscious Hannah. Without touching down onto the ground, it touched the tip of its katana to her forehead and glanced back at Hellig. While he was at first confused, he seemed to realize something, and he rushed over to place his hands on her broken ribs. He channeled the powers of the Mind Most High, enveloping the area in the scent of maple syrup and pumpkin. Light cascaded down, dispelling the blizzard around them almost entirely, and enveloped Hannah’s figure.

  She coughed up blood as her eyes flitted open. Wincing, she allowed Adam and Hellig to help support her up. She moved to talk, but coughed up more blood instead.

  “Try not to talk for now, we’ll get you treated by the Emperor himself.” Adam did his best to reassure her as he slung her arm over his shoulder.

  Adam moved to thank the strange creature for its assistance, but when he turned over he instead found the lifeless corpse of James in front of him. His eyes had seemed to boil out and his skin was red and leathery, but aside from that, it was the same James that he had met earlier that day.

  Gusto had moved over to help Jezebel to her feet. While Adam couldn’t make out what he was saying to her, he could guess as to the general theme.

  “Hellig…” Adam was at a loss for words.

  “Yes, Adam?”

  “What the fuck?”