The Pass of Weeping Stones grew worse with every step.
It was a narrow throat of basalt, barely five meters wide, where the mountain seemed to be leaning inward to crush anything that dared to breathe. The walls were steep and slick with the "tears" of iron-stained meltwater that froze into jagged, blood-colored spears of ice.
Perfect ambush territory. The kind of place where you either controlled the high ground or died looking up.
Nero padded beside me, silent despite his massive size. His molten-gold eyes, predatory and cold, scanned the ridges with a tactical awareness that suggested more than just animal instinct—it suggested military discipline. Perhaps knight training. In the Prison Game, the line between beast and soldier was often a blur.
Every dozen steps, Nero would pause. His nostrils would flare, catching the scent of copper and cheap industrial oil through the crisp mountain air. A low, subterranean growl would vibrate in his chest, a warning intended only for my ears.
"You smell them too?" I asked, my voice barely a thread in the howling wind.
He nodded with a sharp, human-like gesture. Nero didn't need words to communicate the obvious. We were being watched.
[Grace]: Seven biological signatures detected. Divine Blood Shinobi.[Grace]: Proximity: 40 meters. Vertical advantage: Enemy.
"Of course they're here," I muttered, adjusting the indigo robes over my stump. "Subtlety was never their strong suit. I guess in this valley, they prefer the theater of the slaughter."
[Grace]: You are currently Level 15. Your potential is capped by IO's underlying framework.[Grace]: You COULD take them in direct combat. However, your left arm is missing, your Grace reserves are at 14%, and the Curse of Greed reactivates in less than 3 hours.[Grace]: Recommendation: Do not fight fair.
I smiled. It was a dark, cynical expression that felt right on Anko's young, scarred face. "Grace, I've never fought fair in two lifetimes. Why start now?"
I studied the pass. It was a masterpiece of structural instability. The ice formations on the walls were heavy, weighted by the previous night's storm. One precisely placed vibration would bring the entire ceiling down. Beneath the frozen floor, I could feel the rhythmic pulse of pressurized water—a high-altitude stream trapped by a seasonal ice dam.
Variables: Gravity. Thermal shock. Kinetic discharge.
"Nero," I whispered. "Can you handle three on your own?"
The wolf snorted, a dry sound of pure insult. He didn't need a strategy. He was the strategy.
"Good. Because I'm about to make this very loud and very final."
The Ambush
They appeared exactly where the math dictated.
Seven figures clad in Divine Blood crimson dropped from the overhangs like crows diving for carrion. Their armor was light, lacquered ceramic designed for high-speed assassination, making no sound as they hit the snow. They surrounded us in a classic hexagonal encirclement, cutting off both ends of the pass.
The leader stepped forward. His mask was carved in the likeness of a bird of prey, but his voice carried the hollow resonance of a man who had sold his soul to a system long ago.
"Slave Anko. You were reported dead in the valley."
I shrugged with my right shoulder, the stump of my left arm throbbing in the biting cold. "I got better. Turns out, death is a very difficult habit to maintain."
"The Priestess wants you alive. The Asura wants you erased." The leader's hand moved to a kusarigama—a chain-sickle—that hummed with a sickly violet mana. "Come quietly, or we'll deliver you in pieces."
I glanced at Nero. The wolf's lips pulled back, exposing teeth that looked capable of shearing through tank plating.
"Option three," I said, my voice dropping an octave. "We make you quiet."
I moved first. Not toward the hunters, but toward the wall.
I struck the ice formation above the bottleneck with the pommel of my tantō. I didn't use brute strength; I used Resonance. I channeled a micro-burst of mana into the frozen "tears" of the mountain, finding the frequency of the fracture.
CRACK.
The structural integrity I'd identified as compromised gave way instantly. Tons of frozen debris and basalt fragments avalanched down—a white wall of death that sliced the hunter formation in half.
Four on my side. Three on Nero's.
"Nero! The three behind the wall—they're yours!"
The wolf launched himself over the falling debris with a strength that defied his mass, vanishing into a cloud of snow and screams. The sounds that followed were wet and visceral—the symphony of a primordial predator dismantling high-tech shinobi.
The Dance of Sublimation
I focused on my four. They adapted instantly, spreading out in a coordinated pack tactic. They expected me to run. They expected panic from a one-armed boy.
Instead, I charged.
The tantō wasn't a weapon of grace; it was a tool for ending arguments. I closed the distance before the nearest shinobi could swing his sickle, burying the blade in the gap between his helmet and gorget.
Arterial spray. Hot. Metallic. It steamed in the freezing air.
One down.
The other three tried to flank. I kicked the first corpse into the path of the second hunter, using the dead weight to buy a micro-second of time.
I drew the Bone Saber from my robes.
[Grace]: Battery: 4%.
[Grace]: Estimated blade-time: 28 seconds.
"Enough."
I ignited it.
HISS.
A twenty-centimeter blade of white-hot plasma erupted from the bone hilt. It didn't cut; it erased. The second hunter lunged, his steel blade meeting the plasma. The steel didn't just break—it sublimated into gas.
I followed the swing through his torso. Cauterized death.
Two down. Twenty seconds remaining.
The third and fourth hunters backed toward the ice floor, their eyes wide behind their masks. They were smart enough to fear a star held in a boy's hand.
"Nero! Status?"
A howl answered from the other side of the rubble. Victorious. Final.
I didn't have time to chase them. The plasma cutter was dying, and my mana was flagging. So I did something they didn't expect. I drove the bone hilt into the ground.
Directly into the fault line of the underground stream.
HISS. CRACK. BOOOOM.
The superheated plasma met the sub-zero water. Thermal shock fractured the ice in spider-webbing patterns. The pressurized geyser beneath exploded upward—a pillar of boiling steam and razor-sharp ice shards.
The hunters were standing directly over the fault line. They fell through—not into the water, but into the hollow pocket carved by the current. Pinned by shifting ice. Trapped in a freezing vacuum.
I walked to the edge of the pit and looked down at the thrashing forms.
"Nothing personal," I whispered.
I drove the tantō through the nearest one's exposed neck. Three down.
The leader—the one who'd spoken of my death—managed to grab a ledge. He pulled himself up, gasping, his mask shattered to reveal a face no older than Anko's. A boy playing at war.
"Please," he choked, blood bubbling at the corner of his mouth. "I have... family... the Priestess promised..."
I drove the tantō through his eye socket before he could finish. I didn't want to hear about his family. I didn't want to hear about his promises. In this world, the only thing that mattered was the weight of the steel in your hand and the breath in your lungs.
Four down.
Nero emerged from the debris. His grey fur was matted with crimson. He padded over and sat beside me, leaning his massive weight against my leg.
Pack. We were pack.
The Voice from the Void
I searched the leader's body, my fingers cold and precise. I wasn't looking for gold; I was looking for intel.
I found it in a hidden pocket—a communication device. It was a small, crystalline shard, humming with a frequency that felt like a needle in my brain. I picked it up.
"Anko," a voice spoke from the crystal. "Or should I say... Firekeeper?"
Female. Melodic. Carrying a weight of authority that made my spine stiffen. It wasn't just a voice; it was a command.
"You killed my hunters," she continued. "Efficiently. Ruthlessly. You didn't just win; you conducted a massacre."
"They attacked first," I replied, my eyes scanning the ridges for reinforcements. "Self-defense is a universal right, Priestess Yuki."
"Self-defense? You lured them into a trap. You used a Plasma Cutter—an artifact from a dead world. You have tactics that no slave should possess. Who are you really?"
I considered lying. But the Firekeeper in me—the piece of Light that Grace had awakened—refused to be small.
"I'm a man on a trial," I said. "And your mountain is in my way."
The Priestess laughed. It was a sad, hollow sound. "My mountain? Firekeeper, the moment you fell from the sky, this mountain ceased to belong to anyone. The Asura is moving. The Light Swordmaster is missing. And something vast is awakening in the Temple depths."
"You think this is about you? You're the catalyst. The spark that starts the wildfire."
Before I could respond, the device began to glow with a violent, unstable violet light.
[Grace]: IT'S A TRAP! THROW IT—
I hurled the crystal into the air.
It detonated mid-flight. An explosion of crystalline shrapnel and mana discharge that would have turned my hand to mist. I threw myself flat, and Nero covered me with his massive body, his fur absorbing the shrapnel like living armor.
When the smoke cleared, Nero had a dozen small cuts. He shook himself, the wounds already closing with unnatural speed. From the debris, a single fragment remained, etched with a message in burning runes:
"The Temple awaits, Firekeeper. But so does your past."
I stood up, dusting the snow from my indigo robes.
"Grace. Analysis."
[Grace]: Priestess Yuki. Leader of the Divine Blood. Rank: Sovereign-Tier.
[Grace]: She's not your enemy yet. She's a spectator. She's waiting to see if you're the hero of this story... or the villain.
"And which am I?"
[Grace]: You're the Firekeeper, Light. You're the one who burns the story so the next one can be written.
I looked toward the horizon. The Ashen Temple was still kilometers away, hidden by the mountain's jagged spine. But for the first time, I felt the pull. Not of the system, but of the memory.
"Come on, Nero. We're burning daylight."
The wolf stood, shook the last of the blood from his fur, and padded beside me. Together, we walked deeper into the pass.
Toward the temple. Toward the fire.
[Distance to Ashen Temple: 14 Kilometers]
[Time Remaining: 42 Hours, 03 Minutes]
[Total Casualties in this Loop: 47]
[The Priestess is watching. The Asura is 31 Kilometers away and closing.]