The rock cut through the howling gale with a sharp, faint whistle, striking the heavy, snow-laden bough three feet directly above Hero’s head.
THWACK!
The impact triggered a sudden, violent cascade of heavy, frozen slush.
A hundred pounds of packed snow and razor-sharp icicles collapsed downward, slamming directly into Hero’s back and shoulders.
“Ugh—!”
The unexpected avalanche knocked the heavy wooden club from the gladiator’s grip, driving him face-first into the freezing drift.
The abrupt jerk on the iron line yanked the priest and the blonde slave off their feet mid-brawl, sending all three men tangling into a chaotic, thrashing pile of limbs, chain, and snow.
The sudden noise and sudden movement shattered the silence of the pass.
Above the supply crate, the Camouflaged Lurker’s four milky eyes flared with a dull, predatory light.
Its translucent, snow-white skin rippled, turning a sickly mottled gray as its camouflage failed.
Realizing the target was disoriented, the spider-like monstrosity abandoned its patience.
HISSSSS!
With a wet, terrifying screech, the monster dropped from the canopy.
Its long, jointed legs unfolded like a springing trap, hitting the center of the trail with a heavy, metallic THUD that shook the frozen ground.
“M-MONSTER!” the blonde slave screamed, his voice cracking into a high-pitched, pathetic squeal.
He scrambled backward on his hands and knees, frantically kicking at the snow to pull away.
“Get up! GET UP!” Hero bellowed, spitting blood and slush as he clawed his way out of the drift, his massive hands reaching wildly for his dropped club.
“The chain! The chain is caught!” the priest shrieked in absolute terror.
The violent tumble had wrapped the heavy iron link twice around the crippled priest’s leg and pinned Hero’s wrist against a buried boulder.
They were completely immobile, locked in a trap of their own making.
The Lurker didn’t charge Hero first.
The beast was an experienced hunter; it targeted the most frantic, loud, and unarmored prey to establish control.
Its front talons, curved like bone scythes, shot out with blinding speed.
RIP!
The talons drove straight through the blonde slave’s shoulder, lifting his light frame off the ground like a ragdoll.
“AGGGGHHH! HERO! HELP ME! IT’S EATING ME!” the blonde man shrieked, his hands frantically beating against the monster’s pale, chitinous face.
“Shut him up!” Hero roared, not to save the boy, but because the thrashing body was dragging the chain and pulling Hero’s pinned arm deeper under the boulder.
Hero grabbed his heavy club with his free right hand and swung it wildly, not at the monster, but at the iron chain near the blonde man’s ankle, trying to use the impact to snap the rusted link.
Sparks flew, but the cold-forged iron held fast.
The Lurker’s mandibles split open, dripping thick, corrosive saliva that hissed as it hit the snow, and sank its jagged mouthparts into the blonde slave’s throat to quiet the noise.
Watching from the darkness behind the pine roots, Sunny’s flat blue eyes recorded every detail.
‘Thirty seconds,’ Sunny calculated, his body crouched low, his breath held tight to prevent white plumes from rising into the air.
‘The monster is occupied.
Hero is pinned.
The priest is paralyzed with fear.
The path to the supply crate is completely open.’
Sunny didn’t care about the fight.
He didn’t care who lived or died among the three.
To him, their violent struggle was nothing more than a loud, bloody distraction.
He slithered out from beneath the roots, staying on his belly, moving like a shadow across the snow toward the overturned supply crate fifty feet away.
His cracked ‘Scavenger’s Carapace’ bit painfully into his ribs with every slide, but he ignored the sting.
His focus was entirely locked on the scattered wooden casks.
He reached the first broken barrel.
Inside, wrapped in oil-stained cloth, were several hard, dry bricks of dried traveler’s bread and a small iron hatchet used by the army’s teamsters to cut firewood.
Sunny’s hand darted out like a strike from a viper.
He shoved two bricks of hard bread into his wool cloak, then grabbed the iron hatchet.
It wasn’t an Awakened Memory—it was just a simple, mass-produced tool with a wooden handle and a rusted iron head—but in his empty, weaponless hands, it felt like a gift from heaven.
[Item Acquired: Iron Hatchet (Mortal)]
Sunny didn’t stop to gloat.
He turned his head slightly, peering over the edge of the crate.
The blonde slave’s screams had died down to a faint, wet gurgle.
The Lurker was crouched over his body, its pale limbs twitching as it began to feast.
But Hero, driven by sheer, monstrous physical strength, had managed to leverage his heavy shoulders against the boulder.
With a deep, guttural roar, Hero lifted the granite rock two inches and yanked his pinned wrist free.
“Priest! Move!” Hero barked, grabbing the heavy wooden club and raising it high over his head.
The crippled priest, seeing a sliver of hope, pulled violently on the chain, trying to untangle his leg.
Hero didn’t swing his club at the monster. New chapters come out on g.com first.
He turned his cold, ruthless gaze toward the priest’s tangled, shattered leg.
“You’re anchoring me,” Hero growled.
“Hero… wait! NO—!”
CRACK!
Hero brought the heavy wooden club down with brutal force straight onto the priest’s shattered knee.
The priest let out a short, strangled gasp and fainted instantly from the sheer shock of the pain, his body going completely limp.
With the priest unconscious and no longer resisting, Hero violently unknotted the slack chain from the old man’s leg, abandoning the priest and the dead blonde slave to the monster.
Hero scrambled to his feet, bloody, panting, and free.
He turned to run down the pass—and his eyes locked directly onto Sunny, who was crouching beside the supply crate holding the iron hatchet and two bricks of stolen bread.
For a fraction of a second, the former gladiator and the street roach stared at each other through the driving blizzard.
Hero’s eyes burned with furious, desperate greed.
He saw the bread.
He saw the hatchet.
“You…” Hero growled, lifting his bloody club as he took a heavy step toward Sunny.
“Give me that food, rat!”
Sunny didn’t run.
He didn’t yell.
A cold, dark smile touched his filthy, blood-stained lips.
“Look behind you, big guy,” Sunny whispered softly, his voice carried away by the wind.
Hero’s eyes widened slightly.
Behind him, the Camouflaged Lurker had finished its quick meal.
Sensing a larger, more energetic threat standing upright, the monster rose to its full six-foot height, its four milky eyes locking onto Hero’s massive, exposed back.
HISSSSS!
Hero spun around just as the pale, razor-sharp talons swung through the white fog.
Sunny didn’t stay to watch the outcome.
He slipped into the dense, swirling blizzard on the far side of the trail, his boots leaving faint, silent prints in the fresh snow as he vanished deeper into the mountain pass, holding his hatchet tight and chewing on a piece of hard, stolen bread.
‘Hero thought he was the hunter,’ Sunny thought, his shadow gliding smoothly beside him in the dark.
‘He forgot that in a pit of monsters, the loudest brute always gets eaten first.’