The walk resumed, but the feeling from before did not return with it. The almost light conversation, Xue Lian's strangely polite insults, and Damon's inconvenient observations seemed to belong to an earlier, less dangerous moment, as if the rift had split something invisible between them. Now, every step through the snow carried a silent tension. The frozen world looked the same to the eye, but it no longer seemed empty. It felt watched. Attentive. Like a trap breathing slowly.
Damon walked a few steps behind Xue Lian, trying not to think about the creature's words.
The fragment walks beside you.
He hated that kind of statement for one very simple reason: no one ever said things like that in normal situations. Normal people said things like "the road is dangerous" or "do not touch that." Ancient entities and monsters stitched together from dead voices said "the fragment walks beside you," then left everyone involved with enough existential problems for an entire lifetime.
