He walked ahead to see the situation, each step crunching through snow that was no longer white.
Bodies everywhere.
Dozens of them. Maybe more. Slaves who'd stampeded in blind panic now lay scattered like broken dolls across the wasteland. Some were trampled flat, their bodies twisted at impossible angles. Others had their heads torn off—not cut cleanly, but torn, as if something had grabbed their skulls and plucked them off like flower petals. The necks ended in ragged stumps, vertebrae exposed, frozen blood crystallizing in the cold.
Now it was completely silent.
No screaming. No crying. No footsteps or rattling chains. Everyone had either run toward the back of the column or scattered into the endless white wasteland. Maybe they were still running. Maybe they'd collapsed somewhere out of sight. Maybe the thing in the mist had found them.
Lucian stood among the corpses as if he were watching a graveyard after the funeral—the lone visitor paying respects to the forgotten dead.
The white snow was completely covered now. Red. Crimson. Blood everywhere, spreading across the ground in pools that steamed faintly in the freezing air. The smell hit him—copper and meat and voided bowels, the stench of mass death made worse by the cold that couldn't quite freeze it fast enough.
And then the flowers came.
Slowly, impossibly, the blood-soaked ground began sprouting red blossoms. Looking closely, Lucian recognized them—red spider lilies. Hundreds of them. Thousands. They pushed up through snow and gore, their petals the exact shade of fresh blood, their stems impossibly green against the white landscape.
He didn't know how it happened. Didn't understand the mechanism. But it looked majestic—the ground transformed from white snow to a crimson field of death flowers, beautiful in the way that only horror could be.
The flower of death, some part of his mind whispered. The flower that blooms in hell.
The first rational thought that cut through his shock: find the guard. See if he's alive or not. If not, then Lucian was truly fucked—alone in a frozen wasteland with a monster in the mist and no idea where to go.
He moved slowly. Snow poured heavily from the gray sky, already beginning to cover the red ground, burying the spider lilies and corpses beneath fresh white. His freed hands flexed, trying to maintain sensation in his numb fingers. His breath came in sharp gasps that hurt his lungs.
The chains still bound his neck and ankles, limiting his stride, but his hands were free. That was something. That was enough to work with.
As he moved forward through the field of bodies, he saw movement.
Just a twitch. A slight shifting among the corpses about fifty feet ahead, barely visible through the falling snow and swirling mist.
Finally. At least someone is alive, Lucian thought, relief flooding through him despite everything. I should go and help him if I can. Strength in numbers. Better chance of survival together.
The surrounding area was covered with mist, thick and unnatural, making it hard to distinguish who or what was moving. Lucian approached cautiously, squinting through the white haze, trying to make out details.
But as he moved closer, he found a familiar shape. Armor he would never forget for the rest of his lifetime.
Black plate armor. Full coverage. Distinctive design.
The guard.
Life really does come down in a circle, Lucian thought, and something shifted in his mind. Something dark and cold that had been waiting beneath the surface of his consciousness.
His expression changed.
From neutral to something else entirely. His lips pulled back into a smile—not relief, not joy, but something twisted. Something hungry. He placed his right hand over both eyes and laughed, bending back slightly, the sound escaping his throat like broken glass.
It was as if he was the predator now. Not prey. Not victim. Not the helpless boy in chains.
The hunter.
The guard lay on his back in the crimson snow, his helmet knocked off and resting a few feet away. His majestic black armor was shattered on the left side—one leg torn completely off at the hip, one arm ripped away at the shoulder. The wounds weren't clean. They were torn, flesh and bone separated by massive force, leaving ragged edges where limbs used to be.
Blood flowed from the stumps in thick pulses that were already slowing—not enough blood left to maintain pressure. The snow around him was darker than the rest, saturated to the point of turning to red slush.
The guard's body twitched. Spasmed. His remaining hand clawed weakly at the ground, trying to drag himself... somewhere. Anywhere. His mouth opened and closed, trying to form words, trying to call for help.
But no sound came out. Just wet gasps. Just the gurgle of blood in his throat.
As Lucian finally managed to calm his laughter, forcing the manic energy back down, he could finally see the guard's face clearly.
It had looked so majestic before. Like some kind of knight from the old stories—the armor gleaming, the cape flowing, the image of martial glory riding through the snow. But the action he'd shown wasn't what any knight would do. Beating a child to death. Calling human beings "pigs." Treating lives as worthless cargo.
The guard's black sword lay beside him, half-buried in snow. His horse was dead nearby, its neck broken, legs twisted beneath it. The only ones remaining in this field of corpses were the dying guard and Lucian, with a few feet of distance between them.
The guard's eyes tracked Lucian's approach. Recognition flickered there—he remembered this face, this slave, though probably not as an individual. Just another pig. Another piece of meat.
Now the pig was free. And the guard was the one bleeding in the snow.
Lucian slowly bent one knee and reached down, his frozen fingers closing around the sword's grip. He lifted it free from the snow, feeling its weight—heavier than he'd expected, but balanced perfectly. Quality weapon. Expensive. The kind of thing a slave would never be allowed to touch.
He lifted his other hand and wiped the accumulated snow from the black blade. The metal underneath was dark as midnight, almost seeming to absorb light rather than reflect it. Beautiful, in its way. A tool made for killing.
Lucian looked at the sword. Then at the guard's eyes. Then back at the sword. Then back to the guard's face.
The guard's mouth moved. Trying to speak. Maybe begging. Maybe cursing. Lucian would never know, because the words wouldn't form, couldn't push past the blood pooling in the guard's throat.
One moment, Lucian stood a few feet away.
The next, he'd already moved—crossing the distance without conscious thought, without hesitation, without mercy. The sword moved toward the guard's neck in a single fluid motion, and Lucian drove it down without a second thought.
The blade pierced flesh. Cartilage. Windpipe. The vertebrae held for a moment, then the sword's weight and Lucian's desperate strength pushed through, and the tip buried itself in the frozen ground beneath.
Pinned. Like an insect in a collection. Like a pig for slaughter.
It didn't even take a second to kill someone. Even a person who was already dying, killing them was faster than a heartbeat.
But for a normal human being—someone who'd never taken a life before—killing someone wasn't like going to the park for a stroll. It wasn't easy. It wasn't natural.
It was hard.
But he had to do it.
Lucian had to take revenge of some sort. Even if it wasn't really revenge for that nameless child. Even if it was just pragmatism—either the guard would eventually die and Lucian would have armor, or the guard would somehow survive long enough to call for help and Lucian would die.
It was a fair exchange. An equal transaction.
And also—also—Lucian desperately needed that armor and those weapons to survive in this harsh climate. That was the real reason. The revenge was just... a pleasant bonus.
The guard's remaining eye widened for a moment, surprise registering, then went dull. The twitching stopped. The blood flow slowed to nothing.
Dead.
Lucian pulled the sword free from the guard's neck with a wet sound that made his stomach churn. He set it aside carefully, then began working on the armor straps with numb, clumsy fingers.
The armor was quality work—overlapping plates of blackened steel, lined with leather on the inside for comfort and warmth. It took several minutes to remove it from the corpse, the frozen blood making everything stick together. Lucian's hands were soon covered in red that wasn't his own.
He stripped off his thin, inadequate slave clothes—barely more than rags—and put on the armor piece by piece. Chest plate. Back plate. Pauldrons. Bracers. Greaves. The leather lining still held warmth from the guard's body, a heat that felt obscene and necessary in equal measure.
It fit poorly—the guard had been bigger than Lucian, more muscular, better fed. But armor that was too large was better than no armor at all. Lucian tightened straps where he could, accepting the bulk and weight because it meant protection and warmth.
The cape had a tear in it, but Lucian took it anyway, fastening it around his shoulders. The black fabric was thick, heavy, lined with something that held heat. Luxury. The kind of thing the guard had worn while his slaves froze.
When he was finished, Lucian came closer to the dead guard's face, bent down, and whispered in his ear—knowing the man couldn't hear, but saying it anyway because some part of him needed to speak the words aloud.
"It was worth it. Thank you."
For the armor. For the lesson about the world's cruelty. For showing Lucian exactly what kind of person survived and what kind died in the snow.
Lucian stood, testing the armor's weight, and moved to search the dead horse. The saddlebags were still intact, mostly protected by the horse's bulk from the stampede.
Inside: two pieces of bread, already frozen solid. Some kind of dried meat that had turned to jerky in the cold. A waterskin that had frozen completely—useless until he could thaw it somehow. Flint and steel. A small knife. Rope.
He took all of it. Everything. Even though he had no means to cook the meat, no fire to thaw the water, no real plan beyond "keep moving and don't die."
Survival. That was the only goal now.
Lucian stood in the field of corpses, surrounded by red spider lilies slowly being buried by fresh snow. He wore black armor taken from a dead man—armor that made him look like some dark knight from a nightmare, standing alone in a white wasteland.
Snow fell heavily from the gray sky, each flake perfect and indifferent.
The monster was still somewhere out there. Still hiding in the mist. Still waiting.
But Lucian had a sword now. He had armor. He had supplies.
And he had learned the fundamental lesson that would define everything he'd become:
In a world without mercy, mercy was weakness. In a world without justice, survival was the only law. And the strong took from the weak because that was simply how reality worked.
He looked down at the guard's corpse one final time—the man who'd looked so majestic on his horse, so powerful in his armor, so confident in his cruelty. Now just meat freezing in the snow, no different from the child he'd beaten to death.
"It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive," Lucian murmured to the dead, his voice barely audible over the wind, "but those who can best manage change."
He'd been a slave in chains. Now he was a knight in armor.
The world had changed. And Lucian had changed with it.
He turned away from the corpses, from the spider lilies, from the past. His footsteps crunched through fresh snow as he walked forward into the white wasteland, following no destination he could name, guided only by the instinct to keep moving, keep surviving, keep becoming whatever he needed to become.
Behind him, the red flowers bloomed.
Ahead, destiny waited in the mist.
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("It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.")