The road north was a desolate spine of frozen earth that cut through the endless white tundra. The further Li Yu and Krell traveled, the more the world seemed to shrink down to just the wind, the snow, and the jagged teeth of the mountains on the horizon.

  Despite the isolation in this part of the continent the road was not empty.

  They passed a caravan of armored sleds pulled by Dire-Wolves. The drivers bundled in white furs and their eyes kept scanning the treeline constantly. They passed a patrol of a local clan. They were moving in a tight phalanx and their breath misting in unison.

  At a crossroads marked by a weathered stone cairn, they saw an old woman maintaining a small shrine. It wasn't a shrine to a god but to "The Unknown Soldiers." She was placing a bowl of hot broth and a piece of hardtack on the stone altar.

  "For the ones the snow took," she muttered as Li Yu passed. "Eat and rest. For your duty is done."

  Li Yu bowed his head in respect as he walked by. "A place for memory," he observed. "Every mile of this road has a ghost standing guard."

  "And every ghost has a sword," Krell added.

  Their contemplation was broken by a vibration in Li Yu’s chest.

  He reached into his robe and pulled out the slate-grey Command Token. The runes on the surface were glowing with a pulsating blue light. It projected out text for Li Yu and Krell to see.

  ALERT. RIFT BREACH DETECTED. SETTLEMENT: PINE-WATCH. THREAT LEVEL: INTERMEDIATE.

  Right below that it provided them with the coordinates. Below the coordinates a projected map and where the rift was relative to where they were. Ahead of them, atop a ridge five miles away, a beacon roared to life. The chemical blue fire cut through the grey afternoon gloom and was signaling distress.

  "That's close by," Li Yu said with his eyes narrowing. "Let's move."

  He grabbed Krell’s shoulder. Space folded around them. They didn't vanish; they simply stepped forward and the five miles compressed into a single stride.

  Pine-Watch

  They arrived at the edge of the small timber town expecting chaos. They expected screams, the roar of beasts and the clash of steel from the first responders. Cultivators that were already in the area when the rift had opened. Afterall, it did take some time for central command to be notified of a rift and then notify others.

  Where they expected destruction, instead, they found silence and smoke.

  The rift in the sky was already slightly fading. A healing scar of ugly purple against the clouds. The town walls were battered but holding.

  Outside the main gate the snow was painted black, green and red.

  Dozens of beast carcasses littered the field. There were Frost-Stalkers, lizard-like predators with translucent skin and larger hulking Ice-Crushers.

  But nothing was moving.

  In the center of the carnage a massive figure stood and was cleaning two colossal greatswords with a rag. He was shirtless despite the freezing wind, his muscular torso a tapestry of old scars and fresh beast blood.

  "Vorgnir," Li Yu noted as he and Krell stopped at the edge of the field.

  The Death Seeker finished wiping down his left blade and sheathed it on his back with a heavy clank. He looked bored and disinterested in what had happened here.

  A group of town guards were busy moving among the corpses, expertly stripping them of valuable parts. They worked with a practiced efficiency showing that they had years of experience in harvesting beast corpses.

  "Lord Vorgnir!" The captain of the guard called out as he was jogging over. He held a heavy sack. "The harvest is complete. Fifty-fifty, as per your command."

  Vorgnir took the sack without looking inside. It clinked with the sound of cores and high-grade materials. It was a cheaper version of a storage ring. It couldn’t store as much but was much cheaper to produce. Good for occasions where things had to be handed over like this.

  "Keep the meat," Vorgnir rumbled. "Feed the town with it. I'll take the cores and the claws."

  "Thank you, Lord!" The captain bowed deeply. "You saved us. Again."

  Vorgnir waved him off and was turning to leave. As he turned, his eyes locked onto Li Yu and Krell standing near the tree line.

  The giant froze. The boredom in his eyes vanished. It was replaced instantly by a familiar simmering heat.

  He stomped over to where Li Yu and Krell were. The sound of his boots crunching heavily in the bloody snow echoed in the area. He stopped ten feet away from Li Yu..

  "You," Vorgnir growled. "Are you following me, boy?"

  "We received the alert," Li Yu said calmly as he was holding up his token for Vorgnir to see. "We came to help."

  Vorgnir stared at the token and then scoffed. "Help? I don't need help. I finished this before the beacon even reached full brightness."

  He leaned in closer even though it was quite far away. The smell of ozone and blood radiating from him. "Stop running into me. Every time I see your face, I remember the valley. I remember how close I was."

  The resentment was palpable. It wasn't just anger; it was the frustration of a man who had been denied his release. It had been so perfect that he was still regretting it.

  Li Yu looked up at the scarred giant. He didn't flinch at the man's word. He could only empathize but not fully understand how the man felt. "I apologize, Lord Vorgnir. It is not my intention to haunt you. We are simply traveling North."

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Vorgnir stared at him for a long moment. The apology seemed to deflate him slightly, robbing him of a target for his rage.

  "Hmph," Vorgnir grunted as he straightened up. "Keep traveling then. Fast. Or I might mistake you for a demon next time I see you."

  He turned and marched away. He was heading into the wilderness and ignoring the road entirely.

  "He’s more like a demon than a human. I quite like him." Krell muttered.

  "He is in pain," Li Yu said. He shook his head a bit but kept watching the man as he disappeared into the trees. "Come on. Since the job is done, we might as well keep moving."

  They traveled for another day.

  The landscape grew even more rugged. The road wound through canyons of blue ice and forests where the trees were frozen into statues.

  They shared a campfire that night with a group of "Ice-Runners.” They were couriers who skated along the frozen rivers to deliver messages, packages or other items quickly. The runners, lean men and women with blades attached to their boots, shared stories of the continent. They focused on what they had seen and heard further up north.

  "It's getting bad up there," one runner said as he was trying to warm his hands. "The rifts are opening faster. The sky never really settles anymore."

  The next morning the token vibrated again just as the sun broke the horizon.

  ALERT. RIFT BREACH. OUTPOST: WHISPER-RIDGE.

  "Again?" Krell asked.

  "Frequent," Li Yu agreed. "Let's go."

  Whisper-Ridge

  The scene at Whisper-Ridge was almost identical to Pine-Watch. The outpost, a small mining settlement clinging to the side of a cliff, was intact. The rift was fading. The snow was littered with the dead.

  And there, once again, sitting on the corpse of a massive Mammoth-Beast, was Vorgnir. He was eating a fruit that looked like an apple.

  He looked up as Li Yu and Krell appeared. He stopped chewing. He stared at them with venom.

  Li Yu stopped and spoke before Vorgnir could say anything. "I swear I am not stalking you."

  Vorgnir swallowed the apple chunk and sighed. A sound that seemed to come from the bottom of a deep well.

  "You are a plague," Vorgnir stated flatly. "A plague of good intentions."

  He stood up and sheathed his greatswords on his back. They locked onto the belt he was wearing and the belt held them firmly in place. He had already collected his share of the loot as before. The miners were cheering his name from the walls but he ignored them for the most part.

  "How do you do it?" Li Yu asked and was genuinely curious about how this man always seemed to be at the battles. " You seem to be everywhere."

  "I listen to the wind," Vorgnir said while tapping his ear. He made it seem like it meant something when it explained absolutely nothing. "And I don't sleep. Sleep is for the living."

  He began to walk past Li Yu and was intent on leaving again.

  "Wait," Li Yu said.

  Vorgnir stopped but didn't turn around. "What is it?"

  "I want to offer you a job," Li Yu said to him. Vorgnir turned slowly. He looked at Li Yu like the boy had grown a second head.

  "A job?" Vorgnir laughed. It was a dry and rasping sound. "You want to hire me? The Death Seeker? What could you possibly offer me? Resources? I have more than I can spend. Reputation? I am already a legend."

  "I offer you the Crab Claws," Li Yu said.

  Vorgnir blinked. "...The what?"

  "My mercenary group," Li Yu said with a strange look on his face while he was trying ignoring Krell’s snort of laughter. "The Crab Claws. We are new. We are small. But we are powerful and efficient."

  Vorgnir scoffed and waved a hand dismissively. "Go play soldier with someone else, boy. Why would I join your little band? I fight alone. That is the way."

  "We get into trouble," Li Yu said. "A lot of trouble."

  Vorgnir paused. "Everyone here gets into trouble. It’s the North."

  "Not like us," Li Yu stepped closer. "You seek a worthy death, Vorgnir. You want to go out fighting something that matters. Something that justifies your end."

  "And you think following a kid around will give me that?" Vorgnir sneered. "You might be powerful but I look for constant battles. I head into the most dangerous battlefields that I can find."

  Li Yu shook his head. His expression shifted. The polite traveler mask slipped, revealing the ancient, weary depth of his eyes.

  "Have you ever heard of the Xylarric?" Li Yu asked softly.

  Vorgnir frowned. "No."

  "They came to the Southern Continent," Li Yu said. His voice shifted and took on a storytelling cadence. "Pale, vaguely humanoid figures. Smooth ovoid heads dotted with clusters of black, unblinking eyes. They don't speak; they are thought to be hive-minds. And their warriors... skittering insectoid forms with gaping vertical maws and scythe-like claws that can cut through spiritual barriers like paper."

  Vorgnir was listening now. His warrior instincts recognized the description of a true threat.

  "We fought them," Li Yu continued. "We fought off an invasion there. We fought them when they swarmed the cities."

  "And the Eastern Continent," Li Yu went on. "Mutated beasts. Creatures twisted by a corruption that was unknown. We hunted them. We cleared entire zones that were designated as death traps."

  Li Yu looked Vorgnir in the eye.

  "I don't look for trouble, Vorgnir. But trouble has a way of finding me. It hunts me. If you walk with us, I cannot promise you safety. In fact, I can promise you the opposite. You will see things that defy logic. You will fight enemies that shouldn't exist."

  Li Yu gestured to Krell.

  Vorgnir stood silent in the snow and was thinking about the offer. The boy was young but he was indeed incredibly powerful. The strongest person he had ever seen at such an age. The wind howled around them and was whipping his grey hair across his scarred face.

  He looked at Li Yu. Really looked at him. He saw the stillness. He saw the potential for absolute chaos if he were to join their small group. ‘Could I meet my end gloriously with them?’ Vorgnir thought.

  For a man who wanted to die a glorious death, Li Yu’s pitch was... seductive. It was a promise of escalation.

  "You are a madman," Vorgnir whispered. "So young... and yet you speak of wars across oceans like they were grocery runs."

  "I only wanted to travel and see some sights. I ended up in those fights against my will." Li Yu corrected.

  Vorgnir hesitated. His hand twitched toward his sword hilt instinctively. The idea of traveling with someone who attracted high-level calamities was tempting. It was the gamble he had been looking for.

  But then, the memory of the Grey-Water Valley surfaced. The moment Li Yu had stepped in. The moment the end was snatched away. The resentment flared again, hot and bitter. The anger and frustrated was still too fresh.

  "No," Vorgnir said. "No. You fight to win, Li Yu. You fight to survive. You save people."

  He spat on the ground.

  "You save me."

  Vorgnir turned away but his back was rigid. "I cannot trust you to let me fall. You would try to catch me. And I do not want to be caught."

  "Vorgnir—"

  "Go away, Crab Claw. A ridiculous name." Vorgnir growled back at him and began walking faster. "Find some other fool to join your circus. I have a death to find and I will find it on my own terms."

  Li Yu watched him go.

  "He's stubborn but I quite like him." Krell noted. "He was tempted though,"

  "Yeah, he was." Li Yu agreed. "Maybe he just needs time. Or maybe he needs to see that I don't save everyone."

  Li Yu turned back to the road. The outpost of Whisper-Ridge was bustling with activity as the miners began to process the beast corpses Vorgnir had left behind.