The snow continued to crunch beneath Damon’s feet as the two advanced through a region where gigantic crystalline formations rose from the ground like petrified forests. So of these structures were so tall that they disappeared into the whitish clouds above them, while others seed to have been deliberately sculpted by so ancient intelligence. The longer he spent in that place, the more Damon felt that he wasn’t walking through a natural landscape. There was a strange intention hidden in every mountain, every valley, and every block of ice that appeared on the horizon.
The feeling was difficult to explain.
It was like walking inside soone’s dream.
Or worse.
Inside the mory of soone who no longer distinguished between dream and reality.
Xue Lian walked a few steps ahead, seemingly indifferent to the landscape. His eyes remained fixed on the distant horizon, where the gigantic black fortress continued to dominate the frozen world like a scar etched into existence itself. Damon began to suspect that she didn’t even need to look where she was going. There was sothing almost automatic about her movents, like soone who had walked the sa path so many tis that she could do it even with her eyes closed.
This realization made him uncomfortable.
Because ten years searching for a single flower was already an obsession.
But ten years walking the exact sa path was starting to approach sothing much more worrying.
"Have you t other people here?"
The question ca out before he could reflect much on it. Xue Lian took a few seconds to answer, as if carefully analyzing her own mory before formulating a response.
"A few."
Damon raised an eyebrow.
"A few?"
"Not many."
"That doesn’t answer anything."
"You ask irritatingly broad questions."
He sighed.
"How many people?"
"Three."
Damon almost tripped.
Again.
"Three?" "Yes."
"In ten years?"
"Yes."
He remained silent for a few seconds while processing that absurd information. That region seed large enough to swallow entire continents. Finding only three people during an entire decade seed like an impossible statistic.
Then an unpleasant possibility arose.
"And they survived?"
Xue Lian’s silence answered before she even opened her mouth.
"No."
Damon closed his eyes.
"Of course."
"If it helps, none of them lasted very long."
"That doesn’t help."
"I figured."
The wind picked up again. Tiny crystals drifted through the air like shimring dust as they continued walking through the snow. Damon observed her profile for a few monts. The more they talked, the harder it beca to decide if Xue Lian possessed an extrely peculiar sense of humor or had simply lost any sense of normalcy after centuries of cultivation.
Perhaps it was both.
That hypothesis seed dangerously plausible.
"Have you always been like this?"
She turned her face away.
"Like what?"
"Strange."
The answer ca quickly.
"Yes."
"Impressive."
"Thank you."
"That wasn’t a complint."
"I decided to accept anyway."
Damon shook his head slowly.
That explained a lot.
Perhaps too much.
For so ti the two continued walking without talking. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable, but it wasn’t exactly pleasant either. There was sothing lancholic in that frozen world. A kind of loneliness so profound it seed to perate the very atmosphere. Even walking beside soone, Damon occasionally felt a strange pressure on his thoughts, as if the place itself was trying to convince him that he was alone.
He didn’t like that.
Not at all.
Perhaps that’s why he started paying more attention to Xue Lian.
As he watched her movents, Damon noticed sothing that had previously gone unnoticed. The woman was slowing down.
Not much.
Perhaps imperceptible to anyone else.
But it was happening.
Her steps remained firm.
Her posture remained impeccable.
Her presence remained overwhelming.
But sothing was diminishing.
Like a fla slowly consuming its own fuel.
It was then that he noticed sothing else.
The ice on her body had increased again.
Now small crystalline formations spread across part of her collarbone. Translucent fragnts appeared near the base of her neck. A thin white layer partially covered so strands of her hair.
She was getting worse.
And quickly.
"You’re hiding sothing."
Xue Lian didn’t seem surprised by the accusation.
"Probably."
"That doesn’t reassure ."
"That wasn’t the intention."
Damon let out a tired sigh.
This was becoming a pattern.
"Every conversation with you ends worse than it started."
"That happens because you keep asking questions."
"So it’s my fault?"
"Partly."
"You’re unbearable."
"I’ve heard that before."
What was most irritating was that she seed genuinely amused.
The wind blew between enormous nearby ice pillars, producing a deep, distant sound reminiscent of so gigantic instrunt’s song. Damon turned his eyes to the crystalline formations and imdiately noticed sothing strange.
So of them looked sculpted.
Not by nature.
But deliberately.
He slowed his pace. He approached one of the structures.
And froze.
Inside the ice was a figure.
Human.
Or at least it once had been.
The silhouette remained perfectly preserved within the transparent crystal. The clothes looked old. The expression remained frozen, sowhere between surprise and horror.
Damon remained motionless.
Observing.
Then he looked at Xue Lian.
She didn’t seem surprised.
Nor worried.
Nor even interested.
Like soone observing a stone on the side of the road.
"Who is this?"
She glanced quickly.
"I don’t know."
"You found a frozen corpse and didn’t investigate?"
"I’ve found hundreds."
Damon was silent.
For a few seconds.
"Hundreds?"
"Yes."
She continued walking.
As if that were completely normal information.
"This place consus people occasionally."
"You talk about it in a frighteningly casual way."
"After a while, it ceases to be news."
Damon looked back at the figure trapped in the ice.
Sothing about that sight disturbed him.
Not because of death.
He had already seen enough death.
The problem was sothing else.
The feeling of permanence.
The impression that that person had been trapped there for so long that even history itself had forgotten their existence.
It seed cruel.
Cruel in a way that not even violence could reproduce.
When he resud following Xue Lian, she was already several ters ahead.
"Aren’t you afraid?"
She looked back.
"Of what?"
"Of this."
Damon pointed to the entire world.
To the ice.
To the snow.
To the mountains.
To the crystallized corpses.
For the silence.
For everything.
She observed the horizon for a few monts.
When she answered, her voice seed more distant.
"I felt it."
That imdiately caught his attention.
Because it was the first ti she had admitted sothing resembling vulnerability.
"Felt it?"
Xue Lian nodded.
"A long ti ago."
She continued walking slowly.
"The first years were difficult."
That surprised Damon.
Very much.
Because until then she had seed practically invincible.
But now...
Now she sounded human.
Strangely human.
"The first years?"
"Yes."
She observed her own hand.
The crystals continued to grow slowly between her fingers.
"Loneliness hurts more than cold."
The comnt hung in the air between them.
Heavy.
Honest.
It was completely unexpected.
Damon didn’t answer imdiately.
Because he didn’t know how to respond.
That sentence carried too much weight.
Too much experience.
Too much pain.
For a few seconds, the only sound was the wind.
Then Xue Lian smiled.
A small smile.
Almost imperceptible.
"After a few years you start talking to yourself."
Damon blinked.
"What?"
"After four years I started arguing with myself."
"That sounds worrying."
"It was fun."
"I don’t believe you."
"Neither do I."
That elicited a genuine laugh from him.
The first in quite so ti.
And, surprisingly, she laughed too.
For a brief mont.
Just a mont.
But it was real.
And it disappeared as quickly as it appeared.
They continued walking.
The horizon remained white.
The black mountains continued to watch them from a distance.
And slowly Damon began to notice a strange change within himself.
The fear was diminishing.
Not because the situation had improved.
In fact, it was probably getting worse.
But sothing about that walk was altering his perception.
Perhaps because he was finally beginning to understand who Xue Lian was.
She wasn’t a goddess.
Nor a monster.
Nor an unreachable entity.
She was simply soone absurdly powerful carrying an absurd amount of suffering.
And continuing to walk despite it.
The realization was uncomfortably inspiring.
Because he wasn’t sure if he admired that.
Or if he pityed her.
Perhaps both.
Then sothing changed.
This ti it wasn’t subtle.
The whole world seed to tremble.
Not physically.
Not like an earthquake.
It was sothing different.
A deep vibration swept through the air.
The snow.
The ice.
The sky.
Everything.
Xue Lian stopped imdiately.
All the lightness vanished from her face.
Her posture changed.
Instantly.
Like a sword being drawn.
Damon felt a shiver run down his spine.
Because that was the first ti since he’d t her that she seed truly serious.
Not tired.
Not lancholy.
Not amused.
Serious.
Dangerously serious.
Her blue eyes fixed on the distant horizon.
Sowhere beyond the mountains.
Beyond the storm.
Beyond sight.
"What happened?"
Xue Lian didn’t answer.
For several seconds.
Then she breathed slowly.
Vapor escaped her lips.
"This shouldn’t be here."
Damon imdiately disliked that sentence.
"Could you be more specific?"
"No."
"Of course."
She continued watching the horizon.
Montary.
Like a statue.
But Damon could feel the change in her presence.
The pressure.
The tension.
The absolute attention.
Then, for the first ti since they arrived at that place, he felt sothing beyond the cold.
Sothing watching.
Very distant.
Very ancient.
Very awake.
And from Xue Lian’s expression...
She had felt it too.
Perhaps worse than him.
Perhaps much worse.
And that ant their peaceful walk had just ended.
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