Paths Beyond

1236 on finish. I have my 忘年会 (bounenkai, yeah I'm flexing, I live in Japan and can actually speak Japanese.) tomorrow 12/26 so I don't know if I have time to edit a chapter tomorrow. I hope I will since I'll be two chapters ahead instead of one. Working towards my goal of fifty. I started this hobby since I had free time out of work and my studying of Japanese since I moved to Japan. I am pretty surprised that I have any readers at all, so thanks to everyone.

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"Who are you?" Brawl growled, his voice low and sharp, reverberating through the tense clearing.

The group of strangers stood still—three teenage boys and two girls, all clad in matching flowing robes adorned with the same golden beast emblem stitched across their chests. The intricate design gleamed faintly under the cold moonlight, a creature both fierce and unknowable, its serpentine form twisting in silent menace.

Their hands twitched upward at Brawl's provocation, but before anyone could act, the old man raised one thin, pale hand. The teenagers froze, falling eerily silent.

"Fascina—, the O— Tongue," the old man began, his voice lilting with a faint musical cadence as if savoring every syllable. His long fingers brushed the white beard cascading down to his chest, and his pale blue eyes gleamed with faint amusement. "I consider myself quite the scholar, you see. To encounter people like you—well, to practice such an archaic dialect is a rare privilege. Truly, a gift."

His smile widened, thin lips cracking slightly, but his eyes remained cold and sharp. "If I may ask, how is my pronunciation? That is to say, the way my words sound. Can you understand me?"

The smirk that followed dripped with condescension, like a cat playing with cornered mice.

Before Brawl could bark another response, Keen stepped forward, his spear resting loosely in one hand. His voice was measured but firm. "Yes, we understand you. You said you were tracking the beast?"

The old man's grin twitched, pleased. "Oh, absolutely. We have been following it for days. Such a dangerous creature—it requires patience, perseverance." He sighed theatrically before continuing. "But let me not appear ungrateful. You performed so brilliantly, so admirably. It would be terribly rude of me not to reward such... competence."

He gestured vaguely at his followers, who stood stock-still, their eyes locked on the hunters with unsettling focus. "We have medicine to offer, of course, and I see no reason to argue over the creature's meat. You're welcome to it. However..." His smile faltered slightly, and something sharp entered his voice, "the horns and the demon crystal—those, I'm afraid, must come with us."

His lips stretched into something meant to be grandfatherly, but the warmth never reached his icy eyes.

"Are you insane? We killed—" Shot's voice cut in, sharp with anger.

"Quiet!" Brawl snapped, silencing her with a glare.

The old man's smile didn't falter. He simply waited, as if the decision had already been made and they were all merely catching up.

Without a word, Keen turned and walked toward the sled. He untied the ropes binding the antlers, his movements deliberate and calm. With a heavy thud, the crystalline antlers dropped onto the frostbitten ground near the creature's corpse.

The silence that followed was deafening. The squad members stared, their faces a mix of disbelief and confusion. Only Keen, Brawl, Spider, and Wild remained composed—Spider and Wild standing stiffly but resolutely after their treatment had brought them back to their feet.

"What are you doing—" one of Spider's squad members, a younger man who had been recently pulled from unconsciousness, began to protest.

"Be quiet," Spider said, his voice cold and low, silencing his teammate with a look.

From a pouch at his waist, the old man pulled out a small glass bottle filled with a faintly glowing liquid. With a flick of his wrist, the vial hovered into the air, gliding smoothly toward Keen. Keen caught it mid-flight, his expression stiff with disbelief.

"I'm so glad you all can see reason!" the old man said with mock delight, his smile spreading into something too wide, too sharp. "But the meat, surely you don't mean to leave that as well? Such waste..."

"Keep it," Keen said curtly, his voice a blade slicing through the old man's theatrics.

For a moment, silence reigned again. Then the old man chuckled—a hollow, brittle sound. His grin stretched wider, revealing crooked teeth yellowed with age. "Such kind people. Truly, I am... charmed. I hope we might meet again someday. Your culture—it's so rustic, so fascinating. Who would have imagined people like you even existed?"

Behind him, the teenage boys and girls exchanged faint smirks, their expressions a blend of arrogance and amusement. None of them spoke, but their stillness felt predatory.

The teams were already gathering up their wounded. Spider and Wild's squads helped those too injured to move onto the sleds, while others leaned heavily on their companions. Brawl, Keen, Shot, Charge, Serene, and Grey remained the only ones standing with any semblance of strength, though Brawl's shoulders heaved with visible strain.

The clearing was filled with quiet grunts of effort and the muffled groans of the wounded as the hunters prepared to leave.

But then—

"Wait," came a voice.

One of the teenage boys had stepped close to the old man and whispered something in his ear. The old man's head tilted slightly, his grin faltering for just a moment before he raised his hand again.

"Wait," he said louder this time, and the word cracked like ice.

Everyone froze. Keen's grip on his spear tightened. Brawl's club shifted slightly in his hand. Spider and Wild exchanged brief, sharp glances but otherwise stayed composed.

"Two of my best apprentices are missing. My students," the old man said, his voice soft, lilting—but with an edge sharp enough to cut glass. His cold blue eyes swept across the gathered hunters, pausing briefly on each face.

Grey froze. His body locked up, his breath caught in his throat. It was only a moment—a flicker of stillness, a faint widening of his silver eyes—but it was enough.

Keen noticed. So did Serene. And... the old man.

The old man's head tilted, just slightly, and the smile on his face froze as if carved from brittle glass. There was no suspicion at first—only curiosity, a flicker of something faint and fleeting as he paused on Grey a moment longer than anyone else. His expression didn't harden, didn't sharpen—it just stopped, his pale blue eyes lingering for one breath... two... three.

It was as if something in Grey had caught his attention—something subtle, an ember glowing faintly in a pile of ash. The old man's smile twitched at the corner of his mouth, not fading, but somehow hardening.

But it was Keen who moved first. He stepped in front of Grey, blocking the old man's view with practiced ease. Keen didn't rush, didn't falter—he simply placed himself between them with an air of quiet finality. His broad shoulders squared, his spear angled slightly in a way that was not openly hostile but impossible to ignore.

"No," Keen said, his voice steady and deliberate. "You are the first strangers we have ever seen. Our surprise at your arrival should have been obvious."

For a fleeting second, something flickered across the old man's face—a crack in the mask, a hint of something sharper lurking beneath the thin veneer of polite curiosity. But it was gone in an instant, replaced by his unsettling smile, now tighter at the edges.

"Hmm. Yes. Yes, I suppose it was," he said, his voice light, his words rolling off his tongue like silk across steel.

But he hesitated—only briefly—before his gaze drifted away from Grey and toward the sleds. His smile sharpened again, his pale lips pulling back to reveal crooked, yellowed teeth.

"I hate to impose," he continued smoothly, each syllable measured and deliberate, "but might I ask to search your sleds? Just... to ease my troubled mind."

His thin, bony finger extended toward the sleds, the movement slow and theatrical, like a spider lowering itself from a single thread of silk.

The clearing seemed to shrink around them. The weight of his words settled over the squad like frostbite creeping into exposed skin. The squad's collective breath hung in the air, sharp and cold, as they waited for Keen's response.

Keen waited a moment before giving a subtle nod.

The old man's thin lips curled upward, his sharp eyes locked onto Keen. "Do be so kind as to step away from the sleds. My apprentices will be delicate—I assure you, nothing will be ruined. After all, we wouldn't want any misunderstandings, would we?" His voice remained smooth, but the unyielding command beneath it was unmistakable.

Keen motioned for the squad to back away. "What about the injured?" he asked, his voice firm but calm. "They can barely move."

The old man's pale blue eyes flicked briefly toward the injured, then back to Keen. He gave a dismissive wave of his bony hand. "Leave them. As long as they remain still and my students are allowed to thoroughly conduct their search, they will not be... disturbed."

The apprentices began moving toward the sleds—three boys approaching one sled, two girls the other. Their faces were impassive, their movements precise and deliberate.

As the students approached, Keen turned slightly, his voice low as he spoke to Grey. "Grey, quickly. How do they fight? Can we handle them?"

Grey's silver eyes darted nervously between the apprentices and the old man. "They focus on range. They use ice—like spears. Fast, relentless, and accurate. If they get distance, we'll be at a huge disadvantage." He hesitated, glancing at the old man, his voice dropping lower. "But... him. The old man—he's like you, Keen. Maybe... maybe stronger."

Keen's jaw tightened, but he nodded, trusting Grey's judgment. There was no time for doubt. He made a mental note: Grey knows too much. Too many miracles, too many coincidences. But those questions would have to wait—if they survived.

Keen subtly signaled the squad leaders, who began making discreet gestures behind their backs. Spider and Wild, despite their injuries, locked eyes with their squads, ensuring that even the injured were prepared. The message was clear: Be ready.

"Get ready," Keen said softly. Every muscle in the squad tensed, weapons gripped tighter, breaths held. The air felt brittle, stretched thin with tension.

The old man's piercing gaze never wavered from Keen. It was as though he could feel the raw strength coiled beneath Keen's calm exterior. A thin smirk remained on his lips, but his eyes were calculating, cold.

The students arrived at the sleds, their sharp eyes sweeping over the contents. With no hesitation, they began rifling through bags, pulling supplies free and scattering them across the frostbitten ground. Their movements were brisk and aggressive, shoving injured bodies aside when they were in the way. One apprentice knocked a wounded hunter to the ground with the heel of his boot, not even sparing a glance.

The old man's voice cut through the tension. "You there—what is your name?" His attention locked onto Keen, his question delivered like a command, not a request.

"Keen."

The old man's smile spread wider, his cracked lips splitting slightly at the corners. "Tell me, Keen—why you? Why are you so uniquely... gifted among these weaklings?" His voice was syrupy, the mockery dripping from every word. "How does someone, speaking such an ancient tongue, so removed from everything that matters, rise to such strength—and so young?"

As the old man spoke, his focus pinned Keen in place like a butterfly under glass. Keen's jaw clenched, his spear tilting slightly, but he stayed silent, refusing to be baited.

Behind them, one of the students froze mid-motion. His hand had just pulled a leather pouch from under the sled's tarp. His face twisted with suspicion as he opened it, revealing the blood-streaked green robe inside.

For a moment, everything stopped. The clearing fell into a silence so complete it felt suffocating. The apprentice held the bloodied robe aloft, its stained fabric catching the pale moonlight.

It was Keen who noticed first. His voice was a low growl, sharp and deliberate: "Now."

The squad erupted into motion.

The "injured" hunters on the sleds sprang up like vipers, grabbing the nearest apprentices before they could react. Spider and Wild's squads, previously still and unmoving, became a storm of steel and motion.

Grey, Shot, and Charge had already loosed their arrows and spear. Each projectile flew true—one apprentice fell instantly, a shaft buried deep in his chest, his body collapsing lifelessly to the ground. The second staggered back, clutching at the spear impaling his torso, before crumpling to his knees. The third apprentice was struck in the throat by Shot's arrow, his eyes wide with disbelief as he toppled over silently.

On the other sled, one member of Wild's squad tackled a girl, driving his knife into her abdomen. A shrill scream burst from her throat, raw and jagged, echoing across the clearing. The hunter's face twisted in horror at his own action, his trembling hands still clutching the knife hilt.

Serene's arrow silenced the girl before her scream could stretch any longer, the shot hitting clean through her neck.

The final apprentice, a girl with terror flooding her glassy eyes, turned to run. She managed three stumbling steps before Brawl's massive figure loomed over her. His club came down with brutal finality, a sickening crack reverberating in the still air as she fell limp.

It all happened in seconds—sharp, brutal, and efficient.

Then came the silence again, heavier than before.

The old man's face was twisted in fury, the grandfatherly mask shattered. His pale blue eyes blazed with something raw, something ancient. His lips pulled back into something halfway between a snarl and a grin.

"You dare!" he hissed, his voice cracking like ice underfoot.

Green orbs of light began to swirl around the old man—but only Grey saw them. They gathered at his fingertips, glowing like poisonous emeralds, faintly illuminating his skeletal hands. The orbs floated upward, twisting and coiling around him like sentient wisps, pulsating with an unnatural, predatory energy.

Grey's breath hitched in his throat. His silver eyes went wide, pupils shrinking to pinpricks as cold dread flooded his chest. He'd seen this before. That haunting glow, those orbs—they were the same lights that had surrounded the man who gave him Tear. The same lights from the fight with the Serpent King.

A power he had hoped never to see again.

Grey's voice cracked, raw with panic as he lifted his bow, arrow trembling against the string.

"Keen!" he shouted, his voice slicing through the frozen air. "He's attacking!"

The clearing froze in a heartbeat—bodies locked in place, weapons mid-motion, breaths suspended in their chests. For a split second, the world stood still, hanging on the knife's edge of imminent chaos.

And then, the winds went silent.

The old man's hand slammed down onto the earth, fingers splayed, green light erupting from his palm. A sharp crack echoed across the clearing as jagged veins of ice burst outward from beneath his feet, spreading like predatory roots clawing through the brush.

The frost surged forward in all directions, swallowing the ground in a wave of glittering white, crystalline ice fractals spiraling outward like spiderwebs spun by a mad god.

Around him, the air twisted. Snow erupted into a blinding vortex, swirling into a monstrous cyclone around his frail frame. The wind screamed, howling with such force that it ripped leaves from branches and sent frost-dusted debris spiraling into the blizzard.

The clearing darkened as the temperature plummeted. Frost crept up their boots, biting into leather and skin. The very air itself turned razor-sharp, cutting into exposed flesh and stealing breath from trembling lungs.

Above them, the sky—once clear and painted with faint moonlight—was now choked with swirling clouds. Green light crackled through the storm, illuminating the chaos with an eerie, otherworldly glow.

And then the icicles came.

Massive crystalline spires—each as long as a hunting spear and as sharp as glass blades—erupted from the ground in a perfect circle, rising in jagged unison around the squads. They formed a cage, towering and gleaming like predatory fangs under the faint, green glow of the storm.

The wind howled louder. The ice continued to creep, curling upward from the frozen earth, floating high into the air, surrounding them all.

And in the center of it all, the old man stood untouched, his pale blue eyes glowing faintly in the swirling storm. "You will not return home Keen, none of you will."

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I know this was much shorter than the previous chapter, this one being around 2600 words, but over 3000 worked for the last one, and won't make sense for every chapter. Either way I hope you enjoyed, tomorrow another chapter will release. Please comment, follow, vote/like.