"Ah!!!"
Another shrill, blood-curdling scream rang out, shaking the branches and sending snow and slush tumbling down.
The German soldiers, whose nerves were already taut with fear after the bizarre deaths of their comrades, were shaken to their very core. Their livers quivered, their faces changed dramatically, and they quickly turned toward the source of the scream.
But what they saw next made every single one of them feel an indescribable terror.
Roughly ten meters behind the main group, the six soldiers tasked with rear guard and support now lay sprawled in the snow. No matter how furiously Grund roared and called out to them, there was not the slightest response.
Something had happened...
That thought flashed through everyone's mind at once.
They all knew that Grund was an elite operative sent by Hydra, with more authority than even the Gestapo. Not even an army division commander would dare oppose him. If he said someone should be executed, that person would never live to see the sunrise.
Within this squad, Grund's authority was absolute. No one dared disobey his orders.
So, for the rear guard to remain silent under his angry shouts could only mean one thing, an accident had occurred.
"Go check it out!"
Holding back a surge of anger, Grund waved for the others to follow and took the lead himself.
The remaining soldiers exchanged uneasy glances, but since their commanding officer was going first, they clenched their teeth and followed. They knew that if they hesitated now, Grund's cold and merciless nature would mean a certain execution later for cowardice in the face of the enemy.
Ten meters was not far. Grund quickly reached the soldier who had screamed.
But the moment he saw what lay before him, his breath caught in his throat. His face turned ghostly pale, as though powdered with chalk, and his pupils trembled like in an earthquake, shrinking until they were no more than pinpoints.
The six soldiers... were dead.
And their deaths were exactly the same as those earlier, scared to death.
Once might still be called an "accident."
But twice in a row, with such striking similarity, could no longer be explained away so easily.
"It's... it's the devil!"
"That's right! It must be the devil... the devil has marked us!"
"Those damned Slavs, they must have summoned it!"
"My grandmother told me, only those whose souls are taken by the devil will end up looking like this!"
The soldiers began murmuring in panic, speaking over each other.
They were starting to believe they had encountered something beyond human comprehension. After all, how else could one explain how battle-hardened warriors, who had survived the meat grinders of war, could be frightened to death?
"Shut your mouths!"
Grund's expression was ugly, the veins in his forehead bulging. His eyes swept over the panicked men with sharp, cutting force. "I don't care what's going on, we must complete the mission. Blowing up the Siberian supply railway concerns the fate of the Reich. Do you understand?!"
In truth, Grund himself was far more afraid than he let on.
But he knew he couldn't show the slightest weakness. Once morale crumbled, mutiny could follow.
As a Hydra operative, he understood all too well that there were many things in this world science could not explain, like the experimental specimens recently brought back by Lord Schmidt, or the rumored treasures of Odin lost in the human world.
These men, scared to death before their eyes, were clearly the work of some power beyond reason.
"From now on, no one is allowed to talk about this again."
Grund's gaze was cold and vicious, like a knife slicing across each frightened face. "We're getting out of this cursed place as fast as possible. And let me warn you, anyone who even thinks of deserting will find themselves rotting in a Gestapo prison!"
The Gestapo's reputation and methods were infamous.
If you ended up in the hands of those black-coated hounds, you'd be lucky if they didn't flay you alive. At Grund's words, the soldiers' faces blanched. They nodded meekly, not daring to bring up the matter again.
"Pack up. Move quickly!"
Grund didn't want to linger here a moment longer and ordered the group to speed up their march.
But just then... they all heard a sigh.
Even though the surroundings were filled with howling wind and snow, that sigh was unnervingly clear, as if it drowned out all other sounds in the world, whispering right beside each person's ear. It carried a strange sadness and desolation.
"Stop! Who are you?!"
Sergei, tasked with guarding the flank, suddenly spotted a blurry figure. Thinking of the soldiers who had died so horribly just moments ago, his fear spiked to the limit. He raised his rifle and took aim at the silhouette, calling out a warning to his comrades.
Sergei's sudden shout instantly put all the other soldiers on high alert.
Within seconds, the well-trained troops had aimed dozens of pitch-black muzzles at that distant, indistinct figure.
Crunch… crunch…
The shadowy figure did not answer their question. Instead, it advanced slowly toward them, step by step.
"Stop! Don't move!"
The veins bulged on Sergei's forehead. His finger pressed against the trigger as he growled, "One more step and we'll open fire!"
This deep in the remote mountains, human presence was already rare. Under normal circumstances, it was impossible to encounter anyone here. And with nearly ten men having just been scared to death, the sudden appearance of a stranger could only mean trouble to any sane mind.
But the figure seemed not to hear the warning and continued forward at that same slow pace.
A flash of brutality crossed Gründ's eyes. He took aim at the figure and snarled, "Fire!"
The soldiers reacted instantly, their training and instincts kicking in. At the moment they heard the order, they all pulled their triggers.
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM…
Countless bullets streaked through the snow in brilliant arcs of fire, instantly engulfing the blurry silhouette.
The thunderous gunfire echoed through the mountains. Clumps of snow shook loose from branches overhead, and the acrid scent of gunpowder spread through the icy air.
"Cease fire!"
Gründ raised a clenched fist, and the shooting stopped.
Up ahead, thick smoke and churned-up snow from the bullets clouded the view. The soldiers stared at the haze with tense eyes. Experience told them that under such intense, concentrated fire, no one could possibly survive. And yet, some primal instinct whispered that something terrifying was about to happen.
The wind swept the smoke and snow aside… and the blurry figure emerged once more, now only about ten meters away.
When they saw it clearly, every soldier's face twisted in horror.
In temperatures over forty degrees below zero, this man wore only summer clothing. His short, messy silver-white hair and his brows were dusted with frost and ice crystals, like a living ice sculpture.
This was Siberia, one of the coldest places on Earth!
In minus forty to fifty degrees, without any protective clothing, an ordinary person would freeze solid in under thirty minutes, brittle enough to shatter with a kick. Even boiling water would freeze into shards before hitting the ground.
But more importantly… bullets had no effect on him.
From all these signs, Gründ could almost be certain, this man was not someone they could trifle with.
The man gazed at them calmly. Then, with a flick of his hand, a length of golden chain slid from his sleeve. When it struck the ground, it landed with such weight that the earth beneath it cracked and sank.
A chain?
Sergei froze for a moment, wondering what it was for.
But before he could figure it out, the man gave him the answer through action.
Whoosh!
A fierce gust of wind accompanied the golden chain as it shot forward.
A soldier had no time to react, the chain pierced straight through his chest. His eyes bulged wide in shock as life drained from them, his skin stiffening into a corpse-like pallor. Then, something half-transparent was forcibly yanked out of his body.
Sergei's eyes widened as he sucked in a sharp breath, terror etched across his face.
He had seen it clearly, the golden chain had ripped a half-transparent figure, identical in every detail to the dead soldier, straight out of the man's body.
That figure… was the man's soul.
This really was the devil.
With that golden chain, he had forcibly dragged Mert's soul from his body!