Ryan moved through the frozen forest like a wolf tracking wounded prey.
The scent of Tarek's fear was fresh in the air—sweat, blood, and the sharp, bitter stench of a man who had finally realized he was hunted. Ryan's enhanced senses followed the trail without effort: snapped branches, panicked footprints in the deep snow, and erratic droplets of blood leading deeper into the suffocating darkness.
Ryan stopped. He pulled an arrow from his quiver and notched it to his bowstring. He didn't aim at the trees. He raised the bow straight to the sky, drew the string back past his ear, and released.
The arrow flew upward—higher than the canopy, soaring into the pitch-black sky until it disappeared from sight. Ryan didn't move. His glowing green eye tracked its invisible arc with inhuman, mathematical precision.
Then, the arrow fell.
It dropped like a hawk striking a mouse, whistling through the freezing air, aimed at a target Ryan could not even see.
A split second later, a horrific scream echoed through the dark.
"Who?! Who is there?!"
Ryan lowered his bow. He walked silently through the snow, following the fresh trail of blood that now marked the Prince's path. His boots made absolutely no sound. His breath formed small, pale clouds that vanished into the night.
He found the blood trail leading to a jagged stone outcrop.
Tarek stood pressed against the rock wall. The falling arrow had pinned his shoulder, tearing through his fine silk and flesh. His chest heaved with ragged, panicked breaths. His eyes darted wildly left and right, searching the black trees for the phantom who had dismantled his life.
He looked like a pig backed into a slaughterhouse corner, waiting for the butcher's blade.
Ryan stepped out of the shadows.
His green eye burned like a grave light in the dark. The rest of his face was swallowed by the shadows of his hood, making him look less like a boy and more like a demon born from the frost. Tarek pressed himself harder against the stone, his face the color of ash, his hands shaking uncontrollably.
"Who are you?" Tarek's voice cracked, high and pathetic. "Who the hell are you?!"
Ryan slowly pointed a finger at the Prince. Then, he pointed at his own chest.
"I am your art," Ryan said quietly, his voice echoing in the cold. "And you are my artist. Look at what you made."
Tarek stared at him, his mind violently struggling to process the face beneath the hood. It was familiar. It was the face of the dead village boy. The corpse he had thrown into the cavern.
"No," Tarek whispered, his eyes widening in pure horror. "You are not real. You are dead. I shot you through the heart myself. YOU ARE NOT REAL!"
Tarek lunged to the side, trying to run.
Ryan swept his leg out, kicking Tarek's boots from under him. The Prince crashed hard into the snow, his wounded shoulder shrieking in agony. He tried to push himself up, but Ryan's heavy boot slammed down onto the center of his back, pinning him flat against the ice.
Ryan knelt beside the broken royalty. He grabbed a handful of Tarek's hair and wrenched his face up from the snow.
"Look at me," Ryan whispered, his voice low, cold, and terrible. "Look at your masterpiece."
Tarek's eyes were wild and wet with desperate tears. "What do you want?! To kill me? Is that it? You want revenge for your filthy village?!"
Ryan stared at him for a long moment. Then, he let go of Tarek's hair and sat back on his heels. He looked at the Prince with an expression that was not hatred. It was not rage.
It was worse. It was pity.
"Kill you?" Ryan shook his head slowly. "No. I cannot kill you. You are my creator. I am merely showing you the cost of your ambition."
Ryan gestured out toward the vast, empty darkness of the wild lands.
"Look around you, Prince. Where is your Vanguard? Where are your Fangs? You are entirely alone. No glory. No victory. Just ashes and failure. What will happen when you crawl back to the capital? What will the Emperor say when his 'Mind of the Dragon' returns with nothing but a ruined shoulder and two thousand dead men? You will be a joke. A weak, forgotten boy with nothing to show for his cruelty."
Tarek's face twisted in denial. "No! I am the son of the Dragon Emperor! I will raise another army! I will return! I do not lose! I do not—"
Ryan's fist lashed out, striking Tarek directly in the jaw.
"You have already lost," Ryan said, his voice freezing the air. "You just aren't in the ground yet."
Tarek's mind finally shattered.
The Prince knew it was true. Every single word. His father would look at him with supreme disgust. His older brother would smile that cold, mocking smile. The nobles would laugh at the boy who lost an empire's army to a forest of savages.
With a trembling hand, Tarek pulled a sharp hunting knife from his belt. He raised the blade, aiming the tip directly at his own heart—
Ryan's hand shot out like a viper, clamping around Tarek's wrist. He squeezed until the bones ground together. The knife dropped into the snow.
Ryan picked up the blade. He looked at the steel, and then into Tarek's hollow eyes.
"Death is easy," Ryan whispered. "It is a coward's escape from the hell you built. I will not let you take it."
Ryan grabbed Tarek's right hand. One by one, he pinned the Prince's fingers against the frozen rock.
Tarek screamed into the night as the blade came down.
Ryan stood up. He looked down at the weeping, broken Prince, at the blood pooling around his ruined hand, at the empty, shattered eyes that had once burned with such arrogant cruelty.
"You will never hold a sword again. You will never lead an army," Ryan said softly. "But you will live. You will watch your brother take the throne. You will watch the world move on without you. And one day, when you are old, crippled, and completely forgotten... you will die. Alone."
Ryan turned his back on the Prince of Ashes, and walked away into the dark.
Behind him, Tarek lay in the snow. He did not move. He did not speak. His mind was gone. He simply existed.
As Ryan walked away, leaving the screaming Prince to the silence of the forest, the voice finally echoed in his mind.
The Eye had awakened.
"A brutal choice, Ryan," the ancient, curious voice whispered in his skull. "Let us discuss your ledger. Before you slaughtered the two Fangs, you had nine years of life remaining. Now... you have forty-nine years. The spirits of the Long Death and the Iron Fang are digesting inside you. You may use their raw power, or you may absorb their memories to master their skills."
Ryan didn't answer. He simply kept walking, his boots crunching rhythmically in the snow.
"But I must ask," the Eye continued, sounding genuinely puzzled. "You kill everything that poses a threat to your existence. Why did you walk away? Why leave the Prince breathing in the snow when you could have taken his soul?"
"Because he is already dead," Ryan said out loud, his voice utterly devoid of emotion. "You just can't see it."
"Interesting," the Eye mused, falling silent as it digested the concept of a death without a corpse.
Ryan walked for hours.
The fire he had orchestrated still raged behind him, painting the underbelly of the clouds orange and red. The surviving Imperial soldiers wandered the woods like blind sheep, leaderless and freezing, perfectly ripe prey for the winter wolves.
Eventually, Ryan reached the edge of his ruined village.
The stone houses were still collapsed. The blood of his people still stained the frost. But now, the grand pavilions of the Black Dragon army were burning too. Tents that had been pitched over the graves of his neighbors were collapsing into ash.
Ryan stopped at the edge of the destruction. He raised his arms slightly, opening his hands as if to embrace the infernal heat of the burning camp.
A slow smile spread across his face.
It was not a smile of joy. It was the smile of a ghost who had finished his haunting. He had burned his enemies, scattered their Vanguard, and broken their royal bloodline. He had nothing left to live for, and he was finally ready to rest.
Suddenly, a small movement caught his wolf's eye.
A tiny figure was stumbling through the ash-choked snow, looking around blindly.
Toli.
Ryan moved faster than human sight. He materialized out of the smoke right beside the young Imperial soldier. Toli gasped, stumbling backward. The poison from the village elder had fully ravaged the boy's system—his lips were a sickly blue, his skin ashen gray. He was minutes away from dying.
Ryan reached into his cloak and pulled out a small, pale stone. He crushed it effortlessly in his palm, releasing a fine powder that smelled sharply of pine and deep earth. He grabbed Toli by the jaw and forced the powder into the boy's mouth.
Toli gagged, violently coughing as he collapsed to his knees in the snow.
"It will burn," Ryan said quietly, looking down at the coughing boy. "But you will not die tonight."
Toli tried to look up, tried to ask the ghost a hundred questions, but Ryan was already walking away. He moved like a shadow through the burning camp, stepping over the charred bodies of soldiers and the melted remains of Imperial steel.
He walked until he reached the absolute center of the destroyed camp. He closed his eyes, letting the heat of the flames wash over his face. He allowed himself one final moment to feel it—the total silence after the storm. The hollow, absolute emptiness of victory.
Then, a voice spoke behind him.
"Boy. Do you know where Prince Tarek is?"
Ryan's blood instantly turned to ice.
He opened his eyes and turned slowly. The spiritual pressure radiating from the man behind him was suffocating. It was heavier than the Legendary Bear. It was darker than the old man in the temple. It was the most overwhelming force Ryan had ever felt in his life.
A man stood in the falling ash.
His long black hair fell perfectly to his shoulders, completely untouched by the wind or the soot of the burning camp. He wore armor as red as fresh blood, embossed with the terrifying visage of a dragon breathing fire. A magnificent longsword hung at his hip—a weapon forged not for a soldier, but for a conqueror.
His face was composed, unhurried, and utterly ruthless. It was the face of a man who had watched entire civilizations burn to the ground.
He looked at Ryan with dark eyes that contained no fear, no doubt, and absolutely no mercy.
"I am General Jomong," the man stated, his voice a deep, resonant hum. "The Lord of Fire. One of the Ten Generals of the Black Dragon Emperor."
Jomong took a single, slow step forward. The freezing snow beneath his armored boots instantly hissed, melting into steam.
"Now," the General said softly. "Tell me where my Prince is."