The cold was not merely a temperature; it was a physical weight pressing down upon the jagged, frozen landscape of the mountain pass. Zeven stood at the base of the steep, treacherous ascent, his breath hitching in his chest. His face, stripped of its skin by the proximity blast, felt raw and tight in the biting wind. The exposure of his wolf-like skull was a brutal reality, but it felt strangely natural, as if the explosion had simply stripped away a disguise he was never meant to wear. Above him, the mountain disappeared into a swirl of grey clouds and relentless, fine snow. Dawn was approaching, but the sky remained a desolate, bruised purple.
He stumbled forward, his boots crunching against the ice. His body was a map of agony. Every muscle throbbed with a dull, rhythmic pain, and his
