The body of a snowpyre slumped onto the floor as Gaius whipped his knife across its neck. With a gentle plop, the head fell onto the floor, rolling for a few seconds before coming to a halt. The snow-covered ground around him was littered with a few snowpyre corpses, their lifeblood sprinkled throughout the area.

The last snowpyre standing turned to run, but before it had moved more than three steps, three knives whizzed through the air, stabbing into the back of its head, the neck, and the knee. The monster staggered on the spot, and then crumpled over with a piteous cry. Gaius walked over to the fallen snowpyre, and with a single slice of his knife, decapitated it.

Snowpyres were hardy enough that the only way to make sure that they were dead was to slice off their head. He had nearly learnt this the hard way when he was dissecting a snowpyre; a seeming corpse had tried to bite his neck when he was halfway through extracting an ether core in its body. Only his reflexes and the constantly-activated Barrier around him saved his life.

Being cautious was the way to go, at any rate. Right now, decapitation seemed to work, but who knew if these monsters would reanimate three or four days later? Gaius shook his head as he sliced open the chest of a snowpyre to pry out three ether cores inside. Other than these little balls of energy and an eerie lack of eyeballs, there was seriously no difference between the human bodies he knew about, head notwithstanding.

The sight of dissected snowpyre bodies littering the area was a forlorn sight, but the little boy didn’t have time to worry about that.

An immense impact struck him as a snowpyre, whose fur was streaked with silver, slammed into his right hand. The little boy slid back, reeling from the force when his knife blocked an outstretched claw, as he repelled the assailant by throwing it into mid-air.

“It’s you again,” said Gaius. He wasn’t sure if this special-looking snowpyre could understand his words, but he wouldn’t put it past that monster to at least understand his tone. “I see you haven’t given up, eh? What drives you, poor little thing? Vengeance? Or some higher ideal?”

The little boy licked his lips as he continued to taunt the monster, his silver knife cutting lines of light through the air as the two stared at each other. Gaius couldn’t confirm if his words had an impact or not, but the intermittent flash of red that the icy flames in the snowpyre’s eyes showed occasionally were encouraging him to continue.

“C’mon. You let all your buddies die.” Gaius grinned, nudging a snowpyre corpse with his left foot. He didn’t like doing it, but this enemy was too persistent to let go of. “Like this guy here. You couldn’t do anything last week, and you sure as hell can’t do anything now.”

His knife flicked out twice, parrying two strikes by the silver-streaked snowpyre. Before the monster could retreat, however, Gaius slid forward smoothly, and elbowed the monster in its chest. The monster staggered slightly, and red spread out from its chest as Gaius fired his Straight Shot.

“It’s tough,” murmured Gaius. “The same difference between a Squire and a Soldier, eh?”

He dropped the artefact, and silver cut through the darkness as three knives embedded themselves into the snowpyre’s chest. Silver was the only material that could reliably create injuries on these monsters, other than the use of mystical energies. As a weapon, it was far more reusuable and consistent than artefacts, but bladed weapons required maintenance too.

The snowpyre shuddered, its head tilting downwards to regard the knives buried in its chest. It took one step, and another, before dropping to its knees. Its head shot up again, and the icy flames in its eyes weakened.

Gaius swallowed lightly. It was as though as that monster…that snowpyre in front of him was intelligent in every sense of the word. Emotions, goals…and regrets.

“Nothing personal, big guy.”

The monster stared at Gaius as he approached, the flickering fires in its head staring at him. From it, he could see a plea, but from what, he couldn’t tell.

“But I don’t let my enemies live.” Gaius retrieved a knife, and stabbed its throat. The snowpyre jerked, and then fell over with a solemn finality. His hands danced around with a practiced familiarity, and its chest parted to reveal a multitude of ether cores. He’d seen ether cores before, the usual blue, a slightly darker blue, and a purple core that had appeared on auction.

This silver-haired snowpyre was harbouring seven black cores, each of them a slightly different shade of darkness. Gaius picked them up, one by one, and as he placed them on his hand, they vanished into his palm. Power coursed through his veins, but as the wave of strength coursed towards his heart, a golden glow emanated from his chest, lighting up the corpses of the fallen monsters.

This is…the thing that entered my body at the battle of the Southern Capital. Did it not disperse into energy and vanish? Gaius prodded at his body experimentally, but he wasn’t too worried about weird energies coursing through his body anymore. He had qi, what seemed to be ether, and now some golden light in holding a reception in every part of his body. He wouldn’t be surprised if some darkness-like energy were to make its way inside and party along with the rest too.

A whole day had passed since the Harvesters had entered Heritage, of which Gaius had spent the whole day slicing through snowpyres. He wanted to collect enough ether cores before he entered the Library of Ancients again, and more importantly, he wanted to flush out the snowpyre that had locked on to him, before anything funny happened to him.

It seemed that his worries weren’t unfounded. Not in the slightest. After dragging the corpses strewn around the area into a pile, he threw an ignition sigil on them, and watched as black smoke dispersed into the sky. Tossing one last glance at the blackening silver-streaked skin of that peculiar snowpyre, Gaius turned to face the direction of the Library of Ancients.

He’d left the Library in a somewhat addled state last week, and didn’t manage to sift out its secrets for that reason. This time, he was going to search the place properly, and perhaps find more information about his protégé from a past life.

Leaving behind a patch of black ashes, the little boy left the area, his next destination a place of secrets.