A single drop of water landed in the middle of Kandar's forehead. His sleep was now disturbed. He unclipped the straps of his wooly sleeping bag and stood. Their shelter inside the hollowed-out rock was far more comfortable than the one-person tent he had brought, and the tent itself served as the floor. The bars are now an ad-hoc fence defending the entrance from curious wildlife.

  A deer peeked into the shelter. Kandar shoo-ed it away.

  He soon realized Samira was not in the shelter. Her things are still around, so she probably did not ditch him while he was asleep. He wore his boots, jacket, and gloves. He stepped outside. Sunrise should be close. The skies were clear; the grey clouds had died overnight. The stars twinkle playfully above.

  Samira stood by the shores of the river, staring at the skies.

  "Mind if I join you?" Kandar asked.

  She beckoned him to come closer.

  "I'm just waiting for the sunrise," She said "I'd like to see how the Rings look like this morning."

  "Oh? You worship the Pathmaker?" Kandar clasped both his hands over his mouth. "I hope I'm not a disturbance." He whispered.

  "No, no. It's fine," Samira awkwardly gestured. "And no, I don't worship the Pathmaker, but looking at the rings can help one predict the weather, temperature, and many other things. It depends on how they look at a particular moment in time."

  "Huh. I never took the time to study them. What do I need to look out for?"

  "Mmm, you can start with counting the spokes and spikes, as well as counting the number of Shepherd Moons you can see, as well as the paths they trace on the rings.

  "And here it comes ~"

  The sun peeked somewhere beyond the mountains, out of sight. Its light illuminated the outermost seventh layer of the rings in the sky, reflecting light back towards the earth. From here, the Great Rings looked like a shining, gleaming curtain spreading halfway across the skies, darkening one half and illuminating the other. The snowcapped mountains seem to almost graze the very bottom layers of the rings. The sun rose higher, and more layers of the rings glow with it, the stars fade in turn as the skies turned blue. Two of the Shepherd Moons traced dark paths across the rings and twin spokes pointed towards the earth. There were no spikes. He'd never tire of this view – it was beautiful to look at, even if he could see it every day of his life.

  Samira took out a leather-bound book and consulted the text within.

  "Huh, I guess that means today will be cold and windy. Tides will be very high near a beach. Possible snow in winter, heavy rain in any other weather. Rain it is, since it's spring."

  "...You know, I thought you knew all this in your head."

  "Good heavens, Kandar! You expect too much of me!" She threw her arms up in mock exasperation, book still in hand.

  "Hey, I'm not the one who mastered five aspects of worldforging! What else should I expect? He asked, with an exaggerated shrug.

  "Well, I, uh...," Her smile remained, but it seems her words have failed her. She blinked twice. "Okay, that's on me. I set your expectations way too high...

  "I do expect that we'd have an advantage against the Animiculus today," She changed topics flawlessly. "Cold rain should slow it down, and help us freeze the thing and render it inert."

  Kandar stifled a laugh.

  "Oh, come on!"

  "Sorry, sorry," Kandar put up his hands. "For the first joke, too. Anyway, I think we need to pack up soon."

  "I did my chores; you had breakfast yet?"

  "No, I just woke up."

  She threw something wrapped in paper at him. He caught it with one hand

  "Eat up," she said. "It's a sandwich I got from Losirem. The papers should keep it warm; the cook was a worldforger."

  Indeed, the sandwich is incredibly fresh. It was still steaming when Kandar unwrapped the paper. Some parts of it were hot enough that he couldn't hold it properly. It was filled with smoked beef and a lot of vegetables. The sauce, however, was unfamiliar to him.

  It was delicious. He finished it in mere moments. It far surpassed the fish from last night.

  "This is incredible! Which restaurant made this? I'll be sure to make a visit."

  "Oh, you like it that much? It was me. I made it in Losirem." She answered, smiling and stifling her own laugh.

  "Then I'll be sure to visit you often. Maybe every day if I can!" He declared, before his brain finished thinking.

  Samira was taken aback. Her smile disappeared.

  Oh shit, what did I just say?!

  "Oh, um, thanks, I guess." She managed.

  "I, uh, umm..., I'll -ah, pack my stuff."

  She nodded.

  Kandar packed his things in deafening, awkward silence. He glanced at her between stuffing his things into his backpack. She was busy with the skewers she made last night, using them as a template to make wooden spears. There were at least six spears she made, and on the tip of each she attached her worldforger's bullets. These bullets were white and glowed a little blue. Must be some sort of ice forging.

  He finished packing up early and, desperate to break the awkward silence, made his way to her again.

  "What are those spears for?" He asked, examining them closely.

  "Emergency use. These are cheaper and easier to use than my Pollaxe," She answered. "Just in case things go south, you can still use them to poke and shoot." She attached the last bullet to the wooden spear.

  ****

  Should be close now...

  The two of them exited the woods, following a muddy path that should lead them towards the animiculus. The valley here is flanked by two mountains exceeding 6000 meters in height. Although it was early spring, the snow nestling upon those mountains were still thick. Small waterfalls trace the mountainside with the increasing temperature. Clouds lazily float by, obscuring the peaks. Three farming villages are spread here, connected by dirt paths to each other. Their destination was one of the villages here, not to far from where Samira's skimmer golems last saw the monster before contact was lost.

  "Oh no..."

  A full half of the village was demolished. A dark trail of molten tar spread across the ground, leading away from destroyed buildings and roads. The corpses of livestock and wild animals were strewn about, very few left in one piece. The stench was horrible. A combination of sulphur and rotting flesh. Black hairy flies buzz everywhere, filling the air with the noise of their wings. Luckily, there were no human corpses.

  A few residents poked their heads out of the windows and doors. Some ruffling and mumbling were heard, before a tall, pale man with not a single hair on his face nor head stepped out from one of the stone buildings. He raised a hand in salute.

  "LUCAN!" Samira shouted, pacing quickly towards the man. "What happened? How did the Animiculus do this?!"

  "There was some kind of celebration yesterday. Bonfires were made. Big enough to attract the Animiculus," The pale man, Lucan, answered. "We warned them to stop, but not much could be done before the thing arrived. The Animiculus struck the festival full-bore, heading straight for the biggest bonfire. We managed to save everyone, and told them to shut off any and all lodestone powered tools and kill any fires.

  "No time to save the farm animals. It struck the barns with lodestone lamps next and ate everything."

  "And the other villages? Any news from them?"

  "The rest are safe. They're still dark and waiting for any news," Lucan glanced towards Kandar, who is currently holding Samira's pollaxe. "Who is this, Lady Samira?"

  "One of the freeblades that took the open contract. The one that didn't decide to kill each other. He's with me."

  "Kandar Akassir, pleasure to meet you," Kandar reached out for a handshake.

  "Lucan Sonmohir," The pale man shook his hand. "Things are out of hand right now, but if you're with Samira, I suggest you listen to everything she says. She's our best field worldforger."

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  "Understood, anything else I should know?"

  "That pollaxe is probably useless by now. The animiculum is already the size of that barn," Lucan pointed to half a barn behind the two of them. One of the walls fell down and the entire thing tumbled to the ground. "When it was intact, of course. Luckily for us I brought several worldforger rifles and enough bullets to turn a city to cheese!"

  That wasn't funny, Kandar thought.

  "Oh, nice!" Samira said, excited. "We'll be taking those, and all the bullets you can spare."

  "Mister Akassir here is a worldforger?" Lucan asked her.

  "No, which is why he'll be holding more bullets than me. So where are the guns? I'll tune them before we go."

  Lucan pointed towards one of the buildings before shouting several orders in a language Kandar didn't understand. Two men walked out and escorted Samira in.

  Lucan turned to Kandar, confusion and pity written across his face. "...I hope you know what you're doing. It isn't too late to back out. Hell, I'm not gonna judge."

  "I refuse. I hardly ever work with a worldforger, especially one as gorgeous as her!" He joked.

  Lucan's expression immediately died. It was replaced by another that seemed to say 'Careful, boy'. In response, Kandar gave him a wide, beaming smile.

  "Well, then. Best of luck to you. I will be attending my duties now."

  He headed towards the building Samira went into, just as she walked out with one rifle slung across her back and another in her arms.

  "Okay, this is the simpler model," She handed him the one in her arms. The rifle had a hexagonal barrel and wooden stock. A telescope as long as the barrel is installed on top of it. The same mechanisms that was present in the pollaxe was also there, but true to her words, it had fewer moving parts and felt very solid.

  "It's a Denken-pattern repeating rifle, often used by beginner worldforgers or travelers. It can go through mud, sand, ice, and water without jamming. You've used a rifle before, right?"

  Kandar racked the rifle's bolt and checked the chamber within. It was still empty, as it should be.

  "Yeah, I went hunting with my dad a few times. Same principles?"

  "The very same," She handed him a leather satchel that jingled with every shake. "Your ammo, don't lose it."

  Kandar took the satchel and wore it. "Shall we go hunt that beast, milady?" He jokingly bowed.

  "The hunting part is easy. Killing it is another matter."

  The two of them followed the trail of black tar and smothered plants into the forest.

  ***********************************

  They found it at the edge of the treeline.

  Kandar smelled it before he saw it.

  The stench was wrong—not just rot, but cooked meat and burning pitch, thick enough to coat the back of his throat. He raised a hand instinctively, and Samira froze beside him without a word.

  They crouched behind a fallen spruce, its trunk split down the middle like a wound.

  Below them, the forest had collapsed.

  Trees lay snapped and folded inward, their bark blackened and glossy, as if painted with tar. The ground sagged under a slow, wet weight. Something enormous shifted between the trunks, dragging itself forward in fits and starts.

  Kandar's fingers tightened around the rifle.

  Then he saw the faces.

  Deer first—too many legs, bent the wrong way. A bear's skull embedded sideways in a mass of sinew. Hooves and antlers protruded like debris in a flood. Black tar oozed from between layers of flesh, dripping in lazy strands that hissed faintly where they touched snow.

  And there—half-submerged near the center—

  A human arm. Another torso. Armor fused to muscle, indistinguishable where one ended and the other began.

  The Animiculus shifted again.

  It was larger than the barn Lucan had pointed to. Larger than Kandar's childhood home. Each movement pulled more matter into itself—branches, stones, carcasses—compressing them with a sound like wet cloth being wrung out.

  It breathed.

  A deep, uneven intake, followed by a shuddering exhale that steamed in the cold air.

  Kandar raised the rifle. Samira's hand closed around the barrel.

  "No," she whispered.

  Her voice was steady—but her grip wasn't.

  "It's right there," Kandar breathed back. "If we—"

  "If we fire," she said quietly, eyes locked on the thing, "it learns what bullets feel like."

  As if in response, the Animiculus stilled.

  Its surface rippled. A dozen half-formed heads turned—not toward them, but toward a clearing downslope, where a lone elk lay tangled in brush, still kicking.

  The Animiculus flowed.

  Kandar watched muscle rearrange itself, redistributing mass with unsettling efficiency. Heat shimmered around it, warping the air.

  "It's... choosing," he murmured.

  "Yes," Samira said. "And it's avoiding the villages."

  Her jaw tightened.

  "It's not hunting heat anymore," she continued. "It's hunting safely."

  The Animiculus engulfed the elk. The kicking stopped almost immediately.

  Kandar swallowed. "Samira."

  "I know."

  She reached into her satchel—not for a rifle round, but for one of the pale-blue bullets she'd mounted on the wooden spears.

  "If we let it keep feeding," she said, "it gets smarter. If we shoot it now, it gets angrier."

  She met his eyes for the first time since they'd seen it.

  "So, here's what we're going to do," she said. "We freeze it."

  Kandar blinked. "Freeze it?"

  "Not kill it. Not yet." Her gaze flicked back to the monster. "We make it choose between heat and movement."

  The Animiculus shifted again, tar dripping like rain.

  Samira pressed the spear into his hands.

  "When I say run," she said softly, "you don't argue."

  Kandar nodded.

  The Animiculus lifted itself, as if sensing the decision.

  And for the first time—

  It turned toward them. A human face with pale eyes scanned the surroundings. Black tar oozing from its eyes, boiling the ground below.

  "Did it sense us?" Kandar asked.

  "Silence," Samira whispered, and began moving.

  The face melted back into the main mass.

  Samira did not give the order immediately.

  She stood at the edge of the ravine, rain-dark stone beneath her boots, eyes fixed on the thing below. The Animiculus occupied the clearing like a collapsed god—layers of flesh folded inward, frozen and steaming at once, black tar sliding off its surface in slow, glistening rivulets.

  It had stopped feeding.

  That alone was wrong.

  Kandar lay prone beside her, rifle braced against a rock, breath slow and measured. The scope trembled faintly as he tracked the mass. He could see it now—how the thing rearranged itself even at rest, muscles sliding under skin that was no longer skin.

  "Say the word," he murmured.

  Samira exhaled through her nose.

  "Not yet."

  She lifted one of the ice-bulleted spears and drove it point-first into the ground. Frost radiated outward in a pale web, creeping across mud and dead leaves. A second spear followed, then a third, forming a loose arc.

  The Animiculus shifted.

  Kandar stiffened. "It's moving."

  "I know," Samira said quietly. "Let it be."

  She closed her eyes.

  The air changed.

  Cold poured outward—not like winter, but like absence. Heat bled from the ground, from the rocks, from Kandar's gloves. His teeth chattered as frost formed on the rifle barrel.

  Below, the Animiculus convulsed.

  Ice raced across its surface, snapping and popping as limbs locked mid-motion. Steam exploded outward, shrill and furious. A half-formed jaw froze open, teeth rimed white.

  For a heartbeat—

  It worked.

  The mass sagged, rigid. Tar thickened, slowing to a crawl. The clearing went quiet except for the hiss of freezing flesh.

  Kandar dared to breathe.

  Then Samira's brow furrowed.

  "No," she whispered.

  The Animiculus did not thrash.

  It compressed.

  Frozen layers cracked and folded inward, not resisting the cold but using it. Heat concentrated at the core, pulling flesh tight like a clenched fist. The ice shell thickened, turning glossy and hard.

  "Samira," Kandar said. "It's—"

  "Insulating itself," she finished.

  A sound like splitting stone echoed as a frozen limb tore free and shattered on the ground.

  Then another.

  The severed mass twitched.

  And crawled.

  "Shit," Kandar breathed.

  Fragments dragged themselves through the frost, smaller and faster, tar sizzling where it touched ice. One lunged toward the treeline.

  Kandar fired.

  The rifle kicked hard. The shot punched through the fragment, bursting it into steaming chunks that froze mid-air and clattered down like hail.

  Another fragment leapt.

  Samira flicked her hand, freezing it solid mid-motion, but she was breathing harder now. The cold was biting back.

  The main body shuddered.

  And then—

  It changed.

  The chaotic mass drew inward, shapes aligning. Limbs fused. Spines straightened. Faces—too many of them—shifted, then stilled.

  Human faces.

  Recognizable.

  The Animiculus lifted itself higher, frozen shell creaking under its own weight. Its movements slowed—not with damage, but with deliberation.

  It turned.

  Not toward Kandar.

  Toward Samira.

  Her breath caught.

  "No," she whispered again, but this time it was not command—it was plea.

  The faces at the core aligned further. A torso emerged, vaguely imperial in bearing, armor half-remembered and grown into flesh. The mass trembled as if steadying itself.

  A voice scraped through the cold.

  Kandar's skin crawled.

  Samira staggered back a step.

  "It remembers," she said hoarsely. "The cold is stabilizing it. I made a mistake!"

  Kandar didn't ask what it was remembering.

  He saw it in her eyes—the flicker of something old and heavy cracking through the discipline.

  The Animiculus lifted an arm.

  Kandar fired again.

  The shot tore through a forming face, shattering it in a burst of ice and tar. The creature recoiled in surprise.

  Samira flinched.

  "Retreat," Kandar snapped. "Now!"

  She hesitated.

  That was all it needed.

  The Animiculus slammed its frozen bulk into the ravine wall. Ice shattered. Steam erupted. The mass surged forward, shedding frozen plates and fragments alike, flowing downhill in a roaring avalanche of flesh and heat.

  Kandar grabbed Samira's arm and ran.

  Behind them, the ravine collapsed in on itself, ice and tar and memory grinding together.

  **********************************************************************

  When they finally stopped, breath ragged, hands shaking, the forest was silent again.

  Too silent.

  Samira wrenched her arm free and turned back, staring into the trees.

  Her face was pale.

  "I didn't think—" she began, then stopped.

  Kandar said nothing.

  The Animiculus threw itself in front of them. A hundred mouths wailing in a dead language. A thousand eyes gazed at the two of them.

  "Kandar, run!"

  He didn't protest. Behind the two of them trailed a pyroclastic flow of broken flesh and screaming mouths, still speaking the dead language. Its wake was all consuming. Snow, rock, trees, woodland creatures, it didn't matter. The black tide of Animiculus flowed with purpose.

  In one of the darkened villages, someone lit a torch. A thousand eyes saw it at once, and zeroed in on the heat source.

  "Oh shit!" Kandar fired at the flowing flood, a section froze and detached from the rolling tar. "Samira, it's heading for the village! Can we still kill it?"

  "We have enough ice bullets but not enough time! That village is dead! Whoever lit that torch just killed themselves!" She yelled.

  Kandar took a deep breath, and stared at the looming mountains above. This wasn't a plan. It was a deadly gamble with his life on the line.

  "Samira, do you have an explosive bullet? Give me the biggest one you got."

  "I do, why? You're gonna blow something up to distract it?"

  "Better. Trust me, but promise me you'll save that village."

  "...I'll do what I can." Samira gave him the bullet. Golden and pulsating with internal fire.

  Samira ran towards the village, Kandar ran as close as he can to the Animiculus, aiming at the peak of the mountains. One snow-capped section was particularly unstable.

  Damn it, this will kill me.

  He fired; the bullet traced a beautiful arc before exploding with the force of a battleship's shell. The shockwave reverberating across the mountain range and filling the air with the smell of cordite.

  The entire mountain moved. Millions of tons of snow, ice and stone. Gravity steered it towards the raging beast below, and Kandar near it.

  He ran, faster than he thought he could. The Animiculi sensed the coming danger, and layered itself with more ice. A survival strategy it had learned moments ago.

  At the village, Samira raised the very earth, higher than the Avalanche would bury. The Avalanche rolled into the canyon, burying the Animiculus and insulating the beast from more heat. In a matter of hours, it would go inert and back into its stony cocoon form no larger than a fist.

  Kandar, however, was missing.