Crossing The Bifrost Mountains

Through the canopy of the boreal forest, the old man floating in the skies began to descend cautiously. Alarielle seemed to be confused, she was unable to understand what made the old man so wary. I wove a black cloak covering my naked adolescent body, enjoying the prospects of a living form as I awaited their approach.

My beating heart had never felt so warm, despite me being part of a cold-blooded race. The feeling of my bare feet submerged in snow was pleasant, the complexity of the sensation was far beyond what my previous forms could emulate through magic. I felt like I was alive, my acute senses made everything so real.

The crisp sound of rustling branches rang in my ears as the pair passed through the canopy, evidently the senses of this body were far beyond that of a human. Despite me being in my infant form, having the body of an ancient race brought innumerable innate advantages against other species.

The old man kept his eyes trained on my body, watching for any movements, he tried his best to hide his fearsome aura, but it couldn’t escape my perception. I could sense he was ready to retaliate at any given moment.

Alarielle finally caught a glimpse of me. She quivered slightly as her instincts screamed danger. Her delicate brows furrowed, glaring at me out of fear, not recognising me after the evolution. The old Mage waved his hand at her to stop before he bowed his head slightly.

“My name is Grent Everfrost, may I ask what business Senior has in my territory?”

Despite Subere’s youthful appearance there were many races in this world which did not age according to human standards, the Elf race being one of them hence seniority was judged by strength rather than looks. This was a tradition passed down from ancient times to present. This was the respect strength commanded.

Ignoring the aged wizard, I turned to face Alarielle and with a deadpan expression I spoke coldly, “What took you so long?”

I had forgotten how many days passed since my evolution began, perhaps even weeks had gone by. When the Order’s scouts had vanished, Alarielle travelled ahead to find this elderly Mage, Grent Everfrost, our potential saviour. This was far too coincidental from my perspective. It was more than likely the pair were in cahoots with The Order, but then why would they be here?

Her confusion faded into shock. Myriad expressions shifted across Alarielle’s face. Finally, something dawned on her.

“Could you be… Subere?”

I nodded, confirming her speculations. My new body was too drastically different from my previous corpse-like appearance.

Hiding my supspicions, I stated, “The Order sent some powerful people. Everyone else died.” I observed their expressions carefully. Even the smallest twitch couldn’t escape my eyes. Alarielle’s residual shock faded into remorse.

It seemed that she truly knew nothing of the battle. Perhaps she was kept in the dark by her superiors? Could I have been mistaken about their allegiances?

“At least you’re still alive”, optimistically forcing a smile, but once she looked into my cold desolate eyes her smile receded. Her pained expression of guilt was truly convincing, but alas, it seemed she cared more than I did for the deaths of our companions.

I realised once I unlocked my memories, that Helen was just a poor replacement I had subconsciously found for my sister. The girl’s death pained me, but as I had once said, there was no point crying over spilt milk, I could not perform miracles like resurrection, even if I wanted to. I pitied my dead accomplices for their poor choices and accursed fates. The most I could do was bury the Order along with them.

Throughout my train of thought, shocking revelations were booming within Grent’s mind.

‘The disruptions in mana were because of a battle here? But the power required to shift the mana in the atmosphere would be an energy at the Heavenly Grail realm at the minimum.’

Grent’s fear of Subere subsequently increased realising the magnitude of his strength.

‘Anyone capable of defeating multiple Saint realm Mages, especially if they were those freaks from the Order, should never be underestimated. I know one thing for sure, and that is to not make an enemy of this youth, no matter the cost.’

Subere however did not know Grent’s thoughts as he continued speculating the duo’s true intentions in leading him to the North of Eventide.

Ever since Bartimaeus had helped me escape the Order’s headquarters I speculated the reason for doing so was personal gain, something akin to using me as a chess piece for a rebellion, considering the exalted status I had as the ‘Black Saint’, this was within the realm of possibility. Clearly there were many plots and schemes running under the surface of the Order.

I had presumed that Alarielle was a subordinate of Bartimaeus but from the looks of things the matter was far more complex than I had imagined.

The time during my evolution was enough for me to gather my thoughts on my experiences of this world. No person of power was to be trusted unrequitedly, this was an unspoken rule in every society. I wanted answers, and if they lied to me, they would pay the price. I was sick of being a tool for others’ plots and schemes.

“Who are you really?”

Alarielle looked towards the old fogey, his expression souring. Grent knew he couldn’t fool Subere, but how could he divulge their organisation’s existence so easily.

“It is hard for us to reveal ourselves to a stranger, despite your quarrels with the Order, but know that we are not your enemy.” He pulled a smile that was not a smile across his wrinkled face and swallowed nervously.

It was obvious that they did not take me seriously, despite being fearful of my strength. I slowly raised my palm with the bloodmark engraved upon it, making him grimace. My black hair fluttered in the frigid breeze. The pair before me seemed to shiver, perhaps due to the cold but their faces told me otherwise.

In an instant, I activated the bloodmark executing the Bloodfiend’s claw. Despite perfecting the technique, it was my first time unleashing it, so I took great care in controlling my strength. The result however still astounded me.

A crimson flash beamed past the pair’s widened eyes.

*BOOOOOOOOOOM*

The red light spread further and further as a torrential energy swept through the forest for a millisecond before dissipating.

A sudden weakness assaulted my body. That one attack had consumed all of my stored energy. As the billowing smoke cleared, I noticed the vast forest of trees had vanished in the area my attack had passed, a charred wasteland extended on for miles in that direction.

*Crunch*

Alarielle’s quaking knees gave way as she collapsed in the snow, her eyes were vacant after coming so close to death. A mutual despondency resided in the old Mage’s eyes, I chided myself internally for going overboard. I had only intended to scare them shitless, not turn them into idiots.

I noticed a wound slowly creeping open on Grent’s face, his wrinkled flesh sagged as blood began to pour out of the ferocious claw mark down his cheek. He understood how close he had come to death.

In that moment, my debilitating weakness became an unquenchable thirst. As the blood streamed from Grent’s wound my instinctive hunger wrestled with my will. In order to quell this urge, I flicked my hand, absorbing the old man’s essence at a terrifying rate.

Grent’s blood nourished my body rapidly replacing my lost energy. As his body withered a hoarse whimper brought me back from my bestial cravings. I forcibly held back my thirst, I still had uses for them.

With my replenished energy I launched myself forward, whistling through the frigid air, closing the distance between us in a split second. Both sets of eyes narrowed, but it was too late, I grabbed Alarielle by the nape, a pair of ghastly fangs extending in my mouth, I sunk them deeply into her glistening throat.

Naturally, her body began to spasm as she gasped for air, resigning herself to fate her struggle was short-lived. I laughed internally seeing her panic, naturally anyone would, but my race was universally different to our distant descendants, Vampires.

Whilst Blood Divinities harvested blood from living beings, they were the Monarchs of any creature with blood flowing through its veins. Naturally, those who provided blood would be greatly strengthened in return, becoming powerful servants for the Divinity.

The iron-like taste of Alarielle’s blood assaulted my tongue, in comparison to the old fart’s essence, the blood of a young dark elf was like comparing a fine wine to grape juice. Alarielle’s eyes glinted with a golden light as her dimming vitality surged forth. I felt an energy resonate between us as a bond formed, similar to a mother feeding her babe.

Withdrawing my fangs, I similarly subdued the terrified and withered Grent, making both of them my blood slaves. Without me explaining anything, the two adjusted to their newfound strength.

“Let us leave this place.”

Both of them stopped fooling around and bowed loyally. Any will to resist had vanished. My bloodline caused them to experience euphoria when carrying out my commands, naturally there was no reason to resist.

“Where are we going Master?”

“North. Away from Eventide.”

The pair nodded. Through the master-slave relationship their memories were at my disposal, answering the many questions I had. As I browsed them Grent withdrew a flying magic treasure in the form of a wooden row boat. It landed in the snow with a heavy thud, allowing us to climb in, finally we soared into the skies, heading further North.

Without a need to converse, I understood the two were part of a resistance against the Order, namely the Hand of Darkness, similarly Bartimaeus was part of this organisation. Despite Grent’s impressive strength his ranking was still below the executives in the resistance. Alarielle however, was the daughter of one of the resistance leaders hence her understanding of the resistance was much deeper.

The Hand of Darkness was on an extremely large scale with countless operators within the Order’s ranks. Only through the duo’s memories did I get a clearer image of the Order’s power.The Order was an interplanetary organisation with unfathomable roots. They were on the cusp of dominating this planet and only a handful of factions with powerful leaders could resist such an organisation.

Namely these factions were the Beastman Confederation, the Hellflame Magisterium, the Lastrian Oligarchy, Darkblood Theocracy and lastly the Sanguine Aristocracy as well as a group of other smaller powers. Both Alarielle and Grent had a pitifully small amount of information on these different factions, but I knew that I had to flee the Order’s territory to have a chance at growing stronger.

The closest non-Order faction was namely the Sanguine Aristocracy, but it was still more than a week of flying and a hazardous area away.

I meditated silently on the rowboat magical treasure, Alarielle snuck the occasional glance at me, but I was immersed in my ancient blood arts to bother with her. The second stance of the Bloodfiend’s Thirst was infinitely more complex than the first.

Namely it was the Bloodfiend’s Dash. Simple in name, but the laws surrounding the technique were far more profound. By combining Space, Wind and Blood it allowed one to dissolve their body into a blood mist, providing them invulnerability to attacks whilst they travelled for long distances, reforming their body upon reaching safety.

Of course, there were drawbacks to this, one of which was the vast energy consumption, and another was the weakened state your body would be in after using the technique.

This was obviously an escape art meant for preserving your own life. After I had basic comprehensions in the second stance, I found myself at a bottleneck in my understandings. Space magic was incomparably profound, but also incredibly powerful.

It was only when I reached a bottleneck in my meditation that I realised we had entered a violent blizzard. The Eventide Kingdom and Sanguine Aristocracy were separated by a vast snowy region known as the Bifrost Mountains which was a danger zone to anyone underneath the Heavenly Grail realm and currently we were paying the price for crossing this place.

In the midst of the howling wind I gestured to Grent who was controlling the magical treasure to land. Bringing us down through the blizzard the treasure shuddered and bobbed unsteadily, finally plummeting and crashing into the snow.

“Allow me Master.”

Grent waved his hand, forming an ice barrier around us, similar to a glass dome which moved as we did. The duo looked towards me for orders. I contemplated momentarily before remembering that Grent lived in this region. Despite having access to the pair’s memories, I couldn’t assimilate or merge them with my own, I could only study them.

“Where can we take shelter.”

Grent frowned lightly, obviously unable to think of anywhere. He had never seen a blizzard as harsh as this despite living in the region for centuries. Naturally this was due to his reclusive nature as a hermit.

“I know of a place. I had to avoid this snow storm when searching for Grent.”

I nodded towards Alarielle as she began to trudge through the deep snow. There was little to no visibility from within the ice barrier, the blizzard prevented us from surveying the landscape and each of us were extremely cautious in our footing.

One misstep could be fatal, sinkholes were not uncommon in the Bifrost. We soon discovered however, that sinkholes were the least of our worries.

“Master, my magical perception is being hindered by the snowstorm, but there is something moving in the darkness. It’s likely to be a Frost Devil, they are the only creatures that can survive in this area.”

I nodded in response. Nothing was ever easy. I too could sense movement in the blizzard, not through magic but the wretched smell of beasts.

*BANG*

Something collided hard with Grent’s ice barrier, cracks running through dome. Grent grimaced but the cracks quickly faded, restoring the barrier.

“My mana is being drained too quickly, I won’t be able to keep this up for long.”

“Stay calm, we’re almost there.”

Despite Alarielle’s comforting words, the shake of nervousness in her voice was very disconcerting.

“I hope you know what you’re doing.”

Saying this, I turned to Grent, “Lower the barrier.”

His eyes widened, but he quickly nodded. As the barrier vanished, my ears perked up and my nose twitched.

I mumbled under my breath, “One, three, six…… ten beasts are coming our way!”

Our steps halted. Grent’s countenance steeled, his mana flowing rapidly, ready to engage them. Similarly, I took a fighting stance, worst comes to worst I would activate my Bloodfiend’s dash to escape the beasts, but I would have to conserve the little energy I had.

My vision was greatly enhanced in the darkness, I could see as if it were as bright as day, but the snow and raging winds still buffeted my senses.

“On our left!”

I was the first to react, swiftly turning to face the beast. It had white fur as tough as wire and resembled a snow bear. Large tusks and horns protruded from its mouth and forehead, ghastly claws swept through the blizzard as it approached. Its illuminous eyes were like blue torches in the dark.

As the Frost Devil directed its gnarled claw at my torso, I launched myself into the air above. My new body was filled with vibrancy, sending me hurtling towards the beast with ease, giving the creature no time to react, I sent a palm strike directly towards its hideous skull.

*Bang*

A roar sounded behind me, magical fluctuations flared in the open snow, Grent obviously finding his own opponent trying to protect Alarielle.

The force of my strike collided with the Frost Devil’s thick skull jarring my wrist, but the stinging pain was negligible. I had felt the skull of the creature collapse, causing it to claw at its forehead in agony. Something akin to adrenaline was rushing through my body. As a deep bestial strength erupted, I sent a sweeping kick to the scrambling creature wanting to put it out of its misery.

*ROAR*

*Crack*

More Frost Devils approached as the crisp shatter of bone reverberated in the surroundings, the first Devil slumped, its brains steaming in the snow. Litres of purplish blood flooded from the creatures head onto my body. That ancient thirst erupted once more as I drained the dissipating essence of the Frost Devil.

A thrum sounded from my body as the blood of the creature became nourishment. My bones crystalized, my muscles solidified, and my organs strengthened as more and more energy was stored.

Exhaling heavily, I turned leaving the withered Devil in the snow, following Alarielle who had abruptly spurred into action, frantically searching for cover. Grent swiftly disengaged the Frost Devil he was fighting not wanting to fall behind.

Alarielle took a heavy step, crackling noises sounded before she disappeared. I swiftly encroached on her position, Grent followed. A hole barely big enough to fit through was opened in the snow. I unhesitatingly slid down the frozen tunnel, going deeper and deeper. The sounds of battle echoed through the tunnel, Grent clearly covering my escape.

Moments later, the tunnel came to an end as I fell onto a bed of ice. Alarielle stood to the side panting heavily. We had arrived in a giant ice cavern, tunnels just like ours dotted the walls and the ceiling was hundreds of meters high.

The sound of sliding sounded from the tunnel, I moved out of the way before Grent’s bloodied figure appeared alongside us in a miserable state. The proud air of a mage was nowhere to be seen looking at Grent’s dishevelled appearance. It was very likely he would have lost his life if it weren’t for the strength gained from my bloodline.

Biting my finger, I spared him a drop of my blood which quickly sealed his wounds and allowed him to somewhat recover.

“It was by chance that I stumbled across this cavern when searching for Grent Master.” Alarielle pointed towards a nearby tunnel, “This leads back to the surface, I was too scared to explore this place before, so I only ventured along this path.”

I nodded in response.

“Let’s wait out the storm here.”

Sitting in a meditative position I began to contemplate space magic once more but alas, it was short-lived.

“Massssster!”

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. A booming and raspy voice entered my mind. It seemed to be very excitable, but I was confused, could it be something from my past lives?

I shot to my feet, without alerting Grent or Alarielle who were resting protectively at my sides, I launched myself deeper into the cavern following the voice. A light breeze tickled my face as I flew down a vast tunnel. After minutes of listening to the calls of the voice I arrived at an opening. A silver light glowed around a blue spear. It was held between two gargantuan ice pillars.

“Masssster, you have come for me once more. Fate willsssssss it.”

I had no memory of this spear, but I was clearly its wielder in the past. I flickered, approaching the spear in an instant. My hand wrapped around its shaft.

*BOOM*

Thunder went off in my mind as a boundless icy energy came under my control. A radiant smile spread across my face, the spear became an extension of my arm. An ancient spear art resurfaced in my mind, one I had created personally leading to that same question once more. Who was I? But I only knew what I was allowed to, remembering this spear and the countless who fell to its blade.

“Xavier.”

“Yessss. You remember thissss sssservant.”

As I reacquainted myself with the spear, a deep rumble sounded out from the ice.

“Ah, Masssster an annoying little lizzzzard has nestled itssself here, wanting to absorb my essssssencccce.”

*RUMBLE*

The ice began to part as a gargantuan draconic body rose from the ground. Its terrifying ice blue eyes glowered as they saw Xavier in my hand. Its titanic maw opened, revealing sharp teeth akin giant icicles, a blue flame gurgled in its throat.

“YOU DARE STEAL THIS KING’S TREASURE!”

My hair fluttered in the gale roused by the dragon's roar. A slight smirk tugged at my mouth as I calmly regarded the theiving dragon.

"Who is stealing what little lizard?"