Vyus and the Frozen Devil disengaged, the simultaneous impacts of their weapons sending them back slightly on the snow.
Vyus recovered first, seeing the Frost Devil momentarily clutching the wound in its stomach. He saw no hesitation.
'I've got you now...'
Lunging forward again, he whipped the claw-dagger and locked eyes at the creature's neck.
With surprising agility for its size and injury, the Frost Devil leaned back, the cracked claw slicing through empty air when its throat had been seconds before.
'Damn...' Vyus was disappointed, but he didn't let the miss break his momentum, instantly snapping his leg up in a powerful front kick that slammed squarely into the Devil's chest.
The result sent the creature sliding backward several meters across.
"Seems like you're not comparable to me, even if we consider efficiency as an attribute."
While sliding from the force of the kick, the Frost Devil performed an impossible maneuver.
It seemed to launch forward directly from its backward trajectory, crossing the distance between them in a terrifying instant.
"Oh, shit!" Vyus yelled out, as the sheer speed and unnatural recovery left him momentarily stunned.
He had no time to think.
The Frost Devil thrust forward with its uninjured arm, icy claws aiming like daggers for Vyus's heart.
Vyus reacted purely on reflex, bringing his claw-dagger up, in a desperate attempt.
It resulted in a fortunate parry, however, the impact impaired his already aching arm.
Simultaneously, the Devil's other arm — the one attached to the shoulder Vyus had sliced earlier — swept low, aimed at Vyus.
Vyus twisted rapidly at the waist, weaving his torso away.
The claws passed centimeters from his stomach.
Spinning out of the weave, Vyus lashed out with a slice aimed straight at where the Devil's nose resided.
But the creature was just as fast, ducking its horned head under the slash.
The fight descended into a furious, close-combat exchange. The Frost Devil jabbed with a claw; Vyus parried, sparks flying from the impact.
Vyus attempted a low cut at its legs: the Devil hopped back with surprising grace. It retaliated with a spray of ice shards fired from its palm.
Vyus was forced to spin away, deflecting some with his dagger, and dodging the rest.
Each move was met with a quick counter.
Then, during the frantic exchange, Vyus saw it — an opening.
As the Frost Devil lunged with a powerful overhead smash, Vyus didn't meet the blow head-on.
He dropped low, letting the attack crash into the snow beside him, and surged upward from underneath, his speed focused into one precise, lethal strike.
'Kill. I'll kill you...' Vyus drove his cracked claw-dagger forward, aimed perfectly, and pierced the tip into one of the Frost Devil's eyes — blinding it.
A high-pitched shriek from the Frost Devil occurred, as the claw-dagger shattered the Frost Devil's blue eye.
The creature recoiled violently, one hand instinctively flying up to the ruined eye.
Blinded on one side and driven by pain, it lashed out wildly, swinging its remaining intact arm in a desperate attempt.
But Vyus was already moving, anticipating the panicked retaliation. He flowed under the wild swing with ease.
Instead of backing away, he closed the distance again, his movements terrifyingly precise.
As the Devil's arm passed overhead, Vyus brought his cracked dagger up in a power-severing slice aimed at the creature's shoulder joint.
The impact was immense, shattering the icy limb completely and sending the arm spinning away into the snow.
Before the Frost Devil could fully register the dismemberment, Vyus reversed his grip on the dagger, and drove it forward, plunging it deep into the center of the creature's chest.
Showing no mercy, Vyus didn't pull the dagger out. Instead, he viciously dragged the blade downwards, tearing a gruesome path through the Devil's torso, slicing its stomach open.
Even in agony, the Frost Devil made one final attempt. It lunged forward weakly, its remaining hand swiping almost pathetically towards Vyus.
Vyus sidestepped the attack effortlessly, watching the dying creature stumble past him with cold eyes of silver.
He didn't let it suffer longer. Vyus faced the collapsing Frost Devil and delivered the final blow. He thrust the bloody claw-dagger straight through the creature's throat.
There was a final hiss, the blue light in its remaining eye flickered and died. Its form began to crack and crumble rapidly, dissolving into nothing more than fine powder. The battle was over.
Vyus stood there for a long moment in silence. He let out a deep sigh, the tension finally bleeding out of him.
He'd won. He'd beaten that monster.
Then, a flicker of realization cut through his fatigue.
'Tryss...'
Where was Tryss? He hadn't heard the wolf during the final, desperate moments of the fight with the Devil.
'Damn it, I left him alone. Where is he...?'
Vyus slowly, painfully, turned around, scanning the white landscape behind him.
He spotted Tryss sitting calmly about ten meters away, near the edge of the clearing where the initial fight against the lesser demons had begun.
The wolf looked entirely unharmed. And surrounding Tryss, in a semi-circle, were the shattered remnants of other Frost Demons. They hadn't fled. They hadn't been ignored.
Tryss had seemingly dealt with the entire welcoming committee, single-pawed, whilst Vyus was locked in his struggle with the Frost Devil.
The wolf met Vyus's stare, and let out a soft 'whiff' that sounded suspiciously like a sigh of boredom.
Then proceeded to nonchalantly lick one of his paws as if he'd just been waiting patiently for Vyus to finish up the main event.
"Do all pets act like this...?" Vyus questioned, dumbfoundedly.
Tryss trotted over, nudging his head against Vyus's good leg, seemingly unfazed by the carnage.
Perhaps having an overpowered, nonchalant companion wasn't the worst fate in this Nexus hell.
"Alright, alright, show-off," Vyus muttered, reaching down to give Tryss a rough scratch behind the ears.
"Let's move. The real challenge is waiting."
Vyus turned his back on the clearing of dissolved demons and faced the imposing slopes ahead.
The ascent began almost immediately, as they navigated patches of slick ice hidden beneath.
"This is going to be a pain," Vyus commented.
***
The wind howled somewhere outside, but within a small, rocky cave Vyus had found, he was sheltered — protected from the wind.
A campfire was evident in the center, fed with dry wood gathered during their climb.
Its flickering orange light pushed back the chill of the mountain slope, creating a bubble of warmth.
Curled near the warm fire, Tryss slept soundly. It was also evident that he was exhausted.
Vyus, however, remained awake. He sat with his back against the cold stone wall, the claw-dagger resting across his lap.
He stared into the flames, their warmth a contrast to the coldness that seemed to have settled deep within him since the fight with the Frost Devil.
'The inner world... a place where golems, rhinos, goblems, and now Frost Demons resided within...'
He remembered the chilling satisfaction that had accompanied the violence, the feeling of becoming the predator.
'Is that my... Triune? Or just the dark reflection of the Deep Ones — the Deep Demons, which everyone seemed so sure my kind were?'
He glanced at his bandaged hand, remembering the self-inflicted wound born of rage and despair.
'So much had happened...'
Ugurth's face swam in his vision, followed by the cold eyes of the assassins.
'Why was I even climbing this mountain? Because my reflection's contrast said the Apex Predator was here? Because I needed to get stronger? Strong enough for what? Revenge? Reborn in a world that likely thought my kind were extinct...?'
The ambition to lead the GMA felt like a naive dream from another lifetime.
'What was left to lead? I was chasing a goal set by a headless entity in a world that was from my Nexus, hoping it led back to a world that had been decimated...'
For a moment, the crushing weight of hopelessness threatened to return, pulling Vyus down into the dark path he'd felt after the ape fight.
He closed his eyes, forcing the spiral to stop. He had to survive. He had to get back. And if becoming 'hell itself' in this inner world was the price for the strength needed, then so be it.
He opened his eyes again, his gaze fixed on the flickering flames. He would rest, let Tryss rest, but tomorrow, the climb towards the unknown dangers of the peaks would continue.
***
A piercing light pulled Vyis from the depths of his slumber. He squinted against the light, his mind slowly re-activating.
As his vision cleared, he saw Tryss already awake, sitting patiently near the exit.
Vyus pushed himself up, stifling a groan as his muscles protested.
"Morning already?" he muttered.
Tryss let out a soft yelp in response, stretching his forelegs out.
Vyus rose to his feet, stretching carefully. After a quick check of his makeshift dagger and the bandage on his hand, he gave Tryss a nod:
"Alright, let's see what this mountain has for us today."
Together, they exited the narrow cave exit, and Vyus paused, momentarily taken aback. The bright sky, while still lacking a sun, glowed with a much brighter, clearer intensity than it had lower down.
The air, however, was still undeniably freezing, but the wind to enhance that sense of coldness was absent.
"Huh," Vyus breathed out. "Guess the weather's actually... pleasant up here? Relatively speaking."
He took a step forward, ready to continue their ascent, only to sink almost up to his knee, due to the snow.
"Okay, maybe not everything's pleasant," he remarked to Tryss.
As they moved onwards, forcing their way through the deep snow, Vyus's mind drifted back to the battle yesterday.
He replayed the Frost Devil's movements — its surprising speed, strength, and ruthlessness.
He had won, yes, through desperation, and adaptation, but:
"It was a brutal, costly fight against just one major opponent..." Vyus finished the thought, the words escaping from his mouth.
'Shit...did I speak aloud...?'
Tryss turned his gaze against Vyus, giving out a perplexed look of curiosity.
Vyus quickly clamped his mouth shut, still mentally replaying the flashes of light and shattering ice from the Frost Devil's encounter.
Lost in these grim thoughts, he almost didn't see it at first. It was Tryss's growling — this one held more curiosity than aggression — that made Vyus finally refocus on the path ahead.
There stood a figure they had glimpsed before, or one remarkably like it. A tall, silent statue carved from ice.
It was not alive; it possessed an ancient stillness that felt fundamentally different from the creatures they had fought.
This time, however, Vyus noticed something he hadn't seen from a distance.
One of the statue's stone hands was held outstretched, gripping a scroll, which seemed to be crafted from ice as well.
In clear letters that were impossible to misread, were two simple words:
DANGER AHEAD.