"Boo hoo hoo..."
Beside a mound of severed heads, a man wept as he cradled a head frozen stiff.
"Little brother... you died such a horrible death."
He was one of the survivors of Zhao Si's blade.
Escaping Zhao Si's blade had come at a considerable cost.
His ear was gone, and half his face had been sliced away, exposing his teeth. He looked half human and half ghost.
He had survived only because others had died in his place.
He had used his companions as human shields, putting them between himself and Zhao Si, then fled for his life.
Only by running through a wave of blood had he barely managed to stay alive.
After hiding for a long time, he had returned and discovered the mound of heads.
Snow covered those heads, but it could not conceal the carnage beneath.
The blood had frozen, binding all the heads together.
In truth, the head this bandit held might not even have belonged to his younger brother. He had merely made a token search, then pulled out a head he could dislodge and held it as he wept.
It was something to pour his grief into, at least.
"I smell hatred."
Someone suddenly spoke behind him, startling the bandit.
"Y-you, who are you?" the bandit asked in terror, clutching the head.
"Well, my name is Gilbert." Gilbert introduced himself. "I heard prayers yearning for vengeance, so I came to the Mountaintops of the Giants. Could you tell me what happened here?"
Gilbert looked like a middle-aged man dressed for travel. Nothing about him seemed particularly formidable.
The bandit asked, "Why are you asking about that?"
"I am an agent of vengeance. Have you heard of the God of Vengeance?" Gilbert asked in return.
The bandit shook his head blankly. He