Battle

A bitter wind hurled loose snow against the birch branches. Lu Heng crouched on a branch thirty feet above the ground, his back pressed firmly against the rough bark, keeping even his breathing barely audible.

The snow below reached past calf height, and more than a dozen Cold Stiffs wandered aimlessly through the woods. These monsters had frozen, necrotic cervical vertebrae, leaving their heads forever facing straight ahead. Even if something stirred overhead, they could not tilt their heads up at all and could only turn in place, relying entirely on hearing to pick up nearby sounds.

The tree trunk blocked the faint glow of the bracelet at the edge of his vision, keeping it from giving away his position. Lu Heng steadied the hand crossbow he carried. Only seven bolts remained in his quiver, and his gaze fixed on three ordinary Cold Stiffs straying along the edge of the group.

Low-tier Cold Stiffs had only a thin coating of ice on their bodies, and the energy within them was too sparse to form crystal cores. Killing them left nothing but piles of useless white bones. The one truly worth attacking was the Black Iron Cold Stiff in the center of the crowd, standing a head taller than the rest. Gray patterns covered its ice, and its strength far exceeded that of ordinary Cold Stiffs. At the slightest disturbance, it immediately stopped and turned its head, using the ice to amplify its hearing and probe its surroundings.

Lu Heng held his breath, aimed the crossbow at the gap where the ice was thinnest behind the monster's neck, and released the trigger with his fingertip.

The bolt shot through the air. Hearing it, the Cold Stiff below hastily turned sideways, its movements stiff from its restricted neck. The bolt grazed the ice on its shoulder and plunged into the snow, throwing up a cloud of white mist.

The noise instantly drew every monster over. Heavy, icy feet crushed the snow, their crunching growing closer as they all converged on where the bolt had landed.

Seizing the opening while their attention was elsewhere, Lu Heng quickly recocked the crossbow and fired twice in succession, striking the backs of two ordinary Cold Stiffs' necks with precision. Fine cracks spread through their ice, and both bodies toppled stiffly into the snow, never moving again.

The remaining Cold Stiffs instantly grew agitated, gathering around the bodies with hoarse growls. The Black Iron Cold Stiff charged beneath the tree and hammered the trunk with its icy fists. The branches shook violently, sending snow cascading down. Most of it poured into Lu Heng's collar, the freezing grains sliding against his skin and making his whole body shudder.

The branch beneath his feet was barely half a foot wide. A few more heavy blows, and it would break sooner or later. Lu Heng forced down his panic and quietly watched the Black Iron Cold Stiff's movements. The creature had excellent hearing, but it was inherently unable to look up. As long as he did not lean most of his body out, it would never discover the person in the tree.

During the brief pause after the monster finished a round of pounding, Lu Heng fired three bolts, all aimed at its joints. The gray-patterned ice was hard, and most of the bolts lodged in the surface without injuring it. Instead, they thoroughly enraged the higher-tier monster.

Its heavy fists struck again, and the trunk lurched sharply. Lu Heng tilted sideways, nearly falling straight into the crowd of corpses below. He clamped one hand around a fork in the branches to steady himself, cold sweat breaking out across his back. Melted snow clung to his clothes, cold and clammy.

All seven bolts were spent.

Trapped in the tree without ammunition, he was as good as waiting to die. Lu Heng hesitated no longer. Drawing the Bronze Hunting Blade at his waist, he used the swaying trunk to obstruct the monster's view and leaped toward the gentle slope to one side.

He dropped more than two meters, sinking into deep snow the instant he landed. The impact jarred his knees painfully, and he stumbled and slid two steps before finding his footing. Snow filled the gaps in his shoes, and bone-piercing cold crept up through his soles.

Every Cold Stiff beneath the tree immediately turned and lunged toward him. The Black Iron Cold Stiff led the charge, its massive ice-coated arm sweeping through the bitter wind straight at his chest.

The moves of the Flowing Water Saber Technique flashed through Lu Heng's mind. Rather than simply retreating, he turned slightly sideways and raised his blade across his body to block.

The bronze blade collided with the ice in a burst of piercing friction. The tremendous force numbed his entire arm and sent stabbing pain through the web of his hand, nearly knocking the hunting blade from his grip.

That blow had only been a test. He had not practiced this saber technique for long, and his movements were awkward. Unable to redirect the force smoothly, he could only use the impact to retreat and put distance between himself and the Black Iron Cold Stiff.

Ordinary Cold Stiffs had already closed in from both sides. Their withered, ice-covered hands clawed wildly, sharp icy edges leaving several pale, shallow scratches across his leather armor.

Treading through the snow, Lu Heng maneuvered around the Black Iron Cold Stiff, deliberately avoiding the lesser monsters surrounding him while keeping all his attention on the higher-tier creature. He did not rush to land a killing blow. Every slash targeted only the ice on its limbs, using the drawn-out exchange to learn its attack rhythm while honing his unpracticed saber technique.

The Black Iron Cold Stiff paused for half a second every time it swung a fist, and its cumbersome body turned slowly. That was its greatest weakness.

After testing it several times, Lu Heng grasped the pattern. The instant its heavy punch missed and it could not bring its body back to defend, he tightened his grip on the hunting blade, darted in sideways, and slashed the ice over its leg joint.

A deep, long gash split the gray-patterned ice, and faint white vapor drifted from the opening. The monster roared in pain, lost its balance, and dropped heavily to its knees in the snow.

An ordinary Cold Stiff nearby seized the chance to lunge at his back. Lu Heng simply pressed close to the Black Iron Cold Stiff's massive body, using it to block the attacks from both sides. Turning his wrist, he sliced open the ice around a nearby lesser monster's neck, and it collapsed on the spot.

Space was tight among the trees, and the snow slowed his steps, making repeated dodges especially exhausting. Before long, Lu Heng's chest felt tight and swollen, and his breathing grew heavy and rapid.

The close-quarters struggle lasted nearly fifteen minutes.

The hilt repeatedly rubbed against his palm, chafing the skin raw and red. Seeping blood mixed with melted snow and coated the metal handle, making his grip slippery and unsteady.

The ice covering the Black Iron Cold Stiff was riddled with blade marks of varying depths. Its movements had slowed considerably, and its punches had lost most of their force. It no longer possessed the brute strength that had shaken the tree trunk.

Seizing an opening when its steps faltered and its balance wavered, Lu Heng ducked beneath a sweeping icy arm and closed against the monster's chest and abdomen. Following a crack in the ice, he drove the hunting blade hard into the central energy channel that stored its mutated energy.

Pale gray cold vapor gushed along the blade. The Black Iron Cold Stiff's body convulsed violently twice before crashing into the snow, the gray-patterned ice on its surface instantly losing its luster.

Without the higher-tier individual to lead them, the remaining ordinary Cold Stiffs became disorganized and sluggish, their threat sharply diminished. Lu Heng took two ragged breaths, then advanced with his blade to quickly finish the remaining lesser monsters. The crisp sounds of his blade breaking ice echoed repeatedly through the silent woods.

When the last Cold Stiff fell, only the moan of cold wind through the branches remained.

Leaning on his hunting blade, Lu Heng bent over and gasped for breath, his chest heaving without pause. Slush and broken ice covered the back of his leather armor. The places where icy claws had scraped his forearms were numb with cold, with waves of dull pain following one another.

He walked over to the Black Iron Cold Stiff's body and crouched, brushing aside the broken ice. A gray-black crystal core was embedded in its chest cavity, wisps of cold vapor curling around its surface. This was the core.

The ordinary Cold Stiffs nearby had been reduced to piles of frozen white bones. Lu Heng gave them a cursory look, then extracted the crystal core and tucked it safely into his bracelet.

Several unbroken bolts lay scattered in the tree. He retrieved them one by one and returned them to his quiver. Supplies were scarce on the snowfields; anything recoverable could not be left behind.

As his fingertips touched the ice frozen onto a bolt shaft, the suffocating feeling of being trapped in the tree and nearly falling into the corpse horde surged back into his mind, sending a chill down his back.

Lu Heng looked up at the boundless Birch Forest around him. The gray sky hung low over the treetops, and he could still see quite a few rigid human shapes moving among the distant trees.

There were far more Cold Stiffs in this area than he had anticipated.

Had even one step gone wrong just now-had he failed to jump down in time to fight at close quarters and instead exhausted himself in the tree-those white bones on the ground would have been his ultimate fate.

Heavy lingering fear weighed on his heart. Lu Heng raised a hand to brush the snow from his body, tightened his grip on the hunting blade, and determined the direction of the Cave Shelter.

The fight had made quite a bit of noise. If he stayed and drew more creatures over, things would turn disastrous. He could not linger here.

The bitter wind carried fresh snow onto his shoulders. Keeping low, he hurried through the trees of the snowfield toward the Shelter.