The Land of Ice and Snow

The beast crawled out from under the massive pile, struggling to get back his balance. It had been countless years since he had been free to move around, and along with a rotting, deteriorating body, he was nowhere near at the prime of his power. Despite this, he released a threatening roar aimed at the towering figure that had suddenly emerged from the frozen forest.

The roar had been met with a howling, visceral growl that droned on unpleasantly from the figure. As if joining him, the raging gale of nature itself picked up, violently blowing the icy winds in all directions. White, stone-like eyes gleamed in the briar-choked shadows as they stared down the massive behemoth. The strange figure’s form distorted the darkness around him, causing the shapes of the trees nearby to seem as if they were twitching haphazardly.

The beast could feel the strange figure’s malicious aura. It wasn’t like the prey that tried to fight back earlier. This was a dangerous thing that was fully capable of ending his life. But the behemoth no longer had anything left to lose. He was ready to stand his ground and if need be, go down fighting. Either path would lead to freedom, but at least if he won, there would be nothing to stop him from hunting prey for days to come.

The winds grew more violent as endless snow fell from the sky making it hard for the beast to see. The abnormal blizzard washed over the area like a snow globe; a frozen domain that felt cut off from the rest of the world. Icy particulates were thrashing at his skin like tiny knives, coating him faster than he could shake them off. His eldritch skin was slowly freezing over by the ice, making his body feel heavy and sluggish. The strangest thing was that the figure in the trees hadn’t made a single movement since he appeared. It simply stood in place, watching from a towering height between the high, frozen boughs. An inaction that filled the behemoth with a monstrous rage.

Breaking away from the frigid entombment, the monster charged at the figure, but as he moved closer, the distorted air around his foe pulsed and vibrated even more fiercely. The eyes gleaming among the branches in the dark narrowed and in an instant disappeared from the monster’s sight, leaving nothing but undisturbed shadows. A sudden shift in the air behind him and he felt a sudden pull of his insides. The strange figure had grabbed onto the monster’s freely flowing black spine—a deathly touch of ice that was gradually encroaching the rest of his bones in a piercing, frozen feeling.

The beast immediately pulled away, feeling the frozen bits of his spine break away as he turned. As he came face to face with his foe, a biting sensation that he hadn’t felt for innumerable years assailed him. Not simply pain, but the primal, chilling sensation of fear. The figure, whose eyes reached the same height as his, sent shivers down his loathsome core.

Black teeth bristled vilely from the lanky figure’s flattened, snout-like mouth as he opened it to shovel a handful of frozen, fragmented bones inside. There was a sickening crunch as he crushed the beast’s remains right in front of him. Long, winding horns shone dimly above his head. Silvered antlers that were sharp, jagged and weapon-like and ready to pierce anything that got too near him. His entire body was shrouded in a large, furry cape that whipped wildly with the wind, revealing a nude form covered almost entirely in thin, black hairs. The skin around his chest was completely missing, revealing a ribcage of sizable, bony protuberances that interlinked to protect the strange, nebulous organs made of black ice that beat oddly underneath.

The beast rushed at him once again, but met with resistance as the lanky figure reached out both hands and pushed against his charging shoulders. Despite trying to hold his position, the oncoming force was enough to slowly shift his webbed, lupine feet backwards, trailing against the snow. The beast’s mouth was dangerously close, his guillotine teeth, chittering and gnashing, trying viciously to bite at his face like a rabid animal. Expression unchanging, the elemental slowly blew air from his eldritch lungs that froze rapidly as it filled the beast’s mouth, expanding and distorting it, faster than it could bite or break through it. Ice formed quickly around the humanoid figure’s fingers, turning into piercing claws that began digging into the beast’s rubbery skin. They extended rapidly, boring deep into the creature and tearing through the fibers in his muscles. The beast was now visibly struggling to stay up as the sharp icicles kept him pinned to the spot. The distorted mist around the humanoid being began to solidify into a thick haze before hardening into small, pointed pellets that floated all around him. Finally, he broke away and launched himself skyward, while at that same moment, the newly-formed ice that had surrounded him extended with explosive force, crisscrossing in various directions, becoming long, deadly spears that stabbed through the beast's hulking body and skewered his desiccated, unnatural organs.

The beast grunted weakly, feeling his body finally shutting down. The eldritch humanoid had landed behind him and continued watching him silently, without a word, through his piercing, opal eyes. The beast relaxed his struggle, realizing that through this clash, he was finally, truly free.

The spears that had entered him began to grow barbs that grew into large spikes that continued stabbing through his insides, finishing him off. Each one pierced him from the inside-out giving the appearance of a reverse pincushion, deforming and flaying him like an animal. His body, mostly obliterated, remained frozen in place, now at one with the elements. The elemental—the victor—coldly came upon his spoils. Reaching his large hand into the gaping backside, he tore an unknown organ away from its impalement and greedily devoured it, staining his hands and mouth in old, iridescent cruor.

He let loose a remarkably low, feral droning that shook the trees nearby before turning his attention to a freshly formed snowbank. Leaping over to it, he reached deep into the pile and produced an unconscious Zulema, armor coated in frozen blood. He studied the young priestess’s body for a moment, eyes unwavering, then scooped her up under his arm and jumped high into the air. He did not come back down.