The wind howled through the north like a wounded beast, tearing across the frozen landscape as if trying to bury every trace of life. Asari, Aicha, and their new companion, Adamas, moved cautiously through the frost-laden forest, where every tree branch looked like a skeletal finger reaching out to snatch warmth from the living.
"This place gives me the chills," Aicha muttered, her breath forming icy mist. Her enchanted wheelchair hummed against the snow-covered path, its wheels gliding silently over terrain that would otherwise have been treacherous.
Adamas walked ahead, his face hardened with memory, eyes fixed on the mountain range that loomed in the distance like the open jaws of a slumbering beast. "The closer we get, the louder it becomes," he whispered. "The whispers. I can hear them clearer now."
Asari's eyes narrowed. He could feel it too—not sound exactly, but a pressure. An oppressive silence broken only by a rhythm. Like a heartbeat buried beneath miles of frozen stone.
"What exactly is the Silent Star?" Aicha asked, turning her eyes to Adamas.
"It... it wasn't a star," the boy said. "That's just what they called it. The villagers. They said it came down from the sky one winter night, fell into the mountain. And then the voices began. People started disappearing."
They marched on, wind biting into their skin. Asari reached into his coat and gripped the handle of his blade. The weapon responded with a low hum of resonance. He had named it "Devil Cry: Domain Sever", the second form of his devastating sword art.
They arrived at Rundale just before dusk.
Or rather, what was left of it.
The village was a graveyard of silence. Burned-out homes, shattered wells, fences warped by time and frost. The air felt heavy with old sorrow.
Adamas stopped beside a crumbled stone wall and dropped to his knees.
"My house was right here," he said quietly.
Aicha crouched beside him and rested a gentle hand on his shoulder.
Asari, meanwhile, stepped further into the village center, eyes scanning for movement. His Eather sense was on edge. Something was wrong. Too quiet. Too still.
Then he saw them.
Figures frozen in the snow. Dozens of them.
Men, women, even children—statues of pure ice, lifelike and twisted in mid-motion. One looked like she had been running. Another knelt as if praying.
Adamas approached slowly, grief shadowing his eyes. "They weren't like this when I left. They were gone. Taken. Now... now they're back?"
Aicha stepped closer. "These aren't corpses. They're vessels. Encased. Preserved by Eather."
"They were made into offerings," Asari said, voice low.
And that's when the mountain began to tremble.
A low, echoing hum filled the village. Snow flurries twisted into spirals, trees moaned under sudden weight, and the sky dimmed unnaturally.
From the mountainside, a shape emerged—tall, armored in black crystal, faceless.
A Watcher.
Adamas gasped. "That's what took them!"
The Watcher moved with gliding steps, its hand extending toward Adamas. Not to attack.
To call him.
To beckon him home.
Asari stepped forward, sword drawn. The snow hissed as Eather ignited around him, swirling like smoke tinged with blood.
"Get back," he said.
Adamas didn't move.
The boy's eyes were locked with the Watcher's hollow gaze. Frozen.
Aicha raised her hand, and a pulse of White Eather burst outward, breaking the boy's trance. "He's using Dream Bind. It's a mental tether!"
Asari didn't wait. In one motion, he vanished.
Ghost Walking—the technique that let him split the light and move faster than thought. He appeared before the Watcher with his blade already mid-swing.
"Devil Cry: Step Two – Sundering Waltz!"
The air cracked open as his blade tore through space. The Watcher's chest was cleaved in half—but it didn't bleed. It screamed without sound, then burst into a thousand fragments of black ice.
Adamas collapsed to his knees, breathing hard. "That wasn't the only one. They never travel alone."
True to his words, the ground began to quake. Dozens more forms emerged from the mountain pass, their hollow eyes glowing dimly.
Asari's knuckles whitened around his sword.
Aicha summoned a barrier of shimmering white Eather. "We can't take them all head-on. We need to fall back."
But Adamas stood.
His eyes burned with defiance now.
"We can't run. Not again. I know where they come from. There's a passage beneath the church ruins. That's where they sleep. That's where the Silent Star fell."
Asari looked at the boy.
He saw no fear.
Only purpose.
He gave a sharp nod. "Lead the way. We finish this."
They turned and ran, the Watchers in silent pursuit, vanishing into the swirling frost of the north.
Beneath the ice, something old had begun to stir.
And it would not be ignored.
---
"In the coldest places, even fire must learn to burn quietly."
End of Chapter 53