Famine 91: The Price

[Mist World – Day 15 / 9:23 PM / Ice Field / Current Farm Completion: 61%]

Shi He gently pushed aside the icicles at the cave entrance.

It was a mountain cave. Deep within the ice fields, beneath layers of frost, inside the abyss, on the jagged ice-clad cliffs and in an extremely hidden spot, there was a small opening.

The coordinates pointed here.

Thick snow blanketed the abyss above. Moonlight filtered through the ice, casting multicolored, distorted refractions that danced across the boy’s shoulders, outlining his taut form.

This was not a place humans could ordinarily reach on foot; it felt more like the lair of a winged species—hidden and secure.

Even with the broadcast coordinates, it had taken Shi He a long time to find his way here.

He tied a knot in the rope as Nidhogg had taught him and rappelled down swiftly.

In that moment, as his feet pressed against the cliff face, Shi He caught, in a fleeting haze, the shadow of his older brother. When he was twelve years old, Nidhogg had nimbly hung from a precipice, demonstrating the full set of climbing moves for him. Back then, Nidhogg had worn only work overalls and a tight black T-shirt that outlined his lean muscles, his face wearing a relaxed, roguish smile. He moved as if born to the rock face, as natural as a fish to water.

He always seemed like that. Always had a way out, always seemed carefree, but in truth, saw through everything.

Forever unruffled, omnipotent, the great villain… his brother.

Those things the young boy had always taken for granted—every single day of the past eight years—became the most precious things to Shi He after the end of the world. He cherished these memories with the utmost care, tucked them away in the most secret corner of his heart, extracting a little strength from them whenever he was on the verge of collapse.

Thud. Thud.

Shi He bit down on his flashlight, hammering pitons into the cliff. The sound echoed through the empty abyss. He deftly switched the safety clip on his rope, every motion precisely as Nidhogg had once shown him.

Swiftly, the boy landed lightly at the edge of a snow tunnel.

His heart pounding in trepidation, he pressed forward, step by step, into the darkness.

Beneath the packed snow at his feet, faint lines of dark red glimmered. They looked like blood, or perhaps carvings.

Shi He stared for a while. They seemed familiar, but he couldn’t quite recall what they were.

What on earth was this place? The farm owner had told him that his brother was guarding the convenience store for the farm… so why wasn’t he in the store?

Such caves never went too deep; after this turn, it should open into the deepest chamber…

Whoosh!

Without warning, a violent, biting wind suddenly swept toward him.
Blizzards raged, the narrow cave’s topography intensifying the winds’ ferocity. Amid the howling, one could faintly make out a violent, angry undertone.

“If you don’t want to die, get out.”

At the instant this voice, carried on the wind, poured into his ears, a surge of heat rushed to Shi He’s eyes.

Shi He whispered, “Brother.”

That one word immediately stilled the raging winds all around.

Shi He took a deep breath and, bracing himself, stepped forward through the icy snow without hesitation…

Boom!

The next second, a surge of fiercely burning flames exploded before him, leaping upward in a blazing wave. The searing wind, laced with fire, instantly melted the snow on the cave floor—the ferocious heat rushed straight at him!

Shi He raised his hand quickly; the defense artifact on his wrist spread open against the wind and snapped into form in an instant.
He had obviously been prepared.

“…Truly… never learn, do you?”
Nidhogg’s voice came from behind the flames, blurred and distorted, hard to make out,
“Out.”

The temperature of the flames soared, higher and higher. The snow melted into water, which in turn boiled away in the scorching heat. Shi He gritted his teeth, braving this world-destroying fiery onslaught, moving step by painstaking step… forward, and forward again.

“I didn’t want to see you.” Shi He spoke softly and breathlessly, his words tumbling out like a rabbit darting from his lips. “I never—I never wanted to hurt you, I…”

Creak.
His defense equipment groaned, pushed nearly to its limit.

“Get out!”

The heat in the air rose another notch.

Suddenly, Shi He realized that at this level of fire, if the artifact broke, he would die without question.
His brother was truly holding nothing back.

“I won’t leave,” Shi He said.
Step by small step, he repeated, “I won’t leave.”

Nidhogg’s violent voice echoed from afar. “You think I wouldn’t dare kill you?”

Creak.
Web-like fissures spread across the defense artifact.

…

Right now, this might be his last chance to escape.

Slowly, the corner of Shi He’s mouth twitched upward, only just.
Without a moment’s hesitation, he forged ahead, his thin shoulders cutting through the flames.

Boom!
He rounded the corner, and in that instant, the last layer of his defensive item shattered. Flames exploded everywhere, bursting open almost like a bomb, swallowing Shi He’s small figure in a single instant.

…
One second. Two seconds.

He had expected
to die.

Shi He opened his eyes. The fires all faded, leaving only the cold, shadowed snow cave.

In a far corner at the cave’s end—

Click.
Nidhogg’s arm fell limply.

He gasped for breath and uttered, hoarse and strained, “…Stupid kid.”

Shi He tilted his head up, flashlight beam rising—and suddenly, his shoulders shuddered violently.

Blood.

So much blood, everywhere—blood splattering walls of stone, fresh streams running through cracks beneath, charred scraps of flesh burned by the flames… The depths of the cave were a scene of startling blood-red, now thoroughly coated with all manner of mangled tissue. After the searing fires, all that remained was char and the lingering, bloody reek of ash.

Nidhogg was slumped against the wall, head low, shoulders sagging, his whole frame trembling slightly, making him look shrunken and minuscule.
The once powerful, towering figure from memory was now only a small, huddled lump.

Because he no longer had a lower body.

Nidhogg’s tattered dragon wings retained only half a skeletal frame, dripping with blood as they braced against the cliff, wrapping most of his torso. Below his chest, his body had already turned into nothing but sodden clots of blood and shredded flesh on the ground. Like a sack ripped open, his entrails had spilled out from the wound, wrapped in a slick membrane, rolling out and mixing with the dirt, leaving only a few scattered remains.

It was hard to call this thing “human.” What was left was only a scrap of a corpse.

——

For a brief instant, his mind refused to accept the scene before him.

Shi He’s hands shook so violently he could barely hold onto the flashlight.

Under Nidhogg’s ruined body, a faint red glow shone amid the bright scarlet channels, mingling with the flowing blood, slowly outlining the shape of a magic array.

Click.

Nidhogg lowered his head and lit a cigarette.

It was one he’d taken from the convenience store—a product crafted by a service player.

His mangled lungs rasped like a bellows as Nidhogg avoided Shi He’s gaze, inhaling deeply. He let the cheap nicotine travel through every fibre of his body before slowly exhaling, shrouding himself in a swirl of drifting smoke.

He hid behind the smoke, speaking softly, “…Had a nightmare, maybe just crawled into the wrong bed.”

Shi He’s lips trembled violently.

——

Every gift of fate demands an equivalent price in return.

In the farm’s control room, Si Zhiyan sighed lightly, bowed his head, and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

Si Zhiyan had made a pact with Nidhogg: once he secured the sacrificial altar, he would not allow the sacrifice of any ordinary player.

Nidhogg had agreed.

From that moment, Si Zhiyan knew what Nidhogg would do.

“You have to do this.”
“Otherwise, all of us will die.”
“If you fall here, you and your brother will never see each other again, and everything you fought for will end at this moment.”

On the battlefield, those words Si Zhiyan said to Shi He were actually meant for Nidhogg.

Si Zhiyan knew that, by whatever means, Nidhogg would be observing the battle in his own way.

Nidhogg had made a promise: when the time came, he would do things in his own way to help.

This was the moment of necessity. This was the indispensable power.

As a leader, Si Zhiyan accepted that resolve.

The evil dragon Nidhogg possessed a regenerative ability that surpassed all living things. Even the S-class toxin which could kill any chosen one could not threaten him; snapped bones or melted organs barely hampered his movements.

But…

What if he became the offering himself?

Flesh and blood would burn within the magic circle, only to be restored by his superhuman regeneration; the bloody mass and mangled chunks would boil and heal again, and again…

In the final stand against the Eye, the red mark that climbed Shi He’s calf, the scarlet slit-pupil in his eyes—these were the imprints Nidhogg had left behind.

This young friend of his—so youthful, so determined, so deadly, so precise, so full of promise… Nidhogg’s flesh would become his strength, his bones the support that carried him forward.

As the farm braced for battle, Nidhogg lay at the center of a lonely magic array—every bone broken, every muscle dissolved, the pain so severe it clouded his mind, his fingers dug deep into the rock from the agony, broken and healed countless times.

The evil dragon was in such agony that he could neither speak nor act. All he could do was curl on the ground, eyes locked on that ignorant child a thousand miles away, mouth twitching with a mad, chaotic smile.

It was alright, it was alright—he could never die, he would always have enough energy.

Ever since he first saw the Onsen Shrine, from the very moment he’d asked Si Zhiyan for the magic array, Nidhogg had been prepared for this day to arrive.
He had his own methods for restarting the array, for redirecting its faith.

Anyone could die; it didn’t matter, so long as the child he loved could live.

Si Zhiyan forbade him from sacrificing any more strangers, but that didn’t matter.

The evil dragon who never mourned would use his own body to carve an unstoppable path for his child.

Their flesh and blood had been intertwined since their first meeting fifteen years ago, and that bond would never end.