Chapter 178: The Eyes In The Snow [3]
The evacuation site was chaos held together by three familiar figures moving with lethal precision.
Butler stood at the shelter’s entrance, his palms pressed against the stone archway as glowing runes spiraled under his fingers. The barrier flickered to life—a translucent dome sealing the civilians inside just as a Mistborn’s claws scraped against its surface with a hair-raising screech.
"Left flank, tighten!" His voice carried over the blizzard as guards scrambled to obey.
Twenty meters away, the golden-eyed youth moved like a specter through the panicked crowd. He bodily lifted an elderly merchant trapped under an overturned cart, shoving the man toward the shelter with a terse, "Run. Don’t look back."
His sword flashed, severing the arm of a Mistborn lunging at a child—the creature disintegrating into mist before its scream faded.
Near the barrier’s edge, the half-elf’s monocle gleamed as he staunched a guard’s bleeding neck wound. "Bite this," he muttered, shoving a leather strap between the man’s teeth before yanking a barbed claw from his shoulder.
The head healer and a few other healers were also tending to the injured.
Then—
Butler’s head snapped up. His eyes locked onto Elria through the blizzard’s veil. Without a word, he pointed sharply behind her.
She didn’t hesitate.
Her greatsword whirled backward in a sweeping arc like a fan.
The motion birthed a miniature tornado, snow, and howling wind coalescing into a prison around the three Mistborn that had been a few meters away from her exposed back. Their distorted shrieks muffled as the vortex consumed them.
Elria sprinted toward the site, boots crushing loudly in the snow.
A single nod passed between her and Butler as she skidded to a halt. He stepped aside without protest, yielding command.
"How much longer?" She snapped, eyes scanning the dwindling crowd.
Butler didn’t turn from the shelter. "One minute to clear the stragglers. Two more to secure the entrance."
Her jaw tightened, taking a defensive stance.
Then Butler’s voice dropped, barely audible over the wind: "The Lord?"
"No, I haven’t seen them." Elria’s grip on her sword turned white-knuckled. "...Must be in bigger trouble than us."
Butler nodded grimly, his aged face hardening like the ice forming on his coat’s fur trim.
However, neither of them noticed the half-elf healer pause mid-suture, his monocle glinting as he stared into the storm’s heart. His sharpened ears twitched beneath his hair before he abruptly patted his patient’s shoulder. "Move. Now."
The moment the guard staggered toward the shelter, the healer retreated—backpedaling with unnatural smoothness, his boots never breaking the snow’s crust. Nobody noticed his actions.
Then the blizzard screamed.
"WWWOOOO-!"
A wall of mist exploded upward outside the barrier, swallowing sound and sight. The air vibrated with a subsonic hum that locked joints and iced lungs. Guards froze mid-sprint. Butler’s hand hung suspended inches from his sword. Even the golden-eyed youth stood paralyzed, his blade dripping frozen blood.
Then—silence.
The storm itself seemed to recoil.
And from the opposite direction, something came into view.
Two spiraling voids stared back at them—black holes rimmed with frost, drinking in the light, the heat, the very will to resist.
"Eyes... in the... snow..."
The words slithered from every throat in unison—guards, healers, even Butler—their mouths moving without consent. White mist coiled across their vision, pupils drowning in frost-laced fog.
Elria’s eyes twitched. Her fingers spasmed around her sword hilt—move, damn it!—then with a snarl, she wrenched herself free.
She blinked rapidly, taking in the scene: dozens of statues, mist spilling from their lips, their eyes glazed like frozen ponds. The golden-eyed youth stood rigid, blade half-raised. Butler’s fingers trembled inches from his weapon. The half-elf healer’s monocle had gone opaque with creeping frost.
No time.
Elria snatched a shield from a paralyzed guard, slammed her sword against its surface—CLAAAANG!—and channeled her wind aura in a single, furious exhale.
"WAKE UP!"
The shield shrieked, her aura whipping outward in a visible gust. Mist shredded like cobwebs. Snow blasted sideways in a sudden circle. The unnatural fog clinging to faces snapped away—
—and the illusions broke.
People staggered, coughing. The golden-eyed youth gasped as if surfacing from deep water. Butler’s hand finally closed around his sword hilt. Confused murmurs rose—
Then, cutting through the chaos like warm steel through snow:
"Everyone, head inside."
The voice was soft but clear.
All heads turned, but nobody moved.
"Move!" Elria’s voice cracked like a whip.
They didn’t need to be told thrice—they scrambled for the shelter entrance in a panicked tide, hands clamped over their ears, eyes screwed shut. The golden-eyed youth hauled a stumbling guard forward while Butler bodily shoved the stragglers through the archway.
"Close your ears! Don’t look back!" Elria barked, planting herself before the entrance, her greatsword held crosswise to block the eyes’ line of sight.
For one heartbeat—silence.
Then the snow moved.
It rose in a shuddering tidal wave twenty feet high, crystalline edges sharpening to jagged ice mid-arc. The barrier’s runes flared crimson in warning.
"Tch—!" Elria’s curse hung frozen in the air as she braced.
CRAAAAAAAAACK!
The first wave struck.
The barrier screamed as spiderweb fractures raced across its surface.
The ground trembled violently.
SWOOSH!
The second wave came before the echoes faded.
This time, the barrier shattered—a million glittering shards exploding inward as the frozen tsunami surged toward the exposed entrance.
Elria’s sword became a silver blur.
[Gale Rend]
[Gale Rend]
[Gale Rend]
Three crescent blades of compressed wind tore from her greatsword, each collision blasting the ice wave into powdery mist. But victory was short-lived—the shattered fragments simply reconstituted midair, now a choking snow blizzard descending upon them like a burial shroud.
Elria crossed her arms, summoning a shimmering wind barrier just as the artificial snowstorm engulfed them.
Ice crystals pinged against her aura like needles, the cold so vicious it burned.
Then the world vanished beneath the suffocating snow.
For three heartbeats, there was only white—blinding, all-consuming—then silence fell like an executioner’s axe.
And when the snow cleared, only her silhouette remained—standing in defiance, blade humming, eyes lit with fury, staring fearlessly at the two eyes of the black void.
"!"
Elria’s eyes widened.
Behind the spiraling voids—so small at first she thought it a trick of the monster—a crimson dot bloomed.
It grew.
Fast.
A pinprick became a spark. A spark became a comet. A comet became—
Oh.
Her frost-cracked lips parted.
"H-he’s... here."
The world erupted in fire.