CHAPTER 81: HOPE

The snow still fell in swirls, covering the valley in white as if to erase the traces of the battle. The wind whistled through the broken trees, carrying the heavy silence that had remained after the Snow Monkey’s final roar. Ester stood motionless before the crystalline prison that now contained the beast, watching the steam escape from the cracks in the ice. A faint breath, a distant echo of life—nothing more.

But her eyes weren’t on the creature.

They were on the ground.

The footprints.

The signs that confirmed what mattered most. Damon had been there.

And now the snow was beginning to erase his presence, slowly covering the marks as if he had never been there. Ester clenched her fists. The thought of losing him amidst that white immensity made her chest tighten.

"Damn..." she muttered.

She moved, each step sinking ankle-deep into the snow. Her eyes swept the terrain with precision, like blades of ice, searching for every detail the storm tried to hide. Her attentive gaze captured small differences: the deeper weight of a hurried footstep, the direction of a curve, the irregular shape left by someone who had probably tripped.

With each passing second, the wind blew stronger, as if conspiring to erase her tracks. Time was working against her.

Ester gritted her teeth, accelerating. Her heart beat in time with urgency, each beat a voice screaming that he couldn’t be far away, that he couldn’t have simply disappeared.

"Where are you, idiot?" she grumbled, her eyes fixed on the endless white.

Her steps took her further, to an area where the snow seemed more disturbed, marked by scratches in the ice and scattered fragments of stone. There, the valley held memories. There, Damon struggled.

Ester stopped. Her breath came out heavily, a white cloud before her. She knelt, sliding her fingers through the snow, trying to feel something other than cold. For a few seconds, nothing. Just silence, wind, and ice.

Then, something shone.

No more than a reflection, a pale blue glimmer hidden beneath a thin layer of snow. Almost invisible, almost dim. But to Ester, it was as if the whole world had stopped in that instant.

She walked to the spot, her heart racing. Her knees touched the ice as she bent down, pushing the snow away with her hands. The metal tip emerged first, glinting with the touch of the gray light piercing the clouds. And when she finally pulled, there was no doubt.

The spear.

Damon’s weapon.

Ester gripped it tightly, raising it before her. The blade was stained, scratched from the recent shock, and the hilt still bore the marks of the desperate grip of someone who had fought until she could no longer.

Her chest tightened.

"So you really..." she whispered, her voice breaking for a moment.

As much as she wasn’t given to sentimentality, seeing that spear there, abandoned in the middle of nowhere, brought a weight that was hard to ignore. The image of Damon falling, of his body buried by the avalanche or crushed by the beast, pierced her mind like a blade.

Ester closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. The icy wind burned her lungs, but brought back clarity.

"No..." she said softly, almost like a command to herself. "He didn’t die."

Her fist tightened on the hilt of the weapon, as if trying to wring answers from that hunk of metal.

"You don’t die like that, Damon. Not you."

Ester’s gaze turned to the white horizon, the snow swirling around her. The spear in her hand weighed heavy, but not like a burden. It was a connecting thread. Proof that he was still somewhere. Wounded, perhaps. Lost. But alive.

And she would find him.

Silence fell over the valley again, broken only by the whistling of the wind. The icy prison behind her creaked softly, as if the defeated creature were still trying to move, but Ester didn’t look back. Victory meant nothing if Damon was gone.

She fixed her gaze on the remaining footprints, already nearly covered by snow. There was still time, there was still a trail, there was still hope.

Clubbing her spear tightly, Ester rose.

"Wait for me, Damon," she murmured, her voice as cold as the blizzard itself. "I will find you."

And then she began walking, the snow giving way beneath her determined steps, her eyes focused on the white that struggled to hide the only thing that mattered.

The wind might try to erase the path, but Ester wouldn’t give up. Not now. Not after finding his weapon.

The spear clinked softly, each sound a promise.

Esther would not stop until she fulfilled her obligations.

The snow seemed to swallow the world. Esther advanced with firm steps, Damon’s spear firmly in her hand. Each thrust of the wind was a challenge, each white whirlwind tried to hide the marks she sought. But her determination was sharper than the cold, firmer than the snow. Her eyes, sharp as blades of ice, analyzed every detail. There was no rest in her body, no hesitation in her mind.

And as she walked, the world changed.

In the icy silence of a cave, the most fragile sound echoed: breathing.

Damon stood there, leaning against a stone wall covered in ice crystals. His eyes opened slowly, heavy as lead, and the world presented itself to him in blurs of white and gray. The darkness of the cave was cut only by the soft gleam of the snow piled at the entrance.

He tried to take a deep breath, but the air burned his throat like a razor. The cold was everywhere: on his skin, in his bones, even deep in his chest. Each beat of his heart felt too slow, as if the life was draining from him bit by bit.

"Breathe... control...," he thought.

But control was nearly impossible. The pain throbbed in waves, starting in his ribs and spreading throughout his body. The cold wasn’t just an inconvenience—it was an enemy. A thief stealing his strength, an invisible predator gnawing at every muscle.

Damon gritted his teeth, trying to focus. His mind was at war: part of him wanted to close his eyes, give up, let the icy sleep take him. But there was another part, small but fierce, screaming to keep going.

He sucked in air, the steam escaping in white puffs. He inhaled, counted, exhaled. The rhythm was uneven, broken by the pain shooting through his ribs, but it was better than nothing.

His fingers were numb, and when he tried to make a fist, he realized he could barely feel the tips of them. He raised his hand with effort, staring at his skin, blue with cold.

"Damn it..." he murmured, his voice hoarse, almost nonexistent.

The memory came to him in flashes: the avalanche, the crushing weight of the snow, the beast’s roar, and then the blow that knocked him to the ground. He remembered fighting, remembered the spear firmly in his hand... and now it was gone.

The absence of the weapon was almost a hole in his chest.

"It doesn’t matter... just breathe," he repeated to himself.

But the cold wouldn’t obey.

Pain mingled with the ice, transforming every thought into jumbled shards. Every time he tried to concentrate, there came a sharp stab in his ribs, or a chill so brutal it shook him completely, tearing him from the fragile discipline he’d tried to maintain. His body wanted to give in. He wanted to close his eyes, stop fighting, simply let himself be swallowed by the white silence of the mountain.

But Damon couldn’t allow it.

Not now.

Not when dying here would just be... pointless.

With effort, he braced his back against the cave’s icy stone wall. The uneven surface hurt even more, but it supported him. He was too exhausted to stand on his own strength alone. With each breath, his chest burned as if embers were trapped inside, but standing up straight at least allowed the air to flow better.

He closed his eyes, trying to summon any memory of warmth. The sun of his childhood. The comforting crackle of a distant campfire. The weight of an embrace he couldn’t quite remember from. Even the burning anger that used to energize him in the darkest moments. But it all seemed too distant, like faded echoes of a life that was no longer his.

Still, he didn’t stop.

He breathed in.

He breathed out.

Every sound reverberated in the cave like a faint drumbeat, a wavering beat of survival.

Until... suddenly...

A notification cut through the silence:

[You’ve leveled up!]

Damon’s eyes widened. He blinked a few times, confused, believing for a moment he was delirious.

"W-how did I level up?" he murmured, his voice hoarse. "I didn’t kill anything..."

The answer came immediately, cold and mechanical:

[You assisted in the death of "Ice Mountain Primate (Lvl. 25)"]

Damon froze.

"Assist?..." he repeated softly.

And then, slowly, a tired smile appeared on his cold-cracked face. A genuine smile, yet filled with pain.

"...Esther."

Confirmation flashed before his eyes:

[Individual "Ester Deathstriker" has eliminated the target.]

He laughed, weakly, but he laughed. The sound echoed in the cave like a crackle of life, like a spark clinging to life amidst the ice.

"Heh... of course it was you," he murmured, his smile holding firm despite the blood on his lips. "Who else could have taken that thing down?"

The cold still consumed him. Pain still tore through his body. But for the first time since waking up there, Damon felt something other than despair.

He felt hope.

"Hurry up, I’m dying," Damon said.