Cannibalism.

Something that was very common in the world, as many animals practiced this activity. Some did it for mating rituals, some fed the flesh of their mates to their progeny, while others ate each other for the cruel hope of survival.

Yes, nothing uncommon.

But that only applied when it came to non-sentient beings.

Once any kind of creature managed to enlighten themselves or was born enlightened, they would instinctively avoid eating their kind. Whoever ever tried and was found out became an outcast.

This became an unwritten rule. Subsequently, it became a society law. Then it became the world’s law.

Thereafter, the taboo of cannibalism came into being.

There were some naturally malevolent beings that did not care or fear this taboo, but for the majority, it was something to be careful of.

Of course, there would always be some exceptions.

People’s will to survive was many times much stronger than a sense of morality. Their instincts of self-preservation would consume their minds. And that’s when it would happen.

When their mind was completely gone, there was a chance that they would turn.

They would become evil spirits.

Spirits with many abilities. They lurked in snowy mountains trying to lure unsuspecting victims with their ability to imitate voices or even bear the ability to shapeshift. They induced fear in their prey and never stopped the pursuit of the ones they marked as their target.

They came in many forms. Sometimes they kept the form they had before turning or lost all their hair as their limbs grew to disproportionate sizes. Other times they grew into beastly monsters with antlers. What didn’t change was that as time passed, their bodies became more and more rotten, and their eternal hunger for more flesh of their kind would never cease. That was their fate for violating taboo.

This was Wendigo. Evil spirit of winter, famines, and cannibalism.

……..

Illyan had a look of realization on his face. Although he didn’t remember that much, he still had the recollection of some stories that he listened to when he was small. The story was recounted by Granny Meddie once when they talked about the lack of food in their village and the impending famine.

He remembered that she didn’t like to talk about these kinds of things to him as he was just a child but forced herself to do so in order to discourage him from trying anything stupid.

Later on, he completely forgot about it. Only his principle of not eating humans was engraved deeply in his bones.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t sure if he could say that he was innocent. Back then, in order to survive, he ate anything that the monster itself swallowed into its stomach. He didn’t remember, as those days were blurry, but who knows if he tasted some forbidden flesh.

Just thinking about the fact that he could turn into the thing he swore to kill made him sick.

However, when he remembered the fact that this creature was in some way tampered with by humans or maybe other humanoid races similar to humans, it made him feel even worse. If before it was just his guess based on the state of this wendigo, then now he was completely sure after its confession.

Just thinking about it made his head spin.

Why would they do that?

Why would they send packs of wendigos to the northern villages? Those villages were completely barren and didn’t have anything worth. He didn’t have any idea what was in their head when this happened.

Or were their lives so insignificant to them that they were considered just mere collateral damage.

The more he thought about it, the more he was mad. Illyan wasn't a justice-seeking man. No, he saw himself as quite selfish. He wouldn’t seek out evil people for something intangible as ‘justice’. But this was different. This was not about justice. When he saw the hatred-ridden eyes of the wendigo in front of him and then remembered his brothers’ screams. He closed his eyes.

His heart was beating painfully as the thoughts inside his mind got more violent. The urge to kill was almost unbearable. He gritted his teeth so hard that some of them cracked, and blood started to flow inside his mouth. It was hard to calm down as Illyan was used to being able to control his emotions quite well.

However, after years he would need to be stupid to not realize it.

He had extreme anger issues.

Not the ones that the alcoholic losers had as they beat their women for no reason since they were simply short-tempered. He saw one of the villagers be like that and he was completely disgusted.

But his anger came more from within the soul. He was like a ‘calm before the storm’. Always gentle and indifferent, not caring for any insult or even offenses against him, patiently waiting for the best opportunity to strike back. He almost never let himself be controlled by emotions.

But sometimes when something really bad happened, his mind just wanted to see the world burn. To see those he hated to suffer as they cried tears of blood while regretting even thinking about making a move against him.

He definitely wouldn’t let this slide. He promised this to himself back then and now when he finally found a new clue that there were other culprits, there was no chance he would just let it go.

No.

“Is there anything else you want to say about them as your last words?” He turned his attention back to the wendigo that was still mumbling. Unfortunately, nothing from it made sense, and it could not help him.

Instead, it seemed that its antlers started to pierce deeper into the protrusion as time passed from all the pressure built on its body. That made the Frozen Worm even crazier as it was writhing everywhere.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

It made Illyan sick when they changed directions so many times or when he got upside down.

On the other hand, wendigo only lamented as its claws that got closer to him thanks to the shift of the antlers could almost touch him.

“Huu-maans…Haaa–tee!” It was repeating a few words showing its hate. Illyan didn’t know when it got the ability to speak, but he was glad that it couldn’t speak that way when he met it for the first time as such a thing would make the incident even more harrowing to him.

That made him think that it changed over the years a lot. Its abilities grew while its flesh rotted. He didn’t know how much of these changes were the result of those experiments that were done on them or the results of their natural abilities. The only thing he noticed so far were the black rods that were almost unnoticeable at first glance.

However, with Illyan’s eyesight once he noticed them he inspected them carefully to realize he couldn’t recognize the material. Not only that, he also felt that there were some symbols on it and it was pulsating in some rhythm. Another thing he noticed was that each pulsation resulted in twitching of the wendigo’s remaining muscles.

It hurt it a lot.

He looked into its malformed face that already lost most of its rationality except its hunting instincts. Just because he found out the real culprit didn’t mean that his hate for this creature lessened even a bit. He understood its plight but that didn’t exempt it from his revenge.

His eyes shone with the blood-red color as his bloodthirst seemed to coalesce. He lifted the hand that still had the half-broken ax and cast his eyes at the bare heart. The jagged blade he threw at it before was still lodged there, slowly drawing its blood.

Now that he knew its circumstances, he wasn’t sure if going for the heart was a good idea anymore and if he should rather aim for its head.

But then he thought more deeply about it. The blade itself blocked the blood that would flow out otherwise. That didn’t mean that no blood was flowing, but it impeded it a lot. Considering that even after the entire battle, the monster still didn’t bleed out, it either meant that it recovered a lot or there is simply too much of the blood inside its body. The former is impossible as its body literally rotted.

Moreover, the most important reason why he considered the next attack to the heart was that the monster was visibly weaker after the prolonged fight.

That means that the attacks worked.

Of course, the barrage of Frozen Worm extremely helped.

There was always fear of undeads, as normal attacks didn’t work against them, but Illyan almost forgot that by definition Wendigo was an evil spirit that mutated from normal humans or animals. It was not undead and so it could be killed by normal methods.

Unfortunately, it didn’t mean that the monster was harmless now. On the contrary, it was now closer to him, ready to rip apart his body to taste his flesh. Its antlers were burying themselves deeper in the Frozen Worm’s protrusion which made its claws extremely close to ripping him apart. At that time, Illyan won’t have any way to defend himself. Because of the impaling, he couldn’t muster his strength properly and he would be at the mercy of the beast.

“I have only one chance for this…” He looked at his ax and knew he would need to throw it as the jagged blade to reach the wendigo’s heart. That also didn’t seem to be the right way as there was only one chance that if missed will be probably his end. After all, trying to fight the wendigo with a broken ax in melee combat is still better than fighting barehanded.

But it was the best shot he got.

He prepared to throw the ax. But the same problem arose. He had problems with mustering strength and being able to properly swing it. But he didn’t hesitate. Instead, he looked at his oldest enemy with painful nostalgia.

“Haah… I guess it is time to end your suffering, wendigo, no, human.”

And then he threw. His arm movement was so smooth that he felt like he managed to make the best throw in his life. It was at the moment when he felt the muscles in that arm tear that he realized what happened.

The ax flew at an extreme speed but it still took some time to reach the wendigo. Not because they were far but because the wendigo’s body was also moving at an extreme speed together with the body of the Frozen Worm.

Fortunately, Illyan threw it in the moment when its arms were waving far from its chest, giving the flying axe a free pass to the inside of its rib cage. There, the slowly pumping heart that was dark and slimy was working its best to provide the body of the wendigo with blood.

But now, it all came to an end.

Slick!

A big gash appeared on the heart as the ax continued on its way down the abyss with pieces of heart and blood. Not only that but the gash was so big that even the jagged blade loosened and fell into the abyss. The blood immediately burst out from the wounds, and the wendigo wailed in agony.

It started to wriggle even more but it couldn’t do much. It was losing strength at an even more rapid speed as it continued to be battered from behind.

……..

And so he waited and waited.

Seconds.

Minutes.

Days.

He didn’t know when exactly the beast died. As its time on the mortal coil was going to end it couldn’t even move properly and looked to be dead.

Because of its rotten body parts, its vitality was very misleading. Illyan sighed in relief when he realized that he made the right choice. If he chose to fight in close combat, there was a big chance that he wasn’t the one who would win.

Even his gift has limits.

His stamina was already drained, and his body lacked blood. Now after several days of not sleeping, eating, or even drinking, he was completely helpless.

And so he could only rest for now. He didn’t want to meaninglessly try to get off the Frozen Worm as he knew he had no strength.

On the contrary, he was grateful that it finally stopped raging and also went to rest. Albeit its resting place was deep in the ocean where Illyan had no way to escape.

The Frozen Worm also finally realized that its mindless bludgeoning through the ice didn’t help it solve its issue. Then after the wendigo got weaker and stopped moving its antlers, it hurt only when the body of the wendigo clashed with icebergs. And that subsequently made its head and antlers bore deeper in the protrusion. And so the most logical thing the Frozen Worm did was to stop moving.

But this allowed some peace to Illyan. He closed his eyes and started to relax.

However, that didn’t last too long. He felt the Cold Energy particles. So concentrated and pure. He wasn’t in his right mind at the moment, and it was just now that he realized how cold it was here. Not to mention the pressure of the ocean as they were so deep.

He was so numb that only through his spiritual perception, he finally awoke.

‘I guess I could try to absorb it.’ He was completely empty when it came to energy right now. So taking in this could very well help him in getting out of here.

With closed eyes, he started to meditate, relaxing his body. Slowly but surely, his body started to be filled with the Cold Energy from the surroundings.

And so he began to tread on his path to freedom.

Or so he thought.

“I finally found you.”

A booming voice resounded in his mind. It felt as if his soul trembled as all of his orifices started to bleed.

Illyan opened his eyes in shock only to see two gigantic blue balls. In the middle of them were long slits that bore right into his eyes.

“The fact that you are trying to absorb both the lasting power of mine and the power of that pathetic bastard infuriates me to no end… God of Truth? How laughable... He is only one of the parasites encroaching on this world… I may have fallen but I will not go alone. Regret trying to absorb his disgusting power, you foolish mortal.”

Illyan couldn’t process anything as he was trying to endure the pain that was invading his mind. He wanted to ask what it was talking about but no words were coming out.

But the moment when he saw the two balls distancing he froze.

It was another beast. But this one was different. He felt it deep inside of his gut.

It was enormous but not to the point of towering over the Frozen Worm. But the aura it gave off was incomparable. It was a gigantic lizard that had quite a long body. It also had long horns on its head, and its body was covered in sapphire scales that gave off a chilling feeling. Its body was seemingly translucent, almost dissipating but it didn’t stop it from giving an oppressive feeling just from watching.

Illyan didn’t know what it was. Or maybe he knew but his mind just denied it.

However, when it opened its mouth, the deep blue light started to converge inside of it; he couldn't deny it anymore.

‘A dragon.’

Only this thought passed in his mind as the chilling light exploded into a wide pillar coming for him.

Boom

“OOooooonnnngh-?!”

With the accompanying wailing of the Frozen Worm, Illyan’s point of view got completely covered in piercing ice, seemingly falling into eternal slumber in the same way his archenemy did…

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME - Northern Tribes