On a high mountain pass in the southern wilderness, an opaque block of ice began to tremble. Flakes of snow slipped off its top. The block itself sat in shadow. Above, an icy wind howled above the few places that bare rock jutted out from underneath the covering of snow. The whole area seemed afflicted with the same sort of hypothermia; all objects present altered between minute trembling and deathly stillness.

The mountain top felt stark and desolate.

The crack of the ice block beginning to fracture echoed out through the pass, a halfhearted demonstration of life. Several precarious piles of snow joined the trembling. Most fell back into stillness. A few shed a portion of their icy shelves in tiny avalanches, collecting the shadowed gully. Silently, more cracks began to creep outward through the block of ice. At the core, some force was in furious motion.

For three minutes, the cracks proliferated. Then all at once, the ice tomb shattered in an eruption of gleaming shards.

“That damnable dragon!” Merrick Towns growled as he reached up and rubbed his spiky, honey-brown hair. His hands were covered with flexible metal gloves that ended in curving daggers, but he adroitly satisfied his itch without cutting into his skull. Then he scowled around, as though expecting to find the dragon waiting around with a smug expression on its face.

The pass was empty except for wind, snow, and shadow.

Merrick Towns ground his teeth and rubbed his hands against his arms. He was supposed to be the most powerful man on the planet. Almost a year ago, he had won the fighting tournament and had been baptized in the cheering of the crowd. High on that moment, he had challenged Randidly Ghosthound himself to a duel and received deafening silence in response.

Being only twenty-five, Merrick had responded to this dismissal with a scathing indictment of the balls of Randidly Ghosthound. It had seemed to him that although none of the old legends of Expira had participated, or any of the tournament’s previous winners, he had earned some recognition for ending the tournament undefeated. And to have not even a spare breath given to him-

“And then that dragon…!” Merrick’s skin began to steam, his anger burning through the chill.

After the tournament and his comments, a Frost Dragon had tracked him down and insisted upon a duel. Wanting to be nothing like Randidly Ghosthound, Merrick had accepted with grace. And been thoroughly flattened and frozen into an icicle. It had taken him fully a week to break out of that frigid prison.

It had been humiliating. It had been illuminating at how mysterious the depths of Expira truly were.

This time, after ten months of training, Merrick had purposefully sought out a dragon to have his revenge. He was disappointed to find a younger specimen but still figured that beating this one would send the right sort of message that would eventually get back to his original opponent. However, despite all his extreme ice resistance training, he had been beaten again.

This escape only took eighteen hours, but his humiliation had deepened.

Merrick fumed. “Why the hell are there so many powerful dragons? And if each one of them is this powerful, why were the participants in the tournament so weak-”

Movement on the other side of the pass grabbed Merrick’s eyes. He twisted around and saw, across the high mountain, a powerful man standing in the snow. His hair was black, his feet were bare, and his eyes were a piercing green that could be seen even across the distance. The man smirked and turned away on some secret mission. With a step, he had all but teleported to the next mountain over, leaving only a puff of snow in his wake.

“Randidly Ghosthound?” For a second, Merrick was too dumbstruck to really process this realization. After seeking this man for so long to test himself, it almost seemed too good to be true to encounter him here. Yet as soon as his form vanished, Merrick’s body began to respond. He planted his own foot and began to give chase.

Randidly Ghosthound was as quick as advertised. By the time Merrick arrived at where he had been, there wasn’t a trace of him. Only by relying on that inner sensation of connection that had emerged last year could Merrick barely intuit where he had gone. Which gave him just enough of a direction to throw himself thoughtlessly after him.

They crossed several mountain ranges, the Ghosthound seeming to step and Merrick desperately charging in order to make up some of the distance. Terrain and temperature seemed to make no difference to the man. Soon, rivers of sweat flowed down Merrick’s back and his shoes began to tear. Yet he refused to give up.

Eventually, the Ghosthound went into a box canyon whose walls seemed to be made of obsidian. They were still at a very high elevation, but the enclosed space changed the cold within its bounds. It didn’t seek to create frost, all of the moisture had already been sucked out of the air. No, the cold here simply gripped you, holding you in place, urging you to linger forever, slowing inevitably toward stillness.

There, at the dead-end of the canyon, the Ghosthound waited. He stood like a bared blade, a threat just by being present.

“Randidly Ghosthound!” Merrick shouted again, exhilaration and nerves mixing in his heart. His voice nearly cracked, which would have destroyed the image he wanted to cultivate. But as soon as he spoke, his eyes narrowed. His instincts tingled with a sudden realization. “No. You… you aren’t the Ghosthound.”

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A woman’s laugh came out of the Ghosthound’s mouth. Some of the mystique of a true encounter with the Ghosthound resolved, leaving two people alone in a dark and icy canyon. A hand reached up and pressed against his face and pulled away a mask. Her body morphed with the mask's removal, going from an athlete's lithe form to a squat, round hipped woman. Her frizzy brown hair flared out in every direction around her pinched face.

She smiled at Merrick. “Yes, it’s not quite so easy to keep someone fooled when I stop moving. But getting you here was enough, Mr. Merrick Towns. So glad you could join me.”

The simmering resentment he had felt when he broke out of the ice seethed back through his veins. The heat felt good, pushing away the cold. He flexed his hands, the long and sharp fingers gleaming despite the shadowy ambiance. “You better have a good reason for tricking me.”

“Let’s be adults about this. What do reasons matter, to those with power? I could do it, so I did. Just like those dragons wanted to bully you and there was nothing you could do to stop them.” The woman’s smile didn’t waver, but her aura did. She began to release a subsonic pressure that caused Merrick’s eyes to widen and his ears to pop. Her presence stretched out, heaving within the enclosed space. “Just like the elites of Expira didn’t need a good reason to dismiss you, even after you won the tournament. Just like the real Randidly Ghosthound would never be asked why he had the gall to ignore you.”

Two factors caused Merrick’s heartbeat to slow. As the woman’s aura unfolded through the space, the stink of bloodletting and casual violence began to clog his nose. But he also hesitated because he remembered why he had been so furious, even before the fights against the dragons. Somehow, despite his overwhelming victory in the finals against a representative from Donnyton, the rest of Expira made his accomplishment feel moot.

This strange woman knew him, knew how he felt. Weirdly, he felt seen by a stranger.

“Let me be frank, Mr. Towns.” The woman’s voice bounced off the solid black stone of the walls, overwhelming and oddly hypnotizing with its volume. “Our world lacks balance. One individual stands at the apex and he distributes crums that the rest of us are supposed to subsist upon. And the worst part? Most people are fine with it. They are complacent, self-deceiving, and meek. They are so used to the piss-poor treatment that they’ve accepted it as the status quo. What we need is an event to unmask the Ghosthound for the selfish and deeply flawed individual that he is, and I think you are the key to doing it. You are the sort of character that can make a statement at the… volume that I need. I need your help.”

The way she said volume sounded to Merrick’s ears like violence. He perked up at that. However, he wasn’t a fool. He examined this squat and ugly woman with the powerful image, unsure how much to believe of what she said. “Who are you?”

“A businesswoman,” She responded wryly. Some of the pounding bass of her voice fell away. “You are familiar with flesh industries? I am the original founder and the one who has kept the business alive, even while the various Zones try and eradicate it. But why should we give up our greatest weapon?”

Merrick looked at her solemnly. Flesh industries referred to seedy establishments that allowed Classers to practice their Skills directly upon the bodies of other Classers, without any resistance from the other side. Sometimes without even needing to see the other’s face. Most people agreed that Skill Levels accumulated more quickly when practice involved another person, but it was more hotly contested whether actually striking flesh would provide benefits or whether there needed to be a challenge for benefits. Still, certain individuals loved it. Especially when the most common targets were no longer humans, but alien refugees.

For their own sadistic impulses, even if not for Skill Levels.

If she really has been around long enough to start the first flesh industries… that predates all the Zones joining together. She would need to be from either Zone 1 or 32. Merrick’s heart pounded. And that image proves she’s powerful, at the very least. If she can actually give me the opportunity to really validate myself-

But do I really want to tie myself to a woman who profits off violence against intelligent life?

Merrick was tempted. But he would never find out what sort of decision he would have made.

“Finally found you.”

A new voice echoed from the other end of the black canyon. Merrick spun around, flabbergasted that he hadn’t detected any movement. A slim woman with a Cheshire smile on her face and a bow over her shoulder stood there, with eyes only for the squat woman.

The mask wearer clicked her tongue, her smile finally fading. “Annie, has anyone ever told you that persistence can be quite tiresome? I finally thought you had given up. Don’t we all have better things to do?”

Annie’s smile widened and Merrick’s instincts urged him to flee as fast as his legs could carry him. Sweat beaded in his armpits, but exactly because of that feeling, adrenaline rushed through his veins. He wasn’t sure how he had ended up here, but the pressure the two women released on both sides of him was the real deal. Since he had stumbled into this genuine situation-

Annie’s eyes finally flickered to him. She smirked. “Stand aside, boy. This doesn’t concern you. You… don’t smell like her. Not a target.”

Merrick went cold.

“Now Annie, can’t I convince you to give me some time to reflect on my mistakes? You’ve been horrifyingly deadly in your pursuits of my subordinates.” The mask-wearer fluttered her eyelashes.

“Nope,” Annie didn’t even seem to move. One moment she stood with a hand on her hip, the next she was in perfect T-position, a knocked arrow in her bow. The weapon was trained on the squat woman. Her eyes burned with determination. “Too late for that.”

Luckily for Merrick, his body moved before his mind realized he had made his decision or else he would have been too late. The arrow arrived in front of him as he interposed himself and sweat soaked his shirt. He heard Annie curse and withdraw her image from the attack, so he only had to withstand the physical arrow. But when he crossed his arms to absorb the impact-

His left forearm fractured and he was hurtling through the air-

His back hit the stone wall of the canyon first, but the subsequent cracking of his skull against the dark rock left him dizzy and fuzzy over the details. When the static eventually began to fade, the squat woman was helping him to his feet.

Annie glared at him. “Why the hell would you involve yourself in this? That woman-”

“Acknowledged me,” Anger helped ground him. Merrick took a step forward. His arm snapped back into place as his Battle Healing began to activate. “And compared to your elitist shit, I much prefer that basic amount of respect.”

Annie blinked. Then she spat to the side. “Whatever, dude. It’s your fucking funeral.”