The forest stretched endlessly before Elsa, a vast graveyard of frozen corpses and shattered remnants. Ice and ash layered the ground, forming a stark contrast of white and black—a silent testament to her power. The air reeked of burned flesh and smoldering remains, the last echoes of her hunt fading into the wind.
She strolled through the carnage, her boots crunching against frozen bones and brittle frost. A beast lay at her feet, impaled clean through the chest, its blood frozen midair like shards of crimson glass. With a flick of her boot, she sent its lifeless body rolling aside, watching the ice crack where it landed.
Her expression remained unreadable, but beneath the surface, irritation simmered.
She had come far—too far.
A trail of bodies lay behind her, monsters of varying sizes, each one felled by her magic, their remains twisted into grotesque ice sculptures. She had killed so many, wasted so much time, yet—
Nothing.
Not a single rune.
Elsa exhaled slowly, her breath visible in the frigid air. Her crimson eyes flickered with an emotion she did not name.
She had known runes were rare. Even for someone like her, obtaining one was never easy. And yet, Grey had found one.
Her fingers dusted away the frost clinging to her gloves as she tilted her head, her thoughts quiet but sharp.
She had come far. Killed too much. Yet she had gained nothing.
Runes in the Mirror Realm were difficult to obtain—but not impossible. There were stories, scattered records of those who had carved power from the fallen, extracting the essence of monsters in ways no dungeon could replicate.
That was why people raided Mirror Realms instead of dungeons.
The risk was high, but the rewards…
Unpredictable.
Rare.
And Grey had been one of those cases.
Elsa didn't question it. She didn't even find it unfair. Some would call it luck.
"Luck?" she murmured, her voice barely above a whisper.
The thought almost made her smile.
If anything, Grey was truly lucky.
He had pulled a mid-rank rune from a Mirror Realm—something valuable.
Yet, the rune he currently held wasn't the same one he had obtained.
She had switched them.
Why?
Her lips curled—whether in amusement or calculation, even she wasn't sure.
She had her reasons.
Grey had a mindset she admired. His personality intrigued her. But above all, he was weak.
No matter how much she like him. it didn't change the fact that he is weak.
As he was now, he was useless to her. A burden.
Even if he successfully engraved a mid-rank rune, he would barely be on par with a B-rank hunter. And she knew the truth—his body, manaless and fragile, could only handle one more runes at most.
So instead of letting him settle for mediocrity, she had given him a high-rank rune—a rune so powerful that even S-rank hunters would kill for it.
Refining it would be nearly impossible. The sheer power would tear him apart from the inside out. But—
If he survived…
A glimmer of something flashed in her eyes.
With her guidance, he might just make it through.
The rune in her hand flickered as she turned it between her fingers before dismissing it back into her storage.
Had he noticed the switch? Had he even realized the weight of what he had received?
Her smirk deepened. It didn't matter.
She had done what was necessary. If he failed, then he was simply never meant to wield it.
Elsa exhaled, rolling her shoulders before casting one last glance at the frozen battlefield.
"I guess it's time I go back and help him refine the rune."
She stepped forward and vanished into thin air, her form flickering out like a candle snuffed by the wind.
When she reappeared, The cave loomed ahead, its entrance a jagged maw carved into the mountainside. Snow swirled violently behind Elsa as she stepped inside, the outside world vanishing behind a wall of silence.
The air was warmer here, thick with the lingering scent of smoke and blood. Faint embers still glowed in the remnants of a fire, casting long shadows against the stone walls.
Her boots barely made a sound as she walked in, her deep blue eyes scanning the space.
And there he was.
Grey sat against the rough stone, his body relaxed in a way that made it seem like he had all the time in the world. A dagger spun lazily between his fingers, flickering in the dim firelight. His black robe was torn at the sleeves, exposing pale skin streaked with dried blood. A few shallow wounds marked his arms—nothing serious, but enough to show that he hadn't been idle.
He barely acknowledged her presence.
Elsa's brows furrowed slightly. Something felt… off.
Her gaze sharpened as she stepped closer, her instincts prickling at the back of her mind.
And then she saw it.
The mark.
A tattoo burned into the side of his neck, faint yet unmistakable, curling like tongues of fire beneath his skin. The intricate design of flames, deep crimson and pulsing ever so slightly, as if alive.
Elsa froze.
Her heartbeat stilled for a fraction of a second.
Her beautiful eyes widened—not in slight surprise, but in something far more visceral.
'This—'
This wasn't possible.
Her voice, when she finally spoke, was unnervingly steady.
"Grey."
The dagger in his hand stopped spinning.
He blinked, golden eyes flickering toward her, calm and unreadable.
"Hm?"
Elsa took another step forward, her gaze locked onto his neck, onto the proof of the impossible.
"What did you do?"
Grey arched a brow, tilting his head slightly. There was no tension in his body, no hesitation in his voice.
"What do you mean?"
Elsa's expression didn't shift, but inside, her thoughts were a storm.
The tattoo—the rune—it wasn't something that should be there. It wasn't something that could be there.
Her breath came slow and measured.
"The mark on your neck."
At this, Grey exhaled through his nose, lifting a hand to brush his fingers over the faint lines of the tattoo.
"Ah. That."
Elsa's eyes narrowed. That? That was all he had to say?
A pause.
Then, in that same indifferent tone, he said—
"I refined the rune you gave me"
"..."
The silence that followed was suffocating.