They lay there for a long while.
Chael was with his back against the frozen stone, his breath slow and shallow. His body ached down to the marrow with exhaustion clinging to him like a heavy shroud. His broken arm throbbed painfully and every movement sent fresh waves of agony through his nerves. His muscles, battered and torn, screamed in protest with every shallow rise and fall of his chest.
Echidna was worse.
She lay motionless beside him with her body curled slightly and her fingers twitching against the stone. Her breathing was ragged and uneven. The fight had nearly drained her completely. Unlike Chael, her body wasn't built for this. She wasn't a Harbinger. She didn't have the unnatural endurance, the enhanced strength and most importantly, the forced healing that had kept him standing through sheer willpower.
For a long while, neither of them spoke.
The silence stretched on, the only sound between them the distant howling of the wind through the ruined city.
Then, a ragged cough shattered the silence.
Echidna stirred. Her entire body shook violently as she pressed a hand to her chest. Her breathing was sharp and broken, and each exhale was filled with strain. She coughed again, harder this time with her shoulders trembling.
Chael turned his head slightly and watched her through the blurred reflections of the spearhead. Her face was twisted in discomfort, beads of sweat forming on her brow despite the biting cold.
Chael sat up slowly, ignoring the way his bones screamed in protest.
His instincts were still on edge. The fight had ended too abruptly. The Hollowed Choir - they had all stopped at once, turning toward something unseen before silently retreating back into the cathedral.
That wasn't coincidence.
Something had driven them away.
Chael exhaled, his breath misting in the frigid air. "They left for a reason."
Echidna, still hunched over, let out a low, bitter laugh between coughs. "Seems so."
Chael's blindfolded gaze shifted toward the vast open space ahead of them. His mind went back to the white city they had seen earlier when they had first arrived at Nytheril. That sprawling abyss which veiled in mist and stretched far below the cliffs.
That's when Chael saw it.
A rolling, thick and white fog.
The same white fog.
Chael's stomach twisted.
That massive white dragon which had met it ends to that monstrosity guarding the central mansion of the Yue Clan. It had come out from that same fog when they saw it initially. At first Chael had been oblivious to why that dragon had come out of the city in the first place.
But now the truth pressed against the back of his mind in a creeping, cold realization.
The dragon hadn't come from the fog. It had been escaping from it. Just like the Hollowed Choir just now.
Chael's expression darkened.
Far into the distance and rolling toward them like a creeping tide was a massive wave of snow-white fog that stretched out across the ruins and swallowed everything in its path. It moved unnaturally, not like regular mist but more like it was alive somehow.
"This… isn't good." Echidna, still catching her breath, slowly sat up. She followed his gaze, and when she saw the sheer immensity of the fog, a hollow chuckle escaped her lips.
"What a way to die," she muttered and wiped the sweat from her brow despite the freezing air.
Chael didn't answer. His mind was already racing.
He glanced around and assessed their surroundings, searching for anything at all. The massive cathedral stood behind them, its jagged edges rising into the sky and its towering walls untouched by time or ruin. Its doors were sealed shut.
Chael clenched his jaw. The fog was closing in fast.
He shifted his focus upward and scanned the cathedral's outer walls, its ledges and its jagged protrusions. His eyes narrowed at a little archway past what seemed to be a ledge a couple of metres above the giant statue. It was risky, but…
It was their only chance.
Echidna caught the look on his face and groaned, tilting her head back against the stone. "You're thinking of something crazy, aren't you?"
"Sun Tzu once said," Chael exhaled sharply, his breath visible in the freezing air as he forced himself to stand up, "'In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.'"
Echidna, still catching her breath, barely had the energy to move, let alone entertain whatever madness he was about to suggest. "You've already told me that."
Chael's blindfolded gaze lifted toward the towering walls of the cathedral. The jagged edges and the protruding stone architecture.
It was scalable. One single misstep - which they were very likely to make in their condition, may very well be the end of them.
"Let's climb," he said simply.
Echidna laughed bitterly. Not because it was funny, but because it was insane. She pushed herself up onto unsteady legs despite her body screaming in protest. She then asked incredulously, "Can we make it...?"
"I don't feel like dying today so I'll make it." Chael turned toward her, his expression ice-cold, "But you can die here if you want."
Echidna clenched her fists.
Chael was already moving.
Ignoring the pain in his body, he marched toward the base of the cathedral and felt along the wall with his fingers, searching for the best place to start.
He planted his foot against a lower ledge and tested the grip before pushing himself up. The jagged stone cut against his fingers as he reached upward, grabbing onto an uneven outcropping. His broken hand protested immediately, a fiery jolt of pain searing up his wrist, but he gritted his teeth and kept going.
Echidna let out a long, frustrated sigh.
"Oh well," she muttered under her breath before forcing her exhausted body to move. Her muscles were on fire, but she followed him anyway.
The first few feet were manageable. The stone was rough, uneven and perfect for climbing.
But the higher they got, the harder it became.
Chael relied heavily on his left arm, since his right was almost useless. Every movement sent blinding pain through his body, but he ignored it and pulled himself up inch by inch. The frigid wind howled around them and made each hold treacherous, his fingers barely able to feel the stone beneath them.
Echidna climbed just below him, her breathing ragged and her arms trembling from sheer exertion.
"You know," she muttered, "you're a living contradiction."
Chael grunted, focusing on finding the next ledge. "Yeah? And why's that?"
"You clearly don't care about living... I mean, you told me to kill you back at the hideout, and in that cave you were laughing like a mad man while you waited for that abomination to rip your head off... And yet here you are - climbing a damn cathedral to avoid death."
Chael grunted, his broken arm throbbing with every pull. He let the silence hang between them for a moment before growling through clenched teeth, "If fate wants me to die in that fog today… well, I don't feel like it."
Echidna glanced up at him with eyes flickering with something unreadable.
Then, she sighed, shaking her head. "Unbelievable."
They climbed higher, each movement harder than the last. The rough stone bit into their hands, their fingers growing raw, their shoulders burning with exhaustion. The cold was unbearable now. The higher they climbed, the more the wind battered against them as if trying to shake them loose.
Chael's grip slipped for half a second, his broken fingers failing him, and his heart lurched as he barely managed to catch himself on another ledge.
Then-
His boot slipped.
His balance wavered for half a second, and in the scramble to regain his footing, he accidentally stepped on Echidna's face.
A muffled snarl came from below.
"That's my face, you bastard!"
Chael stared down at her coldly. "Oops."
A second later, he deliberately pressed down again, grinding his boot against her face once more.
Echidna let out a murderous growl.
"What's that for?!"
Chael sneered. "That's for attacking me earlier."
Echidna would've bit his ankle and pulled him down but she didn't even have the strength or willpower to consider that.
"Spiteful bastard."
Through the burning pain, exhaustion and biting cold, they kept climbing.
The fog was much much closer now.