Chapter 898: Finding Frey

The portal opened by Yggdrasil disappeared behind Vergil almost the instant he crossed through.

The first impact was not physical.

It was the absence.

There was no wind.

No smell of vegetation, water, metal, blood, or anything that resembled life.

The entire ground of that world seemed to be made from the remains of everything that had ever died there.

Gray ash covered the surface in every direction, fine as the dust of burned bones and deep enough to partially swallow his boots with every step.

In some places, small dunes had formed, but even they seemed motionless, as if even the concept of wind did not function properly in that place.

Vergil raised his eyes.

The sky was completely black.

Not nighttime.

Black.

There were no stars, moon, clouds, or any visible source of light.

Even so, he could see perfectly.

Every irregularity in the terrain, every small mound of ash, every mark on the ground stood clear before his eyes, as if that world did not depend on light to be seen.

It was an unpleasant sensation.

It did not feel like darkness.

It felt as though the very idea of illumination had ended.

Vergil let out a long sigh and looked at the ground.

Footprints.

Many of them.

All belonging to the same person.

They followed a single direction across a distance that vanished into the gray horizon.

Vergil crouched and examined the marks.

Some were deep.

Others barely visible.

At several points, one foot had dragged across the ground for dozens of centimeters before being lifted again.

He stared at them for several seconds.

"What the fuck is that idiot Frey doing?"

The answer came immediately from inside his soul.

Nivara spoke first.

"Judging by the pattern of the tracks, he is not walking normally."

Vergil followed a particularly irregular sequence with his eyes.

"I noticed."

"His stride is far too short for someone of his height. His feet are dragging, his weight falls forward almost constantly, and there is no balance correction when the terrain changes."

Nivara’s voice remained cold and analytical.

"Conscious people do not leave this type of pattern for this long."

Vergil frowned.

"A trance?"

"Possibly."

Crymsaria interrupted.

"There’s something else."

Vergil turned his head slightly, even though he knew she was not physically beside him.

"What?"

"Smell."

"You’re inside me."

"I still have senses."

Vergil decided not to argue with the logic.

Crymsaria continued.

"There’s something strange soaked into the tracks. It isn’t just his scent. It smells... old."

"Old?"

"Too old."

Nivara asked:

"Energy?"

"Not exactly."

Crymsaria remained silent for several seconds, trying to define it more clearly.

"It’s like he walked inside something for long enough that it started sticking to him."

Vergil straightened.

He did not like that.

He opened all six wings.

The first beat raised a small cloud of ash that climbed only a few meters before dropping again.

Vergil gained altitude and followed the direction of the footprints, staying low enough not to lose the trail.

His speed made it impossible to follow every individual mark, but the line was far too consistent to lose.

Frey had not deviated.

Had not stopped.

Had not gone back.

He had only walked.

Forward.

Always forward.

Hours passed.

Vergil increased his speed several times, but the Inverted World of Exile seemed to react poorly to extreme movement.

Distances shifted subtly whenever he accelerated too much.

Small gray mountains appeared where none had existed before, and sometimes the horizon seemed to move farther away instead of drawing closer.

The only truly reliable reference remained the footprints.

So he slowed down.

Nivara and Crymsaria continued arguing.

"He may have lost consciousness a long time ago," Nivara said.

Crymsaria immediately disagreed.

"If he were completely unconscious, he would have fallen."

"A trance does not mean an absence of motor function."

"But something has to direct him."

"Not necessarily."

"So he’s walking because his body decided to?"

"Bodies perform automatic actions."

"For hours?"

"Perhaps for days."

"That’s stupid."

"Your inability to understand a phenomenon does not make it stupid."

"You call everything I don’t understand a phenomenon."

"Because it almost always is."

Vergil continued flying in silence, listening to them.

"It could be hunger," Crymsaria said.

Nivara replied:

"Hunger does not produce this degree of regularity."

"It could if he’s delirious."

"That would be irregular."

"You’re irregular."

"That is not even an argument."

"It worked."

"No."

Vergil finally spoke.

"Are you two planning to keep arguing until we find him?"

Both fell silent for several seconds.

Crymsaria answered:

"Probably."

Vergil sighed.

He kept flying.

Another hour.

Then another.

The scenery never changed.

Ash.

Black.

Silence.

Footprints.

There were not even clear signs of creatures in that region.

No corpses.

No recent ruins.

Nothing indicating that anyone besides Frey had passed through there.

Then Itharine spoke.

"Vergil."

He immediately slowed down.

Her tone was different.

"I’m listening."

"I sense someone ahead."

Nivara and Crymsaria fell silent.

Vergil focused his perception.

At first, he felt nothing.

Then he noticed it.

A weak signature.

So weak it nearly blended into the world itself.

Life.

There was still life there.

"Itharine?"

"It’s him."

Vergil instinctively accelerated.

"Slowly."

He stopped increasing his speed.

Itharine continued.

"Something is wrong. His presence fluctuates too much. If you approach too quickly, you may trigger a reaction."

Vergil partially folded his wings and began descending.

"How far?"

"A few kilometers."

He landed.

His boots sank into the ash.

From there, he continued on foot.

The footprints became deeper.

And more irregular.

At several points, Frey seemed to have stumbled.

There were marks from knees in the ground, fingers dragged through the ash, then new footprints beginning a few meters farther ahead.

He fell.

Got up.

Kept going.

Vergil walked faster.

Then he saw something on the horizon.

A figure.

Small.

Bent forward.

Moving slowly.

Vergil narrowed his eyes.

The man was walking while nearly dragging his feet.

Every step seemed to require an absurd amount of effort.

His shoulders leaned forward, his arms hung nearly lifeless at his sides, and his head remained lowered.

His clothes had been reduced to dirty, torn scraps, covered in the same gray ash as the world around him.

Vergil stopped.

That did not look like Frey.

Not the Frey he knew.

He approached a few more meters.

The figure kept walking.

No reaction.

Vergil began noticing the details.

Frey was thin.

Not merely thin.

Skeletal.

His skin looked stretched directly over bone, dry and thin like old leather.

His ribs stood out completely across his chest.

His arms had lost nearly all muscle mass, and his hands resembled human claws from the way the bony fingers curled.

His face had sunken inward, cheeks completely hollow, lips cracked.

He looked as though he had not eaten in a hundred years.

Maybe more.

His hair, once well kept, had grown long, dirty, and tangled with ash.

Some strands had lost their color.

An uneven beard covered part of his jaw, making his face look even older.

But the eyes were what bothered Vergil most.

Dead.

Not literally.

There was still life.

But there was no presence in them.

Frey stared forward without actually seeing anything.

His pupils barely reacted.

His expression was empty, absent, as if the man kept walking only because some ancient instruction still functioned inside a body that should have stopped long ago.

Vergil felt his chest tighten.

Frey looked as though he had aged a thousand years.

There was no resemblance to the god who argued, provoked, laughed, or displayed pride.

This was a mummy that had not yet received permission to collapse.

Vergil stepped closer.

Frey continued forward.

Another step.

Nothing.

Vergil finally stopped directly in his path.

The man did not move around him.

He kept walking.

Vergil had to place one hand on the skeletal shoulder to stop Frey from simply walking into him.

The contact made Frey stop.

For several seconds, nothing happened.

Then, very slowly, his head rose.

The dead eyes met Vergil’s.

No recognition appeared.

Vergil stared at him.

All the irritation he had felt hours earlier disappeared.

"Frey."

"Frey."

The name elicited no immediate reaction. The god continued to stare at Vergil with vacant eyes, his head slightly tilted and his body so frail that it seemed impossible he was still standing. Beneath Vergil’s hand, the shoulder was little more than bone covered by a thin layer of parched skin. There was none of the natural resilience of a divine body, nor the vitality Vergil had expected to find in Freya’s brother. Yet, something was still functioning. The heart beat slowly. The soul remained tethered to the body. And, most importantly, an almost absurd strength sustained that existence, even after everything the Inverted World had done to it.

Frey tried to take another step.

Vergil didn’t move out of the way.

The skeletal man bumped into his chest, stopped, and stood motionless for a moment. Then, he tried to go around to the left.

Vergil moved to the left as well.

Frey tried the right.

Vergil mirrored the move.

To the left again.

Vergil followed suit.

After the third attempt, Nivara spoke within his soul with clinical detachment: "He isn’t reacting to *you*. He’s reacting to the obstacle."

Crymsaria seemed far less comfortable with the situation. "This isn’t a normal trance. Look at him. His eyes won’t even focus."

Vergil gripped Frey by both shoulders and forced him to stand still. "Frey. That’s enough. Wake up."