Snowstorms had been raging across the Pamir Plateau for seven days straight. Leng Xuan lay prone on an icy ridge at an altitude of five thousand meters, the ice crystals on his eyelashes blurring his vision into a sheet of white. His breath frosted through his cold-weather mask, leaving a thin layer on the sunshade of his sniper scope. This was his third day in hiding. His body temperature had long since fallen below the threshold for normal bodily functions, yet his right index finger remained steadily on the trigger of Godslayer. The callus on his fingertip rested against the cool metal, as though exchanging a silent vow with an old companion. A fragment of the Sacred Covenant Forbidden Ruins embedded in the rifle gleamed faint gold beneath the snowlight
