Chronicles of Deliverance from the Abyssal Realm

Volume One: Frost Spears Stained with Blood

Chapter One: A Broken Soul Bound to Snow

Snow is hard.

The shards of ice on Shi Zaiyuan's eyelashes dig painfully into his eyes. The coppery sweetness in his throat rolls like red-hot slag, and every breath brings the searing agony of lungs tearing apart. He lies face down in the snow, his fingers clawing into cracks in the frozen earth. Dark red scabs of blood fill the gaps beneath his nails, the marks left when his grip on the sword broke his skin moments ago. Three miles away, the walls of Yanmen Pass are little more than a hazy black silhouette in the blizzard. The smoke signals above the gate tower are ripped to shreds by the gale, just like the border troops' formation, which collapsed half an hour earlier.