Chapter 22 Wolf, Snow, and Wind

The night was quiet and empty of any annoying bugs rubbing their wings together, because of this Zhāng was afforded a peaceful and full rest over the seven hours he slept– his neck and body, however, were in pain and very difficult to move.

Cracking his neck for what felt like minutes, Zhāng put the coat back into his ring and prepared to dismantle the tent and ascend farther up on the mountain. Pulling the zipper up and over the door, he stuck his head out before stopping– there was a set of face-sized paws in front of the tent door.

Looking up slowly every cell in his body yelled run, yet his primal instincts left over from millions of years, demanded stillness as if playing dead– his eyes followed the white fur up until he found a wolf-like face staring into his eyes unblinking. The beast slowly moved his snout forward and sniffed the human in the face, as if completing what it desired or learned what it wanted it slowly and lazily got up and walked into the forest without looking back, Zhāng however almost pissed himself at the sight of a wolf so big that he would be able to stand under it; with muscles tight and tensed at the primal fear he fell back into the tent almost hyperventilating from not breathing for minutes.

Staying in the tent for half an hour he finally mustered the courage to pull the tent door back and look outside seeing nothing he slowly left, fully standing up he found no signs of the large wolf-like beast, his breathing had long since found an equilibrium yet he sighed out heavily.

Deciding to not even disassemble the tent he just stuffed it into the ring and began to leave, yet once leaving he rested his eyes on the tree the wolf used as a back scratcher, the fur stuck to the bark like it was glued onto it while also being spread at least ten feet into the tree well into the bole of the tree, around it multiple branches as thick as legs were snapped as if broken easily in the mere action of rubbing its back– if anything it gave him some insurance that if that thing wanted him dead then he would have died already.

Walking north up the mountain it was almost the same direction the wolf went being northeast making Zhāng constantly look in that direction for any wolf. Unfortunately, the snow and rock began to get more and more common while trees began to get less and less common. Putting on his trench coat his cooling body began to reverse into heating up, before reaching its own equilibrium against the brisk outdoors.

Walking up the mountain he quickly regretted giving his horse to the man, not only because of his sore legs but him also almost constantly being out of breath in the thinning air, adding on a fair dollop of Altitude Sickness he was regretting being on this godforsaken mountain in the first place.

'This better be the best teacher I could possibly have' Zhāng thought in his head while cursing himself for not bringing either Thaclops or Zhēnzhū who have the very convenient ability to FLY. However, distant water would not put out this fire so he didn't beat himself up to hard.

Finding himself in a see of snow and jagged rock, he could still see another ~2,500 feet until the summit. 400 feet later the winds began to eat at his face, another hour and the snow that was once sticking to the ground began to float in the air and flow with the wind, it was around here that the trench coat began to be less and less effective forcing Zhāng to truly consider leaving empty-handed, yet as fate would command only a few feet ahead he caught the glimpse of a man-made structure only another ~700 feet ahead on a peak to his left.

Pushing against the wind Zhāng slowly made his way to a large rock that would hopefully break the wind brutally pelting him. Resting his back on said rock his trench coat's enchantments and arrays got a break and could finally begin to heat up to a higher temperature than the equilibrium that was getting more and more in favor of the windchill. For almost thirty minutes he stared over the rock at that man-made structure giving him a goal to push to. Almost magically another 100 feet up the wind gave way to another problem a 200 ft sheer cliff, a task that would prove hard even for skilled rock climbers.

Looking at the cliff for minutes he looked for anything he could grab on to or place a foot on, yet such things were nonexistent, dropping on his butt with his back placed on the wall Zhāng felt defeated, and stupid for not preparing better– completely rubbing salt on the wound the wind which he thought disappeared began to once again speed up kicking snow into the air.

Unbeknownst to Zhāng two familiar faces both stalked him from afar while another few new ones also joined in, one in the distance and one above him, grabbing a side of the trench coat he pulled it over himself protecting his face. With snow stuck to his eyebrows, an unmistakable sound of whistling announced its self piercing through the deafening wind battering his ears like a ram to a door.