survival

The fox never gave in eventually killing two of our number, the husband and wife, I never bothered to even learn their names, and now they're dead.

The fox seemed somewhat appeased by their passing either that or it was getting tired as the frequency of icicles was getting sparser. The only reason the rest of us live this long was because the fox was messing with us, prancing around erratically firing off deadly attacks capable of rendering flesh into pulp.

It was completely one-sided, us running around haphazardly with no sense of direction at all, it playing a game. We ran into the forest, I saw the couple die out in the open stretches of the road and along the way through the forest, id lost sight of the others.

The owner was flagging behind since the beginning of the game, Paulson, Gavon, and the ordinary man, were all incapable of keeping pace with me and were thus all lost however, my advantage in speed has been my apparent downfall as the fox focused all its attention on playing with me.

The fox's shadow was fleeting, only leaving stark white streaks through the forest, occasionally, the fox would disappear affording me a brief reprieve before reappearing in the shadows to fire icicles at my limbs, it was phantasmal.

After running me ragged it seemed to have set its mind to ending me, as three icicles simultaneously formed around it, one aimed for my heart, another for my head, and the last for my heart again, at this point I was breathlessly panting and collapsed on the floor however I was happy, it was time for revenge, just before the icicles were fired and I was turned into an impromptu pin cushion, I reached into my bag slung over my shoulder, it was relatively light after the five days' worth of depletion, pulling out the old silver mirror.

Mirrors hold a strong spiritual importance; they are said to be a gateway and path to the profound spiritual dimension, a parallel plane abundant in the unknown, that's why certain researchers started developing methods to strengthen the connection between mirrors and the unknown, the result was the soul prier mirror, despite its name it was unable to pry into the inner workings of the soul, only scraping the surface.

This mirror was also used in the demon summoning ritual that created me, possibly being one of the reasons the ritual failed, it's known abilities included, showing the emotions of the person it's pointed at, it displays this emotion through colour, as well as deflecting, it could deflect and redirect force, at a price, however, using this ability would deal a proportional force onto its surface.

I held the mirror with both hands outstretched, the icicles were fired, but oddly enough collision occurred, strangely when the icicle was about to harmlessly pass the mirror, it drew them into itself and a silent ripple passed its surface as instantly after, three more icicles were shot out the mirror the very same ones that entered, just before.

The fox seemingly caught off guard by this development just stood there as two of the icicles missed it, shooting overhead and felling some stray trees, the last one, however, shot straight and true puncturing a hole in its thick hide, blood started welling, dripping down the limp icicle onto the snow forming around its paws, its pristine white fur was dyed crimson.

Unknown to the afflicted beast, the glass constituting the surface of the mirror started fracturing, shattering into tiny pieces.

The fox in terror looked one last time before running away, not before shooting one last icicle my way, the last icicle grassed my leg, forming a long thin laceration across my thigh and searing pain, just as the fox disappeared into the tree line, the mirror shattered fully, fragile shards of glass cascading onto the melting snow, light refracted and lit up the small woodland in a rainbow of colour.

Sadly, the light show was fleeting as the glass embedded itself into the snow, as for the mirror's frame nothing happened, I lay in the snow beside the remanet of the mirror, a gift from the empire upon our defeat to remind us of our own weakness, now destroyed.

A garnering hope to restore my family's might, through my own hands, one limping step at a time. Like that I lay there, fanciful whims swelling my head, until blood, the blood seeping out of my two wounds and my own tiredness caused me to lapse into unconsciousness.

...

I woke up feeling numb, and sticky.

I tried moving however I only managed to sit up, looking at myself I saw blood, centering from a cut across my thigh and another similar one by my rib just below the grimoire, both on my left side, other than the congealing blood there was a faint mist of water droplets, most likely from the ice and snow.

A while later I tried moving again this time succeeding, getting onto my feet, hastily I checked my wounds, they were still healing but luckily due to my enhanced physique the damage wouldn't be permanent, and it wasn't likely they would end up infected, muddleheadedly I tried to remember the way back to the road, I could not. Thankfully I still have the chip, so I used it to map together my fragmented memories from the fight and find a way back to the roadway.

Successfully I found a route back, but it would take an hour to travel in my normal healthy state, in my current condition the time would be extended to just over two hours, so with no other choice, I snapped the branch of a tree using it as a crutch to wearily make my way back to the established path.

After walking for two full hours, I finally reached the straight clearing making up the path, the others were nowhere to be seen, and not even the carriage remained, so either the others had returned assuming me dead they left, or we had been robed, other than that there were still signs of the tumultuous battle, mainly the puddle of blood from the deceased couple, but no body, no corpse.