Rudolph’s heavy boots clapped down upon the barren soil.

Dust scattered, his shroud moved, twisted in the night wind.

His eyes pierced the shadows as tiny winged women flocked around him tens to hundreds of thousands strong in number.

His Ash scattered out seeking the slightest sign of that being’s shadow.

His eyes were closed, there was no meaning to using them here, not with his Ash covering the land.

Traces of leaked power lured him forward.

That creature, the ghostly rogue Einherjar who had long ago gifted him power, was clearly “bleeding” in some respect.

He frowned as he thought over what Rognir had told him back when they’d met.

His life benefactor was an Einherjar to the sealed Authun and their kind by nature cannot survive independently from their Vanir master.

Thus this leaking Ash was, at least in his eyes, no different from the blood bled by mortal men.

He asked himself as he wandered ever forward, did this creature kill unwillingly? Was it just trying desperately to sustain its ever dwindling candle of life?

He could not hate it, as he was sure its victims did, for it had given him the life he lived.

Wedding Melany, fathering Rusalka, becoming a scholar, all these things were thanks to his Platinum Class power, a power this being had gifted him.

He paused his steps, opened his eyes and then peered forward.

The area before him supported the birth of green grasses here and there, slowly but surely he was coming into a place where humans could sustain themselves.

That thing’s trail lingered there, it was seeking out that place.

He frowned and then exhaled his grief with a hefty sigh.

Indeed, it would seem that the Einherjar he owed his life to was like a man starved into insanity, forced to feed while he could not help but bleed.

Rudolph had lived a short but eventful life, he knew the maddening agony of true hunger and he knew the cold sensation of a body bleeding dry.

He had experienced both.

What his benefactor seemed to be going through was the Yggdrasil Race's equivalent.

They were bodies made of Ash, being that fed on Ash, and now this one was both bleeding and starving for it.

“Should I save him, stop him...or put him out of his misery? Which option is best...and which one is worst?” He muttered to himself as he wandered ever forward.

He stumbled upon a small ruin as the first sign of dawn appeared on the horizon.

Rivers of blood lingered here, there were countless men and women whose bodies had been torn to shreds.

Haphazard was the best word for it, these were not premeditated killings, they were barely even the acts of a beast.

The corpses were slain in a manner that could only be called desperate, like a starving cornered wolf taking on a bear.

He heard the sounds of crying children and found them hidden in the ruined remains of three large homes.

The creature had not noticed them, or perhaps it just did not care.

“Given how far he’s been pushed, I doubt it’s mercy,” Rudolph realised, “He’s sparing them because their Ash isn’t fully mature, it’d take more effort to kill them than the reward is worth.”

He frowned heavily and felt a cold sweat drip down his spine.

There in the plaza it sat within a small vortex of Ash, the children’s nightmare.

He saw his benefactor who now bore a form vaguely more human than before.

He could make out enough, just enough, to realise that the figure before him was more masculine than feminine, albeit a rather lean example.

The entity raised its head, one of the tiny winged women who served as Rudolph’s avatars approached him, she stared him in the eye with a curious gaze.

The creature hugged its head like a scolded child.

Rudolph stood there, unmoving as the creature’s nails clawed into its own vaguely defined scalp.

He heard a sound in the wind and closed his eyes to hear it.

“Is he...crying?” He asked himself.

Then he opened his eyes.

He looked forward to see the creature staring back at him.

He was on guard, he had to be, for he knew how ruthless this creature could be.

He did his best not to appear even vaguely threatening.

However sometimes things just will not go your way, no matter how hard you try.

The creature turned its head in alarm.

Rudolph opened his eyes in panic as the sound of a child’s feet splashed down into the mud.

The creature shielded itself as a sword swept forward.

Rudolph trembled, he leapt back and cried out,

“Stop!” But it did not stop the boy.

With a shout of grief and rage the child struck.

The sword shattered, it accomplished nothing but startling the creature.

Within that brief moment, the Einherjar’s eyes turned cold.

All fear and sorrow was banished from its bearing.

Rudolph could not help but feel deathly afraid of that gaze.

He called out to his familiars who then amassed their bodies around the children like protective shields, but he could do nothing about that one child who still continued to swing at the creature with all his might.

His broken sword didn’t even bother the beast, it did nothing to fight back until the sword simply shattered against its frame. The child stumbled as the Einherjar stood up.

The vortex of Ash around the beast violently closed in just as Rudolph’s familiars caught up with them.

“Stupid kid!” The man roared as his familiars smashed into the child and the Einherjar both, forcing them apart.

That act saved the brat’s life, but Rudolph didn’t have the leeway to feel the least bit happy about that right now.

The Einherjar who once ignored him smashed the ground with tremendous force.

Ash scattered everywhere and captured the bodies of Rudolph’s familiars before dragging them back in its imploding centre.

The earth shook, a low tremble signalled the moment when the Einherjar regained his humanoid shape.

Rudolph’s familiars amassed around them like a hurricane, a giant wall of pitch black.

The Einherjar crawled on the ground, he was clearly injured, his eyes were wide from shock but for only a moment before being overcome once more with clarity.

The beast then turned his gaze upon Rudolph.

The man sensed that it remembered him now, it saw his Ash, Ash it had once granted him.

What it bestowed was not power of the direct sort, but potential, Rudolph had grown up to become a Platinum Class thanks to that gift.

How could it not recognise that aura?

With a pondering gaze the creature turned to him.

Rudolph felt a trembling in his heart.

The Ash which had obeyed him all these years suddenly stopped with no warning.

That power acted as if it had found its true master and was seeking to return to him.

The man fell to his knees from the shock, both his mind and body were in agony.

The Ash wrought havoc upon his flesh, his bones creaked as if to break but in the end, through the pain, his mind managed to become frighteningly clear.

He glared towards the creature.

He had thought it incapable of premeditated acts, and he was not wholly wrong in that, but the moments just after feeding would bring it an obvious sense of clarity.

“I see,” He said.

His familiars swarmed around him, their Ash poured into him and his to them in turn.

The Einherjar’s will was a God’s will, ignore the 'Lesser' in its title, it could not be resisted by any means.

However, Rudolph's unique situation meant that it could ironically be erased entirely instead.

Soon the overwhelming sea of Ash from these familiars drowned the root of the Einherjar’s will that had long buried itself inside of Rudolph’s being, they isolated and expelled it.

The Einherjar lowered its arm, its eyes displayed an emotion not far from intrigue, it even seemed impressed to a degree.

“You let the children live because their Ash is immature...but then you plant a portion of your power into them, allowing them to grow up to be Platinum Class. You do this knowing the deep hatred they feel towards you will lead to them seeking vengeance in ten or twenty years. You do this knowing that you can use the root you left inside their bodies, the very origin of the talent they’ve grown to possess, to rip away their Ash without a struggle.”

Rudolph thought back to the last settlement this beast ransacked, and then he thought of his own childhood too.

The creature's behaviour was consistent throughout, though it did not murder children he now understood that it was not sparing them for the sake of mercy alone.

Resolve then appeared where doubt had lived before, he faced down the Einherjar, his “benefactor”, and for the first time saw only an enemy.

“I’ve made my choice,” He said, “I must stop you...at any cost.”

The Einherjar turned its head in a quizzical manner, it stared at its arm as the Ash around it finally finished congealing there.

The faint outline of a once human face appeared before Rudolph, who stepped forward without a trace of hesitation.

“I know you understood me just now,” He said.

The Einherjar frowned, it looked towards him, then it looked beyond him.

Rudolph paused, he didn’t believe this creature would try to pull the oldest fake out in history on him but his familiars acted as his eyes and they beheld a frightful aura coming from their backs.

White Ash powerful enough to eclipse the Einherjar that stood before him was slowly encroaching upon this place from a visible distance.

The Einherjar turned, it lost all interest in Rudolph and then hurriedly leapt into the horizon.

“Stop!” The scholar shouted, but he knew it was for naught.

The Einherjar before him had judged that the one approaching from behind wasn’t someone it could deal with as it was.

Rudolph then turned to face that aura, which was approaching even now.

The Ash passed overhead, a titanic vortex, a hurricane in the heavens, it passed him by.

He frowned as he saw the figure dwelling within its eye.

That figure was a woman; her face, hair and even her clothes all closely resembled the male figure he’d just chased away.

They were kin, perhaps? Maybe even siblings in life? However this woman was noticeably far more powerful than her counterpart.

Rudolph didn’t hide, nor did he run, he could tell it wouldn’t do any good to even try.

The woman saw him, she must have noticed him long before he had noticed her.

The visible portion of that vortex betrayed the existence of a far larger invisible portion, and all of that was her body.

Everything even close to that was within her perceptive range, he doubted he was seeing even a hundredth of it.

He was a gnat as far as she was concerned, his entire existence was an irrelevant and minuscule thing.

He watched on like so as the storm passed by steady and slow, only when it was well and truly away did he allow his legs to lose their strength.

“What the hell?” He said, struggling to breathe, “Who...is that? Why are they here?”

He couldn’t understand.

Rognir hadn’t said anything about that thing, that woman was a completely unexpected, not to mention unwelcomed, surprise.

He sat down, his back leaned heavy against the shattered remains of a homestead.

Time passed, enough to help him regain his composure.

The sun was fully lit then, and the storm had long passed, it all felt like a fleeting dream.

His mind was calm now, if still a bit exhausted.

“Questions, questions, questions...and no answers,” He muttered.

Then, a moment later, he heard the sound of a rock clacking lightly as it fell down into the ditch.

The Scholar turned his gaze upon that place where the children lay.

He frowned, but then he stood up.

He couldn’t just let them stay here.

Reluctant as he was to part with their power, he sent a set number of familiars to their side.

Those familiars did as their kin had before them; they became the children’s guide.

“It’s a good thing I’m the one who found them,” He muttered as he looked off into the distance, “Nobody else could’ve saved them from...whatever that was.”

The Einherjar’s image remained burned in his mind.

He couldn’t forget about that dangerous second one either.

She didn’t seem to care about him, or any of them for that matter, but she frightened him, her power made it so.

He had no idea what was going on anymore, no idea at all, but he did know what he had to do and that was more often than not enough.

“You’ll regret eating my familiars,” He smiled coldly as he traced the steps of the male Einherjar.

Though it took erratic movements to escape from its pursuer, it couldn’t shake him, not after consuming his familiars, who even now remained as one with him.

He didn’t know why that second Einherjar was chasing the first, but he did know he could get to him before her.