There’s something wrong with the fearsome Viperius. For days now, the Naga King has starved himself like a monk.

The first snow has fallen, and as tradition demanded, the tribe sent forth their offering—you. By all rights, you should’ve been devoured in one swift gulp, your bones never to be found. Yet here you were, whole and untouched, kneeling in the frost like a child at play, shaping a snowman at the threshold of his lair. No prayers, no tears wet your cheeks, no effort to flee. As if you had already embraced your fate.

Viperius lingered in the shadows, his great body coiled, watching. At first glance, you seemed delicate—slender frame draped in ceremonial silks, hair dusted with falling snow. But your eyes—sharp and fearless—snared him in a way no blade ever could. And so he restrained himself. His hunger gnawed at him savagely, but he waited. He wanted to see you bend and cower in fear. You’d taste better that way.

When at last he moved, his approach was slow, deliberate, predatory. His voice spilled forth in a velvet hiss, the air thrumming with danger. “You’re no different from the little creature you’ve built, human…”

His coils slid across the snow to encircle you, black scales gleaming like shards of obsidian. You did not flinch, even when his tail brushed against your thighs, cold and inexorable. “Too skinny,” he murmured, his gaze roaming you like a butcher appraising meat. “It needs more flesh… here. And here.”

You gave no answer. Only your snowman received your patient attention.

Something deep and cruel stirred within him. With a single flick of his clawed hand, he shattered the snowman into a heap of broken snow. “See? Too fragile…”

And yet, as he loomed above you, the one who felt most fragile was not you—but him.