Chapter 69: Ice Flower – Thousand-Year Ice Essence
After receiving word from Cold Blade Blood, the Bright Cult sent physicians rushing from the Fifth Elder’s Chamber, and treatnt began for the First Squad Leader, who had been left in a grueso state, as well as those who had been taken prisoner.
Fortunately, the condition of First Squad Leader Myeongho recovered rapidly. The injuries that had looked so horrific were all external wounds.
However, Ghost Demon’s condition did not improve.
The cause was the Force Energy that had flowed through the blade of the Warrior Chief when it pierced his shoulder.
Force Energy was the condensed essence of internal energy. With that Force Energy flowing as the blade dug into Ghost Demon’s shoulder, the Warrior Chief’s completely different internal energy had effectively invaded Ghost Demon’s body.
In other words, it was no different from having suffered an internal energy penetration injury.
As agonizing ti passed, the Poison Demon, in whom they had placed their hopes, finally arrived—but even he failed to restore Ghost Demon.
The internal injuries were deep, too much blood had already been lost, and the functions of all the internal organs had declined; on top of that, the ti he had been left unattended had been too long.
The Poison Demon concluded that Ghost Demon likely had no more than three or four days left.
Yul Han’s despair deepened.
Late at night, after people had fallen asleep amid dejection and sighs, there was a small movent where Ghost Demon lay.
And then, the next day.
Ghost Demon had vanished without a trace. Given that Ghost Demon could barely even speak, let alone move, there was no way he could have gone on his own. Everyone agreed that soone must have taken him away.
Soon after, it was reported that the Lu Tribe’s Warrior Chief was nowhere to be seen in the village.
Among the Lu Tribe warriors, rumors spread that before Ghost Demon died, the Warrior Chief intended to exercise the victor’s right.
After all, it had been the Warrior Chief who captured Ghost Demon.
Upon hearing this, Iron Demon’s rage shot through the sky.
He raged that they should seize the Warrior Chief imdiately and beat him to death.
But for so reason, Yul Han said nothing.
Among the countless peaks lining the Heavenly Mountains, there were many places with ice walls.
They were ford as water flowing down from the peaks froze, or as snow lted by the dayti sun repeatedly refroze in the cold night air.
Among those ice walls was one the Lu Tribe called the Wall of God.
According to Lu Tribe mythology, the son of a god, pitying the Lu Tribe who were being slaughtered by monsters east of the Heavenly Mountains, descended, taught them martial arts, and created martial techniques for them.
Leaving aside whether the myth was true, there was no room for doubt that all the martial arts and weapon techniques used by the tribe had originated from the Wall of God.
This was because drawings akin to secret manuals still remained intact within the Wall of God.
After passing through the Lu Tribe’s barrier—sothing that in the Central Plains would likely be called a formation—the Warrior Chief entered a cave opened behind the Wall of God and carefully laid Ghost Demon down on the ground.
Ghost Demon’s breathing was faint and irregular, and he seed unable to properly recognize where he was.
The Warrior Chief stared down at him for a mont, then began to move.
At the upper reaches where the ice wall began, fully exposed to the piercing mountain winds of the Heavenly Mountains, grew sothing the Lu Tribe called the Ice Flower.
Though called a flower, it was not a plant. It was a kind of icicle that absorbed the cold of the ice wall unceasingly and grew, little by little.
However, unlike ordinary icicles that grew downward, it grew upward from below.
And unlike long, slender icicles, it jutted out sharply in all directions. Its shape resembled a flower, hence the na “Ice Flower.”
Climbing the slippery, towering ice wall by driving his hands into it, the Warrior Chief reached out and touched the Ice Flower.
Recalling the curse handed down in Lu Tribe legend, the Warrior Chief hesitated for a mont—then, as if having made up his mind, he plucked the Ice Flower.
At that instant—
Ruuuumble.
The entire ice wall shuddered and collapsed.
Clutching the Ice Flower, the Warrior Chief’s body fell helplessly along with the crumbling debris of the ice wall.
Crawling back toward Ghost Demon, the Warrior Chief’s entire body was in ruins. Sharp shards of ice had torn into him from all sides.
Before even the wounds inflicted by Yul Han had healed, he had suffered far more injuries, leaving his condition critical.
Even so, the Warrior Chief stubbornly crawled forward and placed the Ice Flower on Ghost Demon’s glabella.
“Defeated, yet victorious one. May the will of the god remain with you.”
Muttering those incomprehensible words, the Warrior Chief lost consciousness.
He had not even managed to withdraw the hand that had placed the Ice Flower on Ghost Demon’s brow.
It showed just how desperately he had exhausted himself.
True to its nature as an Ice Flower that did not lt from human body heat, it maintained its form despite the warmth spreading across Ghost Demon’s brow and the warmth transmitted through the Warrior Chief’s fingertips.
Thus, night fell.
With the ice wall collapsed, cold winds blew directly into the cave.
At the mont when it seed they would freeze to death before their breaths gave out, the moonlight shining into the cave entrance gradually shifted and touched the Ice Flower.
The Ice Flower suddenly began to glow. The cave filled entirely with moonlight reflected by the Ice Flower.
The cave walls that received that light—the drawings of secret manuals—began to radiate light as well.
After a while, the drawings on the cave walls seed to rise up and be absorbed, vanishing into the Ice Flower.
Then, the Ice Flower began to lt.
At so point, Ghost Demon and the Warrior Chief were sitting cross-legged, and the image of the Ice Flower appeared and disappeared on their glabellas.
Ghost Demon’s was large and brilliant, while the Warrior Chief’s was small and unimpressive.
Even so, it granted the Warrior Chief enough miraculous power to completely heal the countless wounds he had suffered.
What happened to Ghost Demon was entirely different from what happened to the Warrior Chief.
Setting aside the sharply increased internal energy, countless martial arts he had never even heard of in his lifeti began to surface endlessly in his mind.
When I calmly reflected on it, not only were the martial arts the Warrior Chief had perford in the last battle contained within it, but all the martial arts used by the Lu Tribe were there as well.
Suppressing his surprise and confusion, Ghost Demon opened his eyes. An icy chill flickered through his gaze like frozen steel, then vanished.
The injuries that had left him unable to move, let alone speak properly, were gone as if they had been washed away.
When Ghost Demon slowly rose to his feet, his movents were actually better than before.
Smiling faintly at that, Ghost Demon turned to look at the Warrior Chief, who was still sitting cross-legged.
At this mont, it felt as though he could snap the man’s neck and kill him with a single flick of his hand.
After all, even his forr self would not have found it difficult to kill soone circulating energy.
Even so, Ghost Demon did not raise a hand.
It was because, amid his flickering consciousness, he rembered seeing the Warrior Chief place sothing on his glabella.
No matter how he looked at it, he could not deny that it had saved his life.
After watching him for a while, the Warrior Chief’s eyes opened.
The gazes of the two t in empty space.
After staring intently for a long mont, Ghost Demon asked,
“Why? Why did you save ?”
“You were… defeated, yet victorious.”
“What kind of bullshit is that?”
At Ghost Demon’s sharply rising question, the Warrior Chief answered.
“Yul Han, or rather, your companion, said this. Might Makes Right. The victor decides everything.”
In that instant, a mory surfaced of briefly glimpsing the Vice Cult Leader of the Demonic Cult.
He had thought it was a hallucination born of his wish for the Vice Cult Leader to rush in and smash that damned bastard to pieces—but it seed it had not been a dream.
Only then did he feel at ease.
If the Vice Cult Leader had co, then the Warrior Chief or the Lu Tribe would be nothing at all.
With that ease ca a wider field of vision, and his thoughts expanded.
“So? Did the Vice Cult Leader order you to save ?”
“He rely spared and the warriors of my tribe who were defeated.”
To be honest, that was not all. When the Warrior Chief had been standing there, lost in despair at the words that the victor decides everything, Yul Han had approached him and said sothing.
That day, as he watched the won and children wailing during the Ritual of Defeat, the Warrior Chief could say nothing.
A defeated tribe was all slaughtered by the victorious tribe.
It was the victor’s right.
Those who were defeated yet survived lived lives worse than beasts.
They were forced to dwell with dogs and pigs, eat what they ate, and continue a wretched existence as slaves.
So death was, if anything, honor.
But…
At Yul Han’s words that followed, the Warrior Chief felt as though his head had been struck violently by sothing.
Looking down at him, Yul Han had continued.
Those words—“you are wrong”—never left the Warrior Chief’s mind.
That winning ant you had to kill without exception.
That losing ant you had to die aninglessly.
All of it was wrong.
And all of it had begun with the one now standing before him, looking at him.
That was why he had wanted him to live.
What was more, he had even felt that if this man lived, his tribespeople and warriors might all survive intact under the hand of Yul Han.
If only he could save him—this one called Ghost Demon—him who had been defeated yet was no different from a victor.
That was why he had reached for the Ice Flower, even knowing the curse handed down like legend among his tribe.
Holding all those stories in his heart, the Warrior Chief spoke only of Might Makes Right, the law of the victor.
And yet—
Snort.
At those words, a smile touched Ghost Demon’s lips.
“You little bastard. You sure talk fancy. In the end, you got smashed by the Vice Cult Leader and saved because you wanted to live, right?”
It was different—but not wrong.
Yes. It was not wrong.
Turning his gaze away from the Warrior Chief, who nodded silently, Ghost Demon looked at the moon visible outside the cave and said,
“The moonlight’s nice.”
He tossed out the words, then flinched and froze.
‘The moonlight’s nice?’
Startled by that feeling—sothing he had never had in his life—Ghost Demon soon relaxed.
When he had been staying at Golden Flower Manor, he had once smiled faintly because the flowers blooming in the garden looked strangely beautiful—only to hurriedly stiffen his expression when the Vice Cult Leader appeared.
Those were the words the Vice Cult Leader had spoken then.
For so reason, recalling them, a smile once again ford at Ghost Demon’s lips.
‘Yeah. If it’s good, then it’s just good.’
“Let’s go. The Vice Cult Leader will be waiting.”
After tossing out just that line, Ghost Demon headed out of the cave, and the Warrior Chief rose to follow him.
As he stood, the Warrior Chief’s eyes took in the cave wall, now completely bare.
It was one of the tribe’s legends. Realizing that it had actually co to pass—and that the one who had brought it about was none other than himself—the Warrior Chief squeezed his eyes shut once, then opened them and moved forward.
Now he would live the life of a defeated one, a life like that of a dog or a pig.
Even so, as that man had said, he would dream again—to seize a chance to raise his tribe back up.
He would throw everything he had into it and burn for that goal.
Perhaps because he had steeled his resolve, strength filled the Warrior Chief’s steps as he walked on.
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