By Zephyria 
HF 80
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* * *
“I’m going crazy, absolutely crazy.”
Wi Yeon-gang paced in circles, leaving the blue jade throne of the Palace Master’s Hall behind him. Setting aside the fact that his favorite bedchamber for naps had been taken away, the Heavenly Demon refused to leave Ho-yeon’s side for days.
“He’s the one who put the boy in that state, so what the hell does he expect us to do!”
Wi Yeon-gang vented his frustration. Furthermore, he was deeply worried that the news of the Demon Sect’s leader staying at the Ice Palace might leak into the Central Plains.
The Murim Alliance, which was always eyeing the hegemony of the North Sea, would likely seize this as a perfect excuse to invade the North Sea under the pretext of eliminating the Cult Leader.
Currently, only he and Woo Cheon-seok knew that Cheon Mu-gyeong was the leader. He had strictly silenced everyone regarding the intruder, so there should be no room for the Murim Alliance to intervene, but he couldn’t help the nagging anxiety that kept surfacing.
“Have you ever seen such a monster? He neither eats nor sleeps.”
“Palace Master, the children of Eumbyeol Hall have heard news that Young Master Wi has returned from somewhere, and they are in an absolute uproar, crying and making a scene,” Woo Cheon-seok said, unable to hide his troubled expression.
“Can’t you even manage the children! If they see him lying there like that, the entire palace will be echoing with their wails!”
That wasn’t the only thing giving Wi Yeon-gang a headache.
He had sent a letter to Ho-yeon stating that he had brought a child from Eumbyeol Hall. That was a code indicating there was a critical matter that must be delivered, and they had to make contact by any means necessary.
Originally, a member of the Seol-yeong Squad skilled in stealth was supposed to stay in the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains to act as a messenger hawk, but since they had all been killed by the Blood Cult, there was no way to contact Ho-yeon.
In truth, there should have been no way for Ho-yeon to return to the Ice Palace either. In a hopeless situation, the Palace Master had merely sent his will to Ho-yeon. Who would have thought he would return carried on the shoulders of the Cult Leader?
Shortly after the Demon Sect’s envoy, Do-gyeon, departed, Wi Yeon-gang managed to obtain a secret history through an unexpected situation.
Wi Yeon-gang’s child, despite being young, spent his days buried in books and was clever enough to be called a genius. Unfortunately, however, he lacked any particular talent for ice arts.
“Father, the Heavenly Ice Polar Dragon is here in our North Sea, right?”
“Hmm? Yes, indeed. He is protecting us.”
To the child who was convinced of the existence of the legendary being, Wi Yeon-gang protected his child’s dream.
“Then why did you send the Heavenly Ice Polar Dragon, who protects us, somewhere else?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You sent Uncle Ho-yeon away. Was it so he could meet the Flame Polar Dragon?”
“Haha, are you saying Ho-yeon is the Heavenly Ice Polar Dragon?”
“Yes. I remember. You told Uncle Ho-yeon that he was the Heavenly Ice Polar Dragon, Father.”
Suddenly, Wi Yeon-gang felt a chill run down his spine. How could a child know about something that happened when he was an infant? It was a secret known only to him and Wi Ho-yeon; there was no one else the child could have heard it from.
“It’s all written in this book—how great the Heavenly Ice Polar Dragon is.”
After a brief moment of admiration for the genius of the child’s extraordinary memory, Wi Yeon-gang cast his gaze at the book the child was holding. No matter how he looked at it, the old book was nothing but blank pages.
Just as he was about to laugh hollowly, thinking his child’s imagination was simply too vivid, the child infused a small amount of internal power into the book, and letters began to carve themselves into the pages.
Wherever the frost energy touched, cliffs of ten-thousand-year eternal ice soared. Within the absolute extreme of zero degrees, I, Wi Ji-un, finally realized the truth of martial arts. This is the origin of our ice art.
Wi Ji-un…! The first Palace Master and the founder of the ice arts, the Cold Ice Empress.
Wi Yeon-gang’s hands trembled involuntarily. This was the secret history left by the first Palace Master, recorded so that only those of her bloodline could resonate with it.
The divine beast of one body and two souls was completely divided, becoming the Heavenly Ice Polar Dragon and the Flame Polar Dragon. As yin and yang split, the power of the two divine beasts was halved, but the greed of the Flame Polar Dragon became a kalpa fire that burned the world.
By the divine authority of the Heavenly Ice Polar Dragon, the Fire Dragon was expelled to the volcanoes of the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains, and thus the disasters of the North Sea ceased. It is the utmost grace of the holy dragon.
Until now, the Palace Master had been certain that Ho-yeon had received the energy of the Heavenly Ice Polar Dragon.
This was because a child who could not learn ice arts had grown up possessing immense internal energy and had reached a realm where even the Palace Master himself was no match.
Ho-yeon never opened his mouth about what had happened there. However, Ho-yeon’s fortuitous encounter must have been with an ice dragon. According to the records of the Cold Ice Empress, the ice dragon was a divine beast that actually existed.
And then there was Cheon Mu-gyeong, who suddenly began suffering from the nine yang severed meridian…
Considering when those rumors started spreading, it was after the Demon Sect, which had been invading the Central Plains, suddenly retreated to the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains. Despite having secured an advantage by occupying the Kunlun Sect, the Demon Sect had marched back to their main sect.
It was truly strange. According to the information gathered by the Black Tortoise Hall Master at the time, a demonic beast capable of shaking the very existence of the Demon Sect had appeared in the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains.
Clutching the book containing the secret history, Wi Yeon-gang guessed—perhaps a leap of logic—that the demonic beast was the Flame Polar Dragon.
The sudden onset of Cheon Mu-gyeong’s nine yang severed meridian might also be related to the Fire Dragon. Since the Demon Sect remained intact, they must have succeeded in subjugating the demonic beast.
What if Mu-gyeong, who was the First Young Master at the time, had obtained the inner core of the subjugated Fire Dragon? Assuming that gave him the power to drive out the other Young Masters and eventually seize the position of Cult Leader, it created the most plausible picture.
What if Cheon Mu-gyeong, having obtained the power of the Fire Dragon, were to seize all of Wi Ho-yeon’s energy as well?
He already possessed an unfathomable amount of cultivation power; if the problem of the nine yang severed meridian were solved, he would become an unstoppable natural disaster.
Cheon Mu-gyeong, possessing the full power of a legendary divine beast, would have enough strength to dominate not just the Central Plains, but the entire outer murim. The world would be covered in blood because of the Heavenly Demon.
However, as all of this was merely Wi Yeon-gang’s speculation, making contact with Ho-yeon was the top priority. Fortunately, since Do-gyeon had headed back to the Demon Sect at a leisurely pace, he was able to catch up to him and ask him to deliver a letter. He disguised it as a simple greeting.
“I think… we must make it look like Ho-yeon has completely died.”
Having finished his thoughts, Wi Yeon-gang spoke secretly to Woo Cheon-seok.
“But I don’t think he’s the type to let go of a corpse.”
Yes, that was the problem. Wi Yeon-gang clenched his fist, thinking of the grey hair. Surely that Heavenly Demon doesn’t know everything?
Wi Yeon-gang shuddered and shook his head. No. If he did, he would have simply devoured Ho-yeon whole rather than bringing him back to the Ice Palace.
Wi Yeon-gang hoped all of this was just his own overthinking. But where and how could that man have seen the nine yang severed meridian? The Fire Dragon is a beast so fierce it ignites hellfire everywhere it goes.
He thought of burying Ho-yeon in the ground and then digging him up, but the funeral custom of the North Sea was cremation. This culture had developed because the ground was frozen solid, making it difficult to dig graves. In the midst of that, if he tried to bury only Ho-yeon, the Heavenly Demon would hardly agree.
He couldn’t just sit idly by while not knowing when Ho-yeon would wake up. No matter how much he silenced people, there was no guarantee the story wouldn’t leak to the Murim Alliance. In that case, it would be better to make the first move.
“Someone! Tell the Black Tortoise Hall Master to come here immediately!”
Wi Yeon-gang raised his voice.
Since he was surrounded on all sides, he intended to use a strategy of using one enemy to control another.
* * *
The Hanwol Pavilion of the Palace Master’s Hall was filled with braziers that never cooled.
Originally, there were no such things as braziers in the Palace Master’s Hall. What was the core of ice arts? Frost energy. Thus, the braziers in the Hanwol Pavilion had been brought in from various places outside the hall.
Thanks to the dozens of braziers, the Hanwol Pavilion was almost in need of being renamed the Heat-Moon Pavilion. Cheon Mu-gyeong blocked all energy perception extending outward and focused entirely on Wi Ho-yeon.
The heart was still beating, though very slowly. However, since he wasn’t breathing, he couldn’t be called alive.
It wasn’t that he didn’t believe the words of the Palace Master and Woo Cheon-seok, who said there was no other way. Since Ho-yeon had reached this state on his own, what possible solution could those people have?
However, he thought that if he reached the North Sea, the root of Wi Ho-yeon, he might open his eyes simply out of joy. Wi Ho-yeon was that simple and honest.
Cheon Mu-gyeong did not let go of Ho-yeon’s motionless body for a single moment, attempting to follow the flow of his qi and blood. If he could find even a single clue, he could help open the blood paths.
Yet, even after several days of arriving in the North Sea, Ho-yeon’s condition did not improve. No matter how much he tried to instill warmth through his own body temperature and the braziers, Mu-gyeong felt as if he were holding a corpse the entire time.
One thing was certain: since he had taken the energy from Wi Ho-yeon’s lower dantian, his own fire energy had stabilized beyond a certain point. In the end, the fact that Wi Ho-yeon must be sacrificed for his curse remained unchanged.
The first time, he didn’t kill him because it was an unexpected variable, and after that, he felt it wasn’t bad to wait and see. By the time he realized his own laughter had become quite frequent, he thought of Wi Ho-yeon’s existence as a small piece of ice floating in lava.
“I won’t kill you.”
The thirteen-year-old Cheon Mu-gyeong had vowed to cherish those he loved, but the Cheon Mu-gyeong who had been worn down over a hundred cycles did not know what affection was.
“I won’t kill you, so don’t be afraid and just come out.”
The man who did not even understand his own emotions gently brushed back the white hair and breathed warmth into the lips that had stopped breathing.