By Zephyria 
Mu-gyeong let out a short laugh, wondering why his own name sounded so pleasant.
“But how did you get in here?”
Ho-yeon asked with pure curiosity.
“What about you?”
This was why Mu-gyeong remained cautious of Ho-yeon, even if he wasn’t actively on guard. He had entered this place searching for traces of the ice dragon.
“I… bad people locked me in here.”
Ho-yeon clenched his fists. Between his words and his overly honest reactions, he seemed far more naive than his apparent age. Of course, Mu-gyeong had woken up injured and disoriented, but Ho-yeon seemed to possess no sense of wariness at all.
“Where exactly is ‘here’?”
Mu-gyeong watched Ho-yeon closely, waiting for him to speak. The two small dots beneath his hesitating lips particularly caught his eye.
“It’s an underground cave in the Eternal Snow Mountains.”
As if he had expected as much, Cheon Mu-gyeong raised an eyebrow and calmly surveyed the ice walls. Just as he was on the verge of subjugating the fire dragon, space had torn open, and a blizzard had surged out from within.
In that rift, Mu-gyeong had seen a massive, blue dragon. The moment he saw the ice dragon, whose every scale was imbued with the energy of the snowy mountains, an intense competitive spirit had boiled within him.
If there was a fire dragon, it was only natural that an ice dragon existed. If that creature joined the fray, victory could not be guaranteed. Nevertheless, he had grinned, baring his teeth.
Yet, for some reason, the ice dragon seemed to have no intention of helping the fire dragon. Instead, they rampaged within their respective spaces, their frost energy and heat clashing in a tense stalemate.
Thanks to that vicious frost energy, Cheon Mu-gyeong was able to suppress the heat of the lava. He sprinted along the fire dragon’s body and swung his sword toward the remaining eye of the beast, which had already lost one.
If the ice dragon had the snowy mountains in every scale, the fire dragon had lava. Had the demonic energy enveloping his entire body been lacking even a fraction, he would have melted on the spot. However, Cheon Mu-gyeong pierced the remaining eye and leaped down to the ground, tearing through thousands of scales, each larger than a human body.
Next, it was time to unleash the fourth movement of the Heavenly Demon Divine Art: Wrath into the heart beneath the torn flesh. The fourth movement, the pinnacle of destruction, was a martial art so immense it could change the terrain of a mountain in a single strike, requiring a corresponding amount of internal power. However, as Cheon Mu-gyeong drew out all the demonic energy from his dantian, a sight unfolded before him that made him doubt his own vision.
Along with the roar of the ice dragon, which blew away the lava from the rift, a frost energy poured out—enough to turn the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains into the North Sea. All of that energy was being absorbed by the fire dragon.
Cheon Mu-gyeong plunged his sword into the ground to protect himself from the surging waves of lava. With a loud thud, he turned around to find the ice dragon’s massive eye filling the rift. It seemed the ice dragon had fallen, and the open space was gradually repairing itself. The giant eye looked as if it were gently closing.
Meanwhile, the fire dragon, which had entered the lava saturated with frost energy and reappeared, leaked red lava from the empty socket where its eye had been. The body that Cheon Mu-gyeong had risked his life to rend had returned to its original state. In fact, it was possible the dragon was vomiting lava in an attempt to restore even its eye.
“You… where did you really come from?”
Ho-yeon asked, grabbing Mu-gyeong’s sleeve. Only then did Cheon Mu-gyeong realize he was wearing clothes with sleeves and pant legs that were all too short. Since the bottoms were light armor secured by a cord at the waist, he could at least wear them, but the top was completely open.
Feeling the frost-laden breath coming from Ho-yeon standing beside him, Mu-gyeong realized that he had indeed returned alive from the grueling subjugation of the fire dragon.
He had fought prepared for death, and when he finally drove the Heavenly Demon’s Wrath into the fire dragon’s heart, death had truly been looming before him. Thus, he had consumed the fire dragon’s inner core.
It was an act done to survive, but the pain that followed was so severe he felt death would have been more comfortable. To say his whole body felt like it was burning was an understatement. He felt a wretched agony, as if being burned in the fires of hell for a duration longer than his entire life.
The fire dragon’s inner core struggled violently to avoid being subordinated. To fully digest the inner core, he had to battle the fire dragon thousands of times within a mental landscape created by the beast. After countless battles, he was also able to realize the seal the first Heavenly Demon had left upon the fire dragon.
Ultimately, the fire dragon’s inner core was absorbed by Cheon Mu-gyeong, but it had been only a half-core to begin with. Without the ice dragon’s inner core, he had to fight against a fire energy like an unquenchable flame. Therefore, he placed a seal upon himself.
Just as the first Heavenly Demon had placed a shackle on the fire dragon’s heart, he drove the curse of the fire dragon into his right arm. The sealing technique was a secret art of the first Heavenly Demon, which had granted him enlightenment when they met in the demon-taming cave at age thirteen.
After that, Cheon Mu-gyeong revived atop the fire dragon’s corpse, purging blood redder than lava from his entire body. Then, he tore through the barrier the ice dragon had previously opened. He had instinctively sought this place, following the frost energy.
But instead of the ice dragon, there was only the pale Wi Ho-yeon. Cheon Mu-gyeong had even entertained the absurd thought that the ice dragon might have manifested as a human.
“No, no. It doesn’t matter where you came from. What matters is that you’re alive and warm.”
Ho-yeon reached his own conclusion first, speaking to Mu-gyeong, who remained tight-lipped.
“Where is the ice dragon?”
At the abrupt question, Ho-yeon nearly looked shocked. Why was he looking for the ice dragon? Ho-yeon was very curious, but he shook his head slightly.
“I don’t know either.”
“So you have seen it.”
This time, he nodded.
“I don’t know where it is now. But why are you looking for the ice dragon?”
“To kill it.”
The competitive spirit still boiled in Cheon Mu-gyeong’s red eyes. Since the creature had handed its energy to the fire dragon he had almost defeated, nearly leading him to death, he intended to make it pay the price.
“H-how can you kill the Heavenly Ice Polar Dragon? A human can’t.”
“Then am I not human?”
“What?”
“I killed the fire dragon too.”
Ho-yeon flinched, let go of the sleeve, and took a few steps back, freezing literally like ice. His eyes were so wide it felt as if the ice crystal stones within them might roll right out.
“You… killed the fire dragon?”
Ho-yeon looked at the plain, patternless sword in Mu-gyeong’s hand, then slowly shifted his gaze toward where the torn barrier had been. Then, he recalled the moment he had sensed death. That day, Ho-yeon had discovered lava there, heard the roar of the fire dragon, and seen a black-haired man standing before the massive beast.
He must have been holding a sword like that. Ho-yeon belatedly confirmed that what he had seen was not a hallucination. The man from that day had subjugated the fire dragon, and now he had come to kill the ice dragon as well.
But he was supposed to inherit all of the ice dragon’s energy…
“Why so surprised? Are you the ice dragon or something?”
Ho-yeon snapped his mouth shut and shook his head vigorously. Mu-gyeong calmly observed the cavern that seemed to be where Ho-yeon resided, looking at it with a different perspective than before. Finally, he took in the sight of Ho-yeon standing alone in the center.
“When were you trapped here?”
Ho-yeon felt that Mu-gyeong’s question was very difficult.
“Eight… no, since my birthday just passed, I think it’s nine.”
This time, Cheon Mu-gyeong was speechless. Outwardly, he looked to be nearly twenty. No matter how precocious, he must have been at least sixteen.
“And now?”
“Probably… hasn’t it been more than ten years since then?”
Indeed, it was difficult to determine exactly how much time passed in a place like this. Furthermore, unlike the orthodox sects that used the Emperor’s era names, the demon sect used the Heavenly Demon Calendar, and the North Sea used the Ice Palace Calendar, making it awkward to compare dates.
“Ah! Year 1 of Geonmu. I was trapped here in Geonmu Year 1.”
Ho-yeon remembered clearly. He remembered the North Sea being in an uproar because a new Emperor had ascended the throne in the Imperial Palace.
How long has it been since Geonmu died, Mu-gyeong muttered inwardly.
Emperor Geonmu had been assassinated before even completing two years of his reign. But according to Ho-yeon, he was older than Mu-gyeong.
Anyone with common sense would have pitied or felt sorry for Ho-yeon, who had been trapped here for ten years, but Mu-gyeong was different. He too had been trapped in the demon-taming cave and had escaped by his own strength.
The reason Ho-yeon was still here was likely because he was as weak as he looked.
“I’m getting out of here. What about you?”
Mu-gyeong gave up on further conversation and stated his business.
“Can you get out?”
What kind of idiot is this?
“If there’s a way in, there’s naturally a way out.”
“The way in is blocked. A huge landslide happened and buried it. And this place is very deep.”
If it was buried by a landslide, couldn’t he just push the landslide away?
However, as Ho-yeon said, Cheon Mu-gyeong could not escape this underground cave. He used the Heavenly Demon Divine Art to shatter the ice walls, but they repeatedly fused back together like the flesh of a living creature.
Standing far behind Mu-gyeong, Ho-yeon held his breath at the destructive power and the thunderous noise as he tried to break the ice walls. Because the unrefined demonic energy affected Ho-yeon as well, he ended up coughing up blood.
At that small sound, Cheon Mu-gyeong, who had spent several days viciously smashing the ice walls, turned around. Ho-yeon kept his hands over his mouth to hide the blood, but Mu-gyeong closed the distance in an instant. He clicked his tongue and roughly swept his hair back.
If my demonic energy were purer, he wouldn’t have been hurt like this.
“I’ve never been around someone as weak as you, so I couldn’t adjust it. Look.”
Despite his inner thoughts, Mu-gyeong spoke in an excuse-making tone as he checked Ho-yeon’s energy. Though faint, it was circulating through a full cycle without issue, so fortunately, he hadn’t suffered internal injuries from the demonic energy. Perhaps because he was from the North Sea, Ho-yeon’s dantian was full of frost energy.
Mu-gyeong thought that Wi Ho-yeon, who was leaning heavily against him, felt truly light. His body was so cool that Mu-gyeong almost wanted to embrace him without realizing it.
“Sorry.”
“Why are you apologizing?”
Mu-gyeong was genuinely puzzled by Ho-yeon’s apology.
“Because I’m weak.”
What kind of foolish person is this? For some reason, Mu-gyeong felt a tightness in his chest.
In the first place, he had known long ago that no matter how much destructive power he showed, breaking the ice walls in this abnormal space was useless. But the reason he had wasted strength trying to destroy the walls was that Wi Ho-yeon’s gaze, which looked only at him with blind devotion, kept clinging stubbornly to his heart.
“Forget it. If you’re weak, the strong one just has to protect you, so don’t apologize.”
Ho-yeon laughed softly at Mu-gyeong’s consolation, which didn’t sound like consolation at all. Mu-gyeong wiped the blood from his lips.
“And.”
Cheon Mu-gyeong hesitated for a moment before lifting Ho-yeon up and slowly laying him down on the snow leopard pelt.
“I made a promise to myself. That I wouldn’t become like the Cult Leader. Well, it’s not like you’re my lover or anything, but that’s just how it is.”