By Zephyria 
The small, rounded snow mountain suddenly exploded into the air, sending a blizzard soaring toward the sky.
Revealing himself from within was Wi Ho-yeon, his hair as white as the snow. As he knelt and gasped for breath, the blue energy radiating from his body caused snow and ice to scatter in all directions once more.
Pushing through the piles of snow in the spot that had become a mountain due to the landslide, Ho-yeon frantically clawed at the ground. His red, frozen hands were messily scratched by stones, soil, and fragmented wooden pillars, drawing beads of blood.
“Cheon Mu-gyeong! Mu-gyeong!”
Ho-yeon desperately cried out his name, continuing to dig through the snow.
How much time had passed? After Cheon Mu-gyeong had held him and fallen, Ho-yeon had also briefly lost consciousness from the impact.
Because Mu-gyeong had wrapped him in protective gang qi and absorbed the shock with his own body, Ho-yeon was completely uninjured. It was only now, as he dug through the snow with his protective gang qi gone, that scratches began to appear here and there.
Infusing his hands with internal power, Ho-yeon pushed aside thick stones and continued to reach downward. His anxiety was beyond words. Looking back, the sound of the impact with the ground before he lost consciousness had been ominous.
Then, his hand, reaching deep, grasped an arm that held a firm heat rather than frost energy. With wide eyes, Ho-yeon released blue internal power once more to clear away the debris piled upon Mu-gyeong’s body.
Finally, Cheon Mu-gyeong was revealed, his black hair draped haphazardly over him, his eyes closed. Seeing that he appeared intact, with nothing broken or injured, Ho-yeon threw his arms around him in a tight embrace.
“Mu-gyeong, Cheon Mu-gyeong! Wake up. Please!”
He called out anxiously to Cheon Mu-gyeong, who had taken the full brunt of the impact. However, he remained motionless, his eyes closed. Though he looked fine on the outside, Ho-yeon dared not shake him for fear of causing further harm, and instead called his name over and over. He seemed to be asleep, but perhaps due to significant internal injuries, he could not open his eyes.
The fact that he was so unscathed while Cheon Mu-gyeong was in this state… Ho-yeon instinctively realized it was because Mu-gyeong had abandoned his own protection to wrap all the protective gang qi around him.
That was how violent the fall had been. He had been this safe only because Cheon Mu-gyeong had protected him without a single gap. He couldn’t even scold the unconscious man for doing something so foolish.
“…Cheon Mu-gyeong, Mu-gyeong.”
Calling his name endlessly, Ho-yeon sobbed like a child left all alone. He could feel the heartbeat against their pressed chests, but the lack of a response made him infinitely terrified. As long as they couldn’t get out of here, he couldn’t take him to a physician, nor was there any way to verify his condition.
Pushing himself up, Ho-yeon rubbed his wet eyes harshly with the back of his hand. Then, holding the face of Cheon Mu-gyeong, whose breath could not even be felt, he pressed his lips against his. Parting his own lips, damp with tears, Ho-yeon pushed his breath into him.
When the sobbing made it difficult, Ho-yeon tilted his head back and steadied his breathing. Looking up at the profound darkness where even the sky was invisible made him feel utterly powerless, but this time, he was able to blow breath into him clearly. However, despite several attempts, Cheon Mu-gyeong’s breathing did not resume.
Looking around in the thick darkness, Ho-yeon discovered a place where a faint light was leaking, other than from above. It was in the direction where the mass piled by the landslide became more gradual. Unable to leave him abandoned in a place where there wasn’t even a proper spot to lay him down, Ho-yeon draped a heavy arm over his own shoulder.
Repeating to himself several times that he could do it, he flowed internal power into his legs. Compared to the Cheon Mu-gyeong he was hauling, Ho-yeon’s body was no different from the dry twigs scattered about.
However, because the internal power erupting from his dantian flowed through the muscle meridians of his entire body, he was able to walk while supporting Cheon Mu-gyeong. It was similar to the principle of the thousand-catty drop, but for Ho-yeon, who had not learned martial arts, it was an action close to instinct.
He thought the pale light was close, but in reality, it seemed to take at least two quarters of an hour to reach it on foot. He had nearly slipped on the icy path several times, and it took even longer because he checked Cheon Mu-gyeong’s condition intermittently.
Ho-yeon moved his heavy legs incessantly, desperately hoping that the light would be a passage to the outside. When he arrived, the place where the light emerged was a round entrance leading to a new cave. Would it lead even deeper underground? Nevertheless, Ho-yeon had no choice but to follow the light.
After walking through a long tunnel following a sliver of light, he arrived at a place where a large cavern unfolded.
“….”
Drenched in cold sweat, Ho-yeon wore a vacant expression. Unable to believe it, he squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again, but the scenery he saw did not change an inch.
A bluish stone floor and ice walls surrounding the cavern. On one side was a large pile of fasting pills, and on the other lay a well-used seven-stringed zither, silk used for embroidery, and a tool box. Atop animal furs meant to ward off the cold, a cotton quilt was neatly folded.
Ho-yeon knew better than anyone where this place was. It was the underground cave of the eternal snow mountain where he had been imprisoned. To think that the place he reached after being caught in a landslide and earthquake was here…
Despite how long it had been since he left the underground cave, the quilt remained in perfect condition, without rotting or gathering dust. It wasn’t just the quilt. The strings of the seven-stringed zither were taut and its luster remained, as if it had been maintained just yesterday. It was as if time had stopped only within this cave.
Indeed, the ice dragon possessed the ability to separate and stop space and time. That was why Ho-yeon had lived inside for hundreds of years. A very long time was required for a human body to embrace the energy of the ice dragon.
Though he had spent much of that time asleep, Ho-yeon had spent far more years here than he had lived outside.
It was a place he never wanted to set foot in again, now that even the ice dragon he had given his heart to no longer existed. An impulse to turn around and bolt out of the underground cave shook his entire body, but Ho-yeon continued to walk further inside while supporting Cheon Mu-gyeong.
The ice dragon would occasionally bring items from the surface through some trick and hand them to Ho-yeon; the snow leopard fur and the cotton quilt were among them. With trembling hands, Ho-yeon laid Cheon Mu-gyeong upon the fur. Still, not a single breath could be felt from him.
He quickly leaned down and pressed his ear to the man’s left chest. Having confirmed he was alive, Ho-yeon stripped the clothes off him, as he was completely soaked as if he had been dipped in ice water.
Even while untying the strings, his hands trembled so violently that he repeatedly clenched and unclenched his fists. He then unfolded the folded quilt and placed it over the large body. Although the heat emanating from him was immense, he had been drenched in snow, and there was no telling when his body temperature might drop.
Ho-yeon parted Cheon Mu-gyeong’s lips and repeatedly pushed his own breath into him. Not knowing if this was the right thing to do, he repeated the action, hoping that if he gave his breath, the other would open his eyes. However, he did not budge, and Ho-yeon became dizzy as his own breath began to run short.
“Wake up.”
Fear was etched deeply on Ho-yeon’s face.
“Don’t… leave me here alone.”
He spoke in a heavily drenched voice, gripping the quilt covering the man with both hands. Something must have gone seriously wrong. No matter how great a master one was, they couldn’t be fine after falling from that height without any protection.
“You… you said you weren’t human.”
It was something Ho-yeon had mentioned often, but he had never actually thought of him as not being human. The people of the demon sect called him the heavenly demon and revered him as a god, but to him, he was simply Cheon Mu-gyeong, a man with profound martial prowess. But for this moment, he wished he were a god-like being.
Ho-yeon pressed his ear near his heart once more. Since the beating heart was the only thing he could hold onto, he relied entirely on that one sound.
Fearing his body temperature might drop, Ho-yeon hugged him as closely as possible and pressed their lips together again. But for some reason, the heat coming from the touching lips and body gradually became more searing. Despite facing the cold of the North Sea while soaked, he was emitting fire energy from his entire body.
Still, wouldn’t this be better than hypothermia? Ho-yeon soothed his anxious heart with that thought and poured breath into him again until his head spun.
Twitch. In that moment, movement returned to Cheon Mu-gyeong’s body. Soon, a slow breath escaped Cheon Mu-gyeong’s mouth. As their breaths mingled and mixed within their joined mouths, Ho-yeon hugged him even more tenderly. Then, as he tried to pull his lips away, the back of his head was gripped by a large hand.
As a tear pooled in his blue-grey eyes and fell, only his transparent pupils remained clear. He wanted to ask if he had regained consciousness, if he was okay, but he could only flail his arms as their overlapped lips refused to part.
Cheon Mu-gyeong opened his mouth wider and swallowed Ho-yeon’s lips as if to devour them. With the back of his head held firmly, Ho-yeon froze as the inside of his mouth was thoroughly raided. Cheon Mu-gyeong wrapped his other hand around Ho-yeon’s waist and pressed him against himself.
An energy like a fire demon began to surge through Mu-gyeong’s entire body. If he usually suppressed the curse of the fire dragon with demonic energy, this was now a fierce flame that had lost its control.
“Cheon Mu, mmp…!”
He didn’t need breath, so why was he giving him such a deep kiss? Ho-yeon pushed him away with both hands while his mouth was occupied. However, since he couldn’t use all his strength against someone who had just woken up, it was practically nothing more than tickling Cheon Mu-gyeong.
“Haa, why are you…!”
It was just as he was about to continue, suggesting they check his physical condition first. Though unintentional, Mu-gyeong’s lip was torn by Ho-yeon’s canine as he squirmed. Haa—only then did Cheon Mu-gyeong let out a long breath and lick the small wound on his lower lip with his tongue.
The crimson light of Cheon Mu-gyeong, which should have been familiar, felt strange to Ho-yeon. It felt as if he had encountered a fierce tiger in the deep mountains. His red eyes were now no different from those of a beast whose emotions could not be read, making him appear even more threatening. There was nothing that could be called reason in his gaze; it seemed as if only instinct remained.
“Mu, Mu-gyeong… Are you okay? Is it because you’re in a lot of pain? Mmph!”
Cheon Mu-gyeong climbed on top of Ho-yeon in an instant, sucking the tongue in his mouth and acting as if he were swallowing all the saliva. Like a beast attempting to monopolize ice fallen into lava, he began to devour Ho-yeon thoroughly.