Chapter 218
Chapter 218. An Unexpected Grudge (3)
The moment Ice Night's fourth step touched the ground.
"Kim Rae-won. Guild Master of Hero Gate—I'll remember the name."
The world changed.
The ice spreading in a circle beneath her feet rushed forward, racing along the ground. Not a straight line toward Dong Bong-soo. In all directions. A tsunami of cold energy attempting to swallow the space itself.
There was no structure like a formation.
The Thunder Seal Absolute Ring had formation threads, and the Mountain Formation Division's suppression formation had anchor points. Since patterns existed, analysis was possible.
This was different.
No pattern. Simply the type that pushes through with pure internal energy output.
'Is she aiming for an attrition battle?'
He raised the density of the Super True Energy Field. The frost at the boundary was pushed back.
But new frost filled the space where it had been pushed from.
The shape of two bodies of water not mixing, pushing against each other at the boundary. The soil inside the Super True Energy Field remained dry as it was, while outside was already covered in white.
The frost on the ancient tree he had been leaning against kept alternating between spreading and flaking away.
Crunch
Ice Night took one more step forward.
The frost wall deepened by yet another layer.
A load from the cold energy bore down on the entire area where the Super True Energy Field was deployed.
Even so, Dong Bong-soo did not stir a single inch.
He was simply measuring.
The moonlight converging around Ice Night.
Just how far does the upper limit of the cold energy that woman can unleash actually go?
The Heavenly Yin Sect's cultivation system, which sublimates Yin energy into internal power, plus the Yin Cold Energy she was absorbing from the moonlight—both had to be factored in.
It might have been a different story in the daytime, but it was the dead of night now.
How much of a buff was the moon hanging at its zenith granting this woman?
Shing
The pitch-black longsword, the Demon-Expelling Annihilation Wheel Sword, materialized in Dong Bong-soo's right hand.
Even with a weapon in hand, he merely stood there.
The density of cold energy kept surging sharply. Like diving deeper underwater, the resistance of the air changed noticeably. With every breath, frost formed inside his lungs.
The cold energy pouring from Ice Night's entire body had condensed enough to serve as a shield.
A frost wall intense enough to forbid approach itself was structurally consuming the surrounding area of about ninety meters.
"……"
Even as thick layers of frost accumulated over his entire body, Dong Bong-soo simply regarded Ice Night with emotionless eyes.
But.
Hoo—
At the very instant Ice Night's utterly frigid breath embroidered the night sky—he returned the Demon-Expelling Annihilation Wheel Sword to the inventory.
Ice Night's eyes narrowed immediately.
The sequence of drawing a weapon and then putting it away would be inexplicable within her logic. The weapon appearing and disappearing would be strange in itself, but more than that—
Why!?
That question would flash through her mind.
That fraction of a moment was enough.
Craaack—!
In that instant, Dong Bong-soo withdrew even the Super True Energy Field entirely.
He gathered the energy of the Super True Energy Field he had been spreading in all directions and concentrated it into a single point.
Directly in front of Ice Night, at precisely the center of the space where she was maintaining her cold energy to its extreme.
Localized Maximization.
Whuum—
A small but certain vibration cleaved the air.
When the density of the Super True Energy Field converged to a single point, the cold energy around Ice Night was pushed back centered on that point.
Until now, when it was pushed back, it filled in again. But this time was different.
There was no gap to fill. As the Yin Cold Energy poured out in all directions like a waterfall from where it had been pushing, it tore apart the very control over the cold energy that had been pouring into that single point.
"Ugrh!"
Ice Night's steps were pushed back for the first time.
It was barely half a step, but it was her first retreat.
Dong Bong-soo, of course, did not miss that opening.
Click—
Faith Arrow.
It was light. Not energy.
Something that was neither Yin Energy, nor Yang Energy, nor Immortal Energy, nor Evil Energy materialized in Dong Bong-soo's right hand. The form was an arrow. But its texture belonged to none of the martial arts of this world.
Fwishhh—
The arrow flew toward Ice Night's cold energy defensive barrier, which had already loosened as much as it could.
Thwip—
The Arrow of Light pierced Ice Night's shoulder.
Her garment tore and blood welled and flowed down over her flesh, and frost formed over that wound. It was the Heavenly Yin Sect Adept's unique method of stanching blood—forming Ice Binding to seal the wound.
And.
In the path the arrow had passed through, the frost was vanishing. It was not melting from heat. It disappeared as though fog were lifting, as though being purified.
"……Why."
Ice Night's pupils wavered.
It was not because the energy of the attack just now was unusual. That was clearly not ordinary energy. Internal power, True Energy, Yin Energy, Yang Energy—even with all of the Heavenly Yin Sect's principles brought to bear, she could not explain the identity of what had struck her just now.
But that was not particularly important.
What mattered now was—
That her shoulder had been pierced clean through.
That……if he had intended to kill her, he could have.
Ice Night understood that precisely. She was an Adept who had trained with her life on the line for over a decade.
She took one step further back.
The corner of Dong Bong-soo's mouth rose slightly. It was not Kim Rae-won's smile. It was Dong Bong-soo's smile. Of course, no one would know the difference.
He can kill, but does not kill.
It was a simple principle.
The point that the kind of bond he wanted here was fundamentally different from Sang Gwan-hwi—because no bond blooms from a corpse.
'I've shown enough.'
Next comes the mouth.
At that moment.
"……What in the world is this commotion? Why are you scuffling with someone from the Heavenly Yin Sect in the middle of the moonlit night?"
It was Eom Bi-ryeong.
She had been in the middle of her night training when she detected ice spreading across the formation threads of her boundary formation, and had come running immediately.
A Formation Tower Trigram Leader would know how to distinguish the characteristics of energy in the world. She recognized at once that the cold Yin energy currently spreading was that of the Heavenly Yin Sect—the secret sect belonging to the Seven Evil Grand Cults.
Thud—
What entered her eyes as she landed on the southwest wall was the sight of the entire area outside the compound frozen solid.
Frost on the ancient tree, ice on the wall, the ground white. In the middle of it all stood Guild Master Kim Rae-won, and an unidentified woman was leaking cold energy freely.
That woman—Ice Night's gaze slowly moved to Eom Bi-ryeong.
"A Formation Taoist? Hoo—, and at Trigram Leader level at that……"
Dong Bong-soo, wearing Kim Rae-won's smile one layer deeper, glanced toward Eom Bi-ryeong.
"Trigram Leader Eom, isn't the night wind a bit biting?"
Eom Bi-ryeong took one look around at the frozen landscape.
"This isn't a night wind, this is the dead of winter. What on earth is this?"
"There's a guest who knocked on the door in the dead of night, you see."
He turned his head toward Ice Night.
"That's enough drawing blades."
Ice Night did not answer.
She looked at her shoulder wound once, then at Kim Rae-won, then at Eom Bi-ryeong.
Just dealing with Hero Gate's Guild Master alone had already been more than she could handle. And now opposing a Formation Tower Trigram Leader as well? There was absolutely no practical benefit to continuing the fight.
A long silence.
"……Understood."
It was the judgment of an Adept.
There was no need to throw her life away when the other side did not want to continue the fight either.
"What do you want?"
Dong Bong-soo—no, Kim Rae-won opened his mouth.
"What are you talking about? That's what I wanted to ask."
"……"
"Ah, well, I can more or less guess. You came looking for Cheol So-a?"
"……That is correct."
Kim Rae-won brushed the frost that had formed at his ear and spoke.
"I killed Cheol So-a."
"Why?"
Kim Rae-won answered without a moment's hesitation.
"Because she did something deserving of death."
"What manner of act deserving death do you speak of?"
"She committed deeds wicked enough to warrant death."
Ice Night's eyes narrowed.
"If the Seventh Dharma Maiden's actions were undertaken on the orders of our sect, then whatever those actions may be, they are our sect's business."
"Ha ha. Is that so? Then why don't you hear me out."
Kim Rae-won, his expression heavily draped in cold amusement, walked slowly toward Ice Night.
"You know well that Cheol So-a lived in this city as the Young Mistress of the Iron God Society, yes?"
Ice Night's brow moved ever so slightly.
She knew, of course. That the Seventh Dharma Maiden's background was as the Young Mistress of one external sect.
"Well then, once you know what the Iron God Society did, you'll quickly understand what kind of person that Young Mistress was."
Kim Rae-won's voice was dispassionate.
Neither anger nor accusation. A recitation of facts.
"They squeezed merchants for protection money, and stationed collectors in every street to bleed them dry. That much is common enough in a Lawless City—one could turn a blind eye."
A beat of silence.
"The problem lies beyond that."
A pig pen where they raised cannibal pigs.
Those who couldn't pay their debts, those who were thorns in their sides—they threw them in alive.
Slave trading. They seized people from villages around Gangdo and sold them. They made no distinction between women or children.
Collections. It wasn't simply taking money—if someone couldn't pay, they took their family members.
"I know that your Heavenly Yin Sect belongs to the Seven Evil Grand Cults. I have no intention of picking fights just because an Evil Sect does what an Evil Sect does."
Kim Rae-won looked directly into Ice Night's eyes.
"But there is a line, is there not."
Ice Night's cold energy contracted ever so slightly. Not the expansion of fury—the contraction of shock.
"Don't Evil Sects too have a line they keep? Feeding people to cannibal pigs—isn't that beyond that line? The fact that the Seventh Dharma Maiden of the Heavenly Yin Sect stood beyond that line is something the Heavenly Yin Sect ought to know."
Ice Night did not answer.
"If what is being demanded is to leave those who stand beyond that line as they are, here in this ci-ty—"
Kim Rae-won drove in the final nail.
"Then the Heavenly Yin Sect will also be regarded as having crossed the line."
Ice Night remained silent still.
But in her mind, she was calling up Cheol So-a's face.
The Seventh Dharma Maiden. The girl whose Spirit Roots were so exceptional that the Sect Leader called her name personally. Within the sect, that girl had been nothing but a sharp-minded, cold practitioner.
But—if everything just heard was true, it was equally clear that she could not be shielded under any circumstances. No matter how evil a sect is.
"……Proof."
"Ask any merchant in this city. Ask how this place has changed since the Iron God Society was exterminated."
Ice Night recalled what she had felt upon entering this city.
Someone had changed the order of this city.
At the time, it had been felt simply in a martial arts sense. But if that was not merely a change in energy, but the very foundation of the city having been overturned—
It was proof that what had existed before had been that rotten.
Kim Rae-won continued.
"Cheol So-a's remains are with me. I've recovered and preserved them."
Ice Night's cold energy surged. But she held it back.
"……Where?"
"Somewhere safe."
Kim Rae-won said no more than that.
"And the source of the resonance you tracked here—that Jade Token is also here."
Ice Night's eyes opened wide for the first time. That Jade Token whose texture of resonance had been different. She had already confirmed that someone who was not a Dharma Maiden was in possession of it, but she had not expected this man to bring it up directly.
"I have the intent to return them. Both the remains and the Jade Token."
"……There will be conditions."
"Three."
Kim Rae-won held up three fingers.
"One. The Heavenly Yin Sect does not treat Hero Gate as an enemy."
He folded his index finger.
"Two. You do not spread what you have seen here tonight to the outside for the time being."
He folded his middle finger.
"Three."
He folded his ring finger.
"Three……"
Kim Rae-won waggled his ring finger a few times, then grinned and used it to scratch his forehead.
"Ah, my mistake. It was two things, two. Ha ha."
"……"
"Anyway, neither of the two should be an unreasonable demand."
Ice Night was silent.
The Sect Leader's order had been to investigate the Seventh Dharma Maiden's death. Recovering the remains and understanding the circumstances was the closest response to that command.
It had already been confirmed that she could not defeat this man in combat. It was far too clear that adding nine more subordinates would not change anything either.
And.
If what Cheol So-a had done was true, then what needed to be reported to the Sect Leader was not only the remains.
"……I will confirm the remains first."
"Tomorrow."
Kim Rae-won cut in firmly.
"In exchange, stay here tonight. You and all your people."
A long silence passed.
The cold energy was slowly subsiding. In accordance with Ice Night's will, the dead of winter that had covered Gangdo was slowly thawing.
"Agreed."
Ice Night turned. In the direction where her nine subordinates were waiting.
Eom Bi-ryeong, watching that retreating figure, opened her mouth.
"Is it all over now?"
"What do you mean?"
"The dispute between Hero Gate and the Heavenly Yin Sect."
"Probably so, don't you think?"
Eom Bi-ryeong looked at him with a face that said she could not understand at all.
"No, I mean—what in the world does this tiny little sect have that both Mu-toe and the Heavenly Yin Sect and the Vast Heaven Limitless Sword Sect are all so happy to come running here?"
"Ah, yes. Sorry for being so tiny."
"Yes yes, feel sorry to your heart's content. What are you and this place anyway?"
Dong Bong-soo did not answer, and just like that wrapped both hands around his shoulders and watched Ice Night's retreating figure until it disappeared into the darkness.
"I don't know."
"Pardon?"
"Ah, I haven't told you that yet, have I."
"Told me what?"
"I have no memories."
"What!?"
"So stop asking me questions like that."
And then he slowly moved his steps toward Hero Gate.
From behind, Eom Bi-ryeong's grumbling could be heard saying this and that, but Kim Rae-won's smile had already vanished. Not peeled away strand by strand—simply gone.
Ding.
Following a resonant mechanical sound, Lumina's clear voice struck his ears.
[You have resolved the matter with the Heavenly Yin Sect party. A reward is given.] [+3]
[The world has become quite a bit more beautiful.]
[A bond with the Heavenly Yin Sect has been formed.]
[Ice Night feels even a trace of fondness toward you.]
[A bond that begins with a grudge can sometimes become a good connection.]
[For belief holds the power to dissolve even grudges at times.]
Hero History: 51
[Hero History has reached 50 and your Hero rank has been upgraded.]
[You have now become ★★ First-Rate.]
―Thank you for your hard work. You're fulfilling our requests well. You are our last hope. Please continue to save this world just as you are now.
▣ Hero Ranks ☆ Nameless (0~9) ★ Rising Star (10~49) ★★ First-Rate (50~99) ← Current
[Since you have achieved ★★, a reward will be granted.] [All Stats +5] [Trait 『Faith Weight』 has been unlocked.]
『Faith Weight』 The words of a hero carry weight. The more people come to believe in you, an invisible weight is added to your every word. Words spoken with sincerity shake the hearts of others, and promises made without falsehood become harder than an oath. : In proportion to the number and depth of Trust Relationships, influence rises during conversation, persuasion, and intimidation.
≪Unlockable Skills≫ • Faith Judgment Lv.1
└ Required History: 50 (51/50) 『Y/N』
• Hero's Blessing Lv.1
└ Required History: 50 (51/50) 『Y/N』
He had evolved.
He had evolved to the point where, when necessary, he could choose evolution without killing.
Dong Bong-soo walked along the still-frozen road, checking the system window a little longer before closing it.
There's no hurry. Choosing is possible at any time.
"No but—how is someone with no memories so ridiculously strong?"
"Hello?"
"Hello, there's a person here. Hello?"
Dong Bong-soo went straight back to his room.
Tomorrow—no, it was already today.
"Hello?"
Today would be very busy, so now was the time to end the day.