Snow Moon Flower (2)
Hair as white as freshly fallen snow.
Eyes as blue as the open sky.
A woman of rare appearance in the Central Plains sat there. She looked no older than twenty—about the same age as their group—yet even the simple act of eating quietly drew every gaze in the room, so exotic was her bearing.
Whether she was long accustomed to such stares or simply indifferent, she finished her meal without the slightest concern for the attention. As she rose and headed toward her guest room, Jeokhwa spoke.
“Judging by her looks, she truly does seem to be from the North Sea… but how did she end up all the way out here?”
The question was reasonable enough. The North Sea lay on the far northern fringe of the Central Plains; from Shaanxi Province the distance was easily several thousand li. For a martial artist from the North Sea to appear in Mihyeon was no ordinary coincidence.
“Maybe she came to see Mount Taebaek?”
Yeonhwa offered a rare opinion. Of all the scenic spots in the region, Mount Taebaek stood first. Perhaps the woman was simply a traveler touring Shaanxi.
“Still, wandering alone so far from home is certainly strange.”
In foreign lands, traveling in a group was the natural way to protect oneself. Yet the woman showed no sign of companions. The qi she radiated suggested she was at least a First-class martial artist, but strength alone did not erase the danger of traveling alone.
No matter how powerful you are, if you don’t know the local ways you’ll still suffer.
Even within the Central Plains every province had its own climate and customs. For someone from the distant North Sea, the gap in common sense would be even wider.
Questions piled upon questions, yet there was no way to answer them. The woman had already left the dining hall and returned to her room.
If fate allows it, we’ll meet again.
Cheonhwa set the matter aside with that thought.
The next day the party left the inn to climb Mount Taebaek.
Though the mountain was renowned for its beauty and attracted a fair number of visitors, it was never so crowded that the paths became impassable.
Or so they had believed.
“What on earth is this crowd…?”
Cheonhwa muttered involuntarily at the throng gathered near the trailhead.
And most of them are martial artists.
Warriors of every realm and alignment—orthodox and unorthodox alike—milled about. Between them, quick-footed merchants had already dragged stalls into place to peddle their wares. What could have drawn so many people here?
Cheonhwa bought trail rations from a nearby merchant and slipped him a little extra for information.
“Well, you see… there’s a rumor that a spiritual herb has appeared on Mount Taebaek.”
“A spiritual herb?”
“Yes. It’s little more than hearsay, but for the martial artists and sects around here that’s more than enough reason to move.”
A spiritual herb was the kind of fateful opportunity countless martial artists dreamed of. Even to verify the rumor, people would naturally gather.
What struck Cheonhwa as oddly convenient was that the rumor had begun circulating precisely when their own party arrived seeking the same herb.
Wol-ak claimed that only he knew the place where the Snow Moon Flower was hidden.
The information Wol-ak had given them had been so certain. Had the secret leaked somehow?
Could Wol-ak himself have started the rumor?
The suspicion rose for a moment, then he shook his head. Wol-ak was an eccentric who judged the entire world by his own aesthetic, and for that very reason he would never leak information carelessly. If someone else obtained the herb, it would be Wol-ak who lost the most.
Cheonhwa shared what he had learned with the others. Jeokhwa spoke first.
“Looking at how crowded it is, the herb almost certainly hasn’t been found yet.”
“Then we need to reach it before anyone else does.”
They entered Mount Taebaek without delay. At first people filled the lower slopes, but the higher they climbed the fewer faces they saw—everyone had scattered in every direction hunting for the herb. Mount Taebaek was tall enough that its peaks remained snow-covered year-round; the area to search was vast.
Cheonhwa’s group, however, knew the herb lay near the summit. They climbed the mountain path without hesitation. To them, ascending a mountain was hardly difficult; they had repeated such climbs to exhaustion back at the sect.
As the summit drew near, the air grew steadily colder. Though autumn was approaching, it was still summer, yet a wind that recalled deepest winter swept down upon them.
An ordinary person would have been shivering violently. The three of them endured it without trouble. Cheonhwa and Yeonhwa had cultivated extreme Yin energy and possessed a degree of resistance to cold; Jeokhwa, who cultivated extreme Yang, could simply circulate her inner power to drive the chill away.
“It’s colder than I expected.”
“That means we’re close to the summit.”
“……Let’s hurry.”
While Cheonhwa and Jeokhwa spoke as though it were nothing, Yeonhwa hunched her shoulders and urged them onward. Resistance to cold was not the same as feeling none at all, and she herself had never been fond of weather like this.
They were still steadily ascending when both Cheonhwa and Yeonhwa caught a distant sound.
“Junior Sister Yeonhwa, do you hear that?”
“Mm. Fighting.”
The noise of combat drifted from farther up the slope. They raced toward it to see what was happening.
There, a crowd of martial artists was attacking a single figure—and that figure was familiar.
“The northern woman we saw at the inn yesterday?”
The white-haired, blue-eyed woman was toppling her assailants one after another. Her pale hands casually struck aside weapons; the moment her palm touched an opponent’s body, pure white frost bloomed. It was the hand arts and ice arts for which the North Sea Ice Palace was famous.
“Cough…!”
Warriors invaded by the yin-cold energy of her ice arts froze in places and collapsed, vomiting blood—severe internal injuries from the cold qi that had wormed into them through her soft techniques.
“I-I’m sorry! The spiritual herb blinded me—I must have gone mad! I won’t chase you anymore, just spare my life!”
The last remaining attacker flung his weapon to the ground and begged, yet the woman only stared at him with eyes colder than the mountain wind.
“Ghk?!”
In a flash she seized him by the throat. He thrashed, trying to break free as his breath failed, but the yin-cold energy pouring into him soon snuffed his life out. Confirming the last assailant was dead, the white-haired woman casually tossed the corpse aside.
Her gaze turned to Cheonhwa’s group.
“Have you also come to assault this lady as those scoundrels did?”
“No, we—”
Cheonhwa began to deny it, but the woman was already charging. Without waiting for excuses she launched a palm strike—simple and direct, yet the force contained within the palm wind was anything but ordinary.
I can’t block that!
Acting on pure instinct, Cheonhwa unfolded the Nine Palaces Footwork and slipped aside. Where the palm wind passed, the air itself froze and white frost scattered like snow.
Strong. Especially her inner power—it’s profound.
He had already guessed as much when she single-handedly disposed of the attackers before they could intervene, but the white-haired woman’s martial prowess was clearly of a high order.
She doesn’t look inclined to listen to explanations.
The distrust in her eyes said everything. Clearing up the misunderstanding through words was nearly impossible. First they had to subdue someone intent on killing them.
She’s highly skilled. Subduing her without injury won’t be easy.
Her ice arts stood at a higher realm than either Cheonhwa’s or Yeonhwa’s. Even a glancing touch would allow the yin-cold energy to invade and freeze them. Yet Cheonhwa spoke without hesitation.
“I’ll take the front.”
He charged. He did not draw Okgyeong. In its present damaged state, another hit from ice arts might shatter it for good. Instead he concentrated power into a tightly clenched fist.
I’ll recreate the principle of ‘Weight’ that Wol-ak showed me.
Three energies layered within his arm until every space was densely filled. His opponent likewise focused power into her palm. Fist and palm collided head-on.
Boom!
A heavy impact rolled through the air; the residual force whipped their robes. At the same time the yin-cold energy of her ice arts climbed his fist and began to freeze it—but only the surface. Inside, the energy packed so tightly left no gap for the cold to penetrate.
The woman’s eyes sharpened. Perhaps she disliked that her soft technique had failed to take proper effect. Her entire aura surged as though she meant to force an inner-power contest.
Cheonhwa had no intention of fighting her on favorable ground. He had stepped forward only to hold her for a moment.
While he pinned her attention, Yeonhwa and Jeokhwa slipped in from either side. Heat shimmered in the air; cold qi swirled to drive cold qi away. Neither drew her sword from its scabbard. Their goal was only to subdue.
Scarlet and pure-white trajectories closed in. The woman broke off the internal clash and retreated sharply. Seizing that opening, Cheonhwa pressed forward again. Power gathered once more in his unfrozen hand.
Realizing she could not evade, she immediately took a defensive stance and braced for impact.
Whoosh!
A fierce wind followed the arc of his fist—yet the expected shock never arrived. Cheonhwa’s knuckles stopped an inch from her face.
He had halted the blow at the precise moment he could have inflicted real damage. The woman looked puzzled.
“What are you thinking?”
“We came to this mountain on our own business, unrelated to you.”
“In other words…”
Only then did she recognize her mistake. She had unleashed killing moves against complete strangers. From their perspective, nothing could have been more rude.
At last lowering her guard, she offered a formal bow.
“I have been discourteous. I mistook you for companions of the ones who attacked me.”
“No one was hurt, so we will overlook it.”
“My thanks. This lady is Seol Yerin, Young Palace Master of the North Sea Ice Palace.”
“I am Cheonhwa, a third-generation disciple of the Zhongnan Sect. These are my junior sisters, Yeonhwa and Jeokhwa.”
“Zhongnan Sect… the great sect that claims Shaanxi Province as its domain.”
Seol Yerin nodded calmly, as though the three’s exceptional skill now made perfect sense. Cheonhwa and his companions, however, were inwardly astonished by her identity.
Why would the Young Palace Master of the North Sea Ice Palace be climbing Mount Taebaek alone—and under attack, no less?