Echoes of the Frozen Heart
The interior of the Death Forest cave was far more desolate than we had imagined.
“It really does… feel like there’s something in here,” Namgung Cheonho said in a trembling voice, the biting cold cutting straight through to the bone. Outside the cave there had been no sign of anything unusual, but the deeper we went, the more sharply the temperature plummeted. I could feel it on my skin. When I glanced back at Geumrin, his eyes were blinking rapidly. So this must be the hibernation pattern he had mentioned. I wasn’t sure it was right to think this way about an ally, but if we ever had to face the merfolk in the future, it would be good information to remember.
“Just ahead,” Park Jocheol said. The cave had been eerily silent, with only the soft sound of our footsteps echoing, but the moment his voice cut through that quiet, the tension spiked.
Light. A faint glow spilled from deep within the cave, softly illuminating the pitch-black surroundings. In the strangely bright space directly ahead stood a highly suspicious altar.
“That must be the treasure.”
“It certainly looks that way… but there are people there,” Park Jocheol added to my muttered observation.
Two figures stood guard in front of the altar. A woman sat upon a massive throne carved of ice, her unfocused eyes staring blankly in our direction. Beside her was a single knight acting as her escort. The woman radiated a chilling aura, while the knight wore red armor that stood in stark contrast to her blue magical power. Just seeing them told me this treasure was likely of a far higher grade than anything we had encountered before.
On the altar rested a radiant blue orb. Upon closer inspection, it seemed the mana flowing from the orb was infusing power into the two guardians.
You have discovered the S-rank treasure Heart of Frost.
You have discovered the guardian Guardian (Serena).
You have discovered the guardian Guardian (Landon).
Landon? The familiar name in the system message made me squint, trying to get a better look at their faces. But that moment of recognition was brief.
“Those two… aren’t they the Saintess and the Red Knight from the Holy Kingdom?” Geumrin muttered beside me. The instant he spoke, the memory clicked into place. I remembered exactly when I had first met the pair standing before us.
It had been shortly after we arrived on the third floor, during that chaotic incident. The bloody clash in the third-floor lobby between a Holy Kingdom paladin and Geumrin—these two had been at the center of it.
Frost Witch (Serena) Lv.4
A witch corrupted by the mana of the Heart of Frost. She primarily wields ice magic and shows an obsessive attachment to the artifact. There is no way to cure the mana corruption unless she is killed and revived.
— Successful hunt yields gem or ring drops.
For some reason, the Saintess had become a monster. Now it was clear—the treasure on the altar had placed some kind of unknown curse upon her.
“This… just got a lot more complicated,” I said. The other three nodded cautiously in agreement.
We had already taken down several Lv.4 bosses together on our way here. We didn’t know the exact strategy for defeating the Frost Witch, but we believed it was manageable. The real problem was the knight standing with her. That fight felt like pure nonsense.
Frost Knight (Landon) Lv.5
A knight cursed by the Frost Witch. He chose to receive the curse. By accepting it, he has awakened his hidden potential and now possesses greater mana than before the curse. There is no way to lift the curse unless the Frost Witch removes it or is killed and revived.
— No additional information available.
A person who had already been strong to begin with had grown even stronger after receiving an infusion of mana, pushing his level to 5. From our experience hunting monsters so far, each level increase seemed to multiply their combat power by anywhere from five to ten times. In other words—
“Haha. You’re saying that monster is at least five times stronger than that spider thing, the Desert Lord or whatever it was called?” Namgung Cheonho asked. Park Jocheol nodded, cold sweat beading on his forehead from the tension.
The two monsters had already noticed us. They radiated a cold so intense it felt like our hearts might freeze solid. The pressure must have been overwhelming; Geumrin was already blinking rapidly again.
“Let’s pull back slowly for now. From the look of things, they probably won’t attack as long as we don’t approach the treasure—”
Step.
Ah. Never mind.
Before I could even finish speaking, Landon—who had been at the front—drew his sword and took a step toward us. He assumed a middle guard stance, the kind that allowed seamless transitions between offense and defense. It was a clear warning that he was on high alert and could charge at any moment.
And then—
“They’re coming!”
At Park Jocheol’s shout, Landon leaped toward us, frost swirling wildly around him.
Up until now, I had crossed swords with a wide variety of opponents. On the first floor, when I knew nothing of swordsmanship, I had swung wildly against the kingdom’s inspectors. In the martial world, I had learned proper techniques and faced warriors who wielded inner energy. But I had only ever experienced one-on-one duels against opponents above a certain level. Facing multiple difficult enemies at the same time was a first.
Clang!
My sword, reinforced with inner energy, collided with Landon’s blade and produced a tremendous crash. It was a sharp, piercing sound—like striking hollow ice with a steel hammer. As the Frost Knight, Landon’s Level 5 power was no joke. After clearing the second floor, all my stats—Strength, Agility, Constitution, and Mana—had surpassed Level 30. I had never imagined I would be overpowered in raw physicality.
Clang! Clang! Clang-clang-clang!
His speed was equally impressive. It seemed he had originally been a practitioner of swift sword techniques; subduing him quickly would be difficult. That left only the difference in stamina and mana.
But the real problem is…!
At that moment, I spotted the Saintess behind him, casting a spell. Landon’s abilities were troublesome enough on their own, but the countless ice spears forming around the corrupted Saintess doubled the threat. Their coordinated assault flowed together naturally. A single hit from those spears would mean instant death.
“Siin! Get back!”
Namgung Cheonho, who had been planting flowers of light on the ground to illuminate our surroundings, must have spotted the menacing ice spears. He urgently formed hand seals and shouted.
“That’s… easier said than done!”
Ever since our blades had locked, my sword had frozen solid to his. If I dropped my weapon and retreated now, I could avoid the attack—but I would lose my sword in the process.
A frosty breath escaped Landon’s lips. It almost looked like he was smiling at me in victory. A chill that made my hair stand on end pierced straight into my lungs.
But—
“Like hell I will!”
I forcefully drew up the mana that had been dormant in one half of my body. It was the one thing my master, Dang Hwi-so, had been most astonished by while teaching me: the fact that both yin-cold energy and yang-heat energy coexisted within me.
Hsssss!Crack!
The mana I concentrated into my sword slowly pried Landon’s frozen blade away. The strain caused my energy to drain rapidly, but I used that brief opening to fling myself backward.
“Ice Spear!”
At the witch’s command, countless large and small ice spears flew toward us. But she wasn’t the only one who had been preparing a technique.
“Flame Gale!”
A brilliant torrent of fire erupted from Namgung Cheonho’s hands like a flamethrower. Though less powerful than the flame cannon he had used before, there was no better technique for warming the inside of this freezing cave. The flames swallowed the witch’s ice spears. Since they were formed of mana, they didn’t melt completely, but their lethal force was greatly diminished.
Clang-clang-clang!
“I’ll cover you!” Park Jocheol shouted as he rushed to my side and swatted away the weakened ice spears.
This fight was no longer one-on-one. If the enemy used coordinated attacks, we would simply do the same.
Sword against sword. Even if our ability values were similar, there was one crucial difference between Landon and me.
“Jocheol! Take down the witch!”
“What?”
Park Jocheol froze for a moment, face stiff with confusion at my order. But when I raised my sword and pointed it at Landon, he stopped arguing and charged toward the witch.
Clang!
A faint blue sword energy began to flow along my blade. What I had learned in the martial world wasn’t limited to the Moonlight Sword Art. I had received countless martial arts manuals from various warriors. After clearing the second floor, with a little time to spare, I had devoted myself to studying every sect’s techniques.
One of the skills I had acquired was the first form of the Southern Sea Thirty-Six Swords.
Raging Wave Water Sword.
It was the sword art of the Hainan Sect that had annoyed me so much on the second floor. As I unleashed a massive blue wave from my blade, the witch—who had been watching Park Jocheol from behind Landon—immediately fired a blast of freezing energy at my Raging Wave Water Sword. Her plan was clearly to freeze me first, since I posed the greatest threat.
But that was exactly what I had been hoping for.
“Haaap!”
With a shout, I released the compressed mana I had been holding back. I twisted my sword and focused the wave of energy directly at Landon, who was rushing in to block Park Jocheol.
Shaaaaa—!
The blue light poured down like a waterfall. Unlike my first attempt, this lighter wave of mana collided with the frost and began to freeze from the point of contact. Landon turned his head, trying to block the Raging Wave Water Sword, but there was no way a single sword could stop a deluge of mana that fell like a blizzard.
“Kha…!”
The mana that engulfed him cooled at an alarming rate. An icy waterfall that froze the very space around it formed. Landon was frozen in place, and I could clearly see Park Jocheol swinging his sword at the witch.