Wind roared through the darkness, and light flared.
From the space torn pure white, a martial artist in black clothes burst out.
He flinched at the Northern Sea’s cold. It was not because he was flustered. If anything, he looked pleased.
After confirming the formation engraved on the stone floor, the martial artist turned his body.
“It’s not blocked yet!”
At his shout, martial artists poured out through the Passage. They were the Blood Demon’s guard unit from Geumeunsan.
Before the gate closed, more than a hundred of the Blood Demon’s bodyguards all crossed over.
Because the central Passage the Blood Demon used had been blocked, the guards had split into groups and were searching for Passages that had not yet closed.
The one who looked to be their commander stood there, letting the icy wind strike him as he examined the surroundings.
Because the Passage was on the peak of the southern mountain, the sea and the island immediately came into view. Looking at the frozen surface, he spoke.
“You go back and report that the Passage on the southern mountain is open.”
The subordinate standing beside the commander immediately returned through the open Passage.
At the same time, the Passage closed.
The man standing behind the commander cautiously asked,
“Commander, should we go into the Ice Palace first and clear the way?”
“Wait until the others cross over.”
The commander’s gaze dropped to the formation on the ground.
“If we leave our post, the Ice Palace bastards might come and block the Passage.”
“Yes.”
The subordinates took positions around the formation as if forming a battle line.
With that cramped space tightly encircled, it looked difficult for anyone to break through.
But that was an illusion.
The commander’s gaze moved upward. It was the moment he sensed something approaching.
Rumble.
The body of the cultist standing next to him collapsed.
The commander drew his sword and twisted toward the presence, but he saw nothing.
Thud.
All that could be heard was the sound of something falling here and there, like snow slipping from piled-up branches.
They did not even have time to scream.
In an instant, the outermost line collapsed.
Clang.
Then, the commander finally saw the intruder.
A snow-white yeti had risen into the sky, sword in hand, spinning in midair. It was light footwork, like dancing a sword dance beneath the moon (Moon-Under Sword Dance).
Slash.
The sword path, shifting smoothly in height as if sketching a snowy mountain range, passed through five necks.
Thud. Thud-thud.
It was a sight that defied reason. How could there be killing, yet no sound, and not a single dirty drop of blood fly?
“Uaaagh!”
A few cultists who regained their senses drew their swords and attempted to counterattack, but their bodies were cut to pieces before they could even find the vanishing ice ghost.
All around them, the Ice Palace bloodline appeared and disappeared in turn.
Clang.
A sword tinged with moonlight shone blue.
Yin energy traced a circle and severed the Blood Cultists’ limbs, and the rippling sword path shattered the overlapping ranks of blood fiends.
Clang.
The commander blocked the blue sword of the ice ghost that had rushed toward him.
No, he thought he had blocked it.
Snap.
A chill touch brushed the nape of his neck, and then a piled heap of corpses came into view. At the same time, his consciousness vanished.
It was a length of time that could be called an instant.
After that brief time passed, only the sound of the wind circled through the forest.
The Ice Palace martial artist standing near the formation struck down the words engraved on the ground without hesitation.
Clang.
The five Ice Palace martial artists exchanged glances.
They silently turned their gaze to look down at the Northern Sea.
Their eyes had long since grown accustomed to the dark, but the island ringed by cliffs did not show its interior.
The Ice Palace martial artists remained standing there, waiting for someone.
When about two double-hours had passed, six Ice Palace martial artists appeared.
“The Passage?”
“We blocked it.”
“And the ones who came through?”
“There were none.”
No sooner had the newcomers answered with proper courtesy than yet another group arrived.
The Ice Palace martial artist who had broken the formation turned his gaze to the group that had just arrived. Seeing that, the Ice Palace martial artist at the very front bowed his head slightly in greeting and answered,
“There were traces of things having crossed the Passage, so we were late because we were searching the surroundings. We removed all those who crossed.”
He reported the situation in summary before the First Seat even asked.
The First Seat gave a small nod.
Before long, all twenty Ice Palace martial artists had gathered.
Even so, they said nothing.
They were a taciturn lot to begin with, but the silence dragged on too long.
Their hearts were all heavy, and so none of them could readily open their mouths.
While they had been absorbed in training, they had not realized the situation had grown this dangerous.
Supplies of food and medicinal herbs had always been plentiful in the extreme-yin land, so they had simply assumed those who remained in the gorge were living well.
But the members of the second generation who had come to find them had gaunt bones, and the Blood Demon’s guard unit had crossed through the Passage.
If they had been any later, the Blood Demon might have come.
Their kin might have been slaughtered to the last without them ever realizing it.
They had endured harsh training with the single-minded thought of reclaiming the Ice Palace and protecting their bloodline, so the Ice Palace martial artists were feeling emotions hard to put into words.
At that moment, light footsteps split the silence.
Rustle.
At the sound from below the mountain, the First Seat’s gaze dropped.
Their master and the greatest elder of their bloodline, the Fourth Seat, was climbing up.
When the Fourth Seat reached the summit, the Ice Palace martial artists prostrated themselves on the ground.
All except three.
The Fourth Seat had rebuilt the culture of the Northern Sea Seven Seats, taking the fourth seat for himself. He had proclaimed that he would seat three above and three below him, and set that as their training goal.
In form, the Fourth Seat held the fourth seat, but in truth, he surpassed the First Seat and all other Ice Palace martial artists.
The Fourth Seat, who had been the last Ice Palace Lord’s disciple, had personally taught the Northern Sea Ice Palace’s martial arts to the bloodline.
Thanks to their innate constitutions and their outstanding master, they had quickly mastered the Five Peerless Arts.
Any one of them could have become one of the Seven Seats.
These twenty Ice Palace martial artists, every day, had continued brutal duels trying to change the hierarchy, but the ranks never shifted.
As if believing it would never change, the Fourth Seat simply raised the three most outstanding above himself.
Kneeling before the three standing in front of him, the Fourth Seat asked,
“Have you closed all of the Passages?”
“Yes, we have clo... closed them.”
The First Seat, who had answered politely out of habit, hurriedly lowered his speech when the Fourth Seat’s chilly gaze lifted.
It was indescribably uncomfortable to be forced to speak down to someone he served as his master.
But he tried to accept it, since the culture of the Northern Sea Ice Palace put martial attainment above all, and the Seven Seats were said to be the very foundation of the Northern Sea Ice Palace.
At that moment, the Fifth Seat, who had been prostrated behind them, spoke to the Fourth Seat.
“Fourth Seat, I heard there was trouble on the island—has it been resolved?”
The Fifth Seat continued the conversation in a natural tone.
“The second generation’s members said there was also trouble in the gorge, and that they had fallen under the Second Seat’s curse. I am worried.”
The First Seat felt a stab of envy toward the Fifth Seat.
Unlike the attitude he showed the First Seat, the Fourth Seat answered in a voice lacking all emotion.
“There was trouble inside the island, but it has been settled. And as for the Second Seat’s curse, a method of detoxifying it has been found, so it is fine.”
Answering succinctly, the Fourth Seat looked toward the twenty Ice Palace martial artists.
Every one of them was a child who had received his blood.
The Fourth Seat knew that children who carried his blood had a high chance of being born with extreme-yin bodies.
So he had accepted the Blood Demon using him like a stud horse and had tried to leave behind as many descendants as possible.
After the Blood Demon had taken away a few children born with extreme-yin bodies, the Fourth Seat had begun deliberately injecting his own yin energy into any child born with an extreme-yin body to block their bloodline.
With extreme yin blocking their meridians here and there, the children appeared to have a chronic disease.
The Blood Demon saw such bodies as useless trash.
Because he knew that those with severed-meridians syndrome died before thirty, he had sent the children who showed signs of severed-meridians syndrome to the Central Plains without hesitation.
Although the Fourth Seat had blocked their meridians artificially, if he could not open them by the time they turned thirty, they truly could die like severed-meridians patients.
When the time came for the children with severed meridians to leave, the Fourth Seat would tell them to find the Yeonjuda troupe in the Central Plains by any means. That if they went there, they could cure their severed meridians.
It was just some offhand remark those show-off Han family bastards had let slip as they passed through, but since they were the family that went to the Central Plains most often, he had decided it was believable.
Being drained by the Blood Demon was, in any case, a worse choice.
When sending the children of the Ice Palace to the Central Plains, the Fourth Seat had advised them to bide their time and train.
He told those born with extreme-yin bodies that they were destined to become one of the Seven Seats of the Ice Palace, and that the Seven Seats had the duty to protect the Northern Sea.
Anyone who knew reality might have let such absurd talk pass in one ear and out the other, but the hurt children clung to the Fourth Seat’s words and could not let go of hope.
Two strokes of heaven-sent fortune had come to the Ice Palace bloodline who had been sent to the Central Plains.
The first stroke of fortune was that the Northern Sea Ice Palace bloodline had laid hands on the Blood Demon’s Will.
And the second stroke of fortune was that Baek Unhyeon, wandering the Central Plains to free the bloodline, had found every extreme-yin body the Fourth Seat had scattered.
The Fourth Seat looked at the twenty martial artists who had mastered the Five Peerless Arts.
Every one of these children possessed martial skill befitting a seat among the Seven Seats.
So many Ice Palace martial artists mastering the Five Peerless Arts was something unseen in the history of the Northern Sea Ice Palace.
Paradoxically, thanks to the Blood Demon, who had ruined the Northern Sea Ice Palace, the palace had secured an unprecedented level of martial strength.
They had escaped the Blood Demon’s shackles and secured the greatest fighting power in the history of the Northern Sea Ice Palace.
To wish for more fortune than that would have been greed.
The Fourth Seat looked at the Ice Palace martial artists, white as the snowy landscape. A feeling that something was welling up inside struck him.
Without realizing it, he spoke in the speech of familiarity he habitually used.
“On the island, the second Bloodline Master Baek Unhyeon is waiting.”
The Ice Palace martial artists, whose ages all differed, all knew the second Bloodline Master Baek Unhyeon.
A strange light flickered in their cold eyes.
“Everyone except the Seven Seats will go to the gorge and lead the remaining people to the Ice Palace.”
The Ice Palace martial artists who had not risen to the Seven Seats lowered their heads.
The Fourth Seat’s gaze fell on the six Ice Palace martial artists.
“The Seven Seats are the pride of the Northern Sea and the swords that protect the Northern Sea. So when you return to the island, never again... never again let the island be taken.”
They were too used to not making a sound to answer out loud. But with their eyes, with their aura, they were replying.
A heavy intent filled the air: that they would never again allow their grounds to be seized.
Looking at the Ice Palace martial artist in front of him, the Fourth Seat spoke in a trembling voice.
“Now let us return to the Northern Sea Ice Palace.”
Turning his back first, the Fourth Seat faced the Northern Sea where dawn was beginning to break.
Looking at the island that had been taken long ago, the Fourth Seat once again grew greedy.
Wishing for a third stroke of heaven-sent fortune to come to the Northern Sea, he went down toward the sea.
