"There are three things that gave Grandfather trouble when he faced the Azure-White Flood Dragon."
"Three?"
In battle, even a single variable can flip the outcome of victory and defeat. And yet, three.
If there's one thing I can say with certainty now that I've reached the Harmony Realm, it's that a martial artist of the Harmony Realm can do far more than they cannot.
Moreover, the Ice Heaven Lord was one of the most outstanding among the absolute masters of his generation.
If someone like that said it was troublesome, then it truly must have been troublesome—which is to say, the Azure-White Flood Dragon was no mere large snake.
As I suppressed the unease beginning to stir within me, Bing Yerin's explanation continued.
"One is its size. It's so massive that even if you land a proper wound, it's hard for that to become a fatal one, he said."
"…Still, if you strike a vital point, something should come of it."
"Do you know where a snake's vital point is?"
"Ah."
Martial artists are, at their core, people who fight humans, and martial arts were created to face human opponents.
I know the acupoints where a mere prick makes a person spew blood, but I don't know a snake's meridians.
Let alone its vital points. At best, I know that cutting its neck kills it. No—even that wouldn't kill it outright.
Once, long ago, I caught and ate a snake when I was hungry.
I remember that even after clearly severing the snake's head with a scythe, its jaws and body kept moving independently for quite a long time, which felt utterly grotesque.
"It seems you roughly understand, don't you? To borrow Grandfather's analogy, he said it was a sense of helplessness akin to trying to kill a massive hall with a single needle."
"Yes. I tried imagining it for a moment, but I couldn't think of any good method other than severing its neck or churning the inside of its skull with a sword. With a body that size, how many times would I have to swing the blade… Senior Seomun Hwa-rin. Could I manage it somehow with the Internal Reassembly Art?"
"Hmm. For one, if I were to smash it, I'd smash it, but I have no confidence in soft techniques like the Internal Reassembly Art."
The person who seemed the most likely to be "soft" in this very spot begins wiggling her fingers with a serious face, as if measuring something.
"If I concentrate all my power into a single point, my fist can shatter whatever stands in its way. However, in that case, it would only embed itself about as deep as my arm. As you said, I wonder how many times I'd have to swing to break through the skull."
"You'd probably have to swing far more times than the two of you imagine. Because of the other difficulty Grandfather mentioned."
"And what is the second one?"
Bing Yerin adds her reply to Seomun Hwa-rin's answer in a composed tone. She was already growing a little weary of this.
The earlier difficulty was a matter that would make even an absolute master like the Ice Heaven Lord hesitate, and now she was saying there was an even greater problem than that.
Bing Yerin gently extends her arm, turning her palm to face the sky. Then comes the movement of her internal energy.
Woong—
A bluish aura envelops Bing Yerin's hand, then slowly rotates around it.
It was too delicate a movement to be called ordinary Fist Energy.
Though I had never trained in it myself, I knew it well enough, having examined the martial arts of the North Sea Ice Palace together with Seol Ri-hyang.
That slow rotation of internal energy, should the need arise, would become a vortex that penetrates the opponent's body and tears their Meridians to shreds.
Once those shattered Meridians froze over, most opponents were finished.
It could be considered a far more refined version of the technique Seol Ri-hyang typically used to push cold energy into the body.
Still, I couldn't figure out why she was suddenly demonstrating this in front of us. Surely she wasn't trying to show off her skills before me or Seomun Hwa-rin.
My puzzlement lasted only a moment. Before long, Bing Yerin lightly clenched her fist, dispersing the internal energy concentrated in her hand, and spoke.
"Azure-White Cold Serpents, like most Spirit Beasts, instinctively know how to use their own energy. At best, it's just a matter of whether they release it or not."
"So the Azure-White Flood Dragon is different?"
"Yes. It's not quite comparable to human martial arts, but they say it handles cold energy with a proficiency that's hard to believe from a mere beast."
According to Bing Yerin's continued explanation, the Azure-White Flood Dragon went beyond simply spreading cold energy in all directions—it could concentrate it in any direction it wished, with any intensity it desired.
As befitting a Harmony Realm Spirit Beast, the scale of the energy it moved was naturally enormous.
In other words, though limited to its immediate surroundings, it could unleash a storm of cold energy exactly as it wished.
"…Now I understand why they gave it the name 'Flood Dragon.' It's far too powerful to be called mere trickery from a snake."
"Still, a simple blizzard would only be a minor inconvenience to a Harmony Realm martial artist like myself or you. It wouldn't pose a serious problem."
Seomun Hwa-rin's words made sense. The power to summon a storm was certainly remarkable, but martial artists who had reached the Harmony Realm could do similar things in the first place.
Like collapsing a massive cliff in an instant, or catching a falling waterfall and sending it surging back into the sky…
Or, as Seomun Hwa-rin had shown before, smashing head-on a mudslide that could have wiped out an entire small village.
Though all of those examples involved destruction, the key point was that with full effort, they could bring about something comparable to a small natural disaster.
But even this time, Bing Yerin's next words surpassed our imagination by another step.
"It's just as you said. Especially Grandfather, who mastered the Ice White Divine Skill, which is practically the pinnacle of Yin-Cold Energy Cultivation. The storm of cold was fierce, but not to the point of being a problem. …That is, until the Azure-White Flood Dragon realized it wasn't working and tried a different approach."
"A different approach?"
"Instead of releasing the cold to attack its enemy, it released it to protect itself, and forcibly held it in place. As a result, thick ice rose up over its already-hard scales."
"…Protective Qi."
"It's far more crude than that. The real problem is that its already massive body became even tougher."
At this point, I was so dumbfounded that all I could do was let out a hollow laugh. I was beginning to understand why the Ice Heaven Lord, fighting at full strength in the North Sea of all places, had failed to bring it down.
Hard, massive, and with the tenacious vitality befitting a serpent.
The rate at which a Harmony Realm martial artist's vast internal energy drained was faster than the speed at which they could land a critical blow.
"I can see this is no ordinary opponent. Still, I never imagined it would be this bad… Well, I suppose now you'll tell me the last troublesome part?"
"The last part is simple. It's because the Azure-White Flood Dragon is very clever."
"It's a Spirit Beast, so of course it's intelligent. Is that really worth calling troublesome?"
"Grandfather once said that ordinary tricks don't work on it, and he's been nearly tricked by it more than once. He said it's less like a clever beast and more like a cunning person."
At Bing Yerin's words, Seomun Hwa-rin let out a deep sigh.
"Hah. A man without thick hide or sharp claws can only hunt beasts stronger than himself because his mind far surpasses theirs. If this beast has taken the strengths of a beast while overcoming its weaknesses, then it is indeed troublesome."
"Still, it won't be troublesome forever. I've personally cut off the heads of plenty of clever bastards, so I know how it goes."
"…You sometimes say terrifying things so casually."
"Ah, my martial prowess back then was similar to my current level. They weren't people trying to make up for a lack of skill with tricks—they were clearly ahead of me. …That's why I grew arrogant, and that arrogance led to death."
"That's not what I meant… No. Never mind. Whether it's you or me, we're both butchers of men."
"???"
I have no idea why she's bringing this up all of a sudden, but every martial artist is, at their core, a butcher of men.
The only thing that separates the righteous from the unrighteous is what one hopes to achieve by taking a life.
If you wield your blade to do what is right, to protect people—that is the Orthodox Sects.
If you wield it to satisfy your self-interest and twisted desires—is that not the Unorthodox Sects?
The important thing is that both wield their swords toward people. And a sword is a tool for killing people.
I wanted to voice these thoughts right away, but…
Seol Ri-hyang shook her head with a "just as I thought" expression, and Bing Yerin trembled with an even paler complexion, so I held back.
Everyone's going too far.
I grumbled inwardly for a moment. But unless I planned to live in the North Sea Ice Palace for a thousand years, I couldn't just sit here lamenting.
"Well, anyway, thanks for telling me, Bing Yerin. I'll have to approach this from a different perspective than when dealing with people."
"People… no, I'm glad it was helpful. Regardless, this matter concerns the future of the North Sea Ice Palace. If there's anything you need, please tell me."
"Then there's one thing I'd like to ask of you right away."
"Already?"
Bing Yerin widened her eyes, apparently not expecting to be asked for something so soon after offering her help. I shrugged my shoulders at her and continued.
"Can you gather those who have mastered Force Qi Skill or similar martial arts? I need to get a feel for it through sparring bouts."
"Uh, um. Well, you see…"
"Don't worry. Though I call it sparring, I only plan to defend."
The second difficulty Bing Yerin had mentioned. Releasing vast amounts of cold energy freely, and in some cases, wrapping it around the body to use like armor.
This would certainly prove troublesome for most martial artists, but fortunately, I had a clear method for dealing with it.
Harmony Realm martial artists are those who have imbued their martial arts with their mental image. This is a kind of destination, and apart from the martial arts they have learned, they become able to employ one unique ability of their own.
For example, Seomun Hwa-rin's fists are strong. So abnormally strong that they can smash through any obstacle blocking her path head-on.
Before the regression, the poison of Tang So-wol, once called the Poison Lady, had become a stubborn poison that internal energy or medicine could not overcome… one that could only be expelled through Intent alone.
The Lord of the Black Alliance's twin spears would pierce their target no matter what, even if they had to trace an arc so mysterious that even he himself could not comprehend it.
And I can cut what cannot be cut, and extend my blade to places it should not reach.
This is the result of Intent, which makes the impossible possible, manifesting in its most fundamental form.
In my case, the lingering attachment of having ultimately failed to protect anything, and the resolve to lose nothing more from now on, have been imbued directly into my sword.
Thanks to that, I can cut slightly farther than the length of my blade, and I can easily sever even formless energies like killing intent or internal energy.
Even if the Azure-White Flood Dragon handles the cold energy skillfully and wraps it around its body as new scales, I would be able to cut it just as I always do. Of course, practice would be necessary.
I had been trying to find someone to help through Bing Yerin, but her reaction was strangely lukewarm.
"Is there a problem?"
"…Yes. In truth, there isn't a single person who meets the conditions you mentioned."
"I know that the North Sea Ice Palace's martial arts favor wrapping energy around the hands and striking directly… but is there really no one?"
"There are a few such martial arts, but there isn't a single person who has mastered them."
"???"
I blinked in confusion for a moment, wondering what on earth she meant. But the explanation Bing Yerin gave next made everything clear.
"To properly handle the Force Qi Skill, one needs at least the Transcendent Peak realm, does one not?"
"Ah."
There were few martial artists of that caliber left in the declining North Sea Ice Palace. And among them, not a single one had mastered the Force Qi Skill or anything similar.
So it was no wonder the Glacier True Energy had become a martial art that no one could learn.
In the brief solemn silence that followed, Seol Ri-hyang peeked her head out.
"Cheon Hwi."
"Hm?"
"I'm good at that kind of thing, aren't I?"
"Oh."
Come to think of it, there was Seol Ri-hyang. It wasn't pure Force Qi Skill, but a unique method that mixed in Yin Art—still, that would be more than enough to get a feel for it.
"Will you help me?"
"I had nothing I could do but cheer you on anyway, so I can help as much as you need."
"…"
There was a sharp edge to her words.
She must have been a little sulky.