Crackle.
The sound of meridians freezing, audible only to Seol Ri-hyang's ears.
The Ice Crystal. It was proof that the immense cold energy within it had begun to seep into Seol Ri-hyang's meridians.
Afraid that even a sliver of energy might leak out—and that she might fail to control it fully and waste her strength in vain—Seol Ri-hyang kept her mouth tightly shut, a single bead of sweat tracing down her forehead.
It's fine. Just store it for now and move slowly.
Originally, the Ice Crystal was a sacred object whose power could only be drawn upon by the lords of the North Sea Ice Palace. And every lord of the palace, save for the current one, had been an absolute master of the Harmony Realm.
That was precisely why it was such a precious relic—and also why, unless one had reached the Harmony Realm, it was nearly impossible to make full use of it.
In the present age, the Ice Crystal's power had waned considerably, to the point where it might even dissipate without a sacrifice.
But even so, an Ice Crystal was still an Ice Crystal. The pure cold contained within it was more than enough to freeze a person's body solid, and to shatter it.
An ordinary person grasping the Ice Crystal would have had their fingers frozen stiff, and even if they somehow managed to swallow it, they would only turn into a massive block of ice and break apart.
But Seol Ri-hyang was different.
She had mastered the North Sea Ice Palace's Yin-Cold Energy Cultivation, a technique that rivaled the Ice Crystal itself. In particular, she had mastered the Glacier True Energy, which prioritized the control of cold energy above all else.
And on top of that, there was her Pure Yin Constitution. This constitution, which granted her the purest Yin Energy of anyone, was more than sufficient to contain the Ice Crystal's cold.
As if proving that cold energy was but a branch of Yin Energy, the Ice Crystal could freeze Seol Ri-hyang's meridians, but it could not shatter them.
And Seol Ri-hyang's oldest memory was… a distant, bone-deep cold, as if she herself had already become ice.
This was not a matter of the actual weather, but a phenomenon that occurred all too often because she could not withstand her own Yin Energy.
At the time, Seol Ri-hyang had thought she had an innate illness, but… now she understood.
It was simply that her entire body's meridians had frozen from the extremely refined Yin Energy of her Pure Yin Constitution, and yet, precisely because she had that Pure Yin Constitution, she had not died but survived.
The same held true now.
The Ice Crystal's vast cold was far greater than the internal energy Seol Ri-hyang had built up over the years.
At the point where her meridians froze, an ordinary martial artist would have died, but Seol Ri-hyang could endure it thanks to her constitution.
It did not matter that the process was not clean. If she could somehow endure it and contain the Ice Crystal's energy… then all that remained was to move that vast cold as she willed, even just once.
Seol Ri-hyang's eyes, which had been closed for a while, slowly opened.
Move.
She stoked her concentration to an extreme, aimed at the cold energy that was blocking her meridians shut.
Move! I have to move!
In the past, when Cheon Hwi had personally taught Seol Ri-hyang martial arts, he had once said something like this.
It is Intent that makes possible what cannot be achieved through mere physical movement and the operation of internal energy alone.
Intent is, in essence, will and thought. What people commonly call the mind.
Furthermore, since everyone has a mind, he had said that every person already knows how to use Intent.
It is just that they cannot wield it consciously, and their skill in its use is utterly immature, so it carries no particular significance.
Thus, it is not about how well one fights—the harmony of Essence, Qi, and Spirit is what determines the height of one's martial level.
Ordinarily, this would be the kind of content one might dismiss as an unrealistic, theoretical discussion. But Seol Ri-hyang did not do so.
After all, the option of casually brushing off Cheon Hwi's words had never existed for her in the first place.
It was Cheon Hwi who had shattered Seol Ri-hyang's small, dark world, and it was Cheon Hwi who had taken her hand and pulled her out into the light. How could she doubt his words?
'I can do it. Surely.'
And so, she sets down everything that is unnecessary.
She discards the thick pride she had built up to protect herself.
She discards the sense of shame she felt from the back of Cheon Hwi, who had already drifted so far ahead of her.
At last, she even casts away the faint jealousy and obsession she had held deep within her heart.
As the layers of armor she had wrapped around herself peeled away, all that remained was her pure, true nature.
A fierce, chilling killing intent began to ripple across Seol Ri-hyang's eyes.
Those standing nearby who witnessed her flinched at the sight of her terrifying gaze… but had Cheon Hwi seen her like this, he would have been impressed instead.
The killing intent emanating from Seol Ri-hyang carried the distinct otherness of a person who could throw herself entirely into a single purpose.
And now, the killing intent burning in Seol Ri-hyang's eyes surpassed the her from before the regression, who had been unable to cast off the many layers of armor surrounding her until the very end.
Wooong—
The energy of the Ice Crystal that had been blocking Seol Ri-hyang's meridians began to move, bit by bit, responding to her will—a will that had surpassed its limits—and to her thoughts.
At the same time, within the transparent energy of the Ice Crystal—so close to Natural Qi it was nearly indistinguishable—a murky, blood-red killing intent raised its head.
It was a corrupt energy that had been born each time the Ice Crystal's power waned, fed by the blood of the shrine maidens.
How many of those shrine maidens had given their lives of their own free will? The energy of those who had not would have polluted the Ice Crystal, bit by bit, whether anyone realized it or not.
No, perhaps the Ice Crystal had been a corrupt thing from the very beginning.
After all, was it not the founder of the North Sea Ice Palace who had slain the mother of the Azure-White Flood Dragon and cut open her belly to take the Ice Crystal from within?
But to Seol Ri-hyang, none of this mattered.
Not the earnestness of the Spirit Beast who had died fighting to protect her young and her nest, nor the resentment of the shrine maidens who had been pushed to their deaths.
Even if all of that were combined, it could never outweigh Seol Ri-hyang's single-minded determination.
Above all, all of this was ultimately the lingering thoughts of the dead. In other words, they all belonged to Yin Energy.
Seol Ri-hyang's Pure Yin Constitution was not a constitution that handled cold energy. It was a constitution that handled Yin Energy.
Crack.
The sound of solid ice cracking began to sound from all directions at once.
The energy of the Ice Crystal, which had been twitching little by little, began to circulate through Seol Ri-hyang's meridians—slowly, but surely.
A sensation like ice sliding along her meridians.
It might have been a coincidence, but the cold energy moving according to the Oral Formula seemed to prove the name of the martial art, Glacier True Energy.
And so, the moment she managed to circulate the Ice Crystal's energy through a full cycle, albeit somewhat roughly.
Seol Ri-hyang's lips parted slightly as certainty took hold.
"Huuu…"
The overwhelming sense of omnipotence that came from wielding an energy so vast she had never even imagined it. The fatigue that had built up in the process of surpassing her limits. The sense of accomplishment from having done it all. And the urge to rush to Cheon Hwi's side this very moment.
All sorts of tangled emotions swirled within her breath and scattered into the air.
Seol Ri-hyang's gaze turned from her inner self to the window.
Cheon Hwi and Seomun Hwa-rin were still struggling against the Azure-White Flood Dragon.
A deep sword wound had opened on the dragon's neck, and its tail had been crushed as well.
But as if that had come at a price, the two of them were not in great shape either.
Seomun Hwa-rin's Protective Qi was noticeably fainter than before, and as for Cheon Hwi, it seemed he had taken a bad hit somewhere—his left arm hung limp at his side as he wielded his sword with one hand.
Taking all of this in, a faint smile rose at the corner of Seol Ri-hyang's lips.
"It's not too late yet."
But it was also true that this was no situation for leisurely composure.
Seol Ri-hyang drew in a deep breath and let it out, pouring into it the emotions swirling within her.
"————!"
A clear voice. It was nothing but a rise and fall of pitch, without even lyrics… yet even in such a dire moment, it was a song that wrapped warmly around the listener's heart.
She had not sung loudly at all, yet her voice carried far into the distance.
As if the song, filled with pure affection and worry, were a substitute for conveying warmth, it swallowed the surrounding chill and swelled in size.
Not only the Natural Qi that filled the North Sea, but even the internal energy of the North Sea Ice Palace's martial artists.
"Huh!"
"What is this…?"
Shock and horror filled the eyes of the Ice Palace Lord and Bing Yerin.
What martial artist wouldn't be startled to have their internal energy siphoned away regardless of their own will?
Of course, the pull exerted by Seol Ri-hyang's Yin Art was not all that strong.
It was a gentle ability closer to persuasion than coercion. One could resist it as much as one wished. But.
"Warriors of the North Sea Ice Palace, listen! Do not resist the sensation you feel now—offer up your internal energy!"
The Ice Palace Lord was well aware that Seol Ri-hyang's martial art, though sharing the same roots as the North Sea Ice Palace's, had developed along a completely different path.
He also knew that she unleashed Glacier True Energy through her Yin Art, resonating with the surrounding cold to temporarily amplify its power.
But by what principle it resonated with the North Sea Ice Palace's internal energy, he could not even begin to guess.
Perhaps, while mastering the North Sea Ice Palace's martial arts, Seol Ri-hyang had unconsciously extended her influence.
Or perhaps this function had been hidden within the Glacier True Energy that no one had mastered for so long.
What was certain, however, was that each time she devoured their internal force, the power within her song grew stronger.
Each strand of energy might not amount to much on its own, but gathered together, they formed a force to rival the cold aura coiled around the Azure-White Flood Dragon.
Of course, Seol Ri-hyang was not directly controlling this. Just channeling all of the Ice Crystal's energy into her voice was already pushing her past her limits. She had no strength left to spare.
Instead, Seol Ri-hyang was guiding the direction of the cold aura. And that was enough.
Watching all of this from right beside her, Bing Yerin's eyes went wide.
"…Glacier True Energy."
A martial art whose legitimacy was acknowledged because the founder had mastered it, yet which no one practiced because it had almost no practical application.
And so, in the end, it became a martial art that no one could master even with the secret manual in hand.
She had thought it was nothing more than a technique for moving large amounts of cold energy, but now she thought she understood why the founder of the North Sea Ice Palace had left it behind and held it in such high regard.
In its early days, the North Sea Ice Palace had not been as strong as it was now. Though they had somehow managed to find a new home, they still had to fight a daily battle against the harsh cold.
That was why they had passed the martial art on to as many people as possible, and why they had left behind the Glacier True Energy, hoping that one day they could drive away the cold of the surrounding lands and create a place worth living in.
But at some point, drunk on power, they had neglected the Glacier True Energy left for the future and chased only the Ice White Divine Skill, which could freeze the enemies before their eyes.
Perhaps it was only natural that the North Sea Ice Palace had grown weak in the present generation.
If that was the case, then the Seol Ri-hyang of now…
Just as Bing Yerin's thoughts reached that point, a voice reached the Azure-White Flood Dragon—a voice that carried not only the energy of the Ice Crystal but also the internal energy of every martial artist of the North Sea Ice Palace.
Seol Ri-hyang's original plan had been to disrupt the Azure-White Flood Dragon's internal energy circulation and create an opening.
But now, the energy drawn by her voice was far greater than she had initially expected.
Crack.
The blizzard raised by the Azure-White Flood Dragon was canceled out as if it had never existed in the first place.
The scales layered over its scales split apart and shattered on their own.
The Azure-White Flood Dragon, flustered by its own energy suddenly turning docile—no, hardening like a stone.
Beyond merely creating an opening, a sword-red and white Aura struck from above and below at the creature, now reduced to nothing more than a large serpent.
KWAANG!
Seomun Hwa-rin's Fist Strike slammed down onto the Azure-White Flood Dragon's crown from above.
With scales shattered and part of its skull caved in, its head was driven rapidly into the ground. Toward that head, Cheon Hwi's sword, gripped in a reverse hold, shot upward.
Seokeok.
The Azure-White Flood Dragon's head was severed, its neck having been driven straight into the Sword Force.
Thud!
Given its colossal size, the impact shook the very earth.
True to its nature as a tenacious serpent, the beast thrashed about for a moment even after losing its head… but a headless body could never move for long.
The moment the Azure-White Flood Dragon's death was confirmed, cheers erupted from every direction.
But to Seol Ri-hyang, they sounded like nothing more than a ringing in her ears. The Simnyeok she had drawn upon far too heavily. And the internal energy circulation that had clearly surpassed the limits of her physical body.
No matter how strong her Pure Yin Constitution was, pushing herself this far could not leave her unscathed.
"Ah."
A bright smile spread across Seol Ri-hyang's blood-stained lips at the sight of Cheon Hwi rushing toward her, his face pale with shock that she had figured it out this far.
"This is troublesome. I'm going to get scolded by Cheon Hwi again. Yeah."
Her tone showed no sign of actual trouble, nor any hint of pain. That was only natural.
Some had seen in Seol Ri-hyang a gwigi that seemed less than human, and others had seen in her the past and future of the North Sea Ice Palace.
But from the very beginning, Seol Ri-hyang had been looking at only one person. Cheon Hwi.