Chapter 66

All of us standing at the entrance to the Frozen Plain were struck speechless.

It was because an unreal scene was unfolding before our eyes.

As if there were an invisible boundary, the landscape changed sharply just a few meters ahead.

Ahead was an endless snowfield, with a merciless blizzard raging, while the ground where we were now standing was warm and windless, with fresh green grass poking up.

‘So this is the Ice-Soul Demon Realm.’

Admiring it inwardly, I looked around at the group.

Hwang Seung-jong, Im Yeon, Ak Mu-jin.

All three of them had their mouths hanging open, completely overwhelmed.

We couldn’t stand around like this forever, so I clapped my hands to get their attention.

“Now, before we go in, let’s review our goal. What was it?”

“To reach the end of the Frozen Plain!”

“That’s right. There are two things we absolutely need to obtain there.”

Those were the Ice-Spirit Cold-Soul Grass, needed to treat my True Blood Severed Meridians, and the Eternal Snow Blossom I would give to Ju Ok-hwa.

Those two were known to appear together in the same place.

Before my regression, oddly enough, it had been an orthodox sect member, not someone from the Demon Cult, who obtained them.

After that, the fact became widely known.

“The process will not be easy. You cannot let your guard down, but you also cannot be too stiff with tension. Understood?”

“Yes, Young Lord!”

“Understood.”

After hearing Im Yeon and Ak Mu-jin’s answers, I looked at Hwang Seung-jong.

“Got nothing to say? If you have any last words before we go in, say them. You’re the expert here.”

“Then I will.”

Hwang Seung-jong’s eyes flashed sharply.

“The inside of the Ice-Soul Demon Realm is full of illusions and phantom beasts. They are all illusions born of corrupted Demonic Qi, but we will feel them as reality. If you take a serious wound, you could die, so watch yourselves.”

In the end, it was the same thing I had said.

Hwang Seung-jong rummaged through his pack and took out four talismans.

“Take one each and keep it on you. It will lessen the burden from the ominous Demonic Qi. It will block the cold a little as well.”

“Oh, there are talismans like that?”

“I didn’t know either, but turns out there are. I cleaned out the second’s pockets.”

Hwang Seung-jong patted his pack as he spoke.

Come to think of it, his pack was especially stuffed.

When I asked what was inside, he said it had climbing gear like ropes and hooks, a specially made compass, a torch made with Luminous Night Pearls, and various talismans he had taken from his second brother.

‘He really came prepared.’

They say wealth lasts three generations even when a rich house collapses. No wonder a clan that lives in constant fear of being driven out of the Seven Demonic Houses has all sorts of things.

Luminous Night Pearls in particular had to be extremely expensive.

“Let’s go in now.”

We steeled our hearts and stepped into the Frozen Plain.

“Ghk.”

A groan escaped us at once.

A cold of a completely different level from the Illusory Hwang Clan’s simulated formation wrapped our bodies.

It was so cold that Im Yeon actually crouched down, curling in on herself.

The Demon Cult was warm all year round, so she must have been all the more sensitive to the cold.

‘Even so, she’s still better off than me.’

The real problem was me.

Im Yeon had a decent amount of internal energy, but mine was barely the size of a bean.

Which meant my resistance to the cold was far lower.

“Should we split a Cold-Blocking Pill half and half?”

I asked, looking at Im Yeon.

We had only six Cold-Blocking Pills that I had gotten from Ju Ok-hwa.

I didn’t want to use them from the very start, but there was no helping it.

It was far better than freezing to death.

“No, Young Lord. I cannot let you use a Cold-Blocking Pill on my account.”

“There is no need to force yourself to endure. Share it with me.”

“I will accept the sentiment only.”

Im Yeon refused again.

Since they were rare medicine, she was bound to feel self-conscious.

To be honest, I was the same.

It felt a bit awkward to say I would take one alone right after entering, so I meant to take it together with her.

Crunch. I took out a Cold-Blocking Pill and split it in half.

Then I forced one half into Im Yeon’s hand.

“No more arguing. Take it.”

“Young Lord…?”

“We have no idea what will happen from here. If Guard Im is not in top condition, who will protect me?”

“Ah!”

Only then did Im Yeon take the Cold-Blocking Pill.

I swallowed the remaining half as well.

A warm energy spread through my whole body at once, and the cold receded somewhat.

‘Hoo, I feel alive again.’

As I sighed in relief inwardly, Im Yeon spoke in a low voice.

“With your martial prowess, a little cold should be nothing, yet because of me, you wasted a precious pill you ought to be saving…”

She seemed to be misunderstanding something.

I took it because I was cold too.

“I will not forget your consideration, Young Lord. I will stake my life to protect you!”

“Well, there’s no need to go as far as staking your life.”

“How about the two of you stop there?”

Hwang Seung-jong cut into the conversation.

“The two of you are so touching I can hardly watch without tears. Can we get moving already?”

He was tilting the compass in his hand back and forth.

It seemed that he was going to use that to find our way.

“Let’s go.”

“Try to keep up.”

Watching the compass, Hwang Seung-jong started walking.

“The Ice-Soul Demon Realm is a place where the directions are completely scrambled. But with this compass, we can find the way through the first gate. This way.”

There was something I had learned when I properly researched the Frozen Plain.

The Frozen Plain was a place where illusion and reality coexisted.

The old books and the Illusory Hwang Clan’s records mentioned sixteen gates.

No one knew how many there were in total, but it was said you had to pass ten of them to reach the end of the Frozen Plain.

“Oh.”

I wondered how long we had been walking.

Little by little the scenery changed, and a tall mountain with a branching path up its side came into view.

We had passed the first gate.

“Hm. So the second gate is the Fork of Eternity.”

“The Fork of Eternity?”

“If you pick the wrong path, you wander the same place forever. Can you tell which side is the right way?”

“They look exactly the same to me.”

“Pick one. Just for fun.”

I pointed to the path on the left.

Hwang Seung-jong let out an unpleasant little snicker.

“Congratulations, Seventh Young Lord.”

“Did I get it right?”

“No. What you got instead is a new life. Without me, you would have frozen or starved to death. Getting through here is simple. This is a kind of mysterious gate formation. It has a core object that serves as the center. You just need to find it. In this case, that little rock over there.”

Strutting a bit, Hwang Seung-jong chose the path on the right.

When we went up that way, another fork appeared.

Only after going through that process seven or eight times did the forks finally stop.

We had passed the second gate as well.

From the next gate onward, the Revealing Truth Treasure Mirror did its work splendidly.

Spaces appeared where the boundary between reality and illusion was even more blurred than before. To pass through them, we had to find and destroy the core of the illusion.

The only object that could locate those cores was the Revealing Truth Treasure Mirror.

True to its name, it revealed the true form of things.

“Did you know, Seventh Young Lord? For sorcerers, the Revealing Truth Treasure Mirror is a sacred relic of dreams. And yet who would have thought it would end up in the hands of someone who isn’t even a sorcerer?”

With eyes full of admiration, Hwang Seung-jong turned the Revealing Truth Treasure Mirror over in his hands.

He truly was an Illusory Demon Talent. He handled the mirror perfectly.

Thanks to that, we swept through to the fourth gate in one go.

Im Yeon gazed up at me with eyes full of respect.

“You are incredible, Young Lord. The way you lead everything without a single misstep is truly admirable.”

At those words, Hwang Seung-jong furrowed his brow.

“I’m the one doing all the work here. Why are you praising the Seventh Young Lord? Aren’t you letting your personal feelings get a bit too involved?”

“P, personal feelings!”

Flustered, Im Yeon’s face turned red.

But soon she opened her eyes wide and shot back.

“I will acknowledge Young Master Hwang’s mystical arts. But that too is our Young Lord’s ability.”

“How does that follow?”

“Was it not the Seventh Young Lord who brought you here, Young Master Hwang? If not for him, you would still be drinking on tab somewhere.”

“…I guess I really can’t argue with that.”

Hwang Seung-jong cleared his throat awkwardly.

It was the first time Im Yeon had come out on top in their exchanges.

I gave her a thumbs-up.

“Guard Im can be surprisingly sharp sometimes.”

“Thank you, Young Lord. Hehe.”

In that light mood, we entered the fifth gate.

This was where things truly began.

“Young Lord, phantom beasts ahead.”

The fifth gate was a place where three sides were surrounded by cliffs, leaving only the entryway open.

There were a dozen or so semi-transparent illusory wolves there.

“Let’s do it the way we trained in the simulated formation.”

Ak Mu-jin and Im Yeon stepped forward to engage the wolves.

I stayed in the rear and issued directions to them.

While using the Revealing Truth Treasure Mirror, Hwang Seung-jong would be defenseless. I meant to protect him and control the flow of the fight.

While we bought time that way, Hwang Seung-jong chanted an incantation and shattered the gate’s core.

The remaining illusory wolves turned to smoke and vanished, and one of the cliffs crumbled to reveal a path.

“This is it!”

Even as I shouted in good spirits, the difficulty kept rising.

At the sixth gate, an illusory tiger appeared. At the seventh gate, an illusory bear.

We managed to deal with them somehow, but we were fairly worn out.

“Let’s regroup before we enter the eighth gate.”

“That’s the best thing I’ve heard all day.”

Illusions were Hwang Seung-jong’s responsibility, but leading the group as a whole was mine.

Until now we had been forcing our way through with only brief pauses to circulate Qi, but that would not work anymore.

‘So much for clearing it in a single day.’

As befitted an illusion that blurred the line with reality, there was night in here as well.

Moving in the dark was absolutely forbidden.

I treated the group’s minor wounds with the medicines I had received from Ju Ok-hwa.

We laid out sleeping bags too. I had brought them just in case, and we ended up using them.

“Let’s each take another half of a Cold-Blocking Pill.”

It was not as cold here as out on the snowfield.

But since we were about to sleep, it was better to replenish the heat in our bodies. We would sleep better, and you fight better when you slept well.

‘We have three Cold-Blocking Pills left. That should be enough for the remaining gates, right?’

“What do you think will show up next?”

Im Yeon asked.

“Let’s see. An elephant?”

Wolves, tigers, bears.

The phantom beasts guarding the gates had grown stronger in order.

If that trend continued, the next phantom beast would be stronger than the bear.

Among the animals I knew, the only thing that fit the bill was an elephant.

“But it doesn’t really matter what comes out. It’s been doable enough so far. If it starts getting rough, we can handle it like this. Use something like those Luminous Night Pearls the wastrel brought as bait to lure the phantom beasts while we destroy the core, or have the wastrel join the fight completely, wipe out the phantom beasts first, then destroy the core afterward.”

“That’s a good method. But do you really have to call me that?”

Hwang Seung-jong grumbled irritably.

“What else am I supposed to call a wastrel but a wastrel? It’s not like you’ve proved you’re not one yet.”

“Even so, I always properly address you as the Seventh Young Lord.”

“That’s because I’m not a wastrel.”

“Even so-”

“It’s time to sleep. I’m getting sleepy.”

“Hey, Seventh Young Lord?”

Letting his voice go in one ear and out the other, I burrowed into my sleeping bag.

And the next day, after chewing on some simple jerky, we boldly entered the eighth gate.

But then.

“…What is that?”

I doubted my own eyes.

The phantom beast that appeared this time was not an elephant.

That thing, veiled in a curtain of brutal blizzard, floating serenely in midair, so massive that “huge” did not begin to describe it.

“It’s a dragon.”

Yes, it was a dragon.

From dozens of meters away, its overwhelming presence weighed down on my entire body.

“Isn’t it a snake? It’d be great if it’s a snake…”

Im Yeon muttered.

When I glanced at her face, her soul looked like it had already left her body.

“Seventh Young Lord, it’s looking this way.”

“More than that, it feels like it’s staring straight at us.”

Kroooo-

At that moment, the dragon roared.

With a deafening blast that made my eardrums go numb, the entire space rumbled.

Its momentum was so fierce that the ground itself cracked open.

“Y, Young Lord. It’s too dangerous. We must fall back at once.”

“We cannot handle that phantom beast.”

I could understand Im Yeon’s panic. It was her position to protect me.

But even Ak Mu-jin, who rarely complained, was swallowing dryly. And he was saying this without even wearing his mask.

But I shook my head firmly.

“We did not come all this way to turn back. We have to buy time somehow until the wastrel breaks the core.”

“…I’ll find the core quickly.”

With trembling hands, Hwang Seung-jong pulled the Revealing Truth Treasure Mirror from his robes.

“Hurry. I’m not ready to die yet.”

We all drew our weapons without anyone needing to say who should go first.

No sooner had we done so than the dragon lifted its jaw. I wondered what it was doing when Piiing- something like a beam of light shot out.

“Evade!”

We all threw ourselves aside in a hurry.

Kwaang!

A deep crater opened where the beam struck. Before the spray of snow even settled, I shouted again.

“Spread out! Each of you circle to the flanks or rear and look for an opening to attack!”

Following my orders, the group split up and closed in on the dragon.

‘This isn’t easy.’

The blizzard swirling around the dragon blocked our approach, and its tail, lashing savagely whenever it saw an opening, was a deadly weapon in itself.

In the moment I paused my steps, the dragon’s gaze locked onto Ak Mu-jin.

‘Now.’

I drew up my internal energy and unleashed Soul-Extinguishing Flash Steps.

Punching off the ground, I tore through the blizzard. The dragon floated in midair, but I could still reach the area near its tail.

With my cold-iron dagger, I drove a hard thrust into its scales.

Skaang!

With a sharp sound, the dagger forged of cold-iron pierced through the dragon’s scales.

‘Too shallow.’

I had pierced flesh along with the scales.

It was not enough to inflict a major wound, but it was enough to provoke the dragon.

The dragon’s violent recoil flung me away.

“Young Lord!”

Luckily, I went flying in Im Yeon’s direction. She leapt and caught me.

“Thanks.”

Almost before I could steady myself, the dragon spat out another beam.

I barely dodged it, practically rolling along the ground.

‘This is bad.’

We couldn’t even land a proper attack, while the enemy unleashed terrifying attacks as if they were nothing.

At this rate, we were going to be wiped out.

I shouted at the top of my voice.

“Wastrel! Found the core yet?”

“Not yet! The search area is too wide!”

“How long do you need?”

This time I lunged before I could hear an answer.

The dragon’s tail smashed down where I had just been.

‘Is there no good way?’

My mind spun.

Something tickled at the edge of my thoughts, almost there but not quite. Then an idea flashed across my mind.

I shouted to Hwang Seung-jong.

“Stop looking for the core!”

“What?”

“Stop looking for the core and shine the Revealing Truth Treasure Mirror on the phantom beast!”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes! That’s what the mirror is for. Revealing the true form of an illusion. It might work on an phantom beast too!”

“…I’ll try it!”

Hwang Seung-jong turned the Revealing Truth Treasure Mirror toward the dragon.

At first, nothing changed.

But when the mirror’s light reached the dragon’s forehead.

“…!”

A bead-shaped core emitting a red glow appeared.

Quick on the uptake, Hwang Seung-jong recited the spell to shatter the core.

“Break. Illusion. Return. Truth!”

The core, which should originally have shattered, remained intact.

With a crackling sound, the spell fell apart uselessly.

“Break. Illusion. Return. Truth!”

He shouted again, but the result was the same.

All he managed to do was inflame the dragon’s anger, and he became its new target.

Running toward him, I thought.

‘How are we supposed to break that?’

We had found the core, but had no way to destroy it.

If only we could force that stiff head down toward the ground, it might work, but I didn’t know how to do that either.

Then I caught sight of Hwang Seung-jong’s back as he ran away. In particular, my eyes fell on the thick pack on his back.

‘That’s it!’

“Hey! Don’t run, get the hooks and rope out!”

“What? Why?”

“Less talking, more moving!”

Hwang Seung-jong hurriedly began rummaging through his pack.

Staring at the dragon, I drew out the plan in my head of what we needed to do.