North Sea Martial Arts Warrior - Chapter 25

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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25. Space Freezing

A white shadow emerged from the mist.
Whiter than a blizzard, her pale robes. Her face frozen as ice itself. Binghua, leader of the Snow Women, had arrived.

“Airak.”
Binghua spoke, her voice sharp as it scraped across ice.
There was a keenness to her tone that could cut.
“At last we meet.”
“…….”
“So you’re the Northern Sea’s vaunted warrior? I’ve heard the rumors.”
“And what did they say?”
“That you’re strong.”
Binghua’s lips curved upward.
“That you swept aside the Three Glacial Masters single-handedly.”
“So?”
“I wanted to verify it myself.”
Her eyes gleamed with an icy light.
“Whether you truly possess such strength.”
“Then you’ll have to test it. I welcome such things always. But understand this:”
Airak replied with absolute calm.
“Understand what?”
“Don’t regret it.”
“Regret? Ha! Hahahaha!”
Binghua laughed—a cold, mocking laugh.
“Are you trying to frighten me?”
“It’s advice.”
“Amusing. I’ll take that advice graciously. There are so few who can offer such counsel to me—only the Northern Sea’s warrior, I’d say. In truth, if not for you, I’d be the one giving such warnings. But you alone deserve to speak them.”
Binghua raised her hand.
A dozen Snow Women materialized behind her.
Each wore white robes and gripped Ice Needles in their hands.
“You—deal with these insignificant ones.”
“Yes, Mistress.”
“Airak is mine to face.”
Binghua’s gaze burned with an eerie intensity.
“I’ll show you who reigns supreme in the Northern Sea.”
“Reigns supreme?”
Airak let out a derisive snort.
“You think that’s you?”
“At the very least, it’s not you. I’ve come to believe your reputation as the Northern Sea’s warrior is nothing but empty rumor.”
“…….”
“What, nothing to say?”
“No.”
Airak walked forward slowly.
“I think actions speak louder than words.”
“Good. Then let’s begin.”
Binghua swept her hand through the air.
“Kill him.”
The command fell from her lips.
The Snow Women surged forward as one.
“Clan Leader!”
Garkan swung the Ice Chain, its metal links whipping out to sweep two Snow Women away. But they vanished without a trace—before his very eyes.
“Damn these witches!”
Harku brought his axe down with a heavy stroke.
One Snow Woman appeared to collapse, blood spraying from her lips—or so it seemed. But she too had simply vanished.
The Snow Women did not merely hide. They moved ceaselessly, melting into shadow while unleashing a torrent of Ice Needles.
Whistle! Shriek!
“Ugh!”
An Ice Needle lodged itself in Harku’s shoulder.
“Harku!”
“I’m fine! This much is nothing!”
Taikan drew his bow. The arrow flew, piercing straight through the Snow Woman’s brow—or so it seemed. But again, only an afterimage. The shaft whistled through empty air, and the Snow Woman vanished without a trace.
“Clan Leader, these women… I cannot land a single strike!”
“Hold fast.”
Airak stepped forward.
Binghua erupted into the sky.
With each movement, the very air shrieked in metallic protest. From her fingertips unfolded the Ultimate Mastery of the Ice Needle Heart Method—thousands upon thousands of Ice Needles, screaming toward Airak’s heart.
“This is the Ice Needle Heart Method!”
Binghua’s voice rang out.
“Take it, Airak!”
Whistle! Shriek!
The sound of parting air crashed against the gorge walls and echoed back.
“Clan Leader!”
Garkan tried to assist, swinging his Ice Chain. But the Cold Qi that Binghua unleashed was already overwhelming enough to bind his very mobility.
“Do not draw near!”
Arko’s cry rang out.
“If you’re caught in that Cold Qi, you’ll freeze to death!”
This was no mere ambush. It was a head-on collision between the Snow Woman’s ice art and the Airak Clan’s ice art—a confrontation that even masters of renown in the Northern Sea might live their entire lives without witnessing.
Airak’s gray eyes opened, slowly widening.
His gaze tracked the incoming needles. Thousands. Ten thousand… yet to Airak’s eyes, they moved as if in sluggish descent. Cutting through air, but lacking the Striking Power to crush him.
“Slow,” he murmured.
Airak’s voice was barely a breath.
“What?!”
Binghua’s eyes widened.
“I can see every single needle you throw.”
Airak did not draw the Asura Ten Thousand Bend Sword. Instead, he extended one thin, pale hand slowly into the void.
“Space itself…”
His lips moved.
“Freezes.”
“What… what is that…”
Arko gasped in astonishment.
In that instant, a transparent wave emanated from beneath Airak’s feet, spreading in concentric circles to swallow the space around them for fifty paces in all directions.
Crack-crack-crack…! Snap!
“Space… has stopped…”
Harku murmured in disbelief.
The world had been entombed.
Snowflakes that had been dancing wildly hung suspended in the air. The thousands of Ice Needles that had been screaming toward Airak’s throat were now fixed in place, bound as if by invisible threads.
Even Binghua herself, descending toward him, hung motionless in a grotesque posture—as if trapped within an unseen prison of ice.
“Clan Leader, is this your doing?”
“The Ultimate Mastery of the Northern Sea Ice Absolute Divine Art.”
Taikan spoke quietly.
“Space Freezing.”
Space Freezing.
A supreme technique that only those who have attained Ultimate Mastery of the Northern Sea Ice Absolute Divine Art can unleash.
In a single, fleeting moment, all moisture and vital essence in the atmosphere solidify, freezing space itself into an absolute domain of stasis.
Binghua’s eyes filled with alarm.
She had poured forth the full force of her power, unleashing Ice Needles without pause. But within Airak’s domain, her Cold Qi was nothing more than insignificant prey. A whale against an anchovy.
In the silence of that frozen space, only Airak’s footsteps rang out, trampling the icy earth.
“This… this is…”
Binghua gasped. Suspended in the void. Her body was still moving, technically—yet it felt slow enough that she herself perceived it as frozen. Everything was that utterly encased.
Airak approached the suspended Binghua.
“Impossible… this cannot be…”
“Impossible?”
A twisted smile crossed Airak’s lips.
“Why should it be impossible?”
“This is freezing space itself… such a martial art exists….”
“Of course it does—otherwise how could you be suffering like this?”
Airak stepped in front of Binghua.
“Your Cold Qi amounts to nothing more than spreading the Cold Qi embedded in Ice Needles across a ten-pace radius. Is this truly all you have?”
He whispered the words softly.
“If so, you are merely prey to me.”
“Prey…?”
“Yes. Prey.”
Airak’s hand touched the point where Binghua’s Blood Meridians converged at her chest.
While Airak’s hand remained unaffected by the freezing, her limbs felt locked in absolute ice. This absolute freezing left no room for any defense whatsoever.
“I’ll consume your Cold Qi for you.”
“No, no, don’t—!”
Binghua screamed. Yet her body would not move.
In that instant, Airak reversed the flow of his inner power and injected it into Binghua’s body.
Crack-crack-crack…!
It was not the sound of ice shattering.
The horrifying sound of human bone and blood vessels freezing and rupturing tore through the silent space. Airak’s inner power had penetrated Binghua’s Dantian, forcing the Cold Qi she had gathered to detonate from within.
“Ah… aaah! Ughhh!”
Desperate moans burst from between Binghua’s lips. The blood vessels tracing her arms turned a sickly blue, then split open with a wet crack, spraying crimson blood across her skin.
“Aaaahhh!”
The coppery stench of blood filled the frozen space as her Blood Meridians ruptured and burst.
At the same moment, Airak withdrew the power that had held the space frozen.
Boom…!
The crystallized world crumbled all at once.
The Ice Needles suspended in midair were caught in Airak’s recoil and scattered like torrential rain toward the remnants of the Snow Woman forces. Binghua’s body was driven into the ground alongside fragments of pulverized ice wall.
“Impossible….”
Binghua coughed blood, trembling.
“Such a martial art… it cannot exist in this world….”
“Still think it’s impossible?”
Airak looked down at her.
“Even after experiencing it?”
…….
“Where is your celebrated Ice Needle Heart Method now?”
…….
“You called yourself the strongest in the Northern Sea. Is this truly all?”
Binghua’s skin was already darkening with frostbite, dying to black. The former assassin master’s fearsome presence over the Northern Sea had vanished without trace.
“How could you… possess such power….”
Binghua gasped.
“Thirty years in the Polar Yin Land.”
Airak spoke flatly.
“Did you never wonder what I was doing all that time?”
“The Polar Yin Land….”
“Yes. In the hell you cannot even imagine—what do you think I was doing?”
Airak’s eyes gleamed with cold light.
“If it were me… if I had gone to such a place… I would be too busy surviving. Martial arts? How could one even think of such things? The Airak Clan… monsters indeed.”
Binghua laughed, spitting blood—a bitter, self-deprecating laugh.
Taikan had not missed the opening.
The remaining Snow Woman forces. Their confusion as Binghua fell.
“Tracking by sound.”
Taikan drew his bowstring taut.
Whistle! Thud!

An arrow piercing a Snow Woman’s forehead.

Whistle! Thud!
Another.
Whistle! Thud!
Yet another.
The sound of arrows piercing the foreheads of the remaining Snow Woman forces echoed through the gorge. Among the trembling bodies and corpses scattered across the ground, Taikan’s expressionless eyes glinted coldly.
“It is finished, Chieftain.”
“…….”
Airak looked down at the fallen Binghua.
“One last question.”
“…What is it.”
“You’re contract killers. Who hired you?”
“…….”
Binghua laughed, coughing blood.
“You ask an assassin that? Knowing we won’t tell.”
“I have my suspicions about who it might be.”
Binghua’s breathing grew ragged.
“I don’t know who you suspect… but you can’t win….”
Binghua squeezed out her final words.
“Behind that person… there’s something bigger….”
“Something bigger?”
“The master… of the Forbidden Domain….”
Binghua’s eyes dimmed.
“If that person… moves….”
“Who is that person?”
“…….”
Binghua’s lips would open no further. Her breath had ceased.
“The master of the Forbidden Domain—what could that mean?”
Garkan asked.
“I don’t know.”
Airak turned away.
“But we’ll find out soon enough.”
“Are you leaving, then?”
“Yes. Let’s go.”
The moment Airak took a step forward, Binghua’s body shattered like glass shards, crumbling into powder that scattered into the wind.
“…….”
The attendants watched the sight with eyes wide in shock.
“Is that… an aftereffect of Space Freezing?”
“Yes.”
Arko nodded.
“All the moisture in her body was frozen solid. When she died, she just fell apart.”
“A frightening martial art indeed.”
“That’s why the clan leader is who he is.”
The party advanced deeper into the Forbidden Domain, leaving behind a battlefield where even space itself had frozen. Behind them, the mist of Danhon Gorge settled once more, heavy and suffocating, swallowing the corpses whole.
Now the silence of Danhon Gorge hung heavier than before, and the stench of death seeped ever deeper into the air.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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