North Sea Martial Arts Warrior - Chapter 26

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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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26. One Finger

A silence sharp as frost settled upon the frozen earth of Danhon Gorge.
The Snow Maidens locked in place by Spatial Freezing remained twisted in grotesque poses, yet Airak did not so much as glance at Binghwa’s shattered remains before he flicked one pale, slender finger with casual grace.
Snap!
“That… that was….”
Garkan’s voice cracked with shock.
The tiny friction of that gesture struck the gorge wall and resonated—and then came an impossible sight.
Dozens of frozen Snow Maidens collapsed all at once.
“All at the same moment… every one of them dead….”
Harku whispered, his mouth hanging open.
“The chief did that, didn’t he?”
“With just one finger….”
Even Taikan’s eyes narrowed in disbelief.
“Did they… die back when the Spatial Freezing happened?”
Arko’s voice trembled as he asked. Taikan shook his head and answered.
“No. He just killed them with that finger. He severed the Vital Points of every frozen assassin. With a single sound.”
“Their Vital Points?”
Arko echoed the words.
“Yes. One finger. A dozen deaths.”
There was no sound of flesh tearing or crumbling bone. No screams. They fell as if they had never moved at all—inanimate things dissolving into the cold air.
Death without sound.
The breath of the subordinates grew loud in their own ears.
The crunch of ice shards beneath their feet.
Even that sounded like a scream. The gorge air carried the sharp, metallic reek of frozen steel—not blood, but the smell of ice-locked metal.
The corpses of the Snow Maidens, not a drop of blood spilled, were swept roughly by the bitter Northern gale.
“This is not martial prowess. This is the realm of the divine.”
As Arko spoke with a trembling voice, Garkan murmured softly.
“That’s why he is our chief. The one we serve is no different from a god.”

Airak gazed upon the remains of the Snow Maidens and spoke in a low, measured tone.
“Nar Volkan, nar Kuisa.”
(Cold wind, cold death.)
“Or Asira.”
(Rest together.)
Garkan bowed his head.
“Or Asira.”

“Do not take a life lightly.”
Airak’s voice—cynical, cutting—echoed through the gorge.
The scouts from the Ice Palace who had hidden themselves in the rock crevices and witnessed this spectacle staggered backward, too shocked even to scream. And now that Airak had issued his warning….
“R-run!”
“That’s not human!”
A transcendent Martial Path that lay beyond the human realm.
Overwhelmed by the terrible Divine Authority radiating from him, they fled in panic into the darkness.
The freezing energy that had shaken the terrain began to subside.
In its wake, a section of the ice wall crumbled downward. The concussive tremor traveled up through their feet.
Garkan and the others stood transfixed, staring at Airak.
It was a feeling that transcended awe—something closer to sacred dread.

* * *

“Total annihilation?”
Mukara’s voice cut through the Ice Heart Hall. The messenger, prostrate on the ground, answered while shaking.
“Yes, Your Majesty….”
“Binghwa? All the Snow Maidens?”
“With a single finger… they say everyone fell.”
“A lie!” Mukara surged to her feet, her voice sharp as breaking ice. “That’s impossible!”
“The witnesses… all gave the same account….”
“Silence!”
Mukara seized the messenger by the throat, her grip tightening as though she meant to wring his neck. Hot blood spilled between her lips, spattering across the glacial floor beneath them.
“Impossible….”
Mukara staggered backward, her voice falling to an incoherent whisper.
“Binghwa. The Snow Maidens. Dead to a single finger….”
Her eyes had begun to roll white, swallowed by something darker than mere anger—madness itself.
‘If Airak crosses into the Central Plains….’
The face of Cheok Unhwi flooded her mind—the greatest swordsman of the Central Plains. The man who had cut down Karani for her. She had made him a promise in exchange.
‘No one from the Northern Sea sets foot in the Central Plains. No one questions the death of Karani.’
Those were the terms of the bargain.
In exchange for slaying the Ice Palace master, Cheok Unhwi had demanded one thing: he would not tolerate any lingering consequences of the deed—no blood feuds, no retaliation.
‘The moment Airak crosses the threshold into the Central Plains, the promise shatters.’
And when it shattered, Cheok Unhwi’s blade would turn toward the Ice Palace. Airak alone was already a storm. But to make an enemy of the greatest swordsman of the Central Plains as well….
‘She cannot face them both.’
Mukara convulsed, her vital points screaming in agony as she howled.
“Hyung Dangju!”
“Yes, my lady.”
“Seal the Jade Gate Pass!”
Hyung Dangju’s eyes widened.
“The Jade Gate Pass?”
“Airak must not cross into the Central Plains. Whatever it takes.”
“But if we seal it, then we ourselves—”
“I don’t care!”
Mukara coughed blood, her voice raw.
“A thousand deaths if need be! Bar his passage! Do you understand?”
“Understood, my lady.”
Hyung Dangju turned and fled.
Mukara collapsed onto her cold throne.
Her thrashing was nothing but a futile struggle against ruin that had already been written into the world.

* * *

Airak pressed deeper into the heart of Danhon Gorge.
“Chieftain.”
Taikan halted, pointing ahead through the mist.
“Just beyond. The grain of the wind cuts sharply there—something is disturbing the currents.”
“Something is here?”
Harku asked.
“Yes. Something vast.”
Rather than answer, Airak tilted his head, listening to the strange vibration thrumming through his chest. It was the cool resonance of the Beiming Dao calling to its master—a blade abandoned a century past, now singing in the dark.
“Can you feel it?”
Airak spoke low.
“Feel what?”
“The blade calling.”
…….
His men exchanged glances, but said nothing. The sound was inaudible to them. Yet the treasures of the Forbidden Domain did not yield their secrets so easily.
A deep, resonant roar split the air.
Roooooaaaar!
“What—!”
Harku gripped his axe.
The mist shredded and scattered before a bellow that seemed to tear the earth itself. And blocking their path stood a creature twice the size of an ordinary bear—Heuk-ung, the frozen giant of the Northern wastes.
“How did—?”
Garkan’s eyes snapped wide.
“A beast this size… we never even caught its scent….”
Taikan quickly raised his bow, his voice tight. “Chieftain. There’s something lodged in its shoulder.”
Something was indeed driven deep into Heuk-ung’s shoulder—something jarringly out of place.
Something that did not belong in the world of beasts.
“A blade.”
Airak’s eyes gleamed.
“That’s the Beiming Dao.”
“The Beiming Dao?”
“A Ming Dao lost a hundred years ago. What I came to find.”
The Ming Dao embedded in Heuk-ung’s steel-hard muscles, carrying the shame of a century past. To reclaim it, there was only one way—to kill him.
“Allow me to go first—”
Garkan stepped forward.
“Stand back.”
Airak raised his hand, stopping him.
“I’ll take this one.”

Airak drew the Asura Curved Blade and charged at Heuk-ung.
Whoosh!
The curved blade aimed for the beast’s foreleg. But the hide of a monster that had lived more than a century possessed a bizarre quality—it didn’t merely deflect the chill, it absorbed it.
“What?”
Harku’s eyes widened.
“The cold won’t pierce it!”
Heuk-ung’s fierce heat extinguished Airak’s chill before it could even make contact.
“The beast’s hide is absorbing the cold!”
Arko cried out.
“Leader, retreat!”
“No.”
Airak clenched his teeth as he answered.
“I have to be the one to take him down.”
The battle devolved into a brutal melee.
Airak deployed every technique of the Asura Unarmed Combat Art, targeting the beast’s vital points, but Heuk-ung’s claws, honed sharp as a legendary blade, tore through Airak’s robes.
“This is too dangerous! Let me help!”
Garkan shouted.
“Don’t come near!”
Airak bellowed.
“Get close and you’ll die!”
Heuk-ung’s claws grazed Airak’s shoulder, drawing blood.
“Leader!”
“I’m fine! This is nothing!”
Airak gritted his teeth.
More than an hour of desperate struggle—sweat poured from Airak’s body like rain.
Garkan clenched his fists so hard his nails drew blood from his palms, yet he felt no pain. He had never seen the leader endure so long. Harku swallowed hard beside him, his throat dry enough to make a sound. Taikan gasped in alarm.
A man who had carried the chill within him his entire life was now radiating a warmth that was almost human.
“Is the leader…sweating?”
Taikan was astonished.
“I’ve never seen it before. The leader sweating.”
“It means that monster is stronger than we thought.”
Harku replied.
“What do we do? Shouldn’t we help him?”
“The leader told us not to approach.”
Garkan clenched his teeth.
“All we can do is trust and wait.”

Airak stepped back, breathing hard.
“It’s been a while since I’ve sweated.”
He gestured to his subordinates with a sweep of his hand.
“All of you, fall back. Further.”
“Leader?”
“I hadn’t wanted to use this…”
Airak’s eyes changed.
“But I have no choice.”
Those words.
Garkan and his men quickly widened the distance.
When Airak said he had no choice, it meant he was about to pass judgment in death. It meant the end of the world.
Crack!
The essence of the Northern Sea Ice Divine Technique began to swirl around Airak.
“That is….”
Arko held his breath.
Frost gathered on the worn curved blade, and in the next instant the entire sword transformed into something transparent as ice, gleaming with an uncanny light.
Airak’s form blurred. And then—
Screech! Crunch—! Crunch—!
With the first flurry of strikes, Heuk-ung’s front claws were severed clean off.
“One!”
Garkan called out.
As the second and third strikes came in succession, Heuk-ung’s massive fingers scattered into the void.
“Three!”
On the fifth blow, Heuk-ung’s cry of anguish echoed through the gorge as if it would bring down the very ceiling.
“Five!”
The ninth consecutive strike tore open Heuk-ung’s chest.
“Nine!”
The final tenth blow.
The transparent ice blade pierced directly through Heuk-ung’s heart.
“Ten!”
A deep, reverberating groan.
The massive beast convulsed and crashed to the ground. An almost impossible silence fell over the gorge.

“That was… surely not…?”
Arko’s eyes widened in shock.
“The supreme pinnacle that no Northern Sea warrior in all the ages has ever awakened….”
“What is it?”
Harku asked.
“The highest essence of the Northern Sea Ice Divine Technique. The Ice Soul Pierce.”
“The Ice Soul Pierce?”
“A realm where ice and spirit become one. A mere legend, passed down through the ages….”
“Did the chieftain awaken it?”
“Yes. We saw it with our own eyes just now.”
To his followers, Airak no longer appeared as a man, but as the very will of the Northern Sea itself.
Airak pulled the blade free from the corpse of Heuk-ung, where it had been driven deep.
A soft withdrawal.
The black-gleaming sword revealed itself.
“Is this the Beiming Dao?”
Taikan asked.
“It is.”
Airak gripped the hilt. A heavy, resonant vibration flowed through his palm.
The blade trembled.
“After a hundred years, it returns to its master’s hand.”
The Beiming Dao wailed discordantly, as if expelling a hundred years of accumulated resentment.
“That’s a strange sound.”
Harku covered his ears.
“The blade is weeping.”
Arko explained.
“It was embedded in that beast’s body for a hundred years. The blade holds a grudge.”
“Can a blade hold a grudge?”
“A Ming Dao can. It feeds on its master’s emotions and grows.”
Airak wiped clean the blade of the Beiming Dao. The black light gradually settled.
An ordinary-looking blade.
No—it possessed an eerie quality. There was something sinister about it that defied description.
“That’s enough.”
“Chieftain.”
Garkan approached.
“Where do we go from here?”
“The Central Plains.”
Airak wrapped the Beiming Dao in cloth and secured it at his right hip.
“To reach the Central Plains from here, we must cross the Jade Gate Pass, then?”
“Yes.”
Airak’s eyes gleamed with cold fire.
The party pressed forward toward the Forbidden Domain’s exit, leaving Heuk-ung’s body behind.
Toward the warm lands of the Central Plains.

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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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