North Sea Martial Arts Warrior - Chapter 3

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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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3. A Frozen Promise

Airak’s rough hand held Karani’s body heat, now grown cold as stone.
‘Karani…’
Her skin was so frigid that frost seemed to gather wherever he touched it. Yet the Karani in his memory had always carried a warmth like snow melting beneath the noonday sun.
The grain of time began to flow backward.
Thirty years ago. Airak, twenty-two years old.
Before he earned the epithet “Eternal Blizzard,” before the permanent frostbite scar took root in his chest.

At the edge of the North Sea, where ten-thousand-year glaciers had split open.
The wind that blew through those cracks was sharper than any blade. There, among them, stood Karani—seventeen years old.
First Daughter of the Fuku Tribe.
A woman betrothed in marriage to a warrior of the Airak Tribe.
She was surrounded by twelve snow wolves.
“……!”
The dagger in her hand trembled.
Beasts crazed by hunger crouched low, their bodies towering more than three feet, drool streaming as they waited for their opening.
Her martial skill was still raw; her inner strength nearly spent.
The alpha wolf did not miss the slightest gap and raked its claws through the air.
Its massive paw was about to crush her slender throat when—
Whish…!
A flash of light pierced through the blizzard and streaked toward them.
Crack!
The alpha’s head was pulped beyond recognition, bone splintering.
“Move.”
A youth with wolf hide draped across his shoulders.
Airak. His eyes were not the lifeless things they had become. Instead, they burned with a ferocity more savage than any starving beast.
The Curved Saber in Airak’s hand spun, harvesting the wolves’ throats one by one—a formless martial art that pursued only efficiency, the lethal technique unique to the Airak Tribe.
In moments, the snowfield bloomed red with the beasts’ blood.
Only after the terrified wolves had fled with their tails between their legs did Airak wipe the blood-stained blade against the snow and turn his gaze to Karani.

“Are you hurt?”
“…….”
Karani could not answer. Her body was rigid, as though frozen solid.
“Can’t speak?”
“I’m… I’m scared….”
“They’re all dead. You’re safe now.”
Airak extended his hand. Karani took it with trembling fingers.
“Th-thank you….”
“No need to thank me.”
Airak spoke bluntly.
“Don’t come to a place like this alone. Do you want to die?”
“I came out to train and lost my way….”
“You’re from the Fuku Tribe?”
“How did you know?”
“The Silver Snow Step. Only women of the Fuku Tribe use that footwork.”
Airak studied her.
“What’s your name?”
“Karani.”
“Karani?”
Airak’s eyes flickered with something unguarded.
“The First Daughter of the Fuku Tribe?”
“Yes….”
“…….”
Airak fell silent for a moment.
First Daughter. The woman betrothed to marry a warrior of the Airak Tribe. In other words, his betrothed.
“Then you….”
“You’re Airak, aren’t you?”
Karani asked carefully.
“The next North Sea Warrior. My betrothed.”
“…Yes.”
“It’s an honor to meet you.”
Karani bowed her head.
“I look forward to our time together.”
Karani’s heart trembled.
The Airak Tribe warrior passed down in legend—cold and cruel, or so they said. But the Airak she saw before her was a man with warm hands. Strong, and capable of love.
It was their first meeting. Two people bound by a pact between tribes. But that meeting soon became love.

A year later.
The two of them sat side by side at the edge of the Ice Sea Cliff.
It was a secret place—the only spot in the North Sea where one could fully appreciate the setting sun.
“How did you find this place?”
Karani asked.
“I discovered it as a child.”
“Alone?”
“Yes.”
“You must have been lonely.”
…….
Men of the Airak Tribe were born solitary. To show emotion was to appear weak; to share affection was to invite scorn. For him, the word “loneliness” had never existed—not until he met Karani.
……
Airak did not answer.
Beyond the horizon, the setting sun cast golden dust across the frozen sea.
“Airak.”
“What.”
“Do you like me?”
…….
“You’re not going to answer?”
“It’s a pact between tribes, so of course—”
“That’s not what I mean.”
Karani rested her head on his shoulder.
“Not because of the pact. Do you like me—truly?”
…….
Airak fell silent for a moment.
“…I do like you.”
“Really?”
“Not because of the pact. Just… I do.”
Karani smiled.
“Since when?”
“What do you mean?”
“Since when did you start liking me?”
“…I don’t know. At some point, I couldn’t stop thinking of you.”
…….
Karani’s cheeks flushed.
“I didn’t understand it at first.”
Airak spoke plainly.
“Men of the Airak Tribe don’t have such feelings.”
“Such feelings?”
“Affection between a man and a woman. I was taught that such things appear as weakness.”
“Then how did you figure it out?”
“…When I saw you laughing with another man.”
“What?”
“That’s when I understood. What this was.”
…….
Karani gripped Airak’s hand tightly.
“You were jealous?”
“…It seems I was.”
“I like you too.”
Karani laughed.
“Not because of the promise—because I mean it.”
“…….”
The tips of Airak’s ears flushed red.
“Airak, once your training is done.”
“…….”
“Let’s leave the North Sea.”
“Leave the North Sea?”
“In the Central Plains, there are lands where snow never falls, and valleys where flowers bloom all year round, I’ve heard.”
“Places like that really exist?”
“They say so. Wouldn’t we be able to live ordinary lives there?”
“Ordinary lives….”
Instead of answering, Airak grasped her small hand firmly. His palm was calloused from rigorous training, yet the gentleness with which he held Karani surpassed all caution in the world.
“Let’s go.”
“Really?”
“Wherever you wish.”
But fate arrived as if to mock their vow.
Separation came without warning. The previous Ice Palace Master had named Karani, First Daughter of the Fuku Tribe, as the next Ice Palace Master.
“Become the Ice Palace Master?”
Airak asked.
“Yes….”
Karani’s voice trembled.
“Why appoint the First Daughter of the Fuku Tribe as Ice Palace Master?”
“The former Master said… that I am the future of the Ice Palace….”
“…….”
“I cannot refuse. It is the will of the entire North Sea.”
Becoming the master of the Ice Palace meant taking the Celibacy Vow. It was a cruel shackle that forbade marriage for life and required severing all bonds of affection to maintain a cold Ice Heart.
Among all the Ice Palace Masters across the ages, not a single one had broken this code. Should an Ice Palace Master violate it, the people of the North Sea—the entire northern peoples—would turn their backs. This was more cruel than death itself.
“Then our promise….”
“…is broken.”
Karani bowed her head.
On that night of parting when blizzards raged, the two faced each other one last time.
“When I become the Ice Palace Master, I must take the Celibacy Vow.”
Karani’s voice wavered like a fragile flame.
“I know.”
“I’m sorry, Airak. I’m truly sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.”
“Then what should I say?”
Airak wiped the tears from her eyes.
Her tears streamed down her cheeks and froze before they could touch the ground.
“Tell me to wait. Then I will wait.”
“…….”
“One word. Just tell me to wait.”
“When I become truly strong enough… I will change these old rules of the Ice Palace.”
Karani gripped Airak’s hand firmly.
“Until then, wait for me. Yes? Airak.”
Airak regarded her with an expressionless face. Within his chest, a tremor shook the heavens and earth, yet outwardly, not the slightest wavering showed.
“I will wait. As long as you wish.”
He left with a brief reply and turned away.
“Where are you going!”
Karani cried out as if screaming.
“Airak!”
“…To grow stronger.”
“Why? You’re already strong enough!”
Airak’s footsteps halted. But he did not turn around.
“…Not strong enough.”
“Not strong enough….”
“I must become strong enough to change these rules.”
“…….”
“Even if the entire Ice Palace stood against you, I could carve a path through it with a single stroke.”
“Airak….”
“Wait for me. I will return. Surely.”
Those were the last words she spoke.
Airak turned toward the Extreme Yin Land, the deepest reaches of the North Sea where no human foot had ever trodden.
It was a place even the North Sea held as forbidden.
Ten-thousand-year glaciers thrust toward heaven, and beneath them yawned an abyss without end.
A land of death where even beasts refused to set paw.
Airak walked into that darkness without hesitation.
Those who entered never returned. Bones froze solid. Blood congealed. Hearts stopped beating.
Airak did not care.
The thirty years he spent there were not training—they were torment.
In the first year, agony seized him as though his fingers would tear away.
“……!”
He clenched his teeth. He conjured Karani’s face. He endured.
“You said you would wait,” he whispered to himself.
By the fifth year, his skin had frozen and split, blood pouring forth until even that blood turned to ice.
“…Still so far to go.”
In the tenth year, his heart nearly stopped. The killing cold of the North Sea Ice Jade Divine Art had penetrated to his very core.
“…I cannot die.”
He gritted his teeth and pushed through. He had made a promise.
By the twentieth year, pain itself had become a stranger. Phantoms began to visit him. Karani laughed amid the blizzard. When he reached out his hand, she faded—but it was enough. Her phantom alone gave him reason to breathe.
His body transformed into something like ice itself. Only his heart still beat. His love for Karani kept his heart alive.
In the thirtieth year, he finally achieved mastery of the North Sea Ice Jade Divine Art.
Spatial Freezing. Ice-Soul Unity.
He had reached a realm that existed only in legend.
Even as bone froze and soul corroded under unspeakable anguish, one thing alone sustained him—that warm promise spoken at the cliff’s edge.

* * *

Back to the present.
Airak recalled Karani’s lifeless face.
After thirty years of waiting, what awaited him was only the iron stench of blood and a corpse cold to the touch.
“I failed to keep my promise.”
His voice was stripped even of sorrow. Only an emptiness deeper than ten-thousand-year ice remained in it.
“But there is another promise I will keep.”
Airak’s eyes began to drain of all color. Eyes in which emotion had died.
“Those who did this to you.”
The Asura Curved Saber in his grip emitted a dirge most bleak.
“The traitors of the Ice Palace.”
Those who had slain her. Those who had trampled her dreams. No mercy awaited them.
“With this cold, condensed across thirty years.”
Airak’s grey eyes blazed with a frozen brightness.
“I will freeze them all.”
The wolf hide draped across Airak’s shoulders fluttered in the wind, dissolving into the blizzard.
The curtain on vengeance had now risen.

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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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