Only Nyzekh and Altan entered the chamber. The others remained in the hall beyond, hushed and unmoving, as if even the sound of a breath might tip the balance of fate. The chamber itself was consumed by frost. Every surface glistened with ice, as if winter had crept in and never left. Stone walls were wrapped in frozen tendrils, pillars transformed into pale monuments, and the air itself shimmered with frozen mist.
At the chamber's center, upon a slab of obsidian scorched black by power long since spent, lay a young dark elf woman—Nyzekh's sister—her body preserved in cold that was not natural. Her form rested in perfect stillness, lips parted slightly, lashes dusted in frost, as if caught in the breath between two moments of life. The frost did not merely cover her. It bloomed from her. Jagged veins of ice radiated outward from her core, feeding the chamber's deathless cold.
Surrounding her in a half-circle were the shaman-elders of the Virak'tai, their forms draped in heavy ceremonial robes, arms raised, fingers clenched in complex mudras that pulsed with spiritual light. The air around them was taut with pressure, the visible strands of their containment sigils trembling like strings pulled too tight. Their faces were strained, not from fear, but from the immense effort of binding something they could not truly control.
Altan stepped forward, his boots cracking the ice beneath with each step. The breath in his lungs turned to mist, curling upward like smoke. Cold bit at his skin, but he walked steadily, his expression unreadable. The girl's body shimmered faintly, her meridians barely visible beneath the ice like fading fire trapped in crystal. Her life force was not gone—it was locked in place, flickering behind layers of spiritual frost.
"Mother… let him try. Please."
Nyzekh's voice cracked with emotion. Behind him, the Queen Mother stood unmoving, carved in grief and defiance. Her lips pressed to a thin line, her eyes dark with fury and sorrow. Then slowly, with breath trembling at the edges, she gave a single nod.
Altan lowered himself to the girl's side, knees meeting the frozen floor. He reached forward, fingers outstretched toward her dantian. But first, he turned to the shaman-circle.
"Withdraw your Qi. Let me feel what she carries."
The shamans hesitated only briefly, then lowered their hands. The containment sigils unraveled in threads of light, releasing their hold with caution. At once, the cold deepened. Raw. Untethered. Altan placed his palm against her frozen abdomen, and pain surged up his arm like lightning.
The Frost Qi within her was not inert—it was violent, raging in silence. Her meridians had twisted under the strain, branches of spiritual ice choking the natural flow. Her organs had long been deprived of warmth, their functions dimmed to faint pulses. Her core was fractured, leaking energy that re-froze before it could escape.
Altan closed his eyes. He did not resist the pain. He accepted it.
Within, he summoned the ancient paths of the Wujin Yihe Dao—not to dominate, but to remember.
Through the First Spiral, he attuned to the rhythm of her breath, the barest wisp of life held inside a prison of cold.
The Second Spiral mapped the shattered terrain of her internal network, cataloguing every frozen artery of Qi.
The Third revealed the stillness—the time she had lost, the moments frozen in place, a cultivation path paused mid-bloom.
And then, through the Fourth Spiral, he felt her will. Not strong. Not loud. But there. A thread of soul that had refused to die.
Altan moved his hands in slow, deliberate spirals. These were not attacks or defenses, but alignments—movements of restoration.
He called upon the Five Elements to restore balance.
Earth anchored her remaining strength and restored her foundation.
Water eased the frozen flow and soothed the cracks.
Fire, summoned in breath and pulse, awakened the warmth buried within.
Wind cleared the clots and carved new paths.
Spirit wove all into harmony.
Slowly, the chaotic Frost Qi began to respond. The wild surges bent like saplings in a storm. The shattered flow folded inward. The riot became a murmur.
The chamber warmed by degrees. Not much, but enough to melt a rim of ice from her lips. Her chest rose in a shallow breath. Her eyes remained closed, but life no longer flickered—it endured.
Altan let out a long breath, his forehead damp with sweat.
"It is done… for now."
The Queen Mother stepped forward. She spoke quietly, as if afraid the words would break the silence.
"She lives?"
Altan nodded. "Yes. But the Frost Qi has rooted into her core. It's not something that can be purged. Only reshaped."
Her expression, long-hardened by rule and grief, crumbled at the edges. She knelt, trembling fingers hovering just over her daughter's brow, afraid to touch. A whisper slipped from her lips, nearly lost in the cold.
"My child…"
Altan stood slowly. "Give me a chamber. I'll need stillness and time. I will craft a method—a cultivation path that doesn't reject the cold but harmonizes with it. If she can walk it… she may awaken. Not as she once was, but stronger."
Later, within the quiet of the meditation sanctum, Altan sat alone in darkness. No torch. No sound. Just breath and stone.
He lowered his consciousness into the Sea of Mind. There, he stood within his inner world—a vast archive of memory, elemental resonance, and folded time. Here, every battle he'd survived, every master he'd studied under, every scroll he had committed to thought, formed shelves in a limitless vault. He moved through it with calm purpose, sifting through disciplines.
From the Wujin Yihe Dao, he took the spirals.
From the Fold Doctrine, the eightfold harmonics.
From the glacial temples of the north, he summoned insights on stillness, cold, and balance.
From these, he began to weave.
The cultivation path that emerged was not one of fire or force. It was quiet. Patient. Precise. A path for a soul suspended between life and ice.
He called it the Frozen Lotus Arts.
Eight petals, like the Eight Folds. Each petal a reflection of stillness mastered. Each layer refining the body's relationship with the cold—not as enemy, but as mirror.
From this discipline, she would not burn away the frost. She would bloom within it.
When he emerged, the world had shifted by hours. Frost clung to the hem of his robe. His eyes were sharp with clarity, his breath calm and anchored.
The Queen Mother and Nyzekh stood in silence by the girl's bedside. Altan stepped forward, knelt again, and placed a single finger upon her brow. Qi flowed—smooth, intentional, threaded with memory. He did not teach her through words. He transferred the cultivation path directly, imprinting it into her core with a flow of breath and will.
Within the frozen plain of her consciousness—her spirit sea—she stood in silence. The world around her was endless snow, jagged ice, and sky without sun. She was bound by chains of frost, each link pulsing with a cold that had no mercy. She had been here a long time—so long she had forgotten how to cry. The snow fell endlessly, and she did not move.
Then he appeared. No words. No sound. Just a presence. A man in robes, serene and unshaken, walking across the ice as though it were water. His steps left warmth behind. The frost melted around his presence. He raised a hand, and a spiral unfurled—heat without pain, movement without force.
The frost on her wrists cracked.
A lotus of ice formed in her chest—closed, silent, still. One petal opened: Balance. Then another: Stillness. Then harmony. Will. Breath. Clarity. Purpose. Strength.
The chains shattered. She collapsed forward, not in despair—but in release. Tears formed, falling warm upon the ice.
The man extended his hand—not to lift her, but to let her choose.
She stood. Slowly. Steadily. The lotus in her chest fully bloomed.
She no longer radiated cold as torment, but as serenity.
The Frozen Lotus had begun to bloom.