The Black Bamboo Forest remained a tomb of frozen silence long after the Namgung Ancestor had been reduced to ash. The air was no longer thick with the copper stench of Blood Qi, but it had taken on a new, unnatural quality—a stillness so absolute that the very moisture in the air had crystallized into floating needles of frost.
Hyuk Musang and the Shadow Division stood their ground, their white Yun robes stiffened by the cold. They had won the Night of the Ghost-Fires, but the victory felt fragile. The "Heart-Chilling Frost" they had unleashed to counter the forbidden alchemy had permanently altered the valley's climate.
Then, from the northern horizon, the sky didn't just darken; it shattered.
A fleet of "Frost-Sails"—massive junk ships carved from the eternal ice of the Northern Tundra—glided over the mountain peaks. They didn't sail on water; they rode the "Aqueous Cloud Barrier," a high-altitude current of moisture manipulated by the collective Ki of hundreds of masters. These were the warriors of the North Sea Ice Palace, the reclusive "Outsiders" who had traditionally looked down upon the "weak" martial artists of the Central Plains.
The Ice Phoenix Arrives
The lead ship, the Glacial Sovereign, descended with the weight of a falling glacier. As its hull touched the earth, the ground didn't just crack; it turned to jade-like ice.
The gangplank lowered, and a woman stepped out. She was the Princess of the North Sea, Seol-Hee. Her skin was as pale as unpolished marble, and her eyes held the predatory clarity of a mountain hawk. She wore robes of white fox fur and silk the color of a winter dawn. To the Shadow Division, she appeared not as a human, but as a "rejuvenated" entity of the Unrestrained Realm—specifically, the Ice Human Realm.
"The Central Plains has become a playground for grave-robbers and heretics," Seol-Hee said, her voice a crystalline chime that carried the weight of the Absolute Ice domain. She looked at the ash of the Namgung Ancestor. "The Alliance is so desperate they awaken the dead. And the Yun... the Yun are so arrogant they think they can command the Void."
"We do not command the Void, Princess," Hyuk Musang replied, suppressing the urge to shiver. "We simply refuse to be consumed by it."
The Contest of Crystalline Intent
Seol-Hee's eyes narrowed. "I have traveled three thousand miles because the North Sea felt a disturbance in the 'World Essence.' Your Patriarch has split the heavens, and your boys are freezing the blood of legends. I wish to see if your 'Pure Heaven Ki' is a true path or merely a clever trick of resonance."
She didn't draw a weapon. She simply exhaled a breath of Absolute Ice Human Realm energy. A wave of white, opaque frost surged across the clearing, moving with the speed of a "Slash Projection." It was a technique designed to flash-freeze the internal Ki of any practitioner below the Absolute Realm, turning their Dantian into a block of useless glass.
Musang didn't retreat. He transitioned into the Green Jade Horse stance, utilizing the Devastation of Black Ice.
Unlike Seol-Hee's "White Frost," which sought to freeze the physical world, Musang's "Black Ice" was a manifestation of the Universal Origin Scripture's stagnation principles. He didn't meet her cold with more cold; he met it with the frequency of Absolute Zero.
The two energies collided in the center of the clearing. There was no explosion, only a terrifying, high-pitched screech as the air molecules were pulverized. The white frost of the Ice Palace halted inches from Musang, locked in a geometric struggle with the black aura of the Yun.
The Recognition of the Era
The Princess watched as her most potent elemental strike was neutralized by a warrior who, by the Alliance's records, should have been a "3rd Rate" non-entity. She saw the Resonance Void in Musang's core—the signature of a martial artist who had abandoned the "Dantian-as-a-jar" logic for the Yun's "Body-as-a-conduit" philosophy.
"You were a servant of the Pengs, were you not?" Seol-Hee asked, her frost aura receding. "I recognize your spirit-rhythm. It was once as chaotic as a gutter-dog's."
"I was trash, Princess," Musang said, his voice steady. "The Yun gave me the sky."
Seol-Hee turned back toward her fleet. "The North Sea Ice Palace does not care for the politics of Wuhan. We do not care for your 'Orthodox' or 'Unorthodox' labels. But we do care for the Nature Realm. If your Patriarch is building a world where the 'Merit of the Earth' can stand against the 'Ice Phoenix,' then the Ice Palace shall bear witness."
She reached into her fox-fur robes and pulled out a Spirit Jade—a rare crystal that hummed with the voices of the Northern Venerables. She threw it to Musang.
"Tell your Patriarch: The North Sea will not march for the Alliance's 'Silver Vow.' We will wait at the border. If the Yun Clan can reach the Eternal Transformation before the moon cycles twice... then the North Sea shall become the Second Heaven of your Federation."
The Frost-Sails ascended as quickly as they had arrived, leaving behind a forest that was now permanently encased in a shimmering, crystalline beauty. The descent of the Ice Palace had changed the war. The Alliance had lost its most powerful potential ally, and the Yun Clan had gained a mythic standard they had to meet.
Hyuk Musang looked at the Spirit Jade in his hand. The path to the Murim Federation was no longer just a war for survival; it was a race toward the Divine. And as the sun rose over the frozen bamboo, he knew that the era of the "Families" was not just dying—it was being replaced by something cold, pure, and eternal.