Time slid by like water under ice, and night pooled like ink.

By day, I’d met over a hundred ice wolves, one even Sacred Realm.

We still cut through unscathed, like a blade parting frost.

I’d climbed a third of the way to the peak, a path etched in snow.

Push a little harder tomorrow, and the summit should be within reach.

Inside a mountain cave, shadows breathed like sleeping beasts.

By the fire, I hugged my knees, staring at the bright tongues of flame.

The heat licked my face like a tame fox, but it didn’t ease my chest.

“Alone… it feels a little hollow.”

I murmured as I lifted an ice-crystal fruit, cold as a star plucked from winter.

I used to travel with Xinuo and Hill.

Noise and laughter swirled like swallows in spring.

Now the hush pressed down like snow on pine, and sadness seeped in.

Thinking of Hill still asleep in the Egisia Academy dorms, I forced it down.

I pictured her bright smile, like sun on fresh frost, and steadied my breath.

If I want that voice ringing again, I have to grind harder, like whetstone on steel.

“Then sleep early. There’s a lot of fighting tomorrow.”

I tossed the fruit core out into the cold, like flicking a coal into night.

My stomach warm, my eyelids heavy, I drifted.

Today had gnawed at me like wind on bone.

“Xinuo, seriously… you sent me here with no prep.”

I grumbled softly, words like steam in the cave.

“Want a bath, but no spare clothes… great.”

Sleep pressed like a winter tide.

I stopped resisting and let my eyes fall shut.

Even with Sword Aura wrapped tight, the chill crept in like needles.

Keeping the aura spinning was like turning a millstone in my gut.

It was tiring, the kind that sinks like lead.

I hugged myself hard, like sealing a jar against frost, and slipped under.

Midnight.

Awooo——

The howl cut the dark like a shard of ice.

I snapped awake, heart thudding like a drum behind snow.

“What’s this… this foul chill?”

I ran out, breath puffing white, scanning the slopes.

Blue ghost-lights stared back—countless eyes floating like will-o’-wisps.

“Seriously? They won’t even let me sleep?”

Annoyance flared like sparks.

A fierce fight was inevitable.

Looked like a hundred, maybe more, a tide of fur and teeth.

Damn it, for a single wave, that’s too many.

I sighed, a cloud dissolving in the cold, and drew in my will.

“Myriad Swords Unleashed.”

Without opening the Sword Domain, I could form only five thousand-plus blades.

Still enough for a pack that didn’t exceed two hundred.

“Go.”

The swords of pure Sword Aura shivered like swarming locusts.

They shot forward with sky-splitting speed, piercing the ambush like rain.

Boom. Boom. Boom…

At the instant of detonation, the wolves burst from cover like arrows.

Only a quarter fell, snow stained by shadow.

“About eighty left? End it in one breath.”

Surrounded, I felt no fear, only iron settling like a winter sun.

I cast Myriad Swords Unleashed again, a silver storm arcing wide.

But the wolves had learned.

They slipped aside the moment the blades fell, like reeds parting before wind.

Only eight or nine died, red on white.

“Awooo!”

They surged in, jaws yawning like iron traps, teeth bright as icicles.

Some coated their claws with magic, a glaze of frost-steel.

They reared high, ready to hammer me down.

Bad. If they hit me, I’d lose combat strength on the spot.

They were too close, breath hot as wolves and winter.

I’d just burned through Myriad Swords Unleashed.

My body couldn’t right itself fast enough.

In the Nine Cold Labyrinth, I tasted my first real edge of danger.

“All in. Sword Qi Storm.”

I spun and swung with everything, like tearing a banner from wind.

A massive tornado of Sword Aura roared up, a dragon of blades.

It swallowed the pack, fur whipping like grass in a gale.

But a few wolves slipped in during the forming gap, like thieves in a crowd.

I cut off the Sword Qi Storm to avoid their snapping arcs.

I ducked, rolled hard, and barely slid past their strikes.

My clothes tore in several places, fabric fraying like old snow.

“Damn it. That chewed a lot of stamina.”

Locked with the pack, I ground my teeth, ice scraping iron inside.

There had to be a way to end this fast, like a clean cut through silk.

They charged again, eyes colder, like glaciers deciding to move.

They’d realized I wasn’t easy prey and committed fully.

Their earlier rush had just been a probe, a paw testing water.

Troublesome.

I set the Shattered Light Sword at my hip and took a draw stance, breath like frost smoke.

One swift arc of Sword Aura flashed out, a crescent slicing night.

The pack blocked as one, a wall of fur and claw like a wave-borne reef.

They sacrificed five or six bodies, blood steaming on snow.

Around sixty-five remained, all eyes narrowed, all tongues slicking teeth.

They were waiting for a moment.

I couldn’t attack carelessly now.

I’d only waste strength, like my second Myriad Swords Unleashed and that storm.

Wait.

Something felt wrong, like a note off in winter silence.

By day, the wolves had rushed aimlessly, dumb as wind in grass.

Now they moved like trained soldiers, each step guided by trust.

There was a commander, a general sitting behind ice.

I swept the area with my mind, like a lantern scanning reeds.

Southwest, a hundred meters.

Behind an ice-blue boulder, cold as a frozen wave.

“Ice Wolf King. Stop hiding. Come out.”

“Human, you noticed faster than I thought.”

A massive wolf padded out from behind the boulder, a mountain in fur.

Its ghost-blue eyes fell on me like twin moons in frost.

“So it is the Ice Wolf King?”

My heart dropped like a stone into deep water.

I’d hoped it was a trick of mind, a shadow on snow.

Dozens of wolves were already a grindstone.

If the King joined in… fatigue crept up like black ice.

“Yes.”

The Ice Wolf King dipped its huge head, voice rumbling like distant avalanches.

“By order of the Snow Maiden, I came to weigh your measure.”

“Is that so?”

I smiled wryly, a crack in winter glass.

I swung the Shattered Light Sword, sending several arcs of light toward the King.

“Impatient, aren’t you, human?”

It lifted thick forelimbs, muscles knotting like cables under frost.

Its claws gleamed, sharp enough to rend boulders, and slammed down.

“Dance of Frozen Fury.”

Boom. Boom. Boom.

The ground speared up with ice spikes, small mountains stabbing in a line.

They shattered my Sword Aura arcs like waves crushing shells.

One almost skewered me.

I retreated just in time, boots biting snow.

“This is… not good.”

I frowned, a storm knotting behind my eyes.

The weight settled heavy, like a sky full of snow.

From that probe, I gauged the King’s strength.

Holy Peak.