The North Sea Martial Warrior - Chapter 01

========== 1. RETURN OF THE WOLF ==========

Northern Sea.

A place where death froze and became the land.

The boundary between sky and land was blurred. All that entered the field of vision was a white hell. Only the bone-chilling, biting wind claimed to be the master of this land, howling sharply.

Ice Palace.

A massive fortress carved from ten-thousand-year-old glaciers rose as if to pierce the cloudy sky. The ice walls, which would normally shine transparently, looked particularly murky today.

The entire palace was wearing giant mourning clothes.

The funeral of the 12th Master of the Ice Palace, Karani.

It was the seventeenth day of the thirty-day funeral period.

Snow piled up on the shoulders of the warriors guarding the water gate. As soon as they exhaled, their breath turned into frost and clung to their beards.

It was around the time when the sensation in the fingers gripping the spears began to fade.

Beyond the blizzard… a black dot emerged within the hazy field of vision.

One warrior narrowed his eyes.

At first, he thought it was a bear. A starving beast lost in the snowfields of the Northern Sea. But as the distance closed, the shape… became closer to a human. No, it was too worn out to be called a human.

The man was covered in a wolf pelt.

The fur pelt had lost its oil and become brittle.

The clothes, torn in places with black, caked-on bloodstains, looked like a shroud just dug up from a grave.

“Stop.”

The gate squad leader shouted, slamming his spear shaft down.

The man did not stop.

There wasn’t even the sound of footsteps on the snow. He approached like a ghost, or like a floating shadow, sliding forward.

“According to custom, outsiders are forbidden from entering during the funeral period! If you do not turn back, I will cut you down!”

Despite the squad leader’s shout, the man did not lift his head.

He just walked silently.

Cold sweat ran down the squad leader’s spine at that unhesitating attitude. An instinctive warning that something was wrong.

The man stopped just before the spear tips touched him.

He lifted his head.

A face revealed beneath the wolf pelt hood.

He was young. Maybe twenty? Sharp features on skin as pale as white jade.

But the eyes… those pupils were those of an old wolf left in the biting wind for decades. Boredom, emptiness, and suppressed killing intent welled up from deep within his gray pupils.

The man raised his hand.

The warriors flinched, thinking it was an attack. But the man’s hand headed toward his own left chest.

Sseut!

He roughly pulled back his thick leather clothes.

“……!”

In an instant, the squad leader’s pupils shook as if an earthquake had occurred.

Strength drained from the hand gripping the spear.

The chest.

The place where the heart should be.

It was hideously gouged out.

A horrific scar as if a dagger had been driven in and twisted. It wasn’t a scar where the flesh had healed. The torn flesh had necrotized and turned black, permanently frozen in that state by the cold of the Northern Sea.

Dead flesh. No, it was the chest of a dead man.

“Th-that is…”

The squad leader’s lips trembled violently.

A mark heard of only in legends.

The brand of death that every warrior of the Northern Sea knows of, but no one has ever actually seen.

Martial Fight.

The man opened his mouth.

A metallic sound mixed with the wind.

“Path.”

A short word.

But its weight was heavier than a thousand catties of ice.

“What is this commotion!”

A giant old general appeared with heavy footsteps.

The Ice Palace Gatekeeper, Danmok Han.

A veteran who had guarded the main gate of the Ice Palace for ten years, and a top-tier expert.

He frowned at his subordinates who were awkwardly clearing a path. Just as he was about to reprimand them for lax discipline during the Palace Master’s mourning period, his gaze locked onto the man.

‘……!’

Danmok Han held his breath.

An expert. And a significant one at that!

The energy radiating from the man’s entire body was not sharp. Rather, it was heavy… yes. It was heavy. It felt like standing in front of a snowy mountain right before an avalanche.

Danmok Han instinctively performed a fist-and-palm salute.

“I am Danmok Han, the Gatekeeper of the Ice Palace. Currently, the Palace Master’s funeral is being held, so…”

“The funeral hall.”

The man cut him off.

Danmok Han’s eyebrows twitched. No matter how great his momentum, this is the Ice Palace.

He spoke in a polite but firm tone.

“Please state your identity and name first. That is the law of the Ice Palace.”

The man looked at Danmok Han.

His gray pupils blinked slowly.

An emotionless gaze, as if looking at an insect, or perhaps a pebble rolling on the roadside.

“Guide me.”

“Hey! Can’t you hear me…”

Danmok Han raised his voice and took a step forward. It was the moment he raised his internal energy to exert pressure.

‘Huh?’

Danmok Han was puzzled.

The man was still standing with his arms crossed, not moving an inch.

But his neck was cold.

A chill as if a very thin piece of ice was touching his Adam’s apple.

He lowered his gaze. And doubted his own eyes.

A sword.

The blade of a curved sword, with a dark red color as if rusted, was pressing against his Adam’s apple.

‘When?’

Danmok Han’s brain stopped.

The hair on his neck stood up. His chest felt empty, as if his heart had stopped.

Gulp.

The sound of swallowing echoed as loudly as thunder.

As his Adam’s apple moved, the blade grazed his skin. A thin blood vessel was cut. A stinging pain.

‘If I move, I die.’

His legs trembled. His knees threatened to buckle.

The man’s shoulders hadn’t moved. His arms were still the same. Yet the sword was drawn.

It was as if time had been deleted.

There was no process. Only the result existed.

‘This… is not a human.’

Danmok Han felt cold sweat running down his back.

The blade did not pierce the skin. It stopped, having precisely cut only the fine hairs on his neck.

Control without a single hair’s breadth of error.

That was even more terrifying. It was proof of an overwhelming gap, that he could sever his neck at any time.

“I’ll ask one more time.”

The man’s voice burrowed into his ears.

“The funeral hall?”

Danmok Han swallowed dryly. As his Adam’s apple moved, the cold sensation of the blade became clearer. Moreover, the opponent was a Martial Warrior… he had the right to pay respects at the Ice Palace.

He slowly, very slowly, raised his hand and pointed inside the Ice Palace.

“…The Ice Heart Hall. It is in the deepest part…”

Sareurak.

The sword was sheathed.

It was so fast that even that sound felt like an auditory hallucination.

The man had already turned around, without even the motion of sheathing the sword.

Danmok Han barely managed to stop himself from collapsing as his legs gave out.

The man’s retreating back.

The worn wolf pelt.

And the frozen scar revealed beneath it.

An old story he had forgotten flashed through Danmok Han’s mind.

‘Could it be… did it really exist? The… Wolf of the Northern Sea?’

Inside the Ice Palace.

The passage carved from natural ice was massive.

Night-luminescent pearls embedded along the walls cast a blue light, and the floor was as smooth as a mirror.

Airak walked down that splendid and cold corridor.

The commotion spread faster than the wind.

Ice Palace warriors wearing white mourning clothes poured out into the corridor. Dozens, no, hundreds of warriors filled the passage. Spears and swords were held in their hands.

“Stop!”

“Reveal your identity!”

Killing intent surged like a wave along with the shouts.

The sorrow and anger of losing the Palace Master turned into hostility toward the stranger.

However, Airak did not slow his pace.

The warriors seemed invisible to his eyes.

“Move.”

A low word.

But the energy contained in that word had tremendous power.

Jjeojeojeok!

Fine cracks appeared on the ice floor where Airak’s feet touched.

What radiated from his body was not heat. It was absolute terror.

A warning sent by an apex predator to lower entities.

The ranks of the warriors wavered.

Those who made eye contact with Airak stepped back without even being able to scream. The hands gripping the spears trembled, and their legs buckled on their own. Eyes that had crossed the threshold of death dozens of times.

Sseueuk.

The crowd parted.

A semi-circular empty space was created around Airak, opening a path.

Airak walked through it.

Hundreds of blades were aimed at him from both sides. It was within striking distance. But no one dared to reach out. Because the fishy smell of blood radiating from the man, and the frozen scar embedded in his chest, suppressed their instincts.

That thing must not be touched.

If you touch it, you die.

It was a silent march.

Only Airak’s footsteps echoed in the corridor of the Ice Palace.

The door of the Ice Heart Hall came into view.

Airak’s pace slowed slightly.

Thirty years ago, in front of this door, she swallowed her tears and waved her hand.

‘You must come. I will wait.’

It felt as if the warmth from that time still remained on his palm.

Airak clenched and unclenched his hand.

Now, there is nothing in that hand.

The end of that path.

In front of the massive ice door of the Ice Heart Hall.

A woman was standing there.

A splendid silver-white robe. A woman wearing a crown symbolizing the Vice Palace Lord on her head, with her waist held straight.

Vice Palace Lord, Mukara.

The second-in-command of the Ice Palace. No, she had never once considered herself the second-in-command.

To her, the character ‘Vice’ was an insult.

Thirty years ago, when the previous Palace Master designated Karani as the successor… Mukara laughed.

It wasn’t anger. It was certainty.

‘I just need to wait. Someday that position will be mine.’

And thirty years… she waited. Endured. Prepared. Now, finally, that position was vacant. But of all times, this monster appeared at this very moment.

She was looking down at the approaching Airak with her arms crossed. No, she tried to look down. But as Airak got closer, her pupils began to shake.

‘…He’s young?’

Mukara doubted her information.

A Martial Warrior who disappeared thirty years ago. If he were alive, he should be a middle-aged man over fifty.

But the man in front of her was a young man.

A body that had evaded the passage of time.

The Airak tribe possessed a unique constitution. A body that survived and adapted in the land of extremes… their average lifespan is two hundred years. She had heard they retain a youthful face until around one hundred years old.

But even so, she didn’t know it would be to this extent.

For a moment, strange emotions crossed within Mukara’s heart. Shock that the monster she thought was dead had returned alive, and a strange jealousy.

The man the late Karani had missed her whole life. A Martial Warrior and the current chieftain of the Airak tribe, Airak.

The fact that he appeared in such a perfect form, and at this very moment, irritated her twisted sensibilities.

‘How dare he.’

Mukara hardened her expression.

A legend is just a legend. The master of the Ice Palace now is herself. She couldn’t let some old relic run wild.

She stepped forward.

With the authority of the Vice Palace Lord, she arrogantly lifted her chin.

“Stop.”

Airak’s steps stopped.

The distance between him and Mukara was only five paces.

Mukara gave a cold smile.

“This is the funeral hall of the late Palace Master. If you have come to pay respects, show some manners…”

“Move.”

Airak moved his steps again.

It was before Mukara had even finished speaking.

He did not look at Mukara. He tried to pass by her, brushing her shoulder, to grab the door handle of the Ice Heart Hall.

Thorough disregard, treating her like an invisible person.

Mukara’s face flushed red.

Hundreds of subordinates were watching. Her vision went white with humiliation.

“I told you to stop!”

Mukara shouted and blocked Airak’s path.

Cold energy rose from her hands. She looked ready to unleash a palm strike at any moment.

“I don’t know who you are, but know your place! How dare you cause a scene? Do you know where this is!”

Her venomous words rang through the Ice Heart Hall.

The warriors held their breath.

Mukara’s momentum was great. It was clear she was a skilled person worthy of the position of Vice Palace Lord. However.

Airak turned his head.

For the first time, he stared straight at Mukara.

At that moment, Mukara gasped and stopped.

Eyes.

She saw a vision of a wolf jumping out from within his gray pupils and tearing at her throat.

The smell of blood vibrated.

It felt like being stripped naked and thrown into the middle of a battlefield where corpses were rotting, not the splendid Ice Palace.

Airak’s lips twisted.

It wasn’t a smile. It was the threat of a beast baring its teeth.

He opened his mouth.

Growling low, very low.

“In the Ice Palace… the Palace Master was murdered.”

Airak’s gaze locked into Mukara’s shaking pupils.

“And you idiots, who haven’t even identified the culprit, are running your mouths.”