As he followed the hunters to and fro, he suddenly heard a sound. The sound, which sounded much like pounding through the forest on the ground, was definitely different.
“Follow me!” Seo Seok-san spoke and flew toward the side where the sound was heard.
“Be careful…!”
The hunters could not even spit out a brief warning. They murmured upon staring at Seo Seok-san Mountain, which had already disappeared from sight.
“The city… don’t you miss how fresh it feels?”
Before then, Seo Seok-san ran like the wind and found a huge beast eating a wild boar over the rock. The red-haired bear, befitting the name of the hyelwoong, was huge enough to exceed one chapter in height.
Judging from the fact that they hunted wild boars without leaving the tigers they caught, it seemed that they also had an appetite. Hyeolwoong, feeling the presence of Seok-san, stopped eating and stood up.
Great! The man with his mouth wide open let out a menacing roar. He had nothing to say against the beast, so he just decided to punch him with a solid fist. After being hit in the face by Seo Seok-san’s fist, the Hyeolwoong crashed into a huge tree, inevitably being the one tossed around.
It was a one-shot that could kill even a first-class expert. However, the Hyeolwoong still stood up and formed a submissive stance. Animals always instinctively recognized opponents stronger than themselves.
“He’s pretty good.” He didn’t have the heart to save him because he was special. Seo Seok-san cut off the distance with the Hyeolwoong with one leap and then struck his head with his weapon.
Ping! With the sound, the blood drooped. No matter how spiritual he was, as long as his neck was broken, he could not escape death. He thought it would take quite a while to catch the hyeolwoong, but he was able to successfully hunt them surprisingly quickly.
“Isn’t this guy a bloody wolf?” All conditions were met, but he could not be relieved until he parted his belly and checked the inner end. The hunters who came up late had their mouths wide open at the situation in front of them.
“Hurry up and hand over the inner pod and gallbladder.”
“Can we really take the rest?”
‘I heard that bear paw dishes are so delicious.’
Seo Seok-san nodded his head, leaving his regret behind. Skillful hunters ripped the blood men’s ships on the spot. “Be especially careful on the inside.”
“Is there really an inner end?”
Even experienced hunters had never seen an inner tier. “There will be.”
Fortunately, the wind at Mt. Seoksan did not end with the wind. The inner hem, the size of a fist, was contained within a white membrane. The hunters who removed the inner pedestal were careful with their swords. It was because he did not want to bear the wrath of a Moorim man who had defeated the hyeolwoong.
Seo Seok-san put the inner altar that the hunter had brought out in a box made of aloes wood in advance, and stored the gallbladder in another small box. “Now, all we need to do is find the inner end of the blood lake.”
“Did you just say blood?”
“Do you know anything?” Wang Sebang pointed his finger towards the east.
“You can’t see it because of the clouds, but if you go 20 li in that direction, there is a place called Cheonunsan. Rumors have been circulating that blood lakes have appeared in Mt. Cheonun for five years. Since then, Cheon Seoksan and Cheonunsan are collectively called Houngssangcheon.”
Seo Seok-san asked in a soft voice. “Like finding a new hunter. Will you come with me again this time?”
“Can I just give you the inner altar again this time?”
Seo Seok-san nodded and the heads of the five hunters also moved up and down.
* * *
Knock, knock!
A dog barked and ran towards the alchemy. It was not ferocious, it was happy, so it wagged its tail and hugged it. “Ugh, our staff has grown a lot.”
It must have been a long time since no one other than Eun Bi-yeon, but Oh Seon didn’t seem wary. He was a guy who really liked people. “Where is your master?”
Geum Hong opened the hut door and looked inside. However, Eun Bi-yeon was nowhere to be seen. He may have gone looking for food, so Eun Bi-yeon’s absence was not special. The problem was the condition of the hut. The dishes were piled up in the kitchen, and dust piled up everywhere as if they hadn’t cleaned in a while. The bedding on the bed was also messed up, to the point that the duvet was dragged to the floor.
“It doesn’t look like the house was abandoned.”
Geum Hong came out of the hut and looked around. He had not seen any weeds around the house when he had come before, but today it had grown to cover his ankles.
“Bi-yeon-ah! Eun Bi-yeon!” He called, but there was no answer.
Kung! Kung! Oh Seon-yi barked at Yeon Ji-hong and started running towards the mountain. Jeon Yeong-hong followed Oh Seon-i and flew away. Oh Seon-yi, who ran down the mountain for a long time, stopped at a place with a large rock.
Eun Bi-yeon was lying on a rock in the warm sunlight. He sighed in relief only after confirming that he was just asleep. “Biyeon-ah!”
When Jeon Yeong-hong shook her to wake her up, Eun Bi-yeon opened her eyes.
“Eww… The smell of alcohol. How much alcohol have you been drinking?”
Three gourd bottles were lying around the rocks. “Huh? Sister! Kum-hong sister!”
As if she had not yet woken up, Eun Bi-yeon hugged her. “Let’s take care of ourselves first.”
After going to her hut, drinking her cold water, and washing her face, Eun Bi-yeon’s spirit fully returned. “What happened?”
“What will happen to a bitch who is alone in the mountains?”
“By the way, what is this? Why are you drinking alcohol that you can’t even drink?”
Eun Bi-yeon took a sip of her tea and let out a long sigh. “It’s all because of my sister.”
“What am I?”
“You threw a stone into a calm lake. When she was in seclusion for many years she lived in peace without any thought, and that peace suddenly turned into boredom. I miss my sister who only slept for one night.”
She probably didn’t really want to see Geum Hong. What Eun Bi-yeon surprised was everyone, not just a specific person. As the accumulated loneliness was swept away by Geum Hong’s party, she couldn’t stand the loneliness anymore.
“After all, I have broken your peace.”
“I don’t know if I didn’t fit into hiding in the first place.”
“You mean that the wrong year has been in hiding for forty years?”
“Isn’t it supposed to be an escape rather than a hiding place? After all, you’ve been hiding for quite some time. But what happened? There was no way I would have known that I was like this.”
“I have a favor to ask of you.”
“I live hiding in the mountains and all I have is a car.”
“Ice.”
At those words, Eun Bi-yeon, who was holding the teacup, stopped moving. “Did you just say ice crystal?”
“Okay. That ice crystal, the best treasure in the North Sea Ice Palace.”
“Your sister is cruel. You know what that ice crystal means to me.”
“I know. But…”
Visor! As the teacup smashed in Eun Bi-yeon’s hand, water dripped down. “You know? No one knows better than you that talking about ice will bring back the most terrible memories of my life! But are you talking about ice crystals to me?”
If it wasn’t for Alchemy Red, it would have turned into a block of ice. “The death penalty hurts.”
Eun Bi-yeon’s anger turned into surprise at once. “Who is Woo-bin?”
“Okay. You need ice crystals to cure the death penalty.”
“Where does it hurt?”
Geum Hong let out a long sigh. “Did you know that each blood lion has its own flaws?”
“Where is the only one?”
“Yes, they may be humans full of flaws, but if I had to pick just one, Seok-san is the king of hair loss, and she has no stamina. It’s not that I can’t actually do it, it’s that I stuttered so much that I ended up not talking. It turns out that this is a phenomenon that occurs when martial arts reach a certain level.”
“Then, did Woo-bin have such symptoms? Whose symptoms?”
“All four of us.”
“Oh, my God! Poor Woo-bin!”
“Yes.”
“But what about four? What is your sister?”
On the surface, Geum Hong looked perfect. Having said this up to this point, he had no reason to hide from Eun Bi-yeon. “I… That’s quite insensitive.”
At this, Eun Bi-yeon’s chin dropped down. “Unpleasant? That feeling?”
“Yeah, that feeling.”
“What do you mean by insensitivity? That feeling of insensitivity….”
“One more word and you will die.”
Now, my life was turned around at the voice of Yeon Jeong-hong. Eun Bi-yeon’s surprised expression soon changed to pity. “The person I once envied the most in the world was my older sister, and she was not in a position to envy.”
“That’s because I don’t need that guy! A bitch who ruined her life because of a man!”
“It’s because my sister doesn’t know the taste, she said, if she knows the taste….”
“Stop being disgusting and give me the ice crystals!”
“There is no way I can have ice crystals.”
“No? You took back the ice you gave him.” He had sacrificed not only martial arts, but also ice crystals, the best treasure of the North Sea Ice Palace.
“Okay, fine. I killed them all and retrieved the ice crystals, but I threw them away.”
“Throw away? Ice?”
“I didn’t want to have a single speck of what he remembered.”
He seemed to be able to understand his feelings. Of course, throwing away the ice crystal is still crazy. “Where did you dump it? Do you remember that?”
“Sure. It is clearly marked, so even if I try to forget it, I can’t forget it.”
“Where?”
“I’ll take you there. As early as possible.” It was only a matter of time to recover the ice crystals since they knew where they were thrown away. It was not far for them, but it was a distance that an ordinary person would have to travel through for a full day.
“It suddenly gets cold.”
Clearly, a lot of the green energy of the trees had disappeared and the grass was sparse. “Is it the energy of ice? Did you even bury it in the ground?”
“Then we can dig it up again, but… It’s really bad for Woo-bin. I can’t get the ice crystals back.”
After a little while, he could understand the meaning of Eun Bi-yeon. It was a very large lake to be in the mountains. It was a lake with a diameter of a hundred sheets, but surprisingly, it was completely frozen.
Even weeds did not grow around the lake due to the cold, and the rocks were covered with thin white ice. They looked down at the lake that had turned white and ice from the top of the cliff. “Did you throw ice crystals into that lake?”
“Yes. So it turned into ice as hard as steel. No one can break that ice.”
About ten people gathered around the ice lake. Although it was in the mountains that were difficult for people to reach, the lake where the ice did not melt even in the hot summer was quite a famous spot nearby. Of course, it wasn’t summer now, but there were still people who came to play without going far on the rough road.
“But you should try.”
To do that, one had to chase the people around you, but you couldn’t use force against them. “In a mountain this deep, there must be at least one tiger.”
It was not easy to find traces of tigers because he was not a hunter, but he was not very lucky. Of course, Geum Hong did not find the tiger, but the tiger chose Geum Hong for food. The lack of human eyes could not be blamed on the stupidity of the tiger. Holding the tiger’s neck, Geum Hong went near the people.
The tiger’s long cry, writhing in pain, was enough to startle the drunkards drinking alcohol near the lake. The term “compatible mama” was not coined for nothing. The terrified people disappeared in an instant, and Geum Hong tied the tiger to a nearby tree just in case.
“Sister, give up. The ice that surrounds the ice crystal can never be broken.”
“What do you mean? I am known as the Minachal of the Blood Lions.” Geum Hong, standing in the middle of an icy lake, stretched his tension towards his feet.
Zeng! There was a sound that sounded like tens of thousands of pieces of iron collided with each other, and ice powder spread all over the place. That alone was amazing, and Eun Bi-yeon burst out in admiration. “As expected, Minachal!”
“Shut up.” Geum Hong raised his power to the maximum and poured his tension in a row. A roar pierced his ears, and dust flew around him as if he were in the middle of a snowfield.
At this, Geum Hong’s tension was astonishingly great, but he wasn’t strong enough to break the ice that had encased it. “Give up. The depth of this pond is over ten. My sister’s energy will be exhausted first.”
There was only one hole in the road dug. Of course, with this kind of tension, one would one day reach the bottom of the lake. As Eun Bi-yeon said, Geum Hong’s energy was exhausted, and while he recovered it, the pit he dug hard can be filled with ice.
When he was put in a situation that he could not help, Geum Hong’s anger exploded. “You bastard, Do Pyeong-su! What if I throw away the ice crystals here?”