Chapter 21

Chapter 21

The direct bloodline of Winterbell.

Countless corpses lay sprawled across the laboratory floor.

…No way. Had these maggot-like bastards really been experimenting on the residents all this time?

And right here, within Winterbell’s territory?

The perspective shifted.

They had moved into a laboratory located deeper inside the cave where we had been.

Ron Winterbell had lost consciousness, but fortunately, his memory stone was functioning normally, so I was able to keep listening to the conversation between the two.

The man and woman, both dressed in black robes, revealed their faces. The man bore a massive scar running across his entire face, and one of his eyes was clouded in gray.

“You lunatic bitch.”

“I don’t think that’s something you, the so-called ‘Sword Demon’, should be saying to me…”

“Don’t kid yourself, you crazy witch. You and I are different from the roots. If not for His orders, you wouldn’t even be able to make eye contact with me here. Your head would’ve been lopped off long before that.”

“…Sword Demon. Having confidence in oneself is good, but being unable to recognize the gap between you and your opponent is just incompetence.”

The woman had black hair and black eyes. Her appearance was so beautiful that it would be hard to forget after seeing her once, yet the extreme lack of expression on her face made her seem unnerving.

Sword Demon and Witch.

They were names I’d never heard before, but I made sure to remember their faces and names.

Just then, Ron Winterbell regained consciousness. Upon witnessing the gruesome scene, he growled and shouted in rage.

“You maggot-like bastards! How dare you commit such atrocities in Winterbell’s territory! Do you think you’ll get away with this?!”

“That damn ‘Winterbell, Winterbell, Winterbell’!!! Just because you were lucky enough to be born into the Winterbell bloodline, do you think you’re something special?! Are you supposed to be that great Arkan Winterbell or something?!”

Furious, the Sword Demon drove his fist into Ron Winterbell’s abdomen. A dull thud echoed, and blood spurted from his mouth.

Despite this, Ron Winterbell glared at them with bloodshot eyes.

“…I won’t let you get away with this. You trash.”

“Can I kill him?”

The woman let out a sigh as she spoke.

“Sword Demon. Are you really planning to ruin the entire operation by killing a rare specimen we worked so hard to acquire?”

“This fucking bastard won’t shut up…”

“Do whatever you want, as long as he doesn’t die.”

Upon hearing that, the Sword Demon smiled. And then the one-sided violence resumed.

One hour.

Two hours.

Three hours.

Without pause, the Sword Demon beat, slashed, and tortured Ron Winterbell’s entire body. Eventually, as he stared at the man reduced to rags, he spat out in disgust.

“You still hanging on just because you’re a damn Winterbell?”

“Tr…ash… like… you…”

It wouldn’t have been strange if he collapsed at any moment, yet Ron Winterbell still glared at them with murderous fury, spitting out curses.

Originally, I had seen him only as someone I needed to take revenge on. But maybe because the misunderstanding had been cleared up and our relationship had improved a bit. Or perhaps it was because, even if only partially, we shared the same blood.

As I silently watched him being tortured, anger welled up inside me before I even realized it.

“I’ll step outside for a bit.”

When the Sword Demon exited the cave, the woman approached Ron Winterbell this time.

“So the territory’s residents weren’t the answer after all.”

Ron Winterbell, struggling to breathe, spat blood-mixed saliva toward the woman’s face.

“Ptuh.”

“……”

Wiping the blood off her face with her hand, the woman stared at him with an emotionless expression.

“You’re certainly unusual. Even a tiger’s cub would usually cower in a situation like this… Are you not afraid of death?”

“Hah. Death? Do you think a proud descendant of Winterbell would fear something as petty as death? A wolf never forgets the blood feud. From the moment you bastards stepped into this place, your deaths were already sealed.”

“……”

“Your families, friends, relatives, everything connected to you—I’ll tear them apart without leaving a single piece behind.”

Ron Winterbell hurled curses with venomous hatred while the woman looked at him as if she were intrigued.

“Little wolf. Let’s see if you can still say such things after facing my magic.”

Dark mana erupted from her entire body. As she stretched out her hand and placed it on Ron Winterbell’s head, a horrendous scream tore out of him.

“Aaaaaaaaaaagh!!!”

Even though it was merely the act of peering into his memories, it felt as though the pain he experienced was being transmitted directly to me.

As if his heart were being sawed open, his fingernails crushed and driven into his flesh, and his skin flayed and torn apart.

Blood poured out from every hole in Ron Winterbell’s face.

“What is your name?”

“…Aaaaaagh!!!”

“I’ll ask you again. What is your name?”

“Shut uuuuuuuuup!!!”

Soaked in the blood that streamed down his face, Ron Winterbell let out a scream mixed with pain and curses. He seemed to have lost all reason, yet he still continued to resist.

Two hours passed.

Half out of his mind, Ron Winterbell began muttering the same words over and over, like someone under hypnosis.

“The blade… of Winterbell… will turn… on you…”

The woman clapped her hands, her face showing a mix of admiration and intrigue.

“…Such remarkable mental strength. Even martial artists who reached the 8-star level couldn’t withstand my mind magic. A wolf is a wolf, after all.”

Just then, the returning Sword Demon sneered at the sight.

“Still not done?”

“He had a far more formidable mental barrier than I expected.”

“Or maybe your shitty magic just sucks?”

The woman ignored his words and continued the spell. After another two hours, she finally managed to break through Ron Winterbell’s mental barrier.

“Phew. What a tough bastard. I’ll give him that.”

However, Ron Winterbell knew nothing about the information they were after.

“Do you know anything about the Master of the Mountain sealed in the Bakal Mountains?”

“Don…’t… know…”

“What about how to break the barrier?”

“I… don’t… know…”

The Sword Demon, unable to hold back any longer, growled in frustration.

“Shit. Then what the hell was the point of going through all that trouble to bring this bastard here? He doesn’t know anything!”

“Wait.”

The woman, deep in thought, drew a dagger from her sleeve. Then, she slashed Ron Winterbell’s forearm.

Slice!

A straight, fine line split open, and blood began to seep through the gap in the flesh. The woman collected the blood in a flask, then turned toward the inner part of the laboratory as she spoke.

“If this fails again, we’ll have to abandon the operation. We can’t afford to waste any more time.”

“…And what about this bastard?”

“We still need to keep him alive. He’ll be useful in several ways.”

Grinding his teeth, the Sword Demon kicked Ron Winterbell in the head and muttered,

“Consider yourself lucky, maggot.”

That was where the memory ended.

---

The memory stone I’d been holding crumbled to dust in my hand. I thought there might have been more to see, but it seemed the memory stone’s durability had simply reached its limit.

“The part where the man in the black robe kicked your head—that’s where it cut off. What happened after that?”

“I don’t know either. They left me like that and disappeared. I suppose they went to carry out those experiments.”

I pointed at the small hole.

“Did you make this hole, Brother?”

“That’s right. As you saw, my body was already completely broken. Scraping out that tiny hole using every last bit of strength I had left… that was the best I could manage.”

“…Thanks to that, I was able to find this place.”

I briefly organized the information I had gathered so far in my head.

The Sword Demon and the Witch.

They belonged to some organization and came here under someone’s orders.

Their objective…

—“The Master of the Mountain is sealed, so there’s no need to worry about that.”

—“If that Mad Dragon wakes up again, it’ll be a nightmare even just thinking about it. So who will you send, Patriarch? Should I go?”

“The Master of the Mountain.”

Waking the Mad Dragon sealed in this mountain.

That had to be their goal.

They probably needed a specific medium to awaken the Mad Dragon, and that’s why they kidnapped the local residents for experimentation.

But the experiments failed.

So they turned their attention to the direct line of Winterbell.

‘There’s no way word about me has leaked to the outside yet. I’m still publicly known as a crippled recluse exiled to the Annex. The next easiest target to approach would obviously be…’

Ron Winterbell.

From the start, they had targeted him for this reason.

But one question lingered.

Why were they trying to awaken the sealed Mad Dragon?

To lay waste to the surrounding lands? To weaken Winterbell’s power? Or was it something personal?

Whatever the reason, it didn’t bode well for me.

I didn’t know exactly what was sealed in this place, but just from the fact that it was called the “Mad Dragon,” it was obvious that if that thing woke up, the damage would be catastrophic.

Dragons, as a species, were disasters in and of themselves. And this wasn’t just a dragon—it was a mad dragon.

Having organized the situation in my head, I came to a single, clear conclusion: stopping those lunatics had to be my top priority.

‘I must prevent the seal on the Mad Dragon from breaking at all costs.’

There was no time.

I had to pursue them immediately.

And to do that, I desperately needed the help of my other siblings.

“Can you move?”

“Thanks to the recovery potion you gave me, I can move without issue.”

“Then let’s go right away. We need to regroup with the others and catch those lunatics.”

I pulled the Ice-Faced Snow Ginseng from my coat and swallowed it whole. Originally, I had planned to slowly absorb its power in a safe place while carefully managing my mana, but now wasn’t the time for that.

Confident in my ability to control mana, I decided to absorb the ginseng’s energy on the move.

Shaaah!

A piercing cold surged through me in an instant.

Each breath I took came out as a plume of white vapor. I gathered the cold that seeped into my body at my heart, then spread it throughout my entire body. As the freezing aura wrapped around me, my body suddenly felt much lighter for some reason.

Cecil and Ron Winterbell, watching the scene unfold, spoke with astonished faces.

“Your body, young master…”

“To think your mana has formed a visible shape and is releasing cold into the air… Have you succeeded in Manifestation?”

Manifestation.

The most basic, yet most fundamental technique required to wield aura. It wasn’t something one could use just because they had a large amount of mana.

One had to project the image held in their heart onto their sword, and through mana, give it form.

That was the essence of aura. No matter how skilled one's swordsmanship was, without personal enlightenment, they couldn’t even reach the stage of Manifestation.

In fact, even among knights who had reached the 8-star level, there were those who couldn’t use aura.

But I was different.

In my previous life, I had already mastered aura completely. So, after consuming the Ice-Faced Snow Ginseng, the mana that had been accumulating until now surged through my bloodline and naturally led to Manifestation.

“This couldn’t have come at a better time.”

When I grasped Behemoth, the ice crystals floating around me wrapped around the blade.

In that moment—

KWA-GWAGWAGWANG──!

A deafening roar echoed, shaking the entire cave.

Only then did I instinctively realize what was happening.

“…The Master of the Mountain has awakened.”

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