Chapter 169 – 27. White Night (7)
16 years old.
A nightmare-like memory that I buried deep in my heart.
Yu Seol-ah, while trembling with her fear, was facing her own past head-on.
‘It’s a runaway due to the early manifestation of ability.’
‘Student, it’s hard to hear these words… But it’s probably hard to wake up.’
“Yes. I did…”
Snowfield.
A world covered in pure white.
Regularly audible beep of the ECG device.
And, the rugged men wearing black sunglasses.
My head buzzes.
“I wanted to kill them all.”
Gradually, a storm of frost rages around Yu Seol-ah.
It was such an extreme chill that even Lee Ha-yul, who had the opposite ability to her, couldn’t approach it easily, and it seemed like she was frozen deep in her bones.
“Sister? What’s wrong with you! Wake up!”
“It’s okay… It’s just thinking of images.”
It’s not enough with just this level of anger.
Yoo Seol-ah knows. That only her complete immersion would lead her to a higher level.
Only when she boils a little more, when she rages more, can her frost become even colder.
That was the truth of power.
The target is an army of demons that fills the plains.
Freezing them all is next to impossible— no, it’s possible.
On that day, she froze an entire section of the city.
And if she is now stronger than that.
Yoo Seol-ah takes a deep breath.
The cold air travels deep into her lungs, giving her a giddy sensation.
The more she does, the closer she gets to the cold spot.
Become one with the ice.
Unity.
“Hey, stop this guy! Her lips are freezing!”
“I know, I know… You can’t stop this. Unnie thinks of us, no, she thinks of everyone, so she gathers strength.”
Well done, Ha Yul.
Yoo Seol-ah, who smiled inside her, quietly closed her eyes for a more intense image of her.
The fear she will face this time is meeting with Lee Ji-hoo.
In fact, she had been thinking about it for a long time.
Why did she try to get rid of Lee Ji-hoo?
I definitely remember that someone with black eyes proposed to me… But for some reason, I can’t recall the content.
‘Memories… Are fragmented like fragments…’
As if it had been erased with her eraser.
Far from being delicate, the memories are all the more painful as traces remain here and there as if erasing useless things.
She once tried to kill the person she loved more than anything.
Her head is confused.
But at the same time, he firmly holds her heart.
The focus is on the despair deeply rooted in her heart.
‘I…Was nothing more than trash.’
She creates Binghwa (氷花) using her sense of shame as raw material.
Before she knew it, frost had stood up and ripped up the ground beneath her feet.
Everything around you is cracking, breaking, and dicing.
‘But.’
It was different now.
She faces herself in the present.
She is a 22-year-old herself, different from her powerless and weak 16-year-old self.
Her ice cubes were no longer sharp.
Frost clumps and gathers to produce clusters of small flowers.
That is Yu Seol-ah now, Seol-nyeo in love.
“Snow…!”
I’m finally ready.
Yu Seol-ah’s pure white hand stretched out toward the plain.
At her beckoning, the clouds gather and the sky darkens.
Clouds glow red in the twilight light.
“Bloom.”
Red snow fell on the vast plains.
* * *
Snow is pouring incessantly.
Covering the entire plain is not enough, enough to gradually build up.
The first snowfall in November was majestic and beautiful, and all four people who watched it looked at the plain in awe.
It wasn’t until after confirming that the demon corps, stranded by the sudden abnormal weather, stopped their advance, that Yu Seol-ah collapsed on the spot.
Yi Ha-yul, with her surprised expression, hurriedly ran to her and supported her waist.
“Sister…! Sister, are you okay? Mo, how can her body be so cold…”
“Hayul, make a bonfire quickly!”
“Ah, I see…! Gather the branches in the middle to prevent forest fires!”
No fuss. Originally, it was because my body was cold.
Yoo Seol-ah smiled faintly and tried to get up again as if nothing had happened.
However…
‘What…?’
There was no strength in her body.
There is no feeling at all, as if her limbs were severed.
Lee Ha-yul, who had been lighting a bonfire in the middle of the fire, was seen running back to her with an urgent face.
She’s also worried.
I’m sorry.
“Oh, are you okay…? Isn’t that too much?”
“Um… It seems a little like that…”
The magical energy in her body was empty.
A natural result. They poured enough snow to cover the whole vast land in white, but if they do that and still look fine, then they are not human.
After a while, Yoo Seol-ah barely raised her body with Lee Ha-yul’s support.
Jeong Ye-won’s expression hardened when he saw that her legs were still trembling.
Yoo Seol-ah shook her hand, revealing that she didn’t have to worry.
“Senior, from now on, please say something after you say something… I was so embarrassed when I first saw it… Uh…”
‘Okay. To be honest…’
It was a foolish act.
But at the same time, Yoo Seol-ah was able to realize.
She realizes that she is not someone who just depends on Lee Ji-hoo.
The fact that she, too, is an Awoken person who can do something on her own.
Her weight, which had eaten away at her just a moment ago, was completely gone.
It felt like the chains deep in her heart were breaking with Chang.
For some reason, it felt like her mind was clearing up.
Even though her body was in a mess, she somehow felt like she could do anything.
Should she be called a sense of omnipotence, or is it a sense of extreme liberation.
Either way it didn’t matter. Now that she’s done her own part.
“Hehe…! It’s stopped… It’s really stopped…!”
“Ray, it’s dangerous there.”
While the two men’s minds were focused on Yu Seol-ah’s condition, Ray had gone all the way down a nearby hill before he knew it.
During her advance, she sees the demon army, who is tied up and doesn’t know what to do, and she jumps around and expresses her joy as if she feels so good.
It’s probably an expression of Ray’s own feelings.
“…Lol.”
Yoo Seol-ah couldn’t hide her smile either.
Even if you try to maintain a hardened expressionless expression like a kind of trademark, laughter continues to flow out.
Really, she really did it herself.
“We can’t miss this opportunity, so let’s start as soon as possible. Ray, stop watching and come over here!”
“Okay~”
“Don’t just talk, hurry up!”
Sooner or later, the demons will advance again.
Even right now, the snow is gradually melting around her demon with the flame attribute skill.
It was best to hurriedly enter the city by detour while their advance halted.
“By the way… Can we go back?”
“Yes?”
“They, the people we met right before we moved… They must have been hostile towards us…”
Just as Lee Ha-yul was about to call everyone, Jeong Ye-won, who had been silent as if thinking about something, expressed her opinion to Lee Ha-yul.
Even in her opinion, it was a risk factor that was clearly present, and she could not find anything to refute.
“Get that bastard!”
‘The black-haired man is the ringleader! Shoot them!’
The screams of anger he heard right before the teleport still lingered and echoed in his ears.
If I meet them again, then I will surely die.
“Certainly… It is. But.”
You have to choose.
Do you go back to the city and take the risk to announce the invasion of demons?
Or do you seek safety as it is and watch the destruction of mankind?
The answer is too simple.
“Yewon. Actually, you already know the answer, right?”
As Lee Ji-hoo said, humans can also be enemies, but in the end, the demons are the worst enemy for now. The only way to defeat them is to enter the city and join forces with other humans.
What human being would want to see their own people slaughtered?
“Yes, that’s right. My thoughts were short.”
Jeong Ye-won thought for a moment, and then she nodded her head.
That’s how everyone’s opinion was unified to go to the city.
Lee Ha-yul calmly thought of the number of cases and set his priority goals one by one.
‘The first goal is to enter the city, and the second is to inform the high-ranking administrators of the city about the advance of the demons. And the third…’
To find Lee Ji-hoo, who might be there.
Lee Ha-yul’s eyes shone red.
For some reason, she could tell that Lee Ji-hoo would be inside the city.
There was no way he would run away after seeing the demon army.
Even if the time wasn’t right or they landed in a very different place, she was seized with a strange certainty that she would eventually meet Lee Ji-hoo.
Maybe that’s just destiny.
A huge flow surrounding herself, Lee Ji-hoo, and everyone else.
It seems that some irresistible force is pushing him into the city.
However, Lee Ha-yul decided to struggle as much as possible in the midst of it.
Because life is always full of unpredictable variables.
Just as Yoo Seol-ah brought a temporary wave to the plains, Lee Ha-yul also believed in her own potential.
“Let’s go.”
By the way, Seo Joo-ha, where was that kid, so I couldn’t see him at all when I came all the way here?
Well, he’s much stronger than me, so he’ll take care of himself.
Lee Ha-yul brushed off his attachment to Seo Ju-ha and headed towards the three people walking in front of him.
A bright sunset illuminated their backs.
