Hadjar swore and threw the scroll aside. He could sense that the Darnassian wasn’t lying. He had no reason to do so.
“The Patriarch of the sect would kill you with one strike, General, even taking into account your strength, which is quite unusual for the Formation stage.” The old man laid the scrolls aside and stood up. “I’m surprised the soldiers haven’t turned against you. I guess, General, that they perceive the weakness you’ve shown to be a repeat of the flogging incident. If it hadn’t been for that, I’m afraid they would’ve rebelled against you long before now.”
Hadjar didn’t argue with the obvious facts that the old man was laying out before him.
“What should I do with this map?”
The librarian turned around. He didn't look like a good-natured old man anymore. Now he looked like a wily old fox.
“Did you know that Darnassus is interested in the confrontation between Balium and Lidus?”
Well, of course, they are! The Lascanians were just the ones who incited the nomads against Lidus. Hadjar, naively, had suggested that they’d been the ones behind all that fuss with Balium. But bribing the savages cannot be compared to such a large number of agents infiltrating the General Headquarters’ ranks, and they’ve made a very questionable decision. If we assume that Darnassus was behind it all, then everything immediately becomes clear.
“And what does the Empire want so much that you’d send us to war over it?”
“You went to war on your own,” the old man said. “We only brought you to the border.”
Hadjar responded with a look of rage and determination.
“Okay, let’s get this over with.”
The librarian, finally shedding the remnants of his former role, nodded in agreement.
He was finally a true cultivator, a mighty being capable of destroying both Hadjar and all his commanders, along with tens of thousands of his warriors, with a single attack. However, Hadjar didn’t fear him, he was just aware of it. The librarian noticed this fact.
“We need something that’s marked on this map.” He explained as he pointed a long, bony finger at the red circle.
“Mountains and rocks?”
“The entrance to an ancient tomb. The tomb of a long dead cultivator is somewhere around there, according to the information that we’ve managed to gather.”
Hadjar looked at the circle. The entrance could be located anywhere, and even if the area of the circle had been several times smaller, he would’ve still had to spend years trying to successfully locate it.
“If I find him, will you cure Nero?”
The old man shook his head.
“You may think what you will of me, General, but if I could, I would’ve already healed your friend.”
“Then I still don't understand why I should find this entrance for the Empire. Even if you sent a message to your countrymen, they still wouldn’t have time to bring the medicine before it’s too late for the commander.”
Nero’s time was slipping away with each second that they wasted, and Hadjar didn't understand why he should spend all his time talking. He was just about to sit down behind the mountain of scrolls again when he felt that he was being held back by an unknown force emanating from the true cultivator before him.
The strength of the Heaven Soldier was so great that he’d completely restrained Hadjar, seemingly without any physical effort. Hadjar might have had a chance of withstanding the pressure if it hadn't been for the recent battle that had drained his energy reserves, which still hadn’t fully recovered. Right now, he was as defenseless against the librarian as a mouse before the might of a tiger.
“A cultivator of such power is buried inside this tomb, General, that you can’t even begin to imagine it. His legacy is buried with him, and it is precisely this legacy that the Empire needs right now-”
“Let the Empire’s people take the legacy themselves, in that case,” Hadjar replied.
“Don’t interrupt me, General!” The old man literally spat out the last word. “What matters to you is the Black Stone Flower, a part of the legacy. The blade of the halberd has been treated with powder from this stone, and now only that same flower can be used to negate the effects of the Master’s Technique.”
“And you think that I’ll be able to find this damn tomb’s entrance in only three days? Even if I find it, I can't just take the damn legacy and flower.”
“No.” The librarian shook his head, confirming Hadjar’s fears. “You’ll most likely die in the tests that the cultivator will surely have prepared—if you manage to find the entrance at all, that is.”
“Then why would I go there?” Hadjar asked again.
The librarian’s behavior reverted to that of a good-natured old man again, and he smiled broadly at the General.
“Because, if you don’t, your friend will die such a terrible death that people will turn gray at the pure spectacle of it. And you, it seems to me, are someone who would be willing to risk his life to prevent such a thing from happening.”
Hadjar cursed.
“Are all true cultivators so cowardly that they need to send others on missions instead of going themselves?”
The old man lost his cool for a second but quickly pulled himself together.
“General. I don’t meet the requirements set by the cultivator that would allow me to enter his tomb. You do. So, it’s up to you. You can watch as your friend dies or you can get ready to travel. From what I’ve seen, you don't have much time to waste.”
With that, the Heaven Soldier turned around and walked out of the tent.
Hadjar, clutching the map, looked at the veritable sea of rocks and stones inside the red circle on the map. He was ready to go to war, even against the gods, because he knew that his friend would’ve done the same for him.
He couldn’t just give up because of the threat of a few rocks and a dead cultivator.
Hadjar's blue eyes flashed with a deep, unwavering will. He left the tent after the librarian and strode over to see Simon. He’d made up his mind. He was going to look for the flower as soon as possible.
Chapter 114
Hadjar, wrapped in a white fur cloak, lay motionless in a snowdrift. He had painted his face and eyelashes white and had wrapped his scabbard in a white cotton cloth. He had no time to spare on endless battles with the local fauna.
He had to find a needle in a haystack... A haystack of snow and rocks.
At first, Hadjar had felt that this could turn out well. The pavilion was surprisingly close to the place on the map the Heaven Soldier had circled. A little later, it became quite clear to Hadjar that it wasn’t just the Empire’s people that knew about the tomb of the ancient cultivator. Perhaps ‘The Black Gates’ sect’s Patriarch hadn’t chosen this mountain range purely because of the black stones.
Most likely, he was also trying to find this tomb and take the legacy for himself. Whatever this ‘legacy’ even was.
Despite Hadjar being dressed the way he was, he still encountered a considerable number of dangers during his journey. He even came across a few one-eyed giants, similar to both Cyclopes and Snow People.
He’d seen a huge bird in the sky, and its wingspan was so huge that it could create a blizzard that raged for a whole day if it chose to do so. Hadjar hadn’t wanted to even think about its stage, but the bird had soon disappeared behind the clouds and was quickly forgotten. Or rather, the clouds had disappeared behind it... that’s how huge it had been.
Hadjar had also seen a dragon skeleton that he hadn’t been able to approach. The aura of the dead creature was potent enough to affect Hadjar’s body at a distance of more than a mile. Hadjar had tried to approach it twice (to allow the neuronet a chance to calculate its stats), but death had gripped Hadjar’s heart more and more tightly with each step as he’d come in closer than a mile.
At some point, Hadjar had realized that he would die if he took one more step.
After ordering the neuronet to remember where the skeleton was, he moved farther, goi
ng deeper into a series of mountain peaks, black rocks, and bottomless cracks.
He’d seen a pair of mountain lions fighting. They’d been as white as the snow falling from the sky and as fierce as an autumnal storm. Hadjar had had to hide behind a rock, which had shaken with every roar and strike as they’d fought.
Despite the neuronet’s ability to scan animals much more accurately than human beings, it hadn’t been able to determine the pairs’ parameters, which meant only one thing: these lions could’ve turned Hadjar into dust with just one breath. Fortunately, they’d been busy with more important things.
Once, while making his way through another ice barrier, Hadjar had thought that an earthquake had started. In fact, a huge worm had crawled out of the rock three hundred feet away from him. Opening its round mouth dotted with sharp teeth, it curved around and drilled back into the rock, making a path back out as easily as a rat might chew through old cheese.
Currently, Hadjar lay in the snow, looking at a high cliff before him. Fortunately, the cliff was in the center of the circle the Heaven Soldier had marked on the map. The best view of the surrounding area would surely be from up there.
However, Hadjar couldn’t just amble over and climb the cliff. A huge polar bear blocked his way.
The bear was currently gnawing on the flesh of some still-twitching creature. From what Hadjar could tell, the unfortunate prey looked like a cross between a mountain goat and a roe deer, and it was easily the size of an adult horse. The bear, standing on all four paws and plunging its mouth into the bloody meat, was about thirteen feet at the shoulders. It was hard to imagine how huge it would be if it were to stand on its hind legs.
Its green, inhuman eyes radiated hunger and bloodlust. Its muzzle was covered in blood stains.
“Scan,” Hadjar ordered.
The neural network clicked as usual. A variety of alert sounds were available in its settings, but Hadjar liked that mechanical ‘click’ the most. Transparent text messages appeared an arm's length away from him.
Name
Ice Bear
Level of Cultivation
Alpha (1)
Strength
4
Dexterity
1.2
Physique
2.7
Energy points
6
Hadjar cursed inwardly.
Large snowflakes continued to fall from the sky. They fell on his white cloak, making the snowbank more and more voluminous.
Beasts, unlike people, couldn’t choose to cultivate more or less equally in all parameters. They always had a dominant... ‘property’. Despite its advanced level, the bear had neither speed nor endurance. Its weapon was its strength.
Four points of it.
It looked insanely pathetic within the message, in purely numeric form. However, a single direct hit from one of the polar bear’s paws would surely send Hadjar to oblivion.
Hadjar looked at the mountain peak once more and mulled his options over.
Of course, he could simply avoid the beast. The problem was that it would take at least ten hours to do so. He would have to go down the slope, then, armed with a hatchet and special soles on his shoes, he would have to climb the surface of the ice. In some areas, he would have to bend so far that his ass would end up above his head.
Hadjar had already used up nine hours of the time he had to secure his friend’s salvation. Therefore, the way around was an unaffordable luxury for him. He’d have to fight this bear to get past and he would do it; may the gods bear witness.
Getting up out of the snowdrift, white all around him, Hadjar began to circle around the beast as slowly as he could. He’d been taught how to hunt as a youngster, so he tried his best to approach his enemy from downwind.
The snow didn’t crunch under his light footsteps, and no clouds of steam caused by his warm breath emanated from his mouth.
Hadjar was in complete control of his mind and body. He saw a target far surpassing him in strength, but he knew that he could beat it. He had to believe that.
And[DI1] yet, the beast was at a stage equal to a human true cultivator. The neuronet had warned him that the animal was at the first of four levels of the Alpha stage. This meant it had undergone a recent transition to a new level of evolution. It was the equivalent of a newly advanced Heaven Soldier appearing in front of him.
“Calculate my chances of winning,” Hadjar ordered.
A click swiftly sounded and a new message appeared.
[The probability that the host organism will retain the ability to function: 53%]
Hadjar smiled.
Not a bad chance after all.
Hadjar put his hand on his sword’s hilt as he prepared himself for the fight. At the same time, the Ice Bear flinched and looked up from its food. It reared up on its hind legs, snarling menacingly. Its huge, imposing body cast a shadow that covered the nearest visible space as though it were a blanket. Blue energy swirled around its claws, turning them into long ice ‘swords’.
The Alpha didn’t need to rely on its sense of smell or vision. It had felt someone's gaze on it; a gaze full of the desire to kill; that’s how the Bear had realized that it wasn’t alone.
Hadjar didn’t say a word.
The Bear had some semblance of a mind at the Alpha stage. Perhaps it didn’t understand words yet, but Hadjar didn’t doubt for a moment that it understood the intent behind them. There was still thirst for blood and the thrill of the hunt reflected in its green eyes. It wasn’t going to retreat, and neither was Hadjar.
Moon Beam flashed, meeting the ice claws in front of it.
Chapter 115
The first exchange of strikes took place at a respectful distance of fifteen steps. Each opponent wanted to test out their foe and understand who they were dealing with.
The bear stood up on its hind legs and its height easily exceeded 24 feet. But even a giant like that wasn’t going to rely purely on chance. It had reached its current level only because it had taken every battle seriously and been prepared to do anything to win.
With that kind of attitude, even a simple bear, after a thousand years, could turn into an Ice Alpha.
A blue glow appeared around its claws, which were enveloped in long and sharp ice. This glow, accompanied by a whistle, closed the distance separating it and the small, hairless bug.
Digging through the snow and ground alike, the glow crashed into a translucent, shimmering blade.
Previously, when Hadjar had just been starting to comprehend the path of the sword, his sword had produced a similar glow. But after reaching the level of ‘One with the World’, he had advanced in swordsmanship, and he could now use not only a ‘blade strike’ at a distance but also the blade itself. There was no target that his sword couldn't reach within 98 steps of where he stood.
It took only one shimmering image of his sword to stop the light emitted by the Ice Bear’s claws in its tracks.
The two strikes collided in the center of the small plateau between them. They came together in a whirlwind of strength and snow, emitting a loud clap as they twisted and turned.
Taking advantage of the snowstorm, Hadjar pushed off the ground. His shadow turned into a black raven, and he closed the distance between him and his foe in less than a single heartbeat.
His sword, now enveloped in energy, flashed, and the blade slashed across the right leg of the beast. The bear roared, and first blood was drawn, falling to the snow. Hadjar, gliding through the snow, increased the distance between them again.
Not giving the beast time to recover, he assumed the first stance of the ‘Light Breeze’ Technique. A single swing of his blade produced a tornado of razor-sharp wind that had ghostly blades within it and flew through the falling snow.
The tornado created a snowstorm that hid Hadjar from his foe’s green eyes, then collided with the beast’s ice claws. It sliced and crushed them, turning them into tiny, shattered chunks of ice. But, no matter how strong Hadjar’s strike was, it sti
ll wasn’t able to touch even a single hair on the beast’s body.
The icy claws reformed again and again, and the huge, enraged bear roared as it held the tornado of snow, wind, and razor-sharp blades at bay with its outstretched paws.
This was exactly what Hadjar needed.
Easily, like a solitary leaf plucked from a branch, he circled around both the tornado and the beast. Having sheathed his blade, he abruptly withdrew it once more. A steel beam erupted from the sword’s tip and whizzed through the air. The wounded bear roared in agony as the attack dug deep into its unprotected right side. A trickle of blood coursed down its mighty body, and the surprised beast loosened its grip on the swirling wind.
The tornado, despite losing the greater part of its force by now, struck the chest of the tottering bear. Tearing and cutting into its flesh, it threw the bear down onto the snow. Bloody ribbons gushed into the sky, and the wet, crimson snow now looked like a picture drawn by the wrathful brushstrokes of the spirit of war.
Its scarlet palette stoked the flames of Hadjar’s battle-hungry heart.
The man was preparing to strike as the bear growled and pawed at the ground. Waves of ice began to radiate with a bang from its injured body, turning into transparent, jagged stalagmites, which gradually covered the snow all around it.
Not wanting to test whether his body could withstand such an attack, Hadjar soared into the air—and immediately regretted his decision. In the air, he was absolutely helpless as he’d lost his main advantage: he was no longer maneuverable and lacked speed.
The bear got up, standing on all fours, and its angry, green eyes flashed. It opened its fanged mouth, and a pillar of the same blue energy flew out of it. This time, the pillar was surrounded by ribbons of swirling mist that curled around it as it attempted to destroy its foe.
Dragon Heart: Iron Will. LitRPG Wuxia Series: Book 2 Page 22