The Frozen Hunt

The grey ash of the plains now felt different. Before, he had tried to hide within the ash rain, but now he was among it, as if he were one with it.

Rhys stood in the middle of the desolate ash plains, feeling the immense power of his newly integrated Meridian Opening method.

The feeling was completely new. Now his power was not like a pool of water in his stomach, but rather like an ocean itself, contained within him.

The feeling was exhilarating, and Rhys absolutely enjoyed it.

Another change he noticed was that his old dantian had altered its nature. It had not changed physically but had become something akin to a spatial pouch.

He looked inside, his consciousness reaching into an open expanse. This was a black void with a grey core floating in the air.

'Is this my profession core?!' Rhys was flabbergasted.

He turned to look behind it. There, a scroll floated, listing the rest of his skills grouped as 'innate' and 'acquired'.

He could select any of these and send them anywhere inside his body. In that way, he could create dantians specialised for one style.

'It's wonderful!'

Before, damage to a dantian would render a cultivator unable to use their skills until it was fully healed—if they did not die from the damage first, of course.

Now, he did not have to worry about that scenario. Well, not that he had to worry in the first place.

He could burn his lifespan and instantly heal any injuries.

[I suggest against that, Host.]

Rhys frowned.

[You can use me, for sure. But the will of a cultivator who has suffered pain and overcome it will be higher and sharper than someone who has skipped that stage.

I am not saying you cannot utilise the advantage you have with me, but rather that you should utilise it in a way that does not lose sight of the real purpose of a cultivator.]

'Will…' Rhys muttered, recalling that word. The true purpose of a cultivator was not merely immortality, but to have a will that could shape reality itself.

'So profound, I don't know where to begin.' Rethinking it now, what was his will? Could the dream of doing nothing but adventuring be considered a will?

[…]

[How would that decision shape the world?]

'Why can't it? System, you are so narrow-minded. In this world, not everyone's will needs to be something earth-shaking. Why would I want to risk doing dangerous things to forge my will that way?

No, rather, why should my will need to be forced upon the heavens? I'd rather prefer the heavens accept me without the need for violence. You know, I am not a fan of violence."

A cold breeze swept across the open ash plain.

'Well… a little bit of violence is okay.'

He clenched his fist. The power gathered instantly. There was no delay, no need to pull it from his dantian.

The energy was already there: in his hand, in his arm, in his entire being.

A wide smile graced his lips. His confidence was at an all-time high. He needed a real challenge to test his new strength. An Ordinary-grade wolf was no longer enough.

[So where did the 'not a fan of violence' sentiment go? Host, your thoughts are turning in a way my brain cannot register.]

'So you have a brain, then.' Rhys laughed.

[We share the same brain.]

'That's why you are smart.'

[…]

'I need to find a Feral-Grade Ash-Hide Wolf,' he thought. He wanted to test the absolute limits of his new power.

He wanted to see what would happen when his perfect body and perfect energy system met a truly dangerous foe.

The hunt began.

Rhys moved through the plains, but his movement was fundamentally different now. He became one with the ash.

'This is so cool.' He glided through the landscape with unnatural speed and complete silence. He moved for hours, covering a huge amount of territory, but he found nothing.

The plains were unnaturally empty. There were no tracks, no sounds, no signs of life at all. The only sound was the gentle, hissing whisper of the falling ash.

His initial confidence started to fade, replaced by confusion. After another hour, the confusion turned into annoyance.

He realised that a simple search was useless. He needed to investigate properly. He stopped moving and stood completely still.

He closed his eyes and used his perfected Navigation skill, expanding his senses and using his Ash Walker ability to feel for disturbances in the ash across a wide area.

He was not just looking anymore; he was listening to the story the land was telling him.

He felt something. A faint disturbance. A place where the energy was different. He moved towards it.

When he arrived, he saw the first sign of conflict. The dent in the ground was huge; despite the ash continuously filling it, the hole was at most half-buried.

'It's so huge,' Rhys furrowed his brows, looking around.

There were no signs of a struggle. Whoever killed the beast had done so quickly and cleanly. The ash around the impact crater was perfectly smooth and undisturbed.

And the creepiest thing was…

'How is that even possible?' Rhys felt a mix of awe and disbelief.

A Feral beast was incredibly powerful. He remembered the story of the Feral Swamp-Scale Croc; it had taken a team of five Tier 2 cultivators to kill it, and two of them died in the process.

He knew that even with his new power, a fight against a Feral wolf would be a brutal, messy battle. He would win, but it would not be clean.

And even if he could, simply killing it once was never going to kill it completely. The monsters in this place would just revive again.

That was why he had taken a few days to collect a hundred ordinary core fragments.

He felt intrigued and also very cautious. He decided to follow the trail of this mysterious hunter.

He moved forward, his senses on high alert.

Soon, he found a second kill site. This scene was even stranger. Another Feral wolf was dead, but this time the surroundings were encased in a block of ice.

The ice was not transparent; it was dark and solid, and it seemed to absorb the light around it, giving off a feeling of absolute cold.

This deepened the mystery. The hunter was not just strong; they possessed an incredibly powerful and rare elemental ability.

Rhys had never heard of an ice ability that created black ice. The level of control needed to freeze a Feral wolf solid in an instant was immense.

He continued to follow the trail of battle. As he walked, the environment began to change. The air grew colder.

The ash began to fall thicker, muffling all sound. The silence was no longer just quiet; it became heavy, oppressive, and deeply unnatural.

He followed the tracks around a large, petrified rock formation and stopped dead. The sight before him was impossible. It broke all the rules of logic and reality.

He was looking into a wide, open clearing. In the centre of this clearing, everything was frozen in time.

The grey ash particles that were falling from the sky were suspended motionlessly in the air, hanging there like a million tiny grey stars.

A Feral wolf was caught in the middle of a lunge. It was frozen mid-air, its sharp claws extended, its mouth open in a silent snarl.

A cloud of purple light escaped from its body, streaming in his direction. No, not to him, of course.

'Fuck.'

[CRITICAL WARNING: UNCLASSIFIABLE ENTITY DETECTED. ANALYSIS IMPOSSIBLE. SURVIVAL PROBABILITY OF HOST HAS REACHED A VALUE BELOW ZERO PER CENT.]

"Fuck… fuck… fuck."

He whirled around. He tried to sprint away faster than he ever had in his life.

But his feet did not move.