Solo Leveling: Ragnarok - Chapter 127

It was a truly marvelous sight. The spring water began to swirl around Sirka, soon shooting up into the air and enveloping her entire body. There was a roar as the hot steam mixed with the icy air. The white steam suddenly froze around the ice elf like a frosty halo. In that moment, it was as if the entire world had turned to ice—and in a way, this was exactly what was happening.

Ding.

[“Sanctuary of the Snow Folk” has been activated.]

[Passive Skill “(Unknown)” has been activated.]

Time itself had frozen.

***

Suho stood in a space of perfect emptiness, at the edge of a vacant horizon. So, I’m back… He looked around calmly, searching for the being that had brought him here.

There it is. At the far end of the empty horizon was an old, shabby-looking ice elf.

Suho walked up to him slowly. “Are you the one who summoned me?”

The ice elf slowly raised his head. His face was wrinkled and old, his eyes hollow and tired.

[The Monarch of Frost and the King of the Snow Folk is watching you.]

The system message confirmed Suho’s suspicions. He nodded. “So you are Sillad, King of the Snow Folk and the Monarch of Frost. Just as I guessed.”

The ice elf did not respond. Instead, he simply watched the hunter with his fatigued eyes.

What is this? Suho wondered. He was unlike any of the other Monarchs that Suho had met. He recalled the other meetings. Despite being dead, the Monarch of Fangs and King of Beasts had given off the energy worthy of a rule. The Monarch of Plagues and Queen of Insects had also burned with the desire for revenge even after death, attacking Suho with countless poisonous insects. But the Monarch of Frost was merely a ragged and tired old man.

“So… You are his son, then.” Sillad finally spoke. “What an interesting ability. You have fished my soul from the sea of the afterlife. You are indeed the son of the Monarch of Shadows.”

“The sea of what?”

“Don’t you know? It’s where the dead go after they die. Not that the terminology used is of any consequence…” Sillad stared up at the bare sky, seemingly full of regret. There was nothing visible there, of course—nothing at all. “To think I awakened in the beyond! A rare experience indeed. Hehe.” A smile of self-mockery appeared on his lips. “Yes. Death is meaningless that way. I knew this was what awaited me. So why did I struggle so?”

Suho stared at this former Monarch, who was droning on without even making eye contact, like he had lost his mind.

“Did you know that I fought because I didn’t want to die? Perhaps the others were different. The darkness inside of me whispered that I should destroy and destroy, but I knew where that road led. It led to my own destruction. Yes, I knew I would end up like this,” he said with a sigh. His breath hung in a white cloud in the air, forming shapes in the nothingness.

A hallucination of countless ice elves appeared before Suho and Sillad. The former Monarch continued, “I suppose you wouldn’t know this, but war was forced on us from birth. From the beginning of time, even. Perhaps we will be doomed to that fate forever. It was the reason we were created.”

In the phantom image, the elves were screaming and fighting, racing toward certain death. Sillad was among them. “At the end of that war, we almost emerged victorious. Did you know that?” Sillad asked. “And I killed your father with my own hands.”

Suho’s eyes widened. A young man, who looked very much like Suho, had entered the vision. It was obvious that this was Sung Jinwoo, his father. The phantom Sillad stabbed a frozen blade into the figure’s heart.

“I pushed my blade into your father’s heart,” the former Monarch said, as if narrating the scene.

Father? Suho thought, his eyes bulging.

[The Monarch of Frost and the King of the Snow Folk activated the skill: “Echo.”]

The sounds of the hallucination—words from another time—were carried through Suho’s ears on the frosty wind.

“I shall return your weapon.Now, can you recover to where you were before?”

The mirage of Sillad whispered the words in Jinwoo’s ear in the most wicked voice imaginable.

“Is this as far as you go, human?You will not be around to seemy army arrive on your soil.When it does, the bodies of you humans will form mountains, and your blood shall make new rivers flow.”

He was uttering a terrible curse in the ear of the dying man.

“But this nation where you were born and raised—it will suffer a different fate. I will freeze its people myself and subject them to eternal agony. They will be neither dead nor alive, never able to find repose in true death. And so, hate me as you will, eternally, from the depths of the grave.”

“Hate me as you will, eternally, from the depths of the grave.” The voice of the former Monarch in front of Suho overlapped with the voice of the illusion.

“For that also shall please me.”

“For that also shall please me.”

Jinwoo’s body shattered into specks of icy dust. Sillad stared vacantly at the sight, then turned to Suho with unreadable eyes. “Did you see? I murdered your father in the cruelest way possible. I intended to curse all living things tied to him. The reason was always the same. It was for my own survival.”

The old ice elf did not bother to show Suho what happened next—how Sung Jinwoo had come back from the grave, and how Sillad himself lost the war and his life in the end. Revisiting it was a pointless exercise. The fact that he was here right now proved how things had turned out.

“Why are you showing me this?” Suho’s eyes were burning, having witnessed the moment of his father’s death. His fists were balled as if he was ready to attack Sillad at any moment, but he waited patiently for an explanation.

Suho wasn’t sure if the vision was real or not, but regardless, his father was currently alive. In fact, it was Sillad who had perished and wound up in this place. It made the hunter even more confused. Why is Sillad showing me this?To provoke me?

“The moment my mind was pulled from the sea of the afterlife… The moment I realized that it was the son of the Monarch of Shadows who had fished me out…” The former Monarch’s empty eyes flashed with glacial hatred. “I planned to kill you right away.”

That moment was enough to give Suho a chill, like a bottle containing sub-zero air had just been released into his face.

“I had no idea how much I could affect you with my current power, but I was intent on dragging your soul back with me into that sea. However…”

Sillad had not been able to. It was not Suho alone who had awakened him. Sirka, the ice elf and guardian of the Baruka Tribe, had been there as well. It made the former Monarch wonder who had discovered the sanctuary he’d hidden inside the Echo Forest—the identity of the being who could be his heir. He wondered if the person deserved to inherit his power, so he had taken control of Sirka’s body and read her memories, but instantly regretted doing so with all his heart.

“I… should not have looked.” Sillad had seen everything that had happened in this place after the war, as Sirka had experienced it.

He sighed again, crafting another image from his breath. Surprisingly, Suho’s mother, Cha Haein, was in the vision.

Mother… Suho watched the vision. Haein was with the ice elves who had survived the war. She stayed with the helpless children and put smiles on their faces, which were previously frozen like the brutal cold around them. It was like she was their mother as well.

“Indeed, she… was like a mother to them,” Sillad said.

Suho finally realized the meaning of the look on the ice elf’s face. He had cursed Jinwoo even at the moment he drove the dagger into his heart.

“I will freeze its people myself and subject them to eternal agony.They will be neither dead nor alive, never able to find repose in true death.And so, hate me as you will, eternally, from the depths of the grave.For that also shall please me.”

Despite the venom in those words, the former Monarch was here now, obviously dead—and his people who had survived the war had been cared for by none other than Jinwoo’s wife. What was more, they had genuine smiles of happiness on their faces.

Sillad suddenly scowled, his face contorting with deep humiliation. Ironically enough, he himself had never elicited such looks, though he was their king and Monarch. To him, they had been but pawns to be used in an eternal war. That was the sole purpose for their creation.

And yet… Sillad thought with a pang of regret. “I didn’t know they could smile like that.” He turned to Suho, tears of disgrace flowing. “You have won. I admit that I have lost, even in death. I may be in my grave, but I cannot hate you. Instead, I have been burdened with eternal gratitude. But even this embarrassment… I am grateful for it.” Indeed, he was so unable to express his gratitude that it brought further tears to his eyes.

Sillad slowly got to his feet. “O son of the Monarch of Shadows…” The elf’s old, decrepit body suddenly let out the rippling energy of a Monarch, filling the empty world around them.

[The Monarch of Frost and the King of the Snow Folk is watching you.]

His gaze, that of the utmost arrogance, was leveled at Suho. “Let me ask you for one favor. These are the dying words of a coward, a servile fool, a Monarch who lost the war. It is my final regret in these lands. Please… thank your mother for me. And just as your mother watched over my children, so shall I watch over you.”

Yes.That is all I need, the former Monarch thought. The frosty energy that had filled the world around them gathered around Suho, blessing him.

Ding.

[Blessing: “Sillad’s Aegis” has been activated.]

Time unfroze. As Sillad’s voice faded away, Suho heard, “Your mother is nearby and in danger. I will send you to her.”