The Voyage In The Blizzard - Chapter 94

When the icy air gives way to warmth, a person feels real happiness.

When a person comes home after a cold winter day and feels how warm there is, he involuntarily becomes the happiest person. Even if he himself does not notice it. In the embrace of warmth, a person begins to rejoice, and after the joy, comes a change in mood. After all, even the most evil person in the end, in warmth and comfort, even for a split second, becomes someone other than his evil nature.

But that didn’t happen with Sun. And even after the icy world where everyone could die of the cold, he has not changed one drop. And even the sun, which painted the grass and everything around in warm tones with golden rays, could not melt the ice in his soul.

He has long been a part of the cold.

Leaning on the pillar, he was spinning an apple in his hand; he was spinning it for the second hour in a row. And it seemed like there was nothing else in the world to do except study and play with a red apple, which in his icy hands was gradually turning into a stone.

From time to time glancing in the direction of the farthest mountain from behind which they came, he could make out the ugly outlines of the beasts. Seeing so many of them, he smiled like a father smiles at the sight of his child. He smiled as if before his eyes were the most wonderful creatures that could bring happiness to the whole world.

Watching from one of the palace towers, he saw how hundreds and maybe more monsters ruthlessly attacked a peaceful world in which no one ever suspected their existence.

Hearing the arrows flying past the balcony and how the royal soldiers in golden armor screaming menacingly, rushed on their horses forward towards the enemies, he smiled and his soul smiled too.

Throwing the apple on the ground, after two hours of meditation, he finally turned around and looked at Queen Li Hua, who was sitting by the fireplace pretending that she did not know that he was with her in her room.

Holding a book in her hands, her wise eyes slid over the small letters. With one hand propping up her sharp chin, she sometimes closed her eyes to think about what she was reading or to maintain equanimity and calmness.

Studying her hand movements and her graceful silhouette, Sun tilted his head back and said, “For so many years you have led an entire kingdom behind you. And it probably took a lot of effort to soak your confidence and calmness into every corner of this kingdom of waterfalls. No wonder you are now being under my supervision, behave as if I am in your hands, not you are in mine. A little more and it seems I will surrender. Your calmness makes me uncomfortable. Now you are sitting in a room with me, in the room which is locked and with good security outside. You can’t get out, your soldiers and best warriors are busy defending the kingdom. And you behave like nothing happens. This suggests that you have some grandiose plan or you just scared that in despair fell into a calm silence. Or you are just a wise queen who has long ceased to feel fear.”

Without looking up from the book, Li Hua responded to his words, “I am calm because I have never encountered someone like you before. I do not know anything about you. I do not know anything about war. The Kingdom of Waterfalls existed without war. And therefore I do not know the taste of fear. Here, everyone practiced how to feel peace. Therefore, my ignorance in evil, warns me from unnecessary fear.”

“Ignorance, warns against fear. Perhaps it is worth writing this down. This quote will be useful to my students. Every time they are so afraid of these furry creatures that many of them simply die before their feet enter the battlefield.” said Sun and walked over to her. Kneeling down, he stroked his beard. And seeing his reflection on her mirrored pendant, for the first time in his life, he could so clearly see his facial features.

The sunken but nevertheless large black eyes, which had long lost their luster, kept dead feelings and hopes in themselves, the thick raised eyebrows that still hid his young years, always reflected his hatred of everything, an inconspicuous nose that was embarrassedly lowered down and thin lips under a black mustache that continued into a thin beard, all this gave him the appearance of a magician.

Looking at himself, he moved closer to her. And when he was very close, Li Hua raised her head and touched his shoulder.

“Sorry for my awful manners. Just your pendant.”

“Did you see your reflection for the first time?” she asked.

“I have never seen such a clear reflection of my face in my life.” he answered getting up. Approaching the fireplace, he thought about something and then looked at the queen again and asked, “Are you really not afraid? Are you really not afraid for your life and for your kingdom?”

Smiling slightly, almost imperceptibly, Li Hua shook her head just as quietly. And in every gesture one could notice a slight drowsiness which was the result of excessive wisdom. “There is no use in fear.”

“There is no use in fear.” He repeated her words. Approaching her and bending down to her face, he again asked the question, “Do you know exactly what is happening now? You hear a real war going on there.” Noticing that there was no reaction on her face, he repeated another question, “Do you know why these creatures began to attack your lands? Because there is that girl Yun Qi. They are here because they want to live. Yun Qi can ruin everything. She can kill them all by her mere existence. She has turned your peaceful kingdom into a battlefield.”

Looking up, Li Hua replied, “The legend of my kingdom is familiar to me.”

“Your Majesty, why don’t you order your warriors to catch Yun Qi and then this will all be over. Then we will all leave. I just want to take her home. To her world.” Sun said.

As if playing a quiz, Li Hua simply responded to his every suggestion. Placing the book on a small round table, she said, “I think you know why I hesitate to give you this girl.”

“Because she wants the same as you?”

“True. Because she wants a happy world in which there is no place for such beings. She wants a world in which people do not suffer. In which her friends will not have to survive.”

“So you still stand on the side of good.” whispered Sun as if he had discovered the most terrible truth. But having come to his senses, using the trick of a split personality, he suddenly bent over her face and squeezed the armrests of the chair with both hands. “Your Majesty, you decided to defeat me with your peace of mind! If so, then nothing will come of it.” Stopping speaking as his words were interrupted by a knock on the door, he quickly hurried towards the wooden door.

“What do you want?” he asked at the sight of one of his soldiers.

“Master, I must report, Ju Long, he’s dead.”

Slamming the door shut with force, Sun suddenly laughed out loud. And then a minute of silence, which was immediately replaced by another hysterical laugh.

Approaching the picture that depicted a pack of white wolves, he suddenly hit it with his fist. Falling to the floor with a crash, the picture’s frame cracked.

Looking towards the slightly open door through the crack of which the warrior of the Second Clan peeped in to see what was happening, Li Hua, unable to bear such behavior in her palace, said, “If you think that you will scare me and change my mind about Yun Qi, then you are very mistaken.”

“To tell you the truth, I’m not just here because of Yun Qi.” Sun began. Looking at her from under his eyebrows, he continued, “Your distant grandmother, whose name you bear, once also ruined the life of one person and thereby made the whole kingdom suffer. If then she had not behaved so stupidly, then everything would be fine. There would be no monsters and no deaths. If Queen Li Hua had not made her stupid choice then, none of this would have happened!”

“Don’t raise your voice when you mention my grandmother!”

Running up to her, Sun whispered in her ear, “Your grandmother is a real killer. She has my grandfather’s blood on her hands.”

“Is Jang Sun your ancestor?” she asked.

“The second reason why I’m here is to make you pay for all the deeds and pain that your grandmother Li Hua caused to my grandfather whose name is Jang Sun.”

Under the evening light, the brightly blooming flowers were covered with dark drops of blood. As if repainting each petal black and red, the very hand of death played its violin through the clawed monsters.

Having brought here a curse, the same curse that should have destroyed this whole kingdom a long time ago, now it has returned to where it began.

And as if for all these centuries, it was looking for its way home.

Stepping on the lands of the kingdom, the beasts, feeling, knowing that this is their source, that here is their place of birth, became much stronger than before.

Jumping over the high gates, leaving behind the unthinkable labyrinths of high cliffs, the soul of Jang Sun himself called them.

Plunging their claws into the ground, they scattered patches of grass along with brown soil to the sides. Not knowing fear and a sense of self-preservation, despite the arrows and swords flying directly at them, they continued to run only forward.

Nien and her entire royal army stood in front of the gate, for several hours in a row tossed the dead bodies of beasts to the side. And it seemed that there were no obstacles to her powers and her sword.

“Do everything to exterminate them all!” she ordered, and seeing the cursed creature running at her, she bent down and when it turned around to thrust its claws into her, she easily thrust the sword straight into its mouth. Emitting a deafening cry, the monster fell to the ground, trembling in agony, it continued to look somewhere ahead until the red light in its eyes dimmed.

“Where are they coming from?” cried Ruolan. And the gray-haired warrior answered her question, “Isn’t it clear, this is all a curse.”

“What curse are you talking about?” Ruolan asked, covering Nien with her shield.

“Arrows!” a cry was heard, and at the same moment hundreds of arrows flew straight ahead in one wave.

Screaming with convulsive pain, the beasts fell but still wanted to keep moving. They walked forward until all the blood came out of their wounds.

The royal warriors, sliding on the thick and sticky blood that gave off a toxic odor, barely stood on their feet.

Piercing with an arrow the beast, thereby making a hole in the back of its head, Nien with dexterity could exterminate one monster after another.

And at that moment when silence finally came, when everyone thought it was the end. Then, from behind the dense trees, more screams were heard, which meant only one thing, nothing was over yet.

“We can’t risk the kingdom like that. Ruolan, go and catch that Yun Qi girl. Give her to them.” Nien ordered, and walked forward to meet the messengers of death.