Chapter 31
Frost Demon
Silver wolves, along with the hell wolves,
walked calmly among the Baitur tribe as if flowing water.
Between the Baitur and the hell wolves, there was no tension, nor the kind of natural hierarchy one would expect in an ecosystem.
There was no food chain, no preparation for survival.
Rather, some of the tribespeople reached out and gently touched the cheeks of the hell wolves as if greeting something familiar.
Humans and demonic beasts.
A relationship that should never coexist—yet there was no sense of resistance between them.
“Hah.”
Isaac let out a hollow laugh.
There was no way he couldn’t understand it.
The moment suspicion became certainty.
The final missing fragment of Vinfeltro, absent from historical records, was now complete.
There was nothing more to confirm here.
…
The old prophet read the look in Isaac’s eyes.
Why the wolves had gathered here without being summoned.
What Isaac’s faint smile meant.
What that cunning little Goethe was aiming for.
And he realized—this was a truth that must never reach Goethe.
“Kill that brat!”
At the prophet’s shout, the hell wolves lunged forward.
The tribespeople formed a perimeter to prevent Isaac from escaping.
Everything happened in an instant.
Time slowed.
Only within Isaac’s perception.
His mana circuits ignited like oil catching fire.
Five circulation pathways activated simultaneously, and the flow of mana accelerated violently.
His heart tingled, his consciousness flickered.
Isaac closed his eyes.
‘I didn’t want to use this method…’
The reason Isaac—and Zik von Goethe—were so rare wasn’t just their overwhelming mana reserves or flow speed.
History had seen many with immense mana, but most could not withstand it—their vessels shattered.
And once broken, they could never use mana again.
A shattered vessel could never be restored. That was an unspoken law of magic.
But Isaac and Zik were exceptions.
Even if their vessels broke—they recovered.
That was why Isaac suffered.
If a single mana explosion had shattered his vessel permanently…
If he had become unable to hold mana ever again…
Then no one around him would have been sacrificed.
He would never have needed to confine himself out of fear of another eruption.
But Isaac’s vessel—no matter how many times it broke—always recovered.
Whether it was a curse or a blessing…
Like a pilgrim forced to walk an endless thorny path,
it repeated without end.
‘Balance, balance, balance.’
Even as his consciousness faded,
he clung to that one word.
If the vessel shattered, the carefully stabilized mana circuits and pathways would collapse as well.
He would have to start all over again.
And Isaac had far too much to do for such inefficiency.
So he pushed himself—right up to the brink of breaking.
Though cracks would form and mana would leak out,
he kept it just short of total collapse.
It required balance as precarious as walking on a blade.
One misstep, and his foot would be severed.
If he fell, his head would follow.
Yet Isaac’s curiosity—his thirst for knowledge—
his will to protect Vinfeltro and Goethe
had long surpassed mere survival instinct.
‘I saw it.’
Watching the final scene of Goethe, where corpses lay scattered, Isaac realized something.
Flies laid eggs on the corpses; maggots hatched and devoured the flesh.
Crows and wild dogs consumed the rotting bodies along with the flies and maggots.
The crows laid eggs again; the dogs bore young.
Nature does not judge the weight of life.
Death leads to another life.
There is no fear, no disgust.
Only endless repetition.
Isaac, too, was just part of that cycle.
‘So instead of fearing the disappearance of my world… what matters is where my world is headed.’
Isaac opened his eyes.
A black wolf with its jaws wide open was before him.
But his gaze did not waver.
With absolute precision,
he achieved the balance he sought.
A vessel that breaks—yet does not break.
The violently swirling mana within him burst outward.
‘I will protect my world. The worlds I cherish.’
A blue glow spread around Isaac like mist.
The hell wolves instinctively hesitated, sensing danger—
but by the time they realized it, it was too late.
Crack—!
In an instant, all moisture in the surroundings froze.
If there were such a thing as a frost hell,
this would be it.
“U-uaaagh—!”
Those completely frozen couldn’t even perceive their deaths.
Those half-frozen couldn’t comprehend what was happening.
Lower bodies frozen.
Half their bodies encased.
Even half their heads turned to ice.
They struggled, moving whatever limbs remained unfrozen.
Crack—!
But the frost mana, spreading like mist, slowly consumed their will to live and their fear.
Humans and wolves alike—once warm with blood—
were turning into ice sculptures.
“Haah… haah… haah…”
Isaac collapsed, unable to support himself.
The ground was biting cold, but he no longer had the strength to move.
“Young master! Young master!”
A familiar voice rang from beyond the forest.
Hans.
Perhaps it was just a hallucination—something he wanted to hear.
—Whoooom
Crash!
An axe flew in, shattering the ice easily.
The broken ice revealed red organs inside.
Everything had frozen solid—no blood flowed.
The prophet frowned toward the direction the axe came from and muttered something in the tribal tongue.
A curse.
“What are you doing!?”
Besimer rushed forward and grabbed the prophet by the collar.
“Seems you’re more used to the common tongue now, coward Besimer.”
The prophet held a sharply honed spear—
he had been about to pierce Isaac’s neck.
“Do you even know what you’re doing!? Planning to kill everyone!?”
“Can’t you see this hell? Your kin, your comrades, your brothers—they’ve been slaughtered.”
Besimer looked around.
The prophet was right.
Frozen tribespeople, their faces twisted in pain, filled his sight.
“Whew… weren’t you the one who tried to kill him first?”
Carlson spoke with a whistle, arriving late.
He sounded more impressed than shocked.
He already knew Isaac possessed extraordinary power—from when they drove out the old religion.
But not to this extent.
Carlson had wandered as a mercenary before serving in the military.
But he had never seen someone this young wield magic like this.
He felt fortunate Isaac was not his enemy.
…
Hans and Günter froze at the sight of the frozen landscape in the forest’s center.
It was spring—yet it felt like midwinter.
The biting cold, the frost and ice protruding like thorns among the trees overwhelmed them.
Hans was the first to recover.
Because he saw Isaac collapsed.
“Young master! Young master!”
Pushing past the hesitant Günter, Hans ran to him.
“What have you savages done!? Damn it—”
“He’s still alive, so take it easy.”
Carlson smacked the back of Hans’s head as he glared at the old prophet like he might kill him.
Meanwhile, the prophet spoke to Besimer.
“Don’t you understand, Besimer! This boy is a demon. He must be killed for the sake of the Baitur. We can’t turn back anymore. He knows too much.”
Besimer picked up the axe that had fallen to the ground.
Then he swung it with all his strength.
Crash.
A frozen hell wolf shattered into pieces.
“What are you doing!?”
“Just doing what needs to be done. La tu balaka sanctum.”
“… ”
Besimer cut off a piece of the shattered corpse’s entrails and put it into his mouth.
Even as he chewed and swallowed the frozen flesh, his expression did not change in the slightest.
Crack—
“La tu balaka sanctum.”
Crack.
“La tu balaka sanctum.”
Besimer did not discriminate between wolves and humans.
“What… is he doing?”
Hans asked, disturbed by Besimer’s bizarre behavior.
“It probably means, ‘May you rest in Balaka.’ Unbelievable… that such a disaster came from that small body…”
Günter trailed off mid-sentence as he looked between Isaac and the frozen surroundings.
He could not get used to it.
If he himself had been caught in that disaster…
A chilling cold crept through his entire body, like falling into a winter river.
He trembled.
“I’ve seen Baitur soldiers in Wonterband before,” Carlson added.
“They believe that only those who die fighting as warriors can enter the afterlife called Balaka.”
“Then why is he eating their entrails?”
“To harvest their souls. That way, when Besimer dies as a warrior, they can all enter Balaka together. The Baitur don’t separate soul and body like the old or new religions do. They see them as one.”
“But why is he doing the same thing to the hell wolves? They’re not even part of the tribe—they’re demonic beasts.”
…
At Hans’s question, neither Günter nor Carlson answered.
Because the answer that came to mind was something they neither wanted to know nor say out loud.
“Hey, old man. Where did the rest go? This can’t be all of them.”
Carlson asked, but the old prophet replied coldly.
“I have no obligation to answer outsiders.”
“Yeah, fine. You don’t have to. But let’s put that spear down first, alright?”
Carlson grabbed the spear in the old man’s hand.
“If you don’t want to die.”
The old man glared at him, then threw the spear aside.
He watched the collapsing frozen corpses in Besimer’s hands with a gaze tangled in anger and sorrow.
With no chieftain, the old prophet was their leader—their father.
And yet, because of that devilish child’s sorcery, he had lost over a dozen of his “children.”
His teeth clenched.
He wanted to tear everything apart right then and there.
Goethe. Goethe.
That cursed name.
The name of that demon.
There was nothing he could do before it.
Not 13 years ago.
Not now.
Every chance for revenge had crumbled.
“Let me go… Besimer.”
“… La tu balaka sanctum.”
“If you are truly Baitur…”
“… La tu balaka sanctum.”
“As the last great warrior of the Baitur…”
“… La tu balaka sanctum.”
“Besimer!”
After dealing with half the corpses, Besimer turned toward the old man.
“Virpier.”
He called the prophet by name.
“Where did the Wolf King go?”
“… ”
“Ran away again?”
“Until a new king is chosen, the Wolf King must not die. If that happens, all wolves will be consumed by their wild nature.”
“So you’ll lose the ones you control like your limbs.”
“If you hadn’t run away from your destiny out of fear, the Baitur would have reclaimed their land long ago!”
The old man’s eyes were bloodshot.
“No. If you hadn’t been blinded by ambition and driven my father, then half of the entrails I was forced to chew wouldn’t have existed.”
“As expected, the title of great warrior doesn’t suit you. You’re a traitor. Because of you—kgh—!”
Besimer grabbed the old man by the throat and lifted him into the air.
“Do you see them, Virpier? The 237 souls resting on my shoulders. I’ve never forgotten them. Not for a single moment. I’ve never once miscounted them. And the one who kept them from reaching Balaka… is you.”
“You’ve already… become one of them. Those demons… You’ve become one of them… You are no longer Baitur.”
The old man’s face turned red, then blue.
Veins bulged as he clawed at Besimer’s hand, kicking helplessly.
“You’re still living in the past. I only wish to live in the present—with my kin, with my comrades.”
Besimer threw the old man to the ground.
“Cough—! Hah… hah—!”
The old man gasped for breath, drool dripping from his mouth.
“Leave. This will be the last mercy I grant you as one of your own. Will that be enough?”
Besimer’s gaze shifted to Carlson.
“If I try to kill that old man… will you fight me?”
“At least for today, he and I are of the same people. I’ll fight to the death to protect my kin.”
Carlson crossed his arms, glancing between Besimer and the old man.
Isaac was still unconscious.
“I’d rather not fight without any gain.”
Carlson nodded.
“Thank you. Then go.”
Besimer looked at the old man.
“The next time we meet, you are my enemy. No longer a great warrior, nor one of us.”
The old man glared at Besimer as if he would kill him, then turned and disappeared deeper into the black forest.
Besimer stared blankly in the direction he had gone.
Then he brought his axe down on another frozen body beside him.
There were still many that needed the ritual.