The scene shifted back to the interior of the cave.
Meanwhile, Sang and Snow Hill supported each other as they made their way inside. Although the entire world was shaking violently, the cave was somehow managing to hold together.
“It seems the Ancient Titan hasn’t fully awakened yet… It’s just the ice and snow melting for now,” Snow Hill said as she struggled forward.
Sang’s face lit up with relief at her words, but then he frowned in confusion. “How do you know that?”
“The scale of this disturbance is still too small. If that thing truly revived, the entire Extreme North Mountain Range would be turned upside down. We wouldn’t even have a chance to push forward like this…”
Sang recalled the records he’d once read in a book about the Ancient Titan. Every word dripped with a chilling magic—devouring oceans, tearing apart the earth, its mere movements a catastrophe.
Compared to those descriptions, the current scene of disaster, while harrowing, paled in comparison.
It truly wasn’t the final moment yet.
There was still hope!
Not long ago, when Sang had visited this cave, the light had been so dim that he’d needed Little Chicken Red’s help to illuminate the way. Now, however, it was filled with overflowing lava, the firelight blazing everywhere, making it bright enough without any tools. The earthquake continued unabated, though, with chunks of rock occasionally crashing down from the ceiling—a place fraught with peril.
After a full ten minutes or so, the two finally reached the end of the cave. There, a massive depression had formed, filled with boiling molten rock. Even glancing down sent chills through them; the ice at the terminus was melting on a massive scale.
Compared to his previous visit, Sang could now make out the Ancient Titan’s outline much more clearly. He’d once wondered what that dark patch was, but now it was evident: merely a toe. Yet even that single toe was over ten meters wide and several meters tall.
“How big is the rest of this thing…?” Sang murmured.
Snow Hill had no answer for him. She gently pulled away from his support and approached a mysterious, intricate ritual array in the center of the cave. There, the soul weapon—Sekarona—lay at its heart, the source of that soaring blue pillar of light.
The Two-Colored Pupil Boy had long since departed, likely retreating after activating the ritual.
Because of the binding contract, Snow Hill still couldn’t draw the soul weapon.
Seeing this, Sang didn’t stand idle. He stepped forward and effortlessly pulled the soul weapon free with his remaining left hand. Yet even then, the ritual didn’t deactivate. The blue pillar of light still shot skyward, the ice and snow continued melting at a visible rate, and nothing changed.
“No wonder that bastard left…” Sang said angrily.
The soul weapon was merely a key. Once the door was unlocked, the ritual melting all the Northern Region’s ice and snow had entered an unstoppable flow. No one could halt it now.
The Two-Colored Pupil Boy must have known this full well, which was why he’d slipped away.
In the end, after all their efforts, the two major villains—one dead, the other completing his task and fleeing—Sang and Snow Hill had failed to protect the North.
As the young man fumed in frustration, Snow Hill remained as calm as a still pond. She staggered to one side of the ice wall, placed her palm gently against it, and her ice-blue eyes suddenly flashed red. She poured her scant remaining 【Mana】 into the entire Extreme North Mountain Range.
Her intent was clear: if the ice was melting, she’d simply make it freeze solid again.
“Snow…” Sang said worriedly.
Snow Hill remained utterly focused, replying calmly, “Sang, don’t talk. Let me concentrate on gathering my 【Mana】…”
“But—”
“It’s fine. Let me try…”
Sang was an Abandoned Child without any 【Mana】, utterly clueless about superpowers. Even so, he wasn’t a fool. With normal human reasoning, he could see at a glance that Snow Hill was deluding herself. Forget her current state with barely a scrap of power left—even at her peak, she likely couldn’t freeze an entire mountain range.
Note: not a single peak, but the whole Extreme North Mountain Range!
It was absurd, like a fairy tale.
Sure enough, moments later, the ice-blue figure dropped to one knee, exhausted from lack of strength and 【Mana】. Even her eye color had turned strange—a gradient between red and blue. She suddenly coughed up a large mouthful of blood, her entire body pushed to the brink, frail and weak.
“Snow, that’s enough! You can’t push your body any further… This place is about to collapse. We have to leave now,” Sang urged.
At this point, the outcome was clear.
Though the Hill Family had defeated the Werewolf Clan, they had failed to safeguard the Northern Region’s seal.
The Ancient Titan’s revival was inevitable. No one could stop it…
The smartest move now was to escape before the cave fully collapsed, then figure out how to deal with the soon-to-revive Ancient Titan.
However.
Despite Sang’s earnest pleas, the ice-blue figure stood resolutely by the melting ice wall, brows furrowed, teeth gritted, continuously channeling her power. Unfortunately, the freezing couldn’t keep pace with the melting.
After a while, she finally stopped releasing her ice power—perhaps in surrender, or perhaps because she had not a drop of 【Mana】 left.
In that moment, her back view seemed so forlorn, like a tragic hero who had failed their mission.
But then.
Unexpectedly.
A figure appeared behind Sang. It approached without a sound and effortlessly took the soul weapon—Sekarona—from the young man’s hand.
This startled Sang badly. Though covered in wounds, he leaped back, whirling around into a defensive stance…
Snow Hill reacted too, turning her face despite kneeling on one knee, eyes fixed on the unknown intruder.
Yet when they both saw the intruder’s face, they simultaneously revealed looks of shock. It wasn’t an enemy—it was the Hill Family’s current Family Head, Orcus Hill, an elderly man with white streaks at his temples.
“Old man…” For a moment, Sang couldn’t control his mouth and blurted out the disrespectful title.
Snow Hill’s face also showed surprise as she said slowly, “Father…”
The moment the words left her lips, both Snow Hill and Sang sensed something off. In the past, Orcus Hill had always been as steady as a mountain, unflappable as a deep well. Now, though faintly, he emanated an air of kindly warmth.
Orcus Hill first glanced at the soul weapon in his hand, then looked plainly at his daughter.
“Good thing I kept a backup plan… Though I handed the soul weapon to Hesos on the surface, I retained my own right to use it…”
As he spoke, Orcus Hill lowered his gaze again to the ice-blue knight’s sword in his grip. Though the old man hadn’t fought on the main battlefield, he’d held the mountain range entrance against tens of thousands of humans and over a thousand werewolves. In his current state, he’d already given his all.
He glanced at Snow Hill nearby and, unusually, revealed a gentle smile. “On the way here, I saw everything. You two defeated Gallo… You did well.”
