"Now… Where should I go?" Illyan murmured to himself. The first thought he had was to catch up with the tribe. It was an instinctive thought to recuperate in the place he considered home. Unfortunately, he didn’t know where they were and how much time had passed.
Not to mention that there was only Zers left if he managed to survive…
Guilt passed through his eyes when he remembered Zers. He had to cut his hand off to save him. That wasn’t so uncommon as many injuries were simply not treatable. The problem was what happened to the hand after.
All sources of food within that ice cocoon were too bad for Illyan’s mental health. At first, he hoped to get out of it before the need to eat, but the ice was reinforced with Cold Energy, and it was simply impossible.
So, in the end, his eyes fell on the meat of the wendigo. Eating rotten, raw meat was nothing new to Illyan as he was doing exactly that in the stomach that was protruding from its torso years ago. However, eating the wendigo seemed to be even more wrong than that. He feared what side effects it could have.
And so, after a while of hesitating, he turned to look at the hand that was still pinned there. Although cannibalism was taboo, it couldn’t be worse than wendigo meat, right?
In the first place, he wasn’t sure if he even tasted human meat back in the years as he ate whatever the wendigo ate. And since he now knew it was wendigo…
He just hoped that the journey to the north it took was not that fruitful and that it didn’t meet any other human settlements after his village…
In the end, he ate both. While the fear of turning into the thing he despised, it didn’t override his instinct to live. Unfortunately, there was not much left out of the wendigo since its rotten body was losing flesh for some time and after the Frozen Worm’s madness, half of the wendigo’s body was smashed into paste that dissolved in the ocean.
Normally, that would be enough for him but as his body was in a bad state, his regeneration drained the stamina at first, then his fat and muscles. In the end, his body was in an even worse state than now.
So another drastic solution came to realization.
He sighed when he looked at his left hand. Or rather, the lack of thereof.
‘It should grow back if I train my ability to a newer level.’ Illyan didn’t do it without thinking about it. Thanks to his ability, he could afford this kind of risk as he was confident in his ability’s potential.
Even if it did not, then he would rather lose an arm than his life.
After thinking about it, he turned towards the forest and without hesitation he entered. Just one crow didn’t satiate him.
Moreover, this forest was along the way he wanted to go.
He already recognized it. By watching the sun’s movement, the mountains in the distance, he already guessed that this was the west side of the Blood Crow Forest.
And since he decided to go in the south, he just needed to pass this forest.
He gave up on going after the Bakur Tribe. He toiled for so long to pay off his debts in order to travel the world only to return to the tribe at first separation?
Not to mention…
With slight fear he looked at the ice cocoon he stayed at.
That dragon was staying in the ocean. What nerves would he need to have to return? He just hoped that others weren’t targeted because of the Cold Energy in their bodies.
Yes, he already guessed what happened. The Cold Energy has something to do with the dragon. Its dragon breath had the same aura not to mention that the dragon itself mentioned that he absorbed both its and the God of Truth’s powers. He didn’t know what relations Cold Energy had with the dragon but he was sure their power was from the same source. Maybe the dragon came from Cold Energy or vice versa.
Although he doubted they were really on God's level. If that was the case then even if they were dead just mere mortals should die in both incidents, right?
But despite his doubts he would not trespass the sea. In no way. At least not the one in the north part of this continent.
He didn’t even know how much time had passed. It would be impossible to find Zers in a short time. Or at least his body if he didn’t manage to survive…
With a shake of his head, he turned around to enter the forest to find prey. He had a lot to recuperate, after all.
But then, he remembered something.
‘Almost forgot it. My only leads to those motherfuckers.’
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He turned around and returned to the ice cocoon. He wasn’t thrilled at that but he deemed it necessary. And so he climbed back and jumped in the crack.
After a few minutes, he took out several black rods with mysterious symbols on them. However, they were already dim and it didn’t seem as powerful as before.
‘Doesn’t matter. I will research it so I can understand at least what they were trying to accomplish with it…’
There were exactly 24 one meter long rods under his armpit. It was obvious that the wendigo had many more of them inside of its body but these were only ones left after its life expired.
With little difficulty in carrying those, he ran to the forest, this time for real, to hunt and kill….
…….
Like a winter demon, he was sneaking into the snowy forest hiding from all life thriving in it. After almost starving himself, he was extremely weak. Not only that, his body was brittle because of the Cold Energy and missed his left arm.
Since his clothes completely solidified and broke, he was also running there butt naked. The only positive thing was that it couldn’t do anything to him. The coldness he was going through when he was inside the ice cocoon was way beyond the natural winter in the north.
He actually felt warm as he stood barefooted on freshly fallen snow.
“Haah…”
Illyan exhaled and focused all his senses. As the winter progressed, it wasn’t only humans who suffered. Many animals and plants died too and so there was a lack of them in the entire northern peninsula. Fortunately, he had extensive knowledge about hunting and tracking thanks to Degres and Misty Bear who was once the leader of his team…
When he remembered Degres his face turned somber. The cruelty of such sudden death was not targeted towards the one who died but to those who didn’t. He saw it yet he couldn’t do anything. He felt regret that he couldn’t even let Degres say his last words.
But he shook his head and stopped thinking about it that way. This was life.
His eyes turned determined.
……..
In the next few days, the only thing he was doing was to hunt, hunt, and hunt.
Since his body was in a precarious situation, he couldn’t depend on his speed, strength, and regeneration but what he could use was his ability to merge with nature.
It wasn’t perfect, but at least he was much less noticeable than before. He learned by practicing the [Nature Breath Meditation]. This method allowed him to breathe in the ice cocoon just by making a small nick in the ice. That nick was extremely hard to do and it took him almost all his strength to create it. But it saved his life.
Then, with the trait of meditation, he used the small hole to feel the air outside.
In this way, he managed to not suffocate. Not to mention that he made great progress as he usually meditated at all times inside. Unfortunately, it blurred his perception of time…
The unsuspecting animals he met along the way were swiftly killed by his long nails which were his only weapon at this moment. Then he skinned their fur and cooked their meal.
He knew that after fasting for a long time, the normal body couldn’t handle eating properly. Especially big portions of meat. Fortunately, this problem was just a small thing that even his debilitated body could handle. And so he ate.
He actually ate so much that his weight was growing at a visible speed.
After eating, he made the bones into a spear and the fur was used to cover his body. He also made a basic carrier for those rods with the rest of the furs.
He couldn’t sew it up as he didn’t have anything to do it with but this was enough for now.
But still, it was infuriating that he lost all his belongings. His treasured weapons were gone and broken. His tent was gone too.
However, for Illyan, the most important things were all the scriptures!
He lost all techniques that Kaoran gave him!
That frustrated him the most.
The only consolation was that he remembered most of it.
‘Huh? How can I remember it so vividly? I didn’t think about it ever since the monster flood. And that was minimally a year ago. And that is just my guess… Even if my memory wasn’t that bad, this is kind of extreme…’
For a moment, Illyan became confused. He just realized that he remembered almost every technique that Kaoran gave him. The rest were those he didn’t bother to read as they were simply insignificant and were not interesting or were not possible for Illyan to perform as they were not suited for him so he just read the description before letting them be. Basically, he remembered every technique he read at least once.
‘Did I ever have such a memory?’
Obviously not. He didn’t even remember the faces of his parents anymore…
Now that he thought about it… His memories were so clear only from recent years.
Older years were much more foggy as they always were. It also applied only for his sight since he was pretty sure he couldn’t remember noises as nearly good.
Sight. Eyes.
“Ah, I see.” He nodded to himself in realization. This was another perk of his mutated eyes.
And now, he was really grateful for it. If not then this would be an even bigger loss to him.
After thinking about it for a little while, he decided to arrange his memories properly once he stopped hunting and tried to find a solution for the problem his body had. He wouldn’t expect for his ability to just miraculously heal him.
While the eating amount of meat that was almost half of his current weight caused his body and the gift to work at a higher tempo it didn’t help that much.
‘Now then… I need to orientate myself somehow…’
…….
The sun was already setting off and the light in the forest rapidly waned. Because of this, Illyan decided to rest. After all, his body wasn’t really happy that he was moving so rapidly after sitting for over a year or for how long he was inside of that iceberg.
He only did it to fill himself.
After climbing the tallest tree in the vicinity he looked at the stars in the sky.
Thanks to his basic knowledge of Astrology, he could navigate himself even through the stars. There was one Star in the South that looked reddish and thus was called Bloody Star while in the west was one with a green hue called Windleaf Star.
With those it was usually easy to know in which directions he should tread. It was also easier and more accurate than just looking at the sun.
Since he already knew where to go, he decided to sit on one of the thick branches to rest for the day.
“So, do you already know where we want to go?” Suddenly, a voice resounded in his mind as he stared blankly into the forest. Sharp pain crossed his head as he kneaded his temples while grunting.
However, he didn’t panic. He was used to it. Especially after this event.
“Damn it… Zephyr do you really need to talk to me if it is unnecessary? It hurts like hell.”
Illyan who was used to the pain of the body was still not used to the pain of his mind that appeared recently whenever Zephyr appeared.
“Isn’t that your fault though? You are the one with an unstable mind because of not talking to anyone for so long. You are just talking to yourself, after all, dummy, hehehe~”
Giggling was echoing in his mind as he rolled his eyes.
‘How is that my fault?’