I was the epicenter of a wave of ice forming on the ground, icicles, snow, and an actual layer of slippery ice grew under and from my feet. The spread got faster and faster as time passed and as the thing in front of me watched it all unfold, it started to look scared. The eyes were worse but that isn't the parasite.

I felt something warm drip down my free hand and I saw that it was bleeding when I looked down. I relaxed and loosened my grip and as my teeth started to clatter from the cold, the sword that I'm holding felt a lot more stable than before. I heaved.

"You're a mistake." I said calmly.

The dog leaped, not away, but surprisingly at me. Its tongue lashed out, flying out of its infected mouth and aiming for my neck. I dodged and the tongue struck the ground a meter away from my feet and stayed there, the ice that I formed keeping it in place.

I cut the parasite in half and watched as the parasite that tried to desperately pull its tongue back squirmed in pain.

I didn't let the satisfaction that I felt from watching it happen to slow me down and ran forward with all my might-

I jumped and grabbed the hilt of my sword with both my hands before raising the weapon at the back of my head. I should've done this when this disgrace is stuck in the ground.

Whatever.

I pushed more Qi into my sword and the weapon started feeling heavy, I didn't look back, not when this thing can dodge my attack and counter with one of his own. I focused on the dog like it was the only thing in the world. More Qi got pushed into my sword and I felt the blizzard around me howl in response to me doing so like it was proud of me for using it to empower myself and the weapon.

When I thought I was close, I tried to slash down but found out that the sword was too heavy. In response to that, I channeled Qi on my arms and tried to swing again, both my arms started to freeze but it isn't important, the sword still didn't want to budge.

I channeled more Qi until I started screaming but the sword didn't want to move, I put more and more Qi until it wasn't just cold that went up both my arms but also pain. I continued to channel until eventually, the sword moved and I grinned, in those three seconds of me pushing Qi into my arms, the dog didn't move and looked stuck in place.

All I had to do when the sword finally went over my head is watch as the 12 foot long pillar of ice went down the dog and crushed it underneath its weight.

A loud bang rang out and my ears started to ring.

Then silence.

The only thing that I heard was the loud howls of the blizzard for a while until my arms got filled with pain. I let go of my weapon and stopped channeling my Qi, the pain subsided for a second before it ached again. Just like the blizzard, which is still going strong even now, the ice in my hand is an after effect that affects me physically rather than some side effect of me using Qi.

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My arms looked fine when I looked at them which meant that they only feel painful.

Wait no- I thought in panic when I saw cracks spread across my right arm when I moved it. The thin fractures ran through the entire length and stopped on my shoulders. I winced. Fuck.

Fuck was probably an understatement.

I moved to a nearby hut and hoped that the blizzard is gonna prevent me from being found out by the invaders while I was still weak. I opened the door and entered the hut and I was overwhelmed by the sudden shift in temperature. It isn't as cold as it is outside in here.

The difference in temperature probably had something to do with me sapping out all of the heat when I circulated my Qi earlier and since these houses were well insulated, the heat inside wasn't as badly sapped because the place is sealed.

Sounds about right. I nodded in satisfaction at my conclusion to distract myself from the pain. But I really have to face my current situation because I'm pretty sure getting fractures in my arm isn't normal.

Each movement caused small cracks to form and I'm starting to get concerned.

I shivered. It's starting to feel cold now, too.

What I did was very stupid and I know it's because I got emotional. I grit my teeth. But it was worth it.

I didn't want that dog to suffer like that and it's not like I acted stupid and out of line because I wanted to be the good guy again. Well- I did, and I thought that I learned that lesson already but dogs aren't women, nor are they people. They're better, innocent, and shouldn't be treated that way. I sighed, I don't wanna blame myself for what happened and instead, I wanted to blame whoever is responsible for creating that thing.

I sat down and started cultivating. I feel that I've gone up another Stage and another build up of foreign Qi is inside of my meridians again. After I broke it all down, I started refining my brain and everything go so much clearer.

The pain became bearable too.

Afterward, the only thing I did is cultivate for as long as I could and I only stopped when my arms stopped hurting. Chances are, they've probably gone numb but since I feel fine when I rolled them around, I thought that going out and continuing with my killing spree wouldn't be so bad, after all, if I can get strong enough then my body will get stronger and that would make all the pain go away!

Yay!

I opened my eyes and stood up. I walked around the interior of the hut afterward to look for anything that can cover my entire body because holy fuck everything is cold.

Eventually, I found a long-sleeved vest but it had a few problems, the stomach had a hole and it was filled with hay. It also had two eyes drawn just below the collar and the long sleeves had gloves attached to them. I picked it up with a smile.

A toy? I thought nostalgically as I tore the stomach open and removed all of the hay. I remember when I was a teen, I saw this old man on the street, he had a boy with him and that boy wanted a toy so the old man created one out of cloth clamps, nails, and wood. What resulted in all of those is this little cat thing that had clamps for ears and nails for its tail and limbs.

It looked pretty cute and the shirt reminded me of it, "well, it's not like the kid can use it now right?" I said as I took off my own shirt and threw it away. I didn't want to ruin the toy, obviously, but chances are the kid that owned this is probably not gonna miss it because of the attack. He'd probably assume that it was stolen or something.

Kids would think that way I think? Depending on their age, they would consider their favorite (and sometimes only) toys as the most valuable thing and they'd assume that when it's stolen someone obviously wanted their treasure.

I hope his young enough. I smiled and put on a regular T-shirt before throwing the vest on top of it. I also changed my pants and for good measure, I covered my face with a scarf (or a very thick fabric that I ripped apart) because that's typical winter wear and I'm American.

I started to feel warm, obviously, but instead of going back out, I checked all of my stuff, "A headband and a dagger," these two are the only things I have left and I'm not so confident in what they can do.

Well, whatever. I held the dagger and put on my headband.