Volume 2, Chapter 41: The Pressure of the Throne
The wind in the Extreme North doesn't just blow — it screams. It's a jagged, constant sound that strips the heat from your bones before you can even think about shivering.
Yuhao trudged through snow that came up to his waist. Every step was a battle. His lungs burned with the kind of cold that felt like swallowing needles. He kept his head down, watching his own boots disappear into the white. He wondered, briefly, if this was how he'd end up — a frozen statue that some traveler might find a hundred years from now.
But then he saw it.
Emerging from the whiteout was a mountain that didn't look like a mountain. It was a glacier, massive and jagged, but it had been carved by time and ice into the shape of a fortress. There were no windows, just deep, blue fissures that looked like arrow slits. It was a palace made of ruins, ancient and indifferent to the world outside.
This was the center of the world's cold. This was where the Lord of the North waited.
Yuhao reached the base of the glacier. The silence here was different. It wasn't the dead silence Chen Feng had created in the factory. This was a heavy, living silence. It felt like the air itself was holding its breath.
He walked into the main hall of the glacier. The ceiling vanished into a dark, blue haze. Thick pillars of ice, some as wide as a house, supported the weight of the mountain above. And at the far end, sitting on a slab of rough-hewn frost, was the Ice Devil Titan.
Ah Tai.
He was a giant. Even sitting down, he towered over everything. His fur was as white as the snow outside, but thick and coarse like wire. His eyes were two pits of freezing blue light, staring down at the tiny human who had just walked into his home.
Ah Tai didn't move. He just watched. He looked bored.
"You're small," the Titan said. His voice wasn't a roar. It was a low rumble, like a distant avalanche. It vibrated in Yuhao's chest. "And you smell like the south. Why are you in my house, little bug?"
Yuhao stood his ground. His legs were shaking from the hike, and his hands were numb, but he didn't look away. "I'm here to ask for your strength."
Ah Tai laughed. The sound shook a layer of frost off the ceiling. "My strength? You can barely carry your own weight in this air. You're a Level 19 child. You've come here to die."
"I've come to breakthrough," Yuhao countered. "I need a second martial soul. I need the Ultimate Ice. And I've been told you're the only one who can provide it."
The Titan leaned forward. The air around him suddenly dropped twenty degrees. "I am the Lord of the North. I don't give strength to things I can crush with a finger. I don't care about your dreams or your south-land politics."
"My teacher sent me," Yuhao said.
Ah Tai paused. A flicker of something that wasn't boredom crossed his face. "Your teacher? Who would be stupid enough to send a child to a Titan's door?"
"Professor Lakan," Yuhao said.
The Titan went perfectly still. He didn't speak for a long time. The blue light in his eyes pulsed, searching Yuhao's face. He seemed to be looking for a lie, but he didn't find one. Although he didn't know who Professor Lakas was, he could now feel the familiar feeling from him.
Ah Tai remembered. Ten thousand years was a long time for a human, but for a beast like him, the memory was still sharp. He remembered the day the sky changed. He had watched from the distant peaks as a man — no, a God — had descended. He had seen the Snow Empress and the Ice Jade Scorpion, beings he respected and feared, transform into something new. He had seen Lakan's power from a distance, and the sheer scale of it had kept him in his cave for a century.
"The Phoenix," Ah Tai whispered. The rumble of his voice was different now. It was laced with a trace of old, buried fear. "He is back?"
"He is teaching," Yuhao said.
Yuhao had suspected it for a while now. Professor Lakas wasn't just a brilliant instructor. He wasn't just a powerful soul master. The way he moved, the way he spoke, the way the world seemed to bend slightly around him — it all pointed to something far greater. This was Yuhao's quiet test. He wanted to see if a soul beast who had lived through the old era would recognize the name. If Ah Tai reacted, then Yuhao's suspicions were correct. Lakan wasn't just his teacher. He was something much more.
Ah Tai stood up. He was massive — thirty feet of muscle and frost. He stepped off his throne, the floor cracking under his weight. He walked toward Yuhao, stopping just inches away. The cold radiating off him was so intense that Yuhao's eyelashes began to freeze together.
"He sent you to me," Ah Tai mused. "That means he thinks you're worth something. Or maybe he just wants to see if you'll break. He always did have a strange sense of humor."
Ah Tai looked down at Yuhao's neck. He saw the faint, golden glow of the Baybayin script ᜆ (Ta). He recognized the signature. It was a seal of protection, but it was also a mark.
"I won't just give you my life because he asked," Ah Tai said, his eyes narrowing. "Lakan respects strength. If I am to become your Soul Spirit, I need to know if your Vessel can actually hold me. If you're weak, my power will just turn you into an ice cube the second we fuse."
"Test me," Yuhao said.
"Ten minutes," Ah Tai said. "That's the deal. I will release the pressure of my Ultimate Ice Aura. I won't touch you. I won't move. You just have to stand there and stay conscious. If you're still standing when the clock stops, I'll consider your offer. If you fall… well, the wolves outside are still hungry."
Yuhao took a deep breath. He centered himself. He didn't look at Electrolux in his spiritual sea. He didn't ask for help. He knew that if he cheated here, the fusion would fail later anyway.
"Start the clock," Yuhao said.
The pressure didn't hit him like a wall. It hit him like an ocean.
Ah Tai didn't move a muscle, but the air around him turned into a physical weight. It was the Gravity of the Cold. Yuhao's knees buckled instantly. He felt like his blood had turned into slush.
One minute.
His vision began to tunnel. The Library inside his head — the All-Seeing Library — started to groan. He could feel the shelves shaking. The knowledge he used to map the world was being crushed by the raw, irrational force of the Titan's presence.
But.
He didn't fall. He forced his eyes open. He looked at the floor. He focused on a single crack in the ice.
Two minutes.
The cold was trying to stop his heart. He could feel the beat getting slower. Thump… thump… thump. It was the same rhythm he'd heard in the Abyss, but this was different. This wasn't the silence of death; it was the silence of absolute stillness.
He used the Library. He didn't try to fight the cold. He tried to file it. He broke the sensation down into data points. Temperature: -180°C. Pressure: 400 psi. Oxygen: Low. By turning the pain into information, he stripped away the fear.
Three minutes.
His skin was turning a pale, ghostly blue. He couldn't feel his toes anymore. But the Baybayin script on his neck — the Tatag — was burning. It was a tiny sun against the ice, keeping his core temperature just high enough to keep his brain from shutting down.
"You're still standing," Ah Tai noted. He stepped a fraction closer. The pressure doubled.
Four minutes.
Yuhao's nose started to bleed, the red droplets freezing into rubies before they even hit the floor. His meridians were screaming. The soul power in his body was trying to breakthrough to Level 20, pushing against the invisible barrier of his realm.
It was a strange sensation. He was being crushed from the outside and exploding from the inside.
Five minutes.
He was halfway there. But the halfway point is always the hardest. His mind started to wander. He thought about the smell of the grilled fish in the capital. He thought about how much he hated the color blue. He thought about how Professor Lakas was probably sitting in a warm office right now, drinking coffee and laughing at him.
I'm not going to die here, Yuhao thought. I have too much work to do.
Six minutes.
The pressure was so high that the air around him was liquefying. Tiny droplets of liquid oxygen were forming on his coat. He couldn't breathe. He was surviving on the oxygen stored in his blood.
Seven minutes.
He was down on one knee now. His hands were pressed against the ice, his fingers digging into the frost. He wasn't standing, but he wasn't down. He was a tripod of bone and sheer will.
Eight minutes.
The pressure was so high that the air around him was liquefying. Tiny droplets of liquid oxygen were forming on his coat. He couldn't breathe. He was surviving on the oxygen stored in his blood.
Nine minutes.
Ah Tai looked down at the boy. For the first time, the boredom was completely gone. There was respect in those blue eyes. He saw the way Yuhao's soul power was churning — a violent, golden storm trapped inside a freezing vessel.
"Ten seconds," Ah Tai rumbled.
Yuhao didn't hear him. He was somewhere else. He was deep inside the Library, holding the doors shut with his bare hands. He was a Level 19 nobody, holding back the lord of a continent.
Ten.
The pressure vanished.
Yuhao slumped forward, his forehead hitting the ice with a dull thunk. He didn't pass out. He just lay there, gasping for air that felt like fire. His body was shaking so hard he thought his bones might shatter.
"Time is up," Ah Tai said.
The Titan looked at his own massive hands, then back at Yuhao. He let out a long, steaming breath.
"Lakan chose well," Ah Tai said. "You didn't break. You didn't even scream. I haven't seen a human with that kind of 'Tatag' in a long time."
Yuhao slowly rolled onto his back. He looked up at the dark blue ceiling. His vision was still blurry, but he could see the golden lines of his soul power finally settling. The barrier to Level 20 was still there, but it was thin now. It was ready to break.
"So," Yuhao croaked, his voice raw. "Do we have a deal?"
Ah Tai sat back down on his throne. He looked around his empty, silent palace. He thought about the potential for godhood. He thought about the chance to see the Phoenix again — not from a distance, but as an equal.
"I've been sitting in this cave for ten thousand years," Ah Tai said. "It's been too quiet and is starting to get old. And if something out there is trying to change the world, I'd rather be on the side that's actually doing something about it."
The Titan leaned down, extending a massive, clawed finger toward Yuhao's chest.
"I will become your Second Martial Soul. I will give you the Ice of the Abyss. But know this, boy, my power is a burden. It will try to freeze your heart every single day. You have to be the fire that keeps it liquid. Can you do that?"
Yuhao reached up and touched the Titan's finger. It felt like touching a frozen star.
"I've spent my whole life being told I'm nothing," Yuhao said. "I think I can handle a little cold."
Ah Tai grinned, revealing teeth like daggers. "Then let's begin. It's time to show the Federation what a real Titan looks like."
End of Volume 2, Chapter 41