The world was a single frozen lament.
Under the weight of the endless storm, where the mountains surrendered to the ice and the sky trembled, shrouded by frost-laden clouds, he remained. The Hail King. Frost Delgard.
Covered in his split armor, with an abyssal gaze of frozen emptiness and the mark of Chi Tae burning with a suicidal glow. All his memories had returned at once, like a torrent of blades splitting his mind into pieces.
—NOOOO! —he screamed, clutching his head with one hand while the other gripped his sword—. This again… nooo!
His voice broke. A fissure split space itself when his Refrigerio blade tore reality. A cyclonic storm ignited like a polar hurricane, devouring the ruins and lifting shards of frozen earth.
Jiro raised his voice over the roar.
—Saria! Ardan! Get Elliott out of here, now!
—Yes! —the siblings replied, carrying the wounded man as the air filled with the wails of ice.
Frost walked slowly toward Lorraine's petrified body, his steps cracking the crust of frost with a funeral crunch. The storm lifted his tattered cape like a banner of mourning.
He knelt before her. His voice was no more than a whisper, heavy with a love sickened by guilt.
—Lorraine… don't worry. —He brushed her frozen cheek with a cold glove—. Now you'll be safe… at peace. I… will take care of everything… for you.
A crimson lightning bolt lit up the blizzard. Jiro carried his Higetsu no Yari, the spear burning with the most indomitable Chi Tae.
He's unstable, he thought as he gripped the shaft, feeling the mark on his face crackle. But… if we don't stop him, this world will vanish.
Frost turned abruptly. His silhouette blurred. In the blink of an eye, he appeared before Jiro. A frost-clad fist lifted him by the neck. Frost's eyes were a bottomless pit.
—Your Chi Tae… is weak. —His breath was a polar wind—. You don't even have the consciousness to wield it.
And with a roar, he slammed Jiro into the base of the skull of that dead dragon lying in ruins.
The impact shook Eden's Winter. A thunderclap of shattering ice plates rumbled across the continent.
Jiro rose unsteadily, wiping blood from his mouth.
—I don't even… know what Chi Tae is… —he said with a broken voice—. But… if this power… can get me to you… then… I won't reject it.
On his cheek, the marks ignited like red claw slashes. His spear began to emit a deep chant. The storm split around him.
Jiro leapt.
His charge pierced the blizzard. He struck Frost in the chest with such force that, for an instant, the Hail King staggered. The ice covering him fractured with a sound like a million shattered bells.
Frost took a deep breath. His voice was an echo that knew no mercy.
—You are nothing to me, boy. —He grabbed him by the head and hurled him against the broken skull—. Nothing but a brat… pretending to be a traveler. You… and no one else… will ever break me.
He raised his arm to the sky.
—This is the end… Hanimesh! —he roared with a tremor that froze hearts—. I will use the remains of your messenger… and end this world!
The bones of the dead dragon began to move. A horrifying sound spread across the planet: the shattering of tectonic plates under the influence of his power.
The empty eye sockets of the skeleton flickered with a blue so intense it darkened the horizon. The monster rose, growing until it brushed the veil of the atmosphere.
Saria fell to her knees.
—It's… impossible…
Elliott, leaning on Ardan, clenched his teeth.
—I never thought Frost's power could reach such magnitude. It's absurdly infinite—he said, surprise and fear filling his eyes.
—If Frost keeps releasing Chi Tae like this… nothing will be left of this planet!!!
Up there, in the night that opened as the dragon emerged from the earth, Jiro stared at that mass of bone and hatred as the freezing gusts tore him from the ground.
The glacier tree embedded in its skull stood like a crown of death visible from the edge of space.
—Damn… —he exclaimed, trembling with fury—. I never meant to go this far. But if this is the price… I won't back down!
The crimson Chi Tae broke its limits. His spear shone like a new red sun illuminating the frozen universe. Jiro descended, a red comet in space.
The skeletal dragon roared with a voice that shook the frozen oceans. A deluge of glacial energy chased him, but Jiro did not stop.
He pierced the monstrous skull in an explosion of light that heated the universe. Its bones shattered into colossal fragments that fell in flames like meteors of ice breaking the atmosphere.
Silence came like a second of eternity.
And then, among the burning snow, Jiro lunged one last time. His spear struck Frost's chest, shattering the armor and hurling him into the ice.
A final crack shook the blizzard.
Frost fell to his knees.
The storm… died.
Jiro rose, pointing his spear with the determination of a man who had left fear behind. His crimson horns and red eyes made him look like the incarnation of Chi Tae itself.
—It's over.
Frost lifted his gaze. The wind tossed his white hair. His empty, wounded eyes rested on Jiro. For an instant… all the hatred vanished.
There was only a man defeated by the weight of his own heart.
His voice was a whisper the wind carried away.
—It had always… always been over… for me.
And then, the snow fell again… silent, cold… like an epitaph upon that kingdom doomed by its sorrow.
Frost remained on his knees, his breathing ragged, the fragments of his armor scattered like ashes of a past he could never rebuild.
His hands, trembling so badly they could barely hold the hilt of his broken sword, rested on the ice, and his eyes stayed lowered, unable to look up at the life he had shattered. Frozen tears clung to his lashes, suspended between the present and memory.
—All of this… —he whispered, voice cracked— all of this was my fault… I told her I would protect her, that I would never let anything touch her. But look at me… If it hadn't been for me, Lorraine would be alive… she'd be with me… and none of this would have happened…
The silence that followed was as heavy as mourning. The cold wind stirred Jiro's cloak as he watched the man before him, a king who was nothing but a wounded soul.
Jiro drew in a slow breath, feeling the cold trying to bite into his resolve. He stepped forward, planting his spear into the snow to steady himself, and spoke with a voice firm as the calm before a true storm.
—Frost… —he began, with quiet conviction—. No… don't say it was all your fault.
I know that right now your heart can't understand anything but remorse, but… there are things that simply happen because that is the nature of this world.
Sometimes it's the cruelty of others. Sometimes it's chance. Sometimes… it is our own mistakes, yes, but it's never as simple as saying it was my fault and carrying all the condemnation.
Frost lifted his face, just slightly, and in his eyes Jiro saw a void so deep it made him shiver.
—There's nothing left we can do —Frost murmured in a dull voice—. Nothing will change it. Lorraine won't come back. Not even if I destroy this entire world.
Jiro was silent for a moment, searching inside himself for the words he would have wanted to hear when everything seemed lost. When his home was reduced to ashes. When guilt and hatred threatened to consume him, too.
—Maybe you're right —he said at last, his voice dropping lower—. Maybe there is no way to undo what happened… But we can still do something. We can learn not to stay trapped in the ice of our own mistakes. I…
—…I've felt that too. I've wanted to blame myself for every life I couldn't save, and a great example is my father's, in that wound of the void… for every word I didn't say in time, for every chance I let slip by. But… do you know what I've come to understand, even if I still struggle to accept it?
Jiro took a deep breath and lowered his spear.
—That if we let that guilt consume us, there's nothing left of us. Only a shell filled with hatred and sorrow.
—We can choose to let their memory not become an anchor that drags us under, but something that drives us to be better… to not make the same mistakes again.
He paused, and his eyes met Frost's, steady, honest, filled with determination.
—I'm not going to lie and tell you that you'll forget the pain. I haven't forgotten it either… I don't even know if I want to. But I'm trying to learn something: that pain doesn't mean we have to destroy everything.
—That revenge will never fill the emptiness left by those we loved. And that if we don't learn to let go of that hatred, we end up becoming what we feared most.
Jiro gripped his spear tighter as his voice softened, heavy with a strange calm, as if he were speaking to himself as much as to Frost.
—I want to understand how to let go too. I'm no smarter or stronger than you. I'm just… trying to believe that there can still be a future where the past doesn't crush us completely.
—That we can still do something with what's left… even if it's only to honor the memory of those we lost.
For a moment, the wind grew gentler, as if the world itself had held its breath before the fragility of that moment.
Frost took a deep breath as his body trembled from within. The frozen tears broke on his cheeks like shards of crystal.
For an instant, all the storm of Chi Tae became silence. The wind that scoured the horizon ceased, as if the world itself held its breath.
—And if I can't do it… —he whispered, his throat knotted with something larger than his life—. What if I can't…? You wouldn't understand… I caused all this… I crushed everyone's dreams for what was taken from me…
His voice cracked. The sword in his hand pulsed with cold.
—But you're right… —he continued, lifting his gaze to the sky—. I can't take it out on the universe… just like that…
The storm began to dissipate. Snowflakes disintegrated in the air, transforming into light. And Frost, standing amid a landscape finally at peace, raised the glacial sword to see his reflection in the polished blade.
—That's why… I'm going to end everything here.
With slow steps, he walked toward Lorraine's frozen body. The snow crunched beneath his shattered armor. Jiro, who felt with certainty that something irreversible was about to happen, cried out in desperation:
—Wait, Frost! What are you going to do?
Frost didn't stop. His voice became serene, like a man who no longer feared anything.
—There's a tremendous debt I must pay… not only for what I've done in this time… but for everything I failed to prevent in the past. I will restore the universe to its natural state.
His fingers closed around the hilt of his sword.
—I will pay with my life core. Chi Tae comes from it, fed by emotions and consciousness. If I destroy my core, this whole cycle of curse will end.
Jiro stepped forward, his voice raw with anguish.
—But your vitality is what keeps you alive! If you do this… you'll die…
—I know. —Frost smiled faintly, a cold sigh escaping his lips—. But it's the only way to end this… And to be reunited with Lorraine.
For the first time in centuries, his voice was human, young.
—I've lived enough… a hundred and fifty years of frozen hell. It's time for it all to stop.
He turned to Jiro, the traveler who had come when no one else dared. His blue eyes, now cleansed of hatred, rested on him.
—I thank you… little traveler. For managing to thaw my heart.
Then Frost knelt before Lorraine, placed his hand on the crystal that covered her sleeping face, and as a warm breeze finally brushed his skin, he raised the sword.
—At last… —he whispered—. Let's go home.
With a resolute motion, he plunged the blade into his chest. A strangled moan of pain escaped his throat as his whole body convulsed. The world lit with a blue radiance so bright it erased all shadows.
Inside his consciousness, a boundless space opened before him. There, in the darkness, he saw the life core. It was like a small sun, a luminous pulsing sphere overflowing with everything he had been: his dreams, his guilt, his love.
—Thank you… for everything…
He whispered those words as a single tear traced down his cheek. And with a steady gesture, he brought his hands together over the core and crushed it.
Chi Tae erupted in a burst of light that rose to the sky like a newborn sun. The storm dissolved in an instant. The ice receded. The wind regained its sweetness. The sun bathed the world in a new warmth.
Frost, now without strength, embraced Lorraine's body, which was beginning to dissolve into motes of light.
—I… waited so long for this… At last we'll be together again…
As his armor fragmented and his body lost its physical form, he raised his face to that sun.
—How beautiful the sun is… How could I ever have tried to extinguish something so beautiful—Frost said as he slowly faded.
It was the last thing he said before he vanished with her. Their bodies became a thousand lights that drifted into the clear sky.
Jiro fell to his knees, tears streaming freely down his face.
—Rest in peace, Frost…
In that newborn silence, flowers began to bloom everywhere. White, golden, pink. The ice transformed into a living field that breathed again.
And somewhere beyond time and form, Frost opened his eyes. He was standing in a white meadow, with a crystal river splitting into three branches. On the water floated golden lotuses that seemed to hold the entire sky in their petals.
He looked at his hands, clean, unscarred. His hair was no longer white, but dark and young. His eyes shone again with the clarity of when he had been an ordinary man.
—Is this… the afterlife? —he murmured.
A soft step sounded beside him. A warm hand rested on his. Lorraine, radiant, luminous as an eternal dawn, looked at him with that tenderness only she could give him.
—I was waiting for you, Frost…
Her voice was the melody that had saved him from madness.
—I know… —he answered, his voice a thread of emotion—. And I'm sorry for making you wait so long.
—It doesn't matter anymore. —She smiled, touching her forehead to his—. Come… It's time to rest at last.
—Yes… —he nodded, feeling all his guilt become a memory that no longer hurt—. At your side, Lorraine.
They took each other's hands. Together, they walked toward the golden current that invited them to cross.
The river glowed beneath their steps as everything around them filled with a soft, eternal radiance. And so, the story of Frost Delgard, the Hail King, closed in the peace he had always sought.