Boom—!!!
Ice instantly enveloped everything in the entire settlement.
The moment Rin hit the ground after falling from a kilometer high, a ring of absolute zero cold radiated outwards from the center of the settlement like ripples from a stone dropped into water.
Everything swept by the continuously expanding, sound-speed ring of icy-blue frost, whether plants, houses, people, livestock, or horses, was instantly sealed within layers of ice.
They even maintained their previous actions, postures, and expressions, frozen in an instant without knowing anything.
Rin, who had landed in the center of this Northern Nomads' settlement, rose from a half-kneeling position on the ground, looking at the frozen land she had created before her.
She observed the crystal-clear ice surface shimmering under the sunlight, everything within it—people, objects, and events—displayed like works of art to the world.
Rin smiled slightly with satisfaction and nodded, confident in her wide-area ice-sealing control...
Speaking of which, it was her first time in the Northern Region, and Rin couldn't help but feel a little curious about the Northern Nomads.
So, she circled an ice-sealed human figure and observed it carefully.
This was a middle-aged man with a thick, bushy black beard, noticeably two heads taller than Imperial people.
Overall, his physique, wrapped in animal skin clothing, was clearly three sizes larger than that of Imperial people.
Looking at his appearance and attire, one could tell he was just an ordinary commoner of the Northern Nomads.
However, his physique was clearly more robust than that of an average Imperial soldier, which explained why the Empire's northern front often lost more than it won each year, relying solely on city walls and Imperial Arms for defensive operations.
Just as Rin was about to search for her target, she suddenly discovered an unexpected presence here.
"Crack, crack, crack, snap... Bang!"
A series of fine cracking sounds, from soft to loud, followed by a crisp shattering sound, as a Northern Region Outsider actually broke Rin's ice seal, shattering the frost from within and escaping.
"Interesting, you must be the leader of this settlement."
Rin watched from the side as this Native man, who was looking around in shock and confusion, surveyed his surroundings.
The animal skins on him were noticeably more ornate than those of ordinary people, and he wore many bone ornaments.
His long hair was braided into countless small plaits.
Clearly, he couldn't adapt to this sudden drastic change; one moment it was a harmonious settlement, the next it had become a frozen, icy realm.
Rin's words caught his attention, and he quickly turned his head at the sound, his pupils dilating instantly upon seeing Rin's attire.
After a moment of surprise, he asked warily, "An Imperial!?
Did you do this?"
"Exactly."
Rin said calmly, "It's impressive that you could break free from my Essence of the Demon."
Facing the enemy who had annihilated his tribe, the last remaining Foreign People man's eyes instantly turned bloodshot with rage.
He uncontrollably looked back at the open tent beside him; the lifted flap was frozen solid and couldn't fall, revealing his entire family inside—father, mother, wife, and child—all frozen beneath the ice.
"Demon! Why did you do this?!"
The Northern Region Outsider, consumed by grief and fury, was like a wild ox about to go mad.
His knobby, rough hands, still covered in ice shards, clenched, and the cracking sound of his knuckles was like firecrackers going off.
His whites of his eyes had turned completely blood red, almost bleeding.
Facing such a deeply sorrowful and angry accusation, Rin's captivating face remained serene and unbothered.
The sheathed yatsufusa in her left hand rested on the ice in front of her, as if she were tired of holding it.
"Demon? Coming from you Northern Nomads, that sounds truly ironic to an Imperial.
Do you know how many people in the Empire refer to you as such?"
Rin glanced at the javelins, long spears, strong bows, and wolf-tooth arrows that were prepared nearby.
Her delicate jade hand beckoned gently to the side, and a Northern Region Outsider holding a long spear shattered into ice dust along with his icy shell, yet the spear in his hand remained perfectly intact and flew towards Rin.
"Stop!"
Rin ignored the Foreign People leader's furious roar and steadily caught the flying spear.
It had a sturdy ironwood shaft connected to a sharp iron spearhead.
Rin held it in her hand and examined it.
"You keep calling me a demon, but isn't your tribe currently preparing to gather with other leaders and invade our country to act like demons yourselves?"
"When winter comes, all prey hibernate.
Our Northern Region warriors must go to the Empire to hunt and bring back enough food, otherwise countless of our people will starve to death in the cold.
This is a necessity!"
"That's right, you need to survive, so you must plunder the Empire.
But you just said 'hunt,' didn't you?
That means you never considered the people of the Empire as human from the start.
You attack and plunder the Empire as a matter of course for your survival.
So should the Empire just let you plunder it, and feed you insatiable hungry wolves?"
Rin pointed the spear in her hand at the Northern Region Outsider leader and said indifferently, "Last winter, you broke through the Seventh Legion's defenses.
Before reinforcements arrived, you swept through five towns in the northern Empire, and over 300,000 Imperial civilians were brutally massacred.
One hundred thousand young women and children were raped to death by your tribesmen, and then their flesh was cut and cooked.
I imagine you must have profited greatly last year.
If you had stored your food properly, it should have lasted until the year after next.
But why are you still preparing to invade the Empire now?"
Rin sneered, looking at the leader of this Foreign Tribe.
"Being able to break free from my Essence of the Demon proves your strength.
You must have achieved great merits in last year's invasion, right?
How is it, do you miss the Empire's delicate and soft young women?
The countless food and gold and silver, the Empire's people wailing everywhere—did you give them a way to live?
Now you call me a demon; isn't that just slapping your own Northern Region people in the face?"
"Imperials are sheep, and we Northern Region people are wolves.
Wolves eat sheep; this is a rule set by the heavens.
How a wolf eats a sheep is a given."
Rin readily agreed with this answer, nodding slightly and gently applauding him.
"Clap. Clap, clap."
"Well said, I completely agree with you.
How a wolf eats a sheep is the wolf's freedom, because the sheep are powerless to resist, just like now."
Hundreds of tents and everything within them shattered into dust at this moment, scattering like smoke.
Ice shards, mixed with the remains of the Northern Nomads, were swept into the sky by the biting north wind, disappearing without a trace.
"Stop it!!!"
The raging fire in his heart could no longer endure even a single second.
Watching his cherished tribesmen, whom he led, vanish without a trace as if in a game, leaving no bones behind, and being powerless to stop it, was undoubtedly a disgrace and a sign of his incompetence as a leader.
He no longer had the presence of mind for cautious vigilance; the only thought remaining in his overheated brain was: Revenge!!!
Drawing his hunting knife, the excellent hunter, who had hunted countless dangerous beasts in the snowy mountains since childhood, moved with the speed of a snow leopard.
In just one step, he instantly covered nearly a hundred meters between himself and his target.
The gleaming hunting knife reached Rin's neck in the blink of an eye, swinging down from the upper left with enough force to cleave human flesh and bone in two.
This was his killing blow, demonstrating his rich hunting experience; whether man or beast, it had to be a fatal strike.
In the past, countless lives had fallen as prey beneath this very knife.
Alas, the young woman before him, who seemed startled by his appearance and stood motionless, could not become his next prey...
Just as the hunting knife was about to split the young woman's body in two, a momentary sensation of time distortion, a bizarre and kaleidoscopic illusion, flashed through.
The world flickered like an old television set malfunctioning, and then—
"Puff!"
The spear, held loosely in a slender right hand, had already pierced the Foreign People leader's chest after the world's image briefly distorted.
The Foreign People leader's hunting knife, held aloft by Rin's single hand, was but a hair's breadth from Rin's gracefully elegant, swan-like neck, yet it was an unbridgeable distance, forever out of reach.
"The ability to control ice is something I only recently acquired.
What I'm truly skilled at is martial arts.
The spear in my hand, though it strikes later, will always arrive first!
Of course, the same goes for a javelin."
Rin's voice remained as calm and unbothered as ever.
Ice gradually spread along the spear in Rin's hand, slowly re-freezing the Foreign People leader who had just broken free from the ice.
Unlike the instant freezing before, this time he would personally experience his body temperature being completely drained, his muscles, bones, and skin being frozen inch by inch.
"Imperial... Even if you kill me now, and slaughter my tribesmen, but... the warriors of the Northern Region are inexhaustible...
We are wolves, and your Empire is sheep...
The warriors of the Northern Region will use the blood of you Imperials to avenge me!"
Listening to the dying words of the pierced Foreign People leader, Rin clicked her tongue and shook her head, unconcerned.
She let go of the fully frozen ice spear, and it, along with the frozen Foreign People leader, shattered like glass on the icy ground.
"Since you yourself believe in the law of the jungle, then it's rather unsightly to say such things when you, as the weak, are being devoured by the strong."
Rin scanned the entire frozen world, exhaling a faint chill.
She tapped the sheathed yatsufusa on the ground, and the entire tribal settlement, frozen solid, was instantly erased from the world, vanishing without a trace, leaving behind only thousands of cradle-sized ice crystals.
These were Rin's main objective for this trip: to collect materials for the Seventh Legion soldiers' assessment.
"This is all the mourning you'll get.
You useless subordinates, these Northern Region people should have been stepping stones on my path forward, but now, for your sakes, I've smashed one."
After silently mourning to the sky, the Wind God Winged Dragon suddenly descended, fanning up a whirlwind that gathered the thousands of ice crystals on the ground.
It then opened its mouth and inhaled them into its belly, finally lowering its body and bringing its dragon head to the ground.
Rin leaped onto it.
"Materials collected.
Time to go."
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