Nano Mashin

Rumble!

The building collapsed because of the strong tremors.

The palace didn’t just collapse on the guest rooms side of the Northern Sea Ice Palace.

It happened all over the entire palace at the same time.

Everyone who thought that the palace made out of a single stone would never collapse saw that it could.

Crack!

Cracks appeared on the walls of the palace’s main building, which had its red tiles covered with white snow.

The walls began to crack, and the structure wobbled.

“E-earthquake!”

“Escape!”

Shouts erupted from everywhere, and the people in the palace began to run out.

No one was an exception.

Elders, the deputy, and the officials who were on the top floor of the main building all tried to escape from the palace, which was going to fall.

Bang!

Dan Jucheon broke the wall of the building and jumped out.

He was lucky that he was in a corner room on the top floor. If he had been in the middle of the palace, it would have been difficult for him to escape.

Thud!

“Th-this can’t be…”

Seol Young-gwi, an elder, jumped from the palace and landed next to Dan Jucheon, he couldn’t hide from what he was seeing, the Ice Palace was collapsing in all directions.

Dan Jucheon had the same reaction.

He looked at the main building, which had cracks in the walls with distraught eyes.

‘Why… why is this happening when I am trying to get my position…’

A disaster that had never happened since the creation of the Ice Palace.

Dan Jucheon’s gaze turned to another place.

“Achkk!”

“Help me!”

As the main building collapsed, the screams from the inside grew louder.

Just as there were people who managed to escape at the right moment, there were also those who couldn’t, and they were killed or stuck under the rubble.

What used to be a single stone which would never collapse turned into rubble.

If it were built with wood, except for those with horrible luck, everyone would have managed to escape outside.

Rumble!

The main building, which had tilted to one side, couldn’t bear weight since the palace’s pillars were broken, and the building was on the verge of falling.

“Kuak!”

Dan Jucheon, deputy king, hurriedly moved and spread cold qi on the broken pillars.

Swoosh!

White cold air gushed out of his hand and supported the broken pillars.

Thanks to that, the collapse of the main building, which was going to happen right away, was postponed.

Looking inside, he shouted.

“Come on, escape!”

He escaped in a hurry, but half the people and officials inside hadn't come out yet.

And those who heard the shout from Dan Jucheon hurriedly ran out.

Whoop!

Many were found by rocks that fell from the ceiling.

Many were in shock.

“Help the others escape and freeze the building!”

“Y-Yes!”

The warriors of the Ice Palace, including the elders who escaped, all joined in to delay the collapse of the palace.

Suddenly, they remembered that the leaders of the Wulin were being escorted to the VIP rooms.

“Elder Seol! Find our guests first!”

“Understood!”

Seol Young-gwi stopped using cold qi and got on the move.

It was because the VIP side of the room was quite high up, and it would be difficult to get them out if that part collapsed.

Seol Young-gwi’s face hardened as he moved towards the VIP building.

“This!”

The VIP building, which couldn’t handle the vibrations, had collapsed to the ground.

‘This is bad!’

When a guest gets into an accident or gets wounded, such a situation can never be rectified.

Shocked, he hurried towards the building, and fortunately, he saw the guests from the Demonic Cult a little further away.

And it wasn’t just them. Even those from the Yulin who were all covered in dust and gasping for air were there.

“Haa… Haaa…”

“It could have been worse.”

Hwang Bo-neung of the Hwang Bo clan sighed in relief as he looked at the wreckage.

Seeing that, Moyong Kang too nodded and answered.

“If the ceiling hadn’t been broken, we would have died.”

The leaders of the Yulin were in their rooms on the third floor, and they were almost crushed to death by the sudden collapse.

However, the ceiling, which should have collapsed first, suddenly froze, giving them time to escape.

“I’m so glad you are okay! Thank god!”

Seol Young-gwi approached the officials of the Yulin.

The one who responded to him was Jegal Sohi, whose shirt was soaked in blood. Since she was a woman, she had been given a separate room, and because she wasn’t able to react quick enough, debris had fallen on her.

“Haa… haa… What just happened? Didn’t you say that the cave where the Dragon Turtle has been sealed is far from here?”

It was the movement of the dragon which had been trying to escape that created the vibrations.

It was said that the vibrations became stronger as the Dragon Turtle grew, and it seemed like it was moving.

“This old man is shocked as it all happened suddenly. If the Dragon Turtle has broken through the Adularia stones, someone must have… Ah! No! Has the seal been lifted?”

Seol Young-gwi looked in the direction where the Dragon Turtle had been sealed.

At the same time, from the mountains to the north of the Ice Palace.

Heeeing!

Unlike the Ice Palace, where the vibrations were at the peak, that place looked exceptionally quiet, except for the sound of cold winds.

The mountain that had the Dragon Turtle sealed inside it.

There was nothing but silence around it.

Five hundred warriors emit cold qi in the cavity lit by fluttering torches with their palms to the floor.

‘This is strange.’

Elder Oh Mubang and Seol Yi-jeong, who were concentrating on the ice, were confused.

Their expressions were stiff.

Their hands were placed on the floor, infusing cold qi, but something felt off.

‘I can’t feel the heartbeat.’

Usually, when they would place their palms on the ground, they could feel the dragon moving.

The floor was supposed to shake because it kept on trying to break through the ice, but it wasn’t happening anymore.

Not a single movement.

‘There is no way it died from exhaustion.’

It was the Dragon that hadn’t died despite being frozen for hundreds of years.

Elder Seol Yi-jeong, who thought that something was strange, suddenly remembered something and stood up.

“Move, I need to check something.”

With that, he looked at the opening of the cave.

He climbed out of the cave and went to the top of the mountain.

‘Please… please…!’

He hoped that his premonition would turn up wrong.

Shortly after, a shocking sight greeted his eyes.

The building, the Ice Palace in the south, was collapsing.

“N-No way…”

At the scene that followed, Seol Yi-jeong’s eyes trembled.

Bang!

Although it had fallen, there was something which could be seen.

In the middle of the collapsing Ice Palace, something long and humongous appeared from the ground.

It had long black scales on his body and a dragon’s head.

“Dr-Dragon Turtle!”

It was their delusion that they thought it was locked up in the cave.

Kwakwakwakwang!

The sound of something trying to come up from the ground.

Everyone could hear it.

It wasn’t a simple earthquake. Everybody was warned by their five senses.

‘Well, something is coming.’

Grrrr!

And the ground in front of the main building of the Ice Palace curved in on itself with slight tremors until something huge appeared.

Crack!

Keeooooo!

Everyone held their breath as they looked at it.

A long and broad shadow was visible through the dust.

At first glance, it looked like a dragon, no, more like an Imoogi, but the body seemed different.

It looked like the Spirit Beasts that people once looked at in ancient books.

The only unexpected part was that it was so much bigger than what they imagined.

“How could this happen? Does that mean that it didn’t try to climb up the Adularia stones but went through the ground to get out instead?”

Looking at the long and huge neck of the dragon which appeared in front of him, Dan Jucheon couldn’t hide his shock.

The reason why the vibrations were getting stronger wasn’t because the dragon was getting stronger. It was because he was getting closer to the Ice Palace.

“We felt him until a while ago!”

Elder Oh Mubang looked at the dragon in fear.

This meant that the evil creature moved away by digging up the ground and only kept on returning to the original place to deceive the humans.

‘We kept looking down on the dragon!’

Spirit Beasts aren’t ordinary animals.

Their wickedness could be compared to that of humans.

Grunt!

Dan Jucheon looked at the Ice Palace, which had been destroyed by the dragon, grunting as he took out his weapon and flew for the dragon’s long neck.

“You! You destroyed the Palace, so in return for that, I will take your head!”

Visor!

Dan Jucheon took out a single weapon, the Snow Field Blade, which began to release cold qi to strike down the dragon covered in black scales.

But,

Woah!

“N-No way!”

Even when the sword was releasing qi, it couldn’t pierce the scales.

It was as if the scales were made of cold iron. The sword was the only thing that trembled.

He was shocked for a brief moment, but Dan Jucheon didn’t give up as he swung his sword again.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Instead of piercing the scales, all his sword could do was leave behind a small scar.

The only damage happening was to Dan Juecheon’s pride.

“Kuwaaaakkkkk!!”

“Ugh! My ears!”

Everyone covered their ears at the loud roar.

It was then.

Flash! Flash!

“Ack!”

“Run!”

A flash of light appeared in the body of the roaring Dragon Turtle, causing a strong electric current to bounce everywhere.

Everything was so sudden that no one knew where to escape.

And Dan Jucheon was no exception.

Shock!

He created a shield using cold qi, but it broke in an instant as he got thrown thirty feet away.

“Kuak!”

Thud!

Dan Jucheon, who stopped rolling on the ground, couldn’t hide his disappointment.

There were no significant injuries, but he couldn’t hide his displeasure.

It had been a few years since he reached the Supreme Master level, and no one was a match for him.

However, he didn’t realize that he would be so powerless in front of that creature.

It was indeed a creature worthy of being called a disaster.

‘How can we succeed?’

The fact that he could only scratch the scales meant that no physical attacks would work on that monster.

The body of the Dragon Turtle was as strong as a gold ingot.

‘We need to work together to find a weakness!’

Or they wouldn’t be able to kill it.

Dan Jucheon looked around.

He shouted to the warriors who were wandering around the wave of lightning that the Dragon caused.

“Calm Down! Warriors! If we don’t get rid of the monster today, the palace will never stand!”

“Y-yes!”

Dan Jucheon, including the elders who were panicking, calmed down.

As the top leaders stepped forward, the warriors who were scattered were brought under control.

Rumble!

At the same time, the troops of the Yulin, who were on the outskirts of the palace, discovered the Dragon Turtle and tried to come over.

It was then.

Kwakwakwakwakwang!

Another vibration came from the ground, along with another head of the dragon popping up from the broken ground.

“Ugh! A… a different head?”

The Dragon Turtle sealed in the Ice Palace was a four-headed spirit beast.

The newly protruding head of the dragon let out a menacing roar, preventing people from moving.

“Kwaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!”

“T-this! Everyone move!”

“Avoid!”

The ones in the lead shouted.

At the same time, just as it happened a moment back, a wave of lightning occurred from the Dragon Turtle’s roar.

Crack! Crackle!

The warriors of Yulin turned around to run.

However, it was difficult to respond immediately as the dragon’s attack was fast.

“Kuaaak!”

“Keep going!”

Some warriors bounced away after getting hit by the wave of lightning. They all fell since they were electrocuted.

“Get up!”

More than half of them had died from cardiac arrest.

In an instant, more than 80 people died.

“It can use lightning?”

Hwang Bo-nueng of the Hwang Bo clan, spoke.

He just realized that what he signed up for wasn’t a battle with a wild beast.

Spirit creatures use energy.

“Miss Jegal, are you okay? It would be better if you stepped back for a while.”

Moyong Kang of the Moyong family tried to comfort Jegal Sohi, who had been hurt.

Even if she wasn’t severely injured, he felt that it would be better to ask her to back off.

Despite their concern, Sohi tried to go somewhere with a serious expression.

Clench!

Moyong Kang grabbed her wrist.

“Where are you going?”

“W… we need to move. Leader Moyong. We need to inform the Lord of the Demonic Cult right away.”

“About what?”

“That dragon, it’s trying to defeat us individually!”

“?”

“If I am right, the first head appeared to examine the situation above. And it was no coincidence that our men were stopped. The other head should probab…”

Kwakwakwang!

Before she could finish her words, the ground shook once again.

The vibration was rushing to the northwest side where the Demonic Cult’s troops were located.

Just as Jegal Sohi predicted.

“Leader Moyong! We need to tell them to keep their distance from that thing!”

The contingents of the Yulin approached it hastily, and they ended up losing their lives.

If the Demonic Cult’s men were also hit by the Dragon Turtle’s lightning without any defense, they would die.

Moyong Kang frowned.

He didn’t want to help the Demonic Cult, but it would be difficult to deal with the Dragon Turtle if they lost too many troops.

‘Ah, there is nothing to decide.’

“Yuu!”

“Yes father!”

“Tell the Demonic Cult’s contingents to keep as far away from the Dragon Turtle as possible. Hurry up!”

“Yes!”

Moyong Kang’s son, Moyong Yuu, who had been listening to Jegal Sohi’s words, hurriedly moved to the northwest where the Demonic Cult was located.

Moyong Kang, who sent him away, shouted to the surviving warriors.

“Keep your distance! Bring in the fire arrows!”

“Yes!”

Since he was the only one who witnessed a dragon before, Moyong Kang had gone through all the ancestors’ records and came to know about the use of the fire arrows.

Upon receiving the orders, the warriors began to light up the arrows which they had prepared in advance.

Meanwhile, Moyong Yuu, who was heading to the northwest, couldn’t hide his shock.

“Da-damn it! Already!”

Kwakwakwang!

He tried to outrun the dragon, but he couldn’t beat the speed at which the dragon’s huge neck moved.

Suddenly, the third head of the dragon popped out from the ground.

“D-dragon!”

“Move away!”

The cries of the members from the Demonic Cult could be heard.

Unlike when it blocked the advance of the Yulin troops, the dragon came up from right in the middle of their unit this time.

If the dragon used the lightning in that position, everyone would die.

Moyong Yuu, who wanted to say it, shouted as loud as he could.

“Spread out right now!”

But the moment he shouted, the dragon’s roar echoed everywhere.

“Kwaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!”

“N-No!”

In front of Moyong Yuu, a white flash of light appeared in the dragon’s body and then made its way outside, causing lightning.

Crackle!!!

Naturally, he thought that all the cultists would get electrocuted and thrown away.

But something unbelievable happened.

“Ugh?”

The lightning from the dragon didn’t spread out like before but went to one place in the ground and got absorbed by something.

“Wh-what went wrong?”

When he looked closely, all the cultists were bowing down, and they looked unharmed.

In various places, something like iron bars were stuck in the ground.

As if it had absorbed the lightning that the dragon emitted, they lit up blue.

Crackle!

“Unbelievable! Did they stop the lightning from the dragon with that one thing? Wh-what the hell is that?”

What was even more shocking was that the lightning that had descended through the iron rods flowed into the ground, and the cultists were slowly breathing, making sure that they weren’t affected by it.

And when the lightning completely vanished.

“Success!”

“Wahhhh!”

All the cultists shouted at once.

Chun Yeowun looked at the footwear they were wearing.

It was footwear, which had a sole that was made from hardening the sap of a tree brought in as an imperial trade item.

All the cultists were wearing them.

[Current dissipated to the ground had been reduced by over 90%.]

‘Lightning rod and rubber? I was skeptical, but this is a success Nano!’

Chun Yeowun’s lips formed into a smile as he looked at the dragon.