The crunching of snow under his foot was all Horen could hear as he leisurely climbed the path or rather, the glacier leading up to the mountain peak.

"A fine night," Words flowed on their own matching his calm demeanour, "Neither the moon nor the stars are here to disturb the solace of shadows..."

As he spoke these words, he soon reached the peak almost instantaneously avoiding all the pesky critters that would've blocked his way.

The peak of the mountain was a gigantic crater, filled with what seemed like an eternal solace of ice, a frozen lake, the origin of the river...

"Trespasser leave, this is no place for a human like you to step foot in!"

...and the residence of a demon.

Demons, beasts who've consumed life and blood, risen in power and grown into fearsome monsters.

In a way, they can be considered as beasts who have unlocked their spiritual wisdom. The mama bear can be considered a beast who has unlocked spiritual wisdom and has become capable of greater intelligence.

However, this world lacks the Qi to grant her a proper ascension...

'Meanwhile, this one's...'

"Oh demon from beyond the skies, give me a few drops of your blood and I'll leave."

Haoren continued his walk, leaping down into the crater... Landing upon the hard, cold surface of the glacier.

"Hmph, how presumptuous! You think too highly of yourself, human."

The voice reverberated through the surroundings yet, not a soul was in sight.

"Presumptuous? I believe I ask not much of you."

Haoren stopped in his steps as he relaxed his form, seemingly not caring much about the deep voice of the demon.

As Haoren stood his ground on the glacier, the air around him crackled with tension. The demon's presence grew more palpable, its power sending shivers down Haoren's spine. But he remained calm, his focus unwavering as he prepared for whatever comes next.

Suddenly, the glacier beneath him began to tremble and shake violently. Haoren remained calm, and with a swift movement, he leapt into the air just as the ice beneath him burst open, revealing a monstrous maw of a fish with rows of razor-sharp teeth.

"Behave," Haoren commanded with authority, his voice cutting through the loud winds. Shadows coalesced around him, twisting and swirling into dark tendrils that bound the giant fish smashing it into the icy surface of the glacier, forcing it to lower its head and close its gaping maw.

Haoren descended gracefully onto the back of the subdued creature, his movements fluid and precise. he sat upon his newly acquired "throne" ignoring the murderous intent that surrounded him.

"Why hide behind such pawns instead of facing me yourself? Or are you perhaps afraid?"

"Measly mortal, you dare?!"

The demon's voice boomed once more, filled with fury and frustration at Haoren's defiance. The entire glacier cracked as from the very centre a gigantic head rose from it. 

Jewelled scales reminiscent of ice, long whiskers like that of a dragon and a titanic body that made Haoren and the "little" fish seem like ants.

In other words, a huge fat carp with cool scales.

"..." On the other hand, Haoren was slightly troubled he wanted to attempt to negotiate peacefully but that failed before even becoming a possibility, "his" pride didn't allow him to do so.

'If it can't be done through peace, how about fear?'

This brought him to another problem... How does one spread fear?

He was always there in that hospital room, his interactions limited to a few people. The fears he felt slowly disappeared, he wasn't afraid of the dark since eventually that was all he ever saw, same went for ghosts as he often had hallucinations after he lost his vision.

It was a bit hard for someone like him... so he did something that no one should ever do. He decided to use the stories he once read and listened to as a reference.

"Quite the arrogant one aren't you?" Haoren began, his gaze dripping with unbridled contempt, "When you're nothing but a frog in a well..."

Haoren's plan was to show himself as a confident and strong cultivator and scare the Carp demon... Unfortunately, the Carp did not know of the idiom Haoren had just spoken of. So, to the demon living in a crater who heard this, it felt like Haoren was calling her a frog...

"HOW DARE YOU!!"

With this final declaration, the battle began.

Shards of ice coalesced to form countless lances surrounding Haoren, there was a limit to the distance as well as the quantity to the shadows Haoren could spread out so he had to wait till they were closer to making sure that the lance didn't pass through his defence.

"Hak!"

Of course, the demon did not let go of such an opportunity as one of its whispers whipped at Haoren and despite using his shadows to guard against it Haoren was thrown off.

"Rawwr!!" One of the children of the Carp demon took this opportunity to attack Haoren with its jaws, Its fate was similar to its brethren from before being tied down by shadows and used as cushioning for Haoren's landing.

Feeling the odd movement of wind against his backHaoren looked towards the carp demon. "Wha-?"

A baffled voice barely left his mouth as the carp demon who ravenously sucked in the winds into its inflated body closed its mouth.

"Stop!"

Haoren's shadows approached the Carp demon as the dark tendrils jutted out of the glacier, wrecking the icy floor seven kins of the Carp demon also came out of the glacier blocking the shadows but they were grabbed by the tendrils and thrown yet, they delayed the shadows enough that the Carp demon had prepared whatever it was trying. Haoren hurriedly gathered the shadows to shield himself but he was late by a moment.

"ROOOOOAAAAAR!!!"

The thunderous roar reverberated through the mountain peak. The glacier that had scars from today's battle now had cracks throughout its whole surface.

As the roar subsided, a bud of darkness unfurled to reveal Haoren, warm blood flowing from his left ear and his robes slightly tattered.

*Bathump, Bathump!

His chest seemed to roar aloud with the beating of his heart, droplets of sweat clung to his skin and a slight tremble of his hands brought along a feeling quite foreign to him.

"Fear?" He muttered.

Three of the Carp's kin shot out a breath of frost at Haoren. In response, he leapt into the sky to dodge, however, as that only made him a predictable target the fishes turned their breath towards him.

"No..." Still muttering to himself, Haoren used his shadows to create a platform mid-air to jump off of.

After getting away from the frost breath of the fishes, Haoren landed quietly and let his shadows take care of the fishes.

His right foot was slightly frozen from the breath but, he did not care much as he felt his face with his hand...

"Smiling?"

It all became clear to him then, he was having fun. In a way, this was like some game wasn't it? Playing around was always fun.

He rushed towards the Carp demon, the drumming of his heart all that he could hear.

The demon spoke something but he did not hear what it was. He simply rushed at it, the demon's whiskers attacked him almost trying to pierce his body but his shadows formed tendrils that parried the whisker.

However, the whiskers receded and attacked again. This time enveloped within a pure white aura, they easily tore away the shadows as they reached Haoren.

"Haha!' A joyous laugh chimed through the icy battlegrounds, shadows gathered forming a blade within the man's hand as he recalled the memories of when he was with the person who was most precious to "him" and the one who taught "him" everything he knew. 

The blade danced with a dark hue that seemed to resemble an intent but was most definitely not an intent.

"Tree." The blade met the whisker barely competing with it before being crushed and turned to shadows. The whisker grazed Haoren's shoulder yet, he did not stop. 

A second whisker followed right after, this time Haoren did the same and created another blade. However, his stance seemed more polished, more sturdy... more dangerous.

"Rock."

The blade met the whisker, this time, however, it was a fairly even match and the blade although damaged, was able to deflect the attack completely.

...

The Carp demon had begun to grow anxious. The mere ant that it thought of as nothing but a nuisance seemed to grow stronger with each passing moment.

'This is not how it's supposed to be!'

The carp demon was originally a small carp but, it had chanced upon a dragon's blood essence. However, demons that were far stronger than it, tried to eat the carp that had yet to absorb the blood essence.

However, the heavens treasured the carp as it fell to this lower realm through a spatial crack instead.

And when it thought it'd die in vain, it discovered a Millenium ice jade crystal. It had ruled this place for centuries and had reached the pinnacle of this world... but it was never able to leap through and ascend as a dragon for the world did not possess all the energies required for such a transformation and the ice jade only had Yin-ice essence.

But it had nurtured its' soul quite a bit. Yet, despite its draconic roar that was also a soul attack, the human male did not falter against it. 

And after its whiskers failed... the carp no longer held back, it let out a frost breath much like its kin. But this one enveloped the whole crater.

...

Haoren covered his face to guard against the frost, the mist now covered his entire vision. With a slash of his blade, he made the mist disperse yet not a soul except for the kin was in sight.

"Huh?"

Just then he realised something. His gaze snapped upwards, and there it was a fat glowing carp diving down towards him...

He steadied his blade as he smiled in anticipation.

"Mountain."

In between its descent, the carp began to halt almost as if it hit something... Its body felt crushed by what seemed like a mountain and then... the pressure disappeared and it fell helplessly.

In front of its gaze was the reaper, here to take its life with that accursed dark blade...

The reaper's hand reached out and it flinched, finally what hadn't happened before would happen this time as it would deprived of all of its possessions.

*Tak

But all it heard was a light sound and as it opened its eyes it saw the human male, smiling as it flicked its head, "My win~"