Chapter 95: Flame Beneath the Ice

"Fugang."

Meaning flame beneath the ice.

It was not the Common tongue, nor was it those obscure and difficult-to-understand Northern dialects.

It was said to come from a certain epic passed down through generations of the "Frostthroat" clan.

Young Fugang was always dissatisfied with his name.

In his little head, "flame" should be the most powerful thing in the world, besides the chieftain.

It could dispel the cold and bring rare warmth to the tribesmen in the ice and snow.

Even the meat chunks that were originally hard and made his teeth tremble with cold became soft, juicy, and delicious after being smoked and roasted by the flames, making him wish he could swallow his tongue.

And after learning from the warriors in the tribe that those powerful Barbarians protected by ancestral spirits often also burned with the most intense anger in their hearts,

he became increasingly disgusted with the meaning of his name.

Flames should burn brightly and unreservedly.

Not be covered beneath a layer of ice.

Therefore, young Fugang, although he had the sturdiest body among his peers, rarely introduced the origin of his name proudly like the little friends around him.

He just used the muscles on his arms and a feigned indifferent expression to change the subject.

But he was, after all, a child whose mind was not yet mature and who longed for recognition from his companions.

Even if he acted like he didn't care on the outside, every night when it was quiet, he would pester his mother before going to sleep, asking over and over again if his name had any other meaning.

His perseverance in getting to the bottom of things was as if it could melt even the frost.

It was just that the names of newborns in the Frostthroat tribe were often given by the chieftain himself after divination a month after they were born.

The young woman, who was simple, hardworking, and had never left the Frostmoss Highlands since birth, didn't know any more about the meaning of the two characters "Fugang" than he did.

And she couldn't possibly disturb the busiest and most respected old man in the tribe for such a small matter.

So she just repeated the meaning she had already said countless times.

"Flame burning beneath the ice."

"Ice layer, flame."

"Ice, flame..."

And whenever she faced the child's endless questioning and gradually lost patience, she would bring out the little story she had also repeated countless times.

"Disobedient children will be snatched from their rooms by the Winter-Spirit Hag at night and turned into snowmen who can't speak."

It had to be said that children on the icefield did indeed fall for this.

Especially when hearing about the Hag riding her greyish broom, using her ugly, withered, branch-like claws to grab children by the neck and drag them out of their quilts.

No matter how excited Fugang was, he could only shrink his head into the quilt in fear and beg his mother not to extinguish the stove fire that night.

Time passed.

As his body grew sturdier and his height shot up,

even his mother, who once needed to squat to look him in the eye, had to tilt her head when speaking to him.

The worries of his youth had been replaced by more green and chaotic sorrows and expectations.

The cold light flashing on the axe blade in the ice and snow, the scars added to his arms, the heat exhaled when the Winter Wolf roared... and at least the braids swaying behind the girl's head.

Fugang no longer cared about the specific meaning of his name.

It was just a code name for a form of address.

"Clatter."

He weighed the heavy backpack, stuffed full of all kinds of supplies.

A trace of helplessness appeared on Fugang's face, which still retained the greenness of youth.

"No need to bring so much stuff; you can buy it all in the town outside."

His small protest naturally couldn't overcome his mother's worry.

He was also much more sensible, knowing that his family was worried about him, who was about to travel far.

He didn't complain, just joked a few times, wanting to smooth out the wrinkles on his mother's forehead, and then carried the bundle firmly on his back.

He was sent off and walked out of the house.

"Ah..."

A gasp came from his ear.

He looked over and only saw a nimble figure like a snow rabbit, hurriedly leaving with two powerful long legs.

Leaving behind a light-blue, slender braid that leaped in the snow light.

"Not going to say goodbye to her?"

Beside him, his mother, with a trace of teasing, patted his shoulder lightly.

Fugang just shook his head and tightened the backpack behind him.

The hunting party happened to return.

The giant snowfield mammoth, with its thick, brownish fur frozen with ice crystals, was carried into the tribe by several Barbarian warriors with bulging muscles and strong bodies.

On the wooden sled behind, there were also many large and small prey.

A bumper harvest under the protection of ancestral spirits.

With so much prey, this deep winter would not be as hard for the Frostthroat clan as in the past.

On both sides of the road, the cheers of the tribesmen filled with joy reached his ears.

Looking at those hunting party members with their heads held high, a trace of envy flashed in Fugang's eyes, and then quickly disappeared deep in his ice-blue eyes.

As the most valiant warrior among the young generation in the tribe,

he could have been one of them, it was just that...

Fugang shook his head vigorously, throwing the hesitation out of his mind.

Determination reappeared on his face.

A Winter Wolf following the team smelled a familiar scent.

Grinning its tongue, it walked over with light steps.

Its body pressed against Fugang's thigh, and its furry head rubbed against his palm.

Its long tail, swinging at high speed, rolled up bursts of snowflakes on the ground, and its wolf eyes, enough to deter monsters, were squinting comfortably and happily.

In his palm came the cold, smooth touch of the Winter Wolf's fur.

The sudden action of his most loyal partner caused the burly man walking at the very front of the hunting party to notice Fugang by the side of the road.

He greeted his teammates and walked over with big strides.

"Decided?"

"Yeah."

"No regrets?"

Fugang nodded vigorously.

In front of him, the warrior who always told those stories from the past to the children in the tribe after the hunt was no longer young.

His temples seemed to be soaked in frost, all white.

His thick, hard palm fell heavily on Fugang's shoulder.

"Pretty good."

"Just know where you're going."

There wasn't much regret in his words, only the gratification of seeing a young man find his path forward.

After thinking for a moment, the warrior took out a mammoth tusk refracting a warm bone light from his bosom and stuffed it into Fugang's hand.

"Go."

"Whenever you want, come back anytime."

"The hunting party will always have a spot for you."

"..."

Fugang, clutching the ivory, accompanied by his mother, arrived at the last stop before leaving the tribe.

"Whoosh."

The orange-red flame burned quietly, only occasionally when the cold wind blew, did it make a few faint burning sounds.

It didn't have the so-called firewood in the eyes of the world, just quietly falling on the ice rock surface engraved with complex patterns and emitting a wild aura.

It devoured the ice, snow, and cold in the plateau air, as if turning them into fuel that made it rise and boil.

Behind the flames, in the very center of the altar, stood a pitch-black totem.

The patterns on its surface were blurred; even if one looked closely, it was difficult to distinguish the patterns carved on it.

Seemed to be some kind of flower?

Children in the tribe who had not yet reached adulthood were not allowed to approach, and touching was forbidden.

And as they gradually grew up and lost their curiosity, they often no longer paid attention to the patterns on the totem.

Fugang was the same.

Regarding the sacred flame that was said to come from ancient times before his eyes, his only impression was the sentence the chieftain answered with a smile when facing his doubts in his youth:

"This is the treasure of the Frostthroat clan. In this world, as long as one tribesman is still alive."

"The flame will never go out."

Now, many years had passed since that day.

The chieftain was still the same smiling person; the aged face, covered in wrinkles since he could remember, seemed no different from before.

Or maybe there were a few more wrinkles, it was just that he hadn't noticed.

Countless thoughts flowed, and the surging heart gradually became calm under the shroud of firelight.

About to travel far.

This old man, who had named him since Fugang was born, would also represent the entire tribe and offer his final wishes.

"Hum-BOOM!"

The originally calm, burning flames suddenly flared violently. The warm radiance of the fire intertwined and merged with the dazzling halo beneath the clouds, and under the guidance of the pitch-black totem, it transformed into a beam of light that shone down gloomily, enveloping Fugang.

His lips moved, and the old man, who was reciting unknown chants, had ice-blue light flickering at his fingertips.

Trembling, he outlined wild and sacred patterns on the Barbarian's green face.

It flashed and then extinguished.

The ice-blue light seemed to seep into his body, gradually dimming and disappearing.

That was the blessing from the tribal ancestral spirits.

Fugang stood up slowly and bowed his head to the old man who was looking at him with a smile, and to the flames and totem further back.

After today, he would completely leave the tribe and find his own path.

Suddenly, there was movement in the crowd watching from the side.

Amidst the laughter of the tribesmen filled with kindness.

The girl with the slender braid, like a snow rabbit, came to his side panting.

Gradually approaching, the originally hasty and messy footsteps became increasingly sluggish.

A shy blush appeared on her fair and tender cheeks.

She didn't speak.

She just held it with both hands and handed the slender chain she had woven herself to Fugang's eyes.

He reached out and took the necklace, looking at the pretty girl in front of him.

He opened his mouth, seeming to want to say something.

At this moment, the world seemed to have been pressed on the pause button.

The snowflakes blowing down and the swaying flame strands were frozen in mid-air; the biting cold wind that had been howling above his head all year round stopped, and the laughter in the crowd around him suddenly disappeared.

The girl, the old man, and his mother looking at him in the crowd seemed to be frozen in place.

Subconsciously, it seemed he had already anticipated what was going to happen; Fugang wanted to struggle and shout, but he was also unable to move.

Hum—

In the next second, time accelerated sharply.

The already sturdy muscles gradually expanded, the greenness on his face was replaced by maturity and wind and frost, and rough stubble grew on his chin;

the girl in front of him also broke away from youth in the passage of time, the old man's hair became whiter, and his mother's eye corners were filled with wrinkles.

Then, it was that disgusting, nauseating dark purple light emitting a decaying aura.

In the air that should have been filled with ice and cold, some kind of extremely fine plant spores like smoke suddenly permeated.

Carrying a rich malice hidden in the deepest part of nature, the spores landed lightly on the tribesmen.

Taking root and sprouting, drawing vitality.

The skin that had not shown any signs of decline under the erosion of wind and frost gradually turned grey-green because of the loss of life, and dirty spots appeared on the surface.

Mycelium squirmed, growing and spreading from beneath the pores and between the hair strands, entangling and growing with each other...

Having experienced it countless times, Fugang still closed his eyes, not daring to look again.

That memory, which was more painful than the sharpest fangs, washed over his mind again and again.

Even though many years had passed.

He still remembered.

After returning to the tribe, the ruins buried in ice and snow before his eyes.

Personally digging open the cold snow soil and burying the corpses of the tribesmen under the ice monument;

stripping the fur of the Winter Wolf that had long since stiffened, piercing the wolf mouth with bone nails made of mammoth ivory, and embedding it in his chest;

tearing apart those entangled thorns, straightening the collapsed totem, picking up the fragments on the ground, and using the cold wind and ice crystals to make it into an axe blade with a faint, ghostly light...

Sitting alone in front of the altar where only a faint flame was burning.

What Fugang held in his hand was the simple necklace that seemed to still retain body temperature and was full of the girl's feelings.

The cold, frost-like face that had never changed even when facing the shadow cast by a dragon.

Suddenly noticed a hot drop sliding down.

And it was only at this moment.

He finally knew the true meaning of his name.

"Fugang."

"Flame beneath the ice."

"Crackle."

The residual moisture in the branches, under the burning of the flames, broke free from the constraints of the wood fibers, making a crisp sound.

Fugang opened his eyes fiercely, and the chilling cold surrounding his body gradually dissipated with the extinction of the nightmare.

The wolf mouths overlapped on his chest, and the silver-white fur of the cloak swayed lightly with the evening breeze; the fine chain with bone-tooth pendants around his neck refracted the flame light under the reflection of the fire; the obsidian hand-axe at his waist fell lightly to the ground.

He sat by the campfire, his rugged face still the coldness that seemed to be covered by frost and without any ripples.

As if he had just squinted for a nap, and nothing had happened.

But the temperature that was gradually rising in the camp, and the ice crystals flickering with fluorescent light in the air around him, showed the fluctuations in his heart just now.

The giant oak tree he was leaning against seemed intact, with only faint ice light flashing in the gaps of the rough bark.

In reality, from the huge root system deep in the soil all the way to the tiny branches of the canopy, the inside wrapped by the bark had all turned into ice sculptures.

"Achoo!"

Xia Nan sat opposite the campfire, his body shivering, and he sneezed fiercely.

It was hard to imagine that in the hottest season of the year, he, wearing double-layered armor, could still catch a cold.

He stretched out his hands and roasted them by the fire.

He looked up slightly and glanced at the Barbarian Fugang sitting quietly opposite him.

Of course, he knew that the sudden change in the camp environment was related to the other.

Since discovering that mushroom in the Goblin nest during the day, the other had been somewhat wrong.

But Fugang didn't mean to explain, so he didn't ask.

Having developed to this point, Xia Nan couldn't just say nothing.

Hesitating slightly, with some caution, he spoke slowly:

"Is there... some situation?"

The Barbarian didn't raise his head, his ice-blue eyes reflecting the orange-red firelight.

"Nothing."

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 96 =====