Chương 160: Chapter 159: Rescue With No Invoice

CRACK... CRACK... The ten-meter wall of ice blocking the cavern shattered into millions of fragments under the light of Astra's holy blade. What lay beyond froze the frigid air at the bottom of the cave even harder: Forty-nine of Guild Divine Envoy's S-Rank Hunters sat huddled in a narrow rock alcove. Their lips had gone purple, skin pale as corpses, fingers frozen rigid around their weapons' hilts.

In front of them, ten Ice Giants — towering twenty meters tall, cast from eternal ice — raised jagged ice pillars overhead, ready to crush all of them at once. At the very front, shielding the rest, President Lee Jin-Soo lay face-down in the snow, not moving at all. CLANG! Astra stepped over the rubble and swung the Sun-Cleaving Dragon Blade lightly through the air. Solar Halo. A thirty-meter sphere of warm golden light burst from the blade's edge, radiating pure, holy heat. SIZZLE-SIZZLE-SIZZLE-SIZZLE!

There was no clash of metal. The Ice Giants shattered under Astra's blade. Her Solar Halo drove the worst of the cold away from the trapped Hunters and held back falling ice without turning the cavern into a furnace. Steam curled over shallow meltwater near the rescue zone. The survivors were moved out of direct cold as the warm field and emergency blankets began controlled rewarming. They blinked their eyes open in confusion, staring at the warm steam curling up around them.

"Are we... in heaven?" Lucian knelt beside Lee Jin-Soo instead of answering. He dragged the guild president onto a dry rock ledge and laid him flat on his back. Two fingers under the jaw. No pulse, no breath — cardiac arrest.

"Heaven, my foot. Stay with us — I did not come down here to lose you after all this." Layered Focus: stabilizing the cardiac mana pathway. He placed both hands over Lee Jin-Soo's chest and began compressions in the proper rhythm of modern emergency resuscitation. This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. His fine Spell Control fed a narrow thread of warmth along the disrupted mana pathway. Beneath the president, the team's rewarming field kept working. PUMP! PUMP!

PUMP! A Vance magitech defibrillator set its pads against the president's chest and read the rhythm. [SHOCKABLE RHYTHM DETECTED — STAND CLEAR.] FLASH! Lee Jin-Soo's body jolted. A beat later his chest lifted on its own, and the monitor found a rhythm — weak, ragged, but there. The rescue team kept him flat on the warming field and did not stop working.

He turned his clouded eyes up to the figure kneeling beside him: a ten-year-old boy in a soaked-through shirt, hands still resting on his chest to keep the warmth flowing through his meridians. The old president's eyes suddenly welled up with tears. He tried to bow from the ledge, but the medical team kept him flat and warm.

"Mr. Vance... why... why would you risk your life jumping down here to save the man who deliberately turned against you and boycotted your company?" Lucian withdrew his hands, wiping the water off his fingers with a handkerchief, his voice flat and even.

"Because you're a terrible commander — stubborn and full of empty pride. But you spent hours shielding those forty-nine young soldiers of yours." He looked the man straight in the eye.

"A commander willing to take the hit for the people under him doesn't get to die in some godforsaken hole like this. That would be a waste." Lee Jin-Soo's eyes squeezed shut. The tears ran sideways into his hair, and he did not try to lift his head again. Ting! Ting! The Unified System V2. 0 panel opened in front of him: [EMERGENCY RESCUE LOG:] ● Survivors transferred to controlled rewarming and medical evacuation. ● Fee charged to rescued Hunters: 0 KRW.

[COST STATUS:] ● Vance Earth Holdings emergency operations absorbed equipment, flight and medical costs. ● Final medical outcomes remain under hospital supervision. Lucian pulled an emergency thermal coat from storage and draped it over the shoulders of a shivering nineteen-year-old Hunter sitting on the ledge, then turned and waved Evelyn down.

"Guide the stretchers to the rescue lifts. Medical transports are waiting above." Lee Jin-Soo, still on the warming field, looked up at Lucian.

"I will withdraw Divine Envoy from the hardline operation, call for a suspension of hostilities, and join independent restructuring talks. The other guilds will make their own decisions." Later that night. The rooftop of Seoul National University Hospital blazed with the headlights of dozens of ambulances. Vance Earth Holdings' armored helicopter touched down gently on the landing pad, greeted by cheers loud enough to shake the whole block, from the crowds gathered in the streets below.

Stretcher after stretcher carrying the S-Rank Hunters was carried safely down for continued treatment. Every international broadcast channel ran the same breaking bulletin at once:'THE BUSAN MIRACLE: Fifty Hunters Recovered Alive! Chairman Lucian Vance Personally Descended Into the Ice Cavern for a Historic, Fee-Free Rescue!' Lucian, in just his black shirt with the sleeves rolled up, stepped down from the helicopter and took a hot cup of coffee from Eleanor's hand. At the rooftop entrance.

Professor Kang Min-Jae sat in his metal wheelchair, hands resting on his lap, looking up at the ten-year-old under the glare of the floodlights. The old professor watched the ambulances roll away. After a long moment, he gave Lucian a quiet nod.

"That was the answer I needed to see."