I Can Only Cultivate In A Game-Chapter 349: Coming To A Decision
Victor reacted instantly, shielding several children with a burst of wind qi, pushing the debris away before it could hit anyone. But the little girl beside him had already been knocked over and scraped by the shockwave.
Blood trickled from a cut along her arm.
The surroundings fell into terrified silence.
Someone screamed, "The child is hurt! Fetch a healer!"
"No need," Victor murmured, already kneeling beside her.
Her eyes were wet with tears but she tried to be brave. "D-Don’t worry, great Iruhun. I’m okay..."
Victor shook his head softly.
"You don’t always have to be strong."
Before anyone could protest or panic further, he grabbed her arm, inspected the wound, and then...
He licked his thumb, gathered a bit of saliva, and rubbed it gently across the injury.
The healing light was near instantaneous.
Her flesh knitted, skin sealed and blood evaporated like steam.
The girl gasped. The other Kahr’uun practically froze in awe.
"He... he healed her."
"With saliva?"
"That—That was divine healing..."
"Impossible... even our greatest healers cannot mend wounds instantly!"
Victor stood and dusted his hands casually.
"It’s just something my body can do."
The crowd backed away reverently.
Rhozan himself bowed deeply.
Victor groaned loudly. "STOP. BOWING."
But they were far too stunned to obey.
---
As the day continued, Victor found himself unable to stay annoyed. The Kahr’uun were strange, yes. Overly reverent, yes. But they were also warm, curious, and full of life. They treated him not as a burden or a monster... but as hope.
And for someone like Victor who was constantly running, constantly surviving, that meant more than he wanted to admit.
The little girl clung to his arm afterward, proudly showing her completely healed injury to everyone. Victor couldn’t shake the smile from his face.
They’re... good people.
---
The next two days passed just as lively. Victor joined more games, tried more bizarre foods (one tasted like sugary snow mixed with lightning), and participated in crystal hunts in the deeper caverns. Everywhere he went, whispers followed:
"Great Iruhun..."
"The chosen one..."
"The protector..."
Victor gave up correcting them. He just sighed and learned to live with it. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎
The more time he spent in the underground ice city, the more interesting he found their customs, their humor, their unity. They were fragile, yet brave. Peaceful, yet constantly threatened.
And they adored him.
---
On the fourth night, the city bells rang deeply. Thousands gathered around the central ritual platform which was massive and circular, carved from glowing ice.
Rhozan stood at Victor’s side.
"It is time," he said solemnly. "My brother has returned from his preparations."
A tall figure emerged, draped in dark blue ceremonial robes lined with crystal threads. His eyes glowed faint silver.
Akaruun.
The High Priest.
Rhozan’s brother.
He stepped forward, and every single Kahr’uun bowed instantly.
Victor sighed helplessly.
"Yeah, I know. You’re all going to ignore me."
Akaruun didn’t bow, he simply studied Victor in silence, as though peering straight into his soul.
Then he raised his staff.
The ground trembled.
Several elders gathered behind him, forming an intricate formation.
The entire city began chanting a haunting, melodic phrase that rose and fell like waves of frozen wind:
"Iruhun na’vala... Iruhun na’vala... Iruhun na’vala..."
Victor held the little girl’s hand tightly.
"What are they saying?"
She looked up at him.
"They’re praying for the great Iruhun," she whispered. "So he can finally bring us peace... and save us from the bad thing."
Victor’s brows furrowed.
"Bad thing?"
She nodded with trembling voice.
"The bad thing killed my big brother... I hope great Iruhun kills it before it kills anyone else."
Victor froze.
The chant continued, echoing through the city like the cry of a dying world.
When the ritual finally ended, Victor found Rhozan.
"What is this bad thing the little girl mentioned? Is it..." Victor asked suspiciously.
Rhozan exhaled heavily.
"Yes... It is the corrupted being from the other world. The one that slipped through the cracks and came here with us. I know I tild you that everytime it appears, we defeat it... and truly we do... but not without paying a price."
Victor clenched his fists.
"So even if I leave here without helping... this will happen again?"
"Yes." Rhozan nodded. "But even if we prevail the next time it appears... there will always be casualties."
---
Victor lay in his bed that night, staring at the glowing ceiling.
He wasn’t obligated to help.
He wasn’t their chosen hero.
He wasn’t some ancient savior.
He was just Victor.
But the little girl’s trembling voice replayed in his head.
Her tiny hand in his.
Her brother’s death.
The fear in the people’s eyes.
Their hope in him.
Victor swallowed deeply.
For the first time in a long time... he didn’t know what he should do.
Her big brother was definitely not the only casualty and should he choose to leave, he wouldn’t be the last.
Sleep refused to come...
Even after all the years of hatred carved into humanity filled with anger, grief, decades of blood, he found himself pacing around the room, staring at the pale glowing walls, asking himself questions he never imagined he would.
And by the next morning, he had an answer.
He exhaled slowly as he rose from the massive bed. The air was cold enough to turn an ordinary human into a ice statue but Victor remained unaffected due to his bond with Gojo.
His mind replayed the truths he had been raised with:
The magical humanoids from beyond the Rift are humanity’s enemies.
Not stories. Not propaganda. Facts proven by history and the stains of blood across nations.
The Drakenar who claimed the volcanic regions due to their reptilian forms that thrive more in molten terrains. And yet, decided to expand further terraforming different regions of the earth to increase their population...
The Sylrith who were silver skinned manipulators that took the forests, enchanting the land with their magic and weaving illusions that lured countless humans to their doom.
The Umbryx, popularly known as the shadow walkers who turned vast swaths of Earth into shadowy wastelands, where nightmares roamed freely. They also infiltrated domed settlements and harvested humans like cattle.
Entire continents crumbled to their invasions. Humanity’s survival clung to mana cities, steel walls, arc defenses, and relentless soldiers.
If it wasn’t for the awakeners, the earth would have long been completely overrun by these beings.
Despite that, countless innocent lives had been lost.
Victor’s father had just been a miner and his life had been devoured by a Drakenar.
Victor clenched his fists. Even after all these months, the memory stabbed him sharply.
He hated them. Hated them with a clarity that burned brighter than his Dragon Breathing Arts.
Any human who had suffered losses hated them.
It wasn’t an ideology... it was instinct.
So the idea of helping any species from that other world should have disgusted him.
Should have.
But the Kahr’uun were different.
He knew it the moment he arrived here and the encounter didn’t lead to a battle or getting imprisoned.
They had sheltered him. Fed him. Allowed him to walk freely among them. Many even bowed to him as the Great Iruhun...
They had no ambitions for Earth.
No wars.
No expansions.
Just... survival.
Survival from a terror so ancient and so monstrous that even their warriors trembled at its presence.
Victor let out a final sigh before stepping out into the crystalline tunnels of the underground city.
"If this thing wipes out the Kahr’uun," he murmured to himself, "what says it won’t come for humanity next?"
It wasn’t pity.
It wasn’t mercy.
It wasn’t diplomacy.
It was practical.
If he destroyed the threat here and now, it might prevent a future catastrophe.
And after everything the Kahr’uun had done for him, walking away simply wasn’t something he could stomach.
With his decision made, he tightened his robes and started trekking through the tunnels.
"Time to tell Rhozan."
---
Unlike human cities, the Kahr’uun’s underground dwellings didn’t follow orderly structures. They were a maze of glowing frost, towering pillars of ice, spiraling walkways, and chamber after chamber of carved ice.
Victor stopped a young Kahr’uun woman carrying a bundle of azure herbs.
"Hey—have you seen Rhozan?"
Her antennae-like frost tendrils twitched in recognition. "The great Iruhun seeks Elder Rhozan? He has gone to the eastern sanctum."
"Eastern?" Victor frowned. "That way?" He pointed blindly.
"No," she said gently, redirecting his hand with a small, amused smile. "Farther. Beyond the lower rings."
"Right. Thanks."
She bowed and he waved awkwardly.
These people bowed too much.
As he walked, others he stopped told him the same thing:
Rhozan was in the east.
Deep east.
Past where the city’s carved light began to thin.
That alone was odd.
Victor had explored most of the Kahr’uun settlement since arriving, at least the parts they considered public. But the eastern sectors? He’d never ventured there. No one discouraged him but they simply had never mentioned it.
Ten minutes turned to twenty.
Twenty turned to almost forty.
The tunnels grew quieter.
Darker.
The soft luminous frost that coated the walls faded into deeper blues, then into near-black ice that reflected nothing.
Eventually Victor found himself standing before a structure unlike anything he’d seen in this world.
---
