King of the Wilderness

Kelly knew that she had survived, relying on ancient wisdom, she had survived.

After a brief rest, she tightly hung the hard-won Thunderbird at her waist and, with weary yet hopeful steps, began moving toward the shelter.

She didn’t venture back into the complex terrain of the forest that required constant vigilance; her hunt was complete, and she no longer needed to carefully observe footprints or track animals. She just wanted to return as quickly as possible.

Therefore, she chose to move along the fixed ice edge of the coastline. This area was relatively flat and open, allowing her to move faster and conserve energy.

The afterglow of the sunset dyed everything with a desolate blood-red hue, casting long, sinister shadows of the drift ice across the sea surface.

At this moment, her gaze was caught by a black object at the distant junction of ice and water, gently bobbing with the waves.

In this monotonous world of white and blue, that stark black was especially striking.

”What is it?” Kelly’s heart leaped! Her first thought was a live seal.

She immediately crouched down, hiding behind a protruding ice ridge, her heart pounding uncontrollably! If it were a live seal, with her current state and weapons, it would be impossible to kill it; she would have to come up with another plan!

But this thought was dismissed by her within seconds.

The black object remained motionless, showing none of the seal’s typical head-lifting breathing motions, merely gently swaying with the waves.

Kelly’s breathing quickened. She peeked out from behind the ice ridge, squinting her eyes, employing her excellent eyesight for a closer inspection.

In the side light of the sunset, she could see the iconic ring-shaped spots, as if ink was bleeding across it, trapped between a stretch of newly formed shore ice and open water, half submerged in water, half draped on ice like a discarded thick carpet.

Finally, Kelly clapped a hand over her mouth to keep herself from exclaiming out loud!

”Oh my god... that’s a seal skin!”

Her mind raced. This couldn’t have fallen off naturally. The only explanation was that not long ago, a predator, most likely a polar bear, had enjoyed a feast nearby and then discarded this piece of skin, which held little value to it.

Bears tend to prioritize the energy-rich layer of fat under the skin, tearing open and discarding the skin itself.

A surge of immense joy shot through her fatigue and cold like an electric current! This was undoubtedly the Goddess of Fortune’s ultimate reward for her indomitable spirit!

Yet, she didn’t let joy cloud her judgment. She immediately forced herself to calm down, swallowing back the shout that nearly escaped her throat.

She began cautiously scanning the surroundings, her gaze sweeping over every block of drift ice and distant snowdrift like a radar, carefully distinguishing any shape that didn’t match the outline of a snow mound, indicative of danger—perhaps the milky white silhouette of a polar bear.

Polar bears have an exceptionally keen sense of smell; they can detect the scent of blood from several kilometers away and might follow it back to check their ”storage.”

After confirming the immediate area was temporarily safe, she focused all her attention on the problem before her: how to safely retrieve it.

The position of the skin was very delicate; it rested on a layer of shore ice that formed overnight, looking as thin as glass, even revealing the dark green seawater beneath.

This layer of ice would certainly not support her weight. Approaching rashly, if the ice surface broke, plunging into the sub-zero seawater would mean death from hypothermia within minutes!

Hope was right in front of her, but death was only a step away.

Suppressing her eagerness, Kelly began searching for tools nearby, her gaze sweeping from the icy coastline toward the edge of the land behind her.

Not far from the shore, in a wind-exposed area, lay a fallen tree with several long branches sticking out.

Kelly felt a surge of joy as she walked quickly towards it, using all her strength to break off a dead branch approximately three meters long from the trunk.

Dragging this lifesaving piece of deadwood to the ice edge, she lay down again, advancing in a standard prone position to evenly distribute her weight over the solid ice surface.

As she got closer to the newly formed shore edge, reaching the maximum range of the dead branch, she carefully extended the wooden stick, attempting to hook or nudge the seal skin with the tip.

This task heavily tested her patience and skill. The layer of fat under the seal skin turned slick as oil in the frigid seawater; the smooth deadwood slipped powerlessly off the surface several times.

Wave after wave came, gently pushing the seal skin, sometimes bringing it closer to her, then letting it drift farther away, each retreat tightening her heart.

She didn’t dare exert too much force, fearing the ice beneath her might fracture. Each attempt drained her already weak body of precious energy.

After several failures, finally, during one attempt, when a wave lifted a corner of the skin, she seized the opportunity, successfully flipping it entirely onto the newly formed dark ice with the tip of the deadwood!

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