He had stepped less than a hundred zhang into this forbidden land, yet his Golden Core–stage divine sense already felt as if it were sinking into a mire. The omnipresent freezing mist not only obscured his vision but also slowly eroded the spiritual barrier protecting his body.
Yet at this very moment, the resonance of the bloodline curse became unmistakably clear—
Southeast. Roughly three hundred li away.
“That little beast… so you really are hiding here!”
Killing intent flared violently in Teng Huayuan’s eyes as his figure transformed into a streak of black light, shooting straight toward the sensed direction.
Just as he was about to activate instantaneous movement—
“Get lost.”
A single word.
Like eternal frost, it chiseled directly into his sea of consciousness!
It was not sound, but will—an imprint branded straight onto the soul. Cold. Ancient. Absolute. A majesty that allowed no defiance.
Teng Huayuan’s entire body shuddered violently. Three-tenths of his protective spiritual light shattered instantly! He retreated in horror and looked up—
A hundred zhang ahead, the freezing mist parted on its own.
From within it emerged a withered figure, wrapped in crackling purple-black lightning.
It was a gaunt man, skin stretched tight over bone, his complexion an ashen blue-gray like a corpse buried for ten thousand years. His eyes were two bottomless voids. Most terrifying of all were the purple-black lightning serpents coiling around him—each flicker made space itself emit sharp cracking sounds, as if it were shattering!
Teng Huayuan swept him with divine sense and felt his mind quake—
Mid-stage Nascent Soul!
No… this aura was older, stranger, far more ominous than an ordinary Nascent Soul cultivator’s. As though it did not belong to this era at all.
The desiccated man slowly raised his right hand, fingers curling into a loose grasp.
“Wooooong—!!!”
The ten-zhang space around Teng Huayuan froze instantly!
Not ice—space itself was forcibly immobilized. Even the circulation of his Golden Core slowed by thirty percent!
“Senior, please calm your anger!” Teng Huayuan shouted urgently. “This junior is Teng Huayuan, ancestor of the Teng Clan of the Northern Domain! I am only here to pursue a personal vendetta, I would never dare—”
“Teng Clan?”
The hollow eyes turned toward him, the voice rasping like metal grinding on stone.
“Never heard of it.”
The five fingers clenched shut.
“Crack—!!!”
Frozen space shattered like a mirror, breaking inch by inch!
Teng Huayuan’s protective light collapsed completely. Dense cracking sounds erupted from his chest as his ribs fractured. He spat out a mouthful of blood and slapped his storage pouch without hesitation—
“Blood Escape Talisman—Ignite!”
A dark-gold talisman burst into flame without fire, transforming into a streak of bloodlight that wrapped around his body. In an instant, he vanished from where he stood!
Almost simultaneously, a massive palm woven of purple-black lightning slammed down on his former position!
“BOOM—!!!”
Ice debris exploded skyward for a thousand zhang!
When the dust settled, a bottomless, palm-shaped crater appeared. Its walls were smooth as mirrors, with residual purple-black lightning still crackling and crawling along them.
A thousand li away, at the edge of the Ice Ruins.
The bloodlight dissipated, and Teng Huayuan stumbled to the ground, his face pale as gold paper. He looked down at his chest—
A purple-black lightning scar pierced straight through from front to back. The flesh around the wound was charred and necrotic, while a chilling deathly aura clung to it like bone-burrowing maggots,疯狂侵蚀 his meridians and dantian.
“Cough… cough… Mid-stage Nascent Soul…”
Fear still lingered in his eyes, soon replaced by deeper venom.
“To think such a monster is hidden deep within these Ice Ruins! Damn it! That brat must be connected to this place… Once I finish healing, I will return!”
He swallowed several pills and sat down to circulate his cultivation, but the purple-black lightning scar resisted the medicinal effects like a living thing. His recovery was agonizingly slow.
Deep within the Ice Ruins.
The desiccated man withdrew his hand and gazed toward a certain direction in the ruins.
“The disturbance of the hundred-year-old contract… indeed, it is here.”
His figure flickered, transforming into a streak of purple-black lightning that vanished into the freezing mist. Moments later, he stopped before an ancient, ice-sealed ritual altar.
Expressionless, he lifted his foot and stomped downward.
“Open.”
“Rumble—!!!”
Cracks spread across the frozen altar as a deep fissure tore open. The instant it split apart, a shrill, piercing scream burst from underground!
A blue shadow shot out like an arrow—only to be violently rebounded by an invisible barrier the moment it touched the surface.
The figure tumbled to the ground.
It was the blue-skinned freak.
His body was dim with fading runes, nine scorched talismans trembling violently. Terror filled his eyes.
The desiccated man looked down at him, his voice utterly calm.
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“A hundred years… The ‘Nine Nether Puppet Body’ forged by my master has actually developed independent consciousness.”
The creature lay prostrate, trembling, letting out pleading “yi-ya” sounds.
“Since you have become a corpse wraith, you are now of the Nether lineage,” the man said slowly. “Take me to my master’s Nascent Soul. Once I devour it and break the contract, I can help you evolve into a Corpse Demon.”
The creature—Corpse Wraith—jerked its head up. Struggle flashed through its eyes, then hardened into resolve. It nodded heavily and pointed toward a direction deep within the ruins.
The man’s face remained unchanged. He transformed into purple-black lightning, swept up the Corpse Wraith, and vanished in an instant.
At the same time, within the Ice Palace ruins.
Yun Che opened his eyes. A streak of Spectral Azure Cold Radiance — deep azure frost-light—flashed through his pupils.
He spread his right palm upward. With a thought, a wisp of incomparably pure gray-blue flame rose from his hand—
Fully transformed Nine Nether Cold Force.
The flame burned silently, yet the surrounding temperature plummeted. The ice beneath his feet thickened by three inches at a visible speed.
“Quantity doubled. Quality improved by thirty percent,” Yun Che murmured. “But the Qi Sea aperture… still unopened.”
He looked toward the faintly visible ice-crystal tower deep within the ruins. Last night, he had devoured freezing mist spanning a thousand zhang, yet its quality had only reached low-grade Profound tier. To break through the Qi Sea aperture, he needed at least high-grade Profound, or even Earth-tier cold veins.
“It’s time to move.”
After packing his meager belongings, Yun Che cast one final glance at the Ice Palace where he had lived for over two months, then turned and disappeared into the ruins.
The deeper he went, the more bizarre the environment became.
Within the first hundred li, remnants of structures could still be seen. Beyond that, all that met the eye were shattered ice crystals and twisted frozen earth. The ground was riddled with crisscrossing ice fissures, some bottomless, with faint howls of freezing wind rising from within.
On the third day, Yun Che entered an icy marshland.
Calling it a marsh was inaccurate—it was a muddy expanse covered by a thin layer of ice. Beneath the ice, dark-blue sludge writhed slowly. From time to time, bubbles rose with a “gurgle,” bursting into clouds of gray-green poisonous mist.
Yun Che held his breath and detoured cautiously, divine sense fully extended. Just as he passed over what looked like a calm ice surface—
Crash!
The ice shattered!
Three ice-blue serpents with single horns shot out like lightning, mouths gaping as they spat streams of gray-green venom!
Prepared, Yun Che retreated sharply and raised his right hand.
“Freeze.”
Nine Nether Cold Force surged out like a tide!
The venom froze midair, crystallizing before falling to the ground. The serpents themselves were enveloped in cold, their movements drastically slowed.
“Sever.”
The Blood Fiend Sword left its sheath. A flash of pitch-black sword light cut through the air!
The three serpents were sliced into six clean segments. No blood flowed—their bodily fluids had frozen solid in an instant.
Yun Che sheathed his sword, frowning slightly. These beasts… had clearly mutated under the influence of the cold veins here.
He pressed on. Ambushes came without end—eight-legged ice spiders lurking beneath the ice, snow toads disguised as frozen pillars, swarms of ice-winged bat demons. Fighting and advancing, Yun Che’s control over Nine Nether Cold Force grew increasingly refined.
On the fifth night, he finally exited the marsh.
Before him unfolded a breathtaking sight—
A collapsed ancient city.
Countless ruins of ice-crystal palaces filled the horizon. Though entirely fallen, the massive foundations and exquisite fragments of relief carvings still hinted at the splendor of ages past.
At the very center lay a colossal ice pit over five hundred zhang in diameter—bottomless, like a vast eye opened in the earth, silently gazing at the heavens.
Most bizarre of all—
There was not a single drop of accumulated water inside.
Yun Che approached the edge and activated the Yin-Detecting Pearl taught by Li Han. An ice-blue orb rose into the air, emitting gentle light.
He walked along the rim as the orb’s color shifted—
Ice blue (Yellow tier)…
Silver-white (Profound tier)…
Brighter silver…
When he reached the opposite side, the orb trembled and split into two.
“High-grade Profound tier!” Yun Che’s eyes lit up.
He continued his circuit. When he returned to the starting point, the two orbs vibrated violently and fused into one, becoming a deep,幽蓝 glow.
“Earth-tier… low grade!”
Taking a deep breath, Yun Che did not jump in immediately. He sat cross-legged and waited for dawn.
At daybreak, as the freezing mist dispersed, he leapt into the pit!
Thirty zhang down, he landed at the bottom.
Looking up, the sky was reduced to a pale blue dot. But the scene below shocked him even more—
The ground was not ice or frozen soil, but countless honeycomb-like deep holes! Each hole was about a foot wide, bottomless, densely packed across the pit floor—no fewer than a hundred thousand!
Yun Che crouched and touched the edge of one. It was cold and hard—cold marrow crystal ore. From within the holes, faint air currents flowed, carrying incomparably pure yin-cold energy.
“These are… natural cold-vein qi vents!”
Realization dawned on him.
“No wonder there’s no water here—everything is swallowed and transformed!”
After confirming there was no danger, Yun Che sat at the densest cluster and waited for nightfall.
When darkness descended, the Yin-Detecting Pearl brightened—
High-grade Yellow…
Low-grade Profound…
Mid-grade Profound…
At midnight, it stabilized at low-grade Earth-tier!
More astonishing still—
As midnight approached, all hundred thousand holes began to “breathe”! Dense gray-blue freezing mist surged out like ten thousand dragons exhaling, filling the entire pit in an instant!
Without hesitation, Yun Che circulated the fourth-layer technique of the Nine Nether Cold Prison Art.
Hiss—
The first strand of Earth-tier cold mist entered his body, and Yun Che’s entire body trembled!
It was utterly different from before—dozens of times purer, carrying a trace of an ancient Nether will!
The cold mist slammed straight into the Qi Sea aperture in his chest. The barrier shook violently!
Clenching his teeth, Yun Che pushed the art to its limit. More mist poured in, forming a vortex within the aperture—
Fifty zhang…
A hundred…
Three hundred…
The pit’s mist was dragged in frenzied torrents. In less than half an incense stick’s time, the suction radius reached a thousand zhang!
Yet Yun Che remained calm, carefully controlling the rhythm of impact.
Cracks spread across the aperture barrier like a spiderweb.
An hour later—
BOOM!!!
The barrier shattered!
A torrent of latent human potential erupted like a volcano, merging wildly with the Earth-tier cold mist to form strands of Nine Nether Origin Cold Force,幽蓝 streaked with dark gold!
At that instant, the fully formed Nine Nether Cold Core in his dantian trembled violently. Stored cold power surged out, charging toward the newborn energy.
Devouring began.
Each strand of origin force was instantly absorbed, deepening the cold core’s color and sharpening its aura.
When the last strand was consumed, a second cold core—slightly smaller but far denser—condensed at the former location of the Qi Sea aperture.
Nine Nether Cold Prison Art, Fourth Layer—Complete!
Yun Che opened his eyes.
Spectral Azure Ice Arrows lightning flickered briefly within them.
He raised his right hand and tapped a chunk of cold marrow rock beside him.
No light. No sound.
Yet the rock instantly turned pure azure—not frozen, but fundamentally transformed. Its internal structure was rewritten into an entirely new substance: Spectral Azure Ice Crystal.
He blew gently.
Crash—
The crystal shattered into powder, each grain refracting dreamlike blue light under the moon.
“This…”
Yun Che stared at his fingers, his heart surging.
He did not know that his Nine Nether Cold Force, after two devourings and the formation of twin cores, had brushed against an ancient legendary realm of power—
Extremity.
In ancient myth, spiritual power had three supreme states: Extremity, Dao, Origin.
Extremity—absolute culmination. Peerless among equals, capable of crossing realms. But the price was eternal severance from unity with heaven and earth—no hope of Deification.
Dao—the root of all laws. Those who reached it were destined for Deification.
Origin—the beginning of all things. Beyond comprehension.
Once attained, a realm could never be changed.
And Yun Che’s Nine Nether Cold Force—through the art’s extremity, the ancient Earth-tier cold veins, and the hidden influence of the stone bead on his chest—had unknowingly stepped onto the threshold of Extremity.
“This cold power… feels different,” Yun Che murmured, about to reflect deeper—
Whoosh!
A blue shadow leapt down from the pit’s edge, landing ten zhang before him.
The blue-skinned freak—Corpse Wraith—had returned.
This time, there was no hostility in its eyes. Only anxiety and fear. It pointed frantically back the way it came, then at Yun Che, gesturing wildly and letting out hurried “yi-ya” cries.
Yun Che’s brow furrowed. Suddenly, his expression changed!
He sensed a terrifying presence—one advancing toward the pit at shocking speed.
Its strength…
Far beyond Golden Core.
- The purple-black lightning corpse that appeared deep within the Ice Ruins—what do you think its connection is to the Nine Nether Cold Prison Art and the mysterious stone bead?
-
The concept of “Extremity” is fully revealed for the first time. Gaining invincibility at the same realm but losing all hope of Deification—do you think that price is worth paying?
-
Why did the Corpse Wraith return at this exact moment to warn Yun Che? Is the “master” it mentioned even more dangerous than Teng Huayuan?
The next chapter is where the real pressure begins.