Chapter 5851-5852
When Kai and his companions finally arrived at the depression surrounded by three towering ice peaks, night had already fallen on the Eternal Ice Plains.
There were no stars in the sky, only the aurora borealis, like flowing, colorful rivers, dancing silently in the dark firmament, illuminating the entire ice plain with a bizarre and surreal light.
In the center of the depression, the Blood Soul Cold Pool, no more than ten feet in diameter, gleamed with an eerie dark red light under the aurora. The water was calm and still, yet it exuded a chilling aura and a bloody stench that sent shivers down one’s spine.
Beside the pool, the thousand-year-old Ice Soul Blood Lotus swayed slightly in the cold wind, its nine petals as crystalline as rubies, its central bud as crimson as blood, seemingly ready to bloom at any moment.
However, the forbidden protective array that enveloped the entire depression stood like an insurmountable chasm.
Ancient and intricate divine runes flowed across the icy blue light screen, and at the ends of the icy blue chains hanging from it, the grotesque phantoms of ice beasts flickered in and out, radiating a terrifying pressure.
What weighed heavily on the heart even more was what lay beyond the grand formation—deeper within those three ice peaks, a magnificent ice crystal palace complex, beyond description, stood silently amidst the night and aurora. The
Northern Underworld Palace.
It wasn’t a single palace, but a sprawling cluster of ice crystal buildings.
The main hall, a thousand feet high, was carved entirely from millennia-old black ice and earth-core jade, crystal clear, reflecting the magnificent colors of the aurora, yet retaining a cold and austere sacred majesty.
Countless smaller palaces, towers, and corridors surrounded the main hall like stars around the moon, connected by ice crystal staircases and suspended walkways, forming a beautiful yet perilous ice crystal city.
Faintly visible within the city were flickering ice-blue lights, and powerful auras seemed to emanate from within.
The entire palace complex exuded an ancient, aloof, and inviolable aura, like a slumbering ice and snow deity.
“Finally here…”
The Crimson Cloud Demon Lord gazed at the Blood Lotus, so close at hand, his eyes filled with both longing and anxiety.
With the protective array in front and the Northern Underworld Palace behind, the path to obtaining the medicine remained arduous.
Ling Shuang gripped her longsword tightly and whispered, “Senior, that array…”
“We must find a way to break it first.”
Kai’s gaze swept past the icy pool and the array, landing on the distant Northern Underworld Palace. “And the solution must lie within the palace.”
The three paused briefly to catch their breath before heading towards the Northern Underworld Palace.
The closer they got, the more they felt the grandeur and oppressive aura of this ice crystal city.
There were no city walls surrounding the palace; instead, there were rings of ice crystal fences, hundreds of feet high and as sharp as knives, inscribed with defensive divine runes, radiating a cold sense of rejection.
The only entrance was a fifty-foot-high ice crystal archway.
On either side of the archway stood a ten-foot-tall ice sculpture statue, each holding an ice halberd, gazing forward. Though inanimate, they gave the impression that they might come to life at any moment.
When Kai and the others were still a hundred feet away from the archway, two figures slowly emerged from within.
The two newcomers were of different heights and builds, one tall and one short, the other strong and the other thin, yet both exuded a suffocatingly terrifying aura.
The man on the left was nine feet tall, broad-shouldered and muscular, with a rugged, rock-carved face, a full beard, and large, piercing eyes.
He was shirtless, revealing his bronze-colored, scarred, muscular physique, clad only in an ice-blue battle skirt, and carried a massive ice crystal axe the size of a door.
Just standing there, he exuded a mountain-like weight.
His aura had reached the peak of the eighth rank of the Celestial Immortal Realm, just like the Third Divine General, Han Yu!
The man on the right was tall and slender, with a sinister face, appearing to be about thirty years old. His face was as pale as paper, his thin lips tightly pressed together, and his narrow eyes were as cold as a venomous snake.
He wore a magnificent ice-blue robe with wide sleeves, his hands tucked into them. He seemed frail, but the chill emanating from him was more concentrated and deadly than that of the giant.
His aura was also at the peak of the eighth rank of the Celestial Immortal Realm, but the sense of danger he exuded was even greater!
“The First Divine General of the Northern Underworld Palace, Manshan,” the giant spoke, his voice booming like a bell, causing the surrounding ice crystals to tremble.
“The Second Divine General of the Northern Underworld Palace, Xuanming,” the sinister man’s voice was shrill, like an ice needle slicing through glass.
The two stood side by side, blocking the entrance to the archway. Behind them, dozens of elite divine warriors could be vaguely seen standing ready inside the archway.
“To have fought your way here, even falling to the Cold Prison, you do have some skill.”
Xuanming’s narrow eyes swept over Kai and the other two, lingering on Kai for a moment before revealing a hint of surprise. “First-grade Celestial Immortal Realm? Interesting… It seems you have quite a few secrets.”
Manshan impatiently swung his giant axe, creating a gust of cold wind: “Enough nonsense! Trespassing into the forbidden area of the Northern Underworld Palace and killing my people, you deserve to die! Boy, state your name, for I do not kill nameless ghosts!”
Kai took a deep breath, stepped forward, and cupped his hands, saying, “I am Kai. I have no ill intentions here, only to retrieve the Thousand-Year Ice Soul Blood Lotus from the Blood Soul Cold Pool to save people.”
“This item is of great use to me, and I am willing to exchange it for treasures of equal value. I humbly request that you two divine generals grant me this favor.”
“Do me a favor?”
Man Shan laughed as if he’d heard the funniest joke in the world, his laughter cracking the ice. “Boy, have you lost your mind? The Blood Soul Cold Pool is the sacred pool of my Northern Underworld Palace; every blade of grass and every tree within belongs to the divine race!”
“You killed so many of us, and you expect us to do you a favor?”
Xuan Ming coldly retorted, “Hand over the sword you’re carrying, along with the cultivation techniques and secret arts you practice, then cripple your own cultivation, and perhaps we can spare your corpse.”
“As for the two behind you… the man will have his soul extracted and refined, the woman will be used as a servant—this is the consequence of trespassing within the divine race!”
The arrogance and malice in his words were undisguised.
Kai’s face darkened.
He knew negotiation was impossible, but the other side consisted of two peak eighth-grade Heavenly Immortals, far stronger than any enemy he had encountered before.
Though confident, he was not arrogant. ”Since that’s the case, then there’s nothing more to say.”
Kai slowly drew his Dragon-Slaying Sword. “Today, I will take the Blood Lotus. Those who stand in my way—die!”
“Arrogant!” Man Shan roared, taking the initiative!
He took a step forward, and the ice surface shattered with a deafening roar. His massive body moved with lightning speed, instantly covering a distance of fifty feet. His giant ice crystal axe, carrying the force to split mountains and cleave the earth, cleaved down towards Kai!
This axe strike, seemingly simple and brutal, contained terrifying power and laws!
Before the axe blade even arrived, the immense pressure had already created a large crater in the ice beneath Kai’s feet, and the surrounding air was compressed, causing it to explode!
“Senior, be careful!” Ling Shuang exclaimed.
Kai dared not take the blow head-on. He swayed, using the Soaring Dragon Steps to narrowly dodge to the side.
“Boom!!!”
The giant axe struck the ice surface, and a crack hundreds of feet long and bottomless instantly spread out!
The violent shockwave forced Kai back more than ten steps, his blood churning.
“You dodged pretty fast!” Man Shan grinned maliciously, sweeping his giant axe across the room, creating a cloud of icy blue axe shadows that blocked all of Kai’s escape routes.
At the same time, Xuan Ming also moved.
He didn’t step forward, but instead extended his hands from his sleeves, his ten fingers moving rapidly in the air in front of him like playing a zither.
With each finger strike, a thin, almost transparent, icy blue thread shot out.
These threads were not physical entities, but were condensed from the ultimate laws of ice, ignoring physical defenses and specifically targeting the soul and meridians!
“Xuan Ming Ice Soul Threads!”
Ling Shuang’s expression changed drastically, “They specifically injure the soul and corrode the meridians; anyone hit by them will die! Senior, dodge quickly!”
Kai also felt the deadly threat of those threads.
While using his movement techniques to dodge Man Shan’s giant axe, he swung his Dragon-Slaying Sword, unleashing several chaotic sword energies in an attempt to sever the Ice Soul Threads.
However, the Ice Soul Threads were extremely tough and strange; the chaotic sword energies struck them as if striking flowing water, only causing them to distort slightly, but not completely severing them.
Instead, several threads pierced through the gaps in the sword energy, attacking Kai!
Kai’s heart tightened, and he hurriedly activated his Chaotic Immortal Power to protect himself. At the same time, a golden light flashed between his brows, and a faint dragon’s might erupted, deflecting the threads slightly and narrowly avoiding fatal blows.
However, his arm was still grazed by a thread, and instantly, a bone-chilling coldness invaded his meridians, making his entire arm numb and stiff, and his immortal power flowed sluggishly.
“Not bad, you can dodge my Ice Soul Silk.” Xuan Ming smiled coldly, “But how many times can you dodge?”
As he spoke, he flicked his fingers, and more Ice Soul Silk, like a spider web, enveloped Kai from all directions, while Man Shan’s giant axe followed closely, its attacks becoming increasingly ferocious.
The two, one close and one far, one strong and one skillful, cooperated seamlessly, completely suppressing Kai!
“Ling Shuang, Senior, help me!” Kai gritted his teeth and shouted.
Kai was fighting two people alone, and he had no chance of winning at all.
He could only rely on Crimson Cloud Demon Lord and Ling Shuang to hold one of them off while he desperately killed the other first!
“Alright!”
Ling Shuang drew her longsword, transforming into a dragon, her sword energy like a rainbow, attacking Xuan Ming’s flank, attempting to disrupt his Ice Soul Silk.
Crimson Cloud Demon Lord also roared, his dark red demonic energy transforming into a towering demonic cloud, within which fierce ghosts howled, attacking the lower part of the Savage Mountain.
“How dare an ant be so presumptuous?”
Xuan Ming didn’t even look at Ling Shuang, casually waving his left hand, dozens of Ice Soul Silks changed direction, instantly shattering Ling Shuang’s sword energy and wrapping around her. Ling Shuang’s face turned deathly pale. She hurriedly changed her move to defend, but was still struck by several threads. She groaned and flew backward, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth, clearly seriously injured.
Man Shan stomped his giant axe on the ground: “Get out of the way!”
A terrifying shockwave spread out from him, shattering most of the demonic clouds surrounding the Crimson Cloud Demon Lord. The Crimson Cloud Demon Lord was also forced to retreat, his blood churning.
In just one exchange, Ling Shuang and the Crimson Cloud Demon Lord were already injured, almost unable to restrain each other.
Kai’s pressure increased even more.
“Boy, you can be proud of yourself for holding out against the two of us for so long.”
Man Shan laughed wildly, his giant axe attack like a storm. “But this ends here! Barbarian God’s Mountain-Splitting Axe – Earth-Splitting!”
He held the axe with both hands, raising it high above his head. A dazzling ice-blue light erupted from the axe, and a terrifying power was gathering!
The power of this axe strike was several times stronger than any of the previous attacks!
At the same time, Xuan Ming also got serious.
He clasped his hands together, chanting incantations. The icy crystal divine pattern between his brows shone brightly, and countless icy threads intertwined before him, condensing into a crystal-clear, thumb-sized, ice-blue prism!
“Mysterious Nether Thorn—Soul Breaker!”
The prism shot out silently, its speed exceeding the limits of divine sense!
Wherever it passed, space froze, cracking with fine black fissures—a manifestation of condensing the laws of ice to their extreme, reaching the spatial level!
One force, one soul—two deadly attacks descended simultaneously!
Kai’s pupils constricted, feeling an unprecedented threat of death!
“I can’t take it head-on!”
His mind raced, and he made a decision instantly.
“Little Fire Qilin!” Kai released the Little Fire Qilin.
The Little Fire Qilin was a divine beast, a fire-type divine beast, thus countering the techniques of the Northern Nether Palace.
“Roar—!!!”
A deafening roar echoed across the icy plains!
From Kai’s storage ring, a majestic Qilin divine beast, three zhang tall and engulfed in golden flames, stepped out!
After being constantly fed by Kai in the Demon Beast Forest, the little fire qilin’s body had grown much stronger!
Moreover, its aura had already reached the seventh rank of the Celestial Immortal Realm!
The golden flames swirling around its body were not ordinary fire, but contained a trace of innate fire source power, possessing a strong restraint on ice-type power!
As soon as the little fire qilin appeared, it sensed its master’s danger and the threat of the two powerful enemies before it. Without hesitation, it opened its maw and spewed out a golden fire pillar over ten feet in diameter, directly piercing the giant axe that was cleaving down from the Savage Mountain!
At the same time, the flames around its body surged, transforming into a fiery barrier that blocked Kai’s path!
“Boom—!!!”
The golden fire pillar collided fiercely with the icy blue giant axe!
The extreme heat and extreme cold clashed, producing a terrifying explosion!
The energies of ice and fire collided and annihilated each other wildly, forming an energy storm tens of feet in diameter, instantly evaporating and freezing the surrounding ice surface—a horrifying sight!