Above the mage!

Chapter 474 Third-Order Frozen Blade
The ice spikes did not have the translucent appearance of ice spells cast by ordinary mages; instead, they gleamed with a cold, eerie blue light.

This is a unique property of ice magic enhanced by the Iceborn bloodline, making it far more powerful than ice magic cast by ordinary mages.

The icicles whistled as they sliced ​​through the air, like countless tiny swords thrusting into the sky.

At first, the ice pick seemed to pierce nothingness, without causing the slightest ripple.

Lan Wen frowned slightly, not understanding why this was the case, but even so, he did not believe that Gaode's reaction was wrong.

While they were still pondering, several loud bangs were heard ahead, and a cluster of fine ice crystal mist suddenly exploded.

A cluster of tiny, silvery-white specks flickered for a moment, like shards of broken glass, but then vanished without a trace.

But that one moment was enough; both Gaode and Lanwen had already noticed.

Lan Wen reacted quickly, casting another spell, sending out even more azure ice spikes.

A series of popping sounds rang out.

More silvery-white light spots exploded in the empty space, and countless translucent little shadows could be vaguely seen struggling.

These shadows, though small, are surprisingly numerous.

At the edge of their line of sight, wisps of blurry silver mist rose from the ice and rock walls, like sleeping giants awakening, rushing toward Gao De and Lan Wen at an incredible speed like surging stardust.

"There are too many!" Gao De could sense the oxygen content in the air, which had drastically decreased due to the awakening and activity of these creatures. He immediately made an accurate judgment: "Let's go!"

Boeing's powers returned, and his absolute control over the gas surged through his body like a tidal wave, with two visible airflow wings unfolding on his shoulders.

Gao De's body shot into the air like an arrow, quickly flying towards the sea outside the island.

Lan Wen didn't try to be brave, nor did he hesitate, and cast the spell once again.

A magical light, glowing with a deep blue hue, emanated from his palm, and three ice walls instantly appeared out of thin air.

The surface of the ice wall was covered with barbed ice spikes, while the middle section of the wall was concave inward into an arc shape, lying across in front of him.

The ice wall made a series of hissing sounds as it came into contact with the silver mist.

The invisible insects in the silver mist collided with the ice spikes, piling up on the wall as a thin layer of white frost.

But more swarms of insects are emerging from the depths of the fog, causing fine dents to appear on the surface of the ice wall at a visible rate.

Seeing that the ice wall slightly hindered the progress of the invisible swarm of insects, Lan Wen quickly took half a step back, and a pale blue stream of energy immediately surrounded his body.

The next instant, he also used the [Flight Technique], turned around and followed Gao De's back, fleeing into the sea.

The two reacted decisively and quickly. By the time the three ice walls had turned into ice shards and shattered, Gao De and Lan Wen were already far away from the ice cave.

After the swarm of insects finished off the ice wall, they found that their target was already far away. After pausing in mid-air for a moment, they did not give chase, but began to slowly retreat.

Tens of thousands of transparent insect shadows drew fine arcs in the air, flying towards the ice and rock walls where they had originally lived, like dandelions scattered by the wind and then regrouping.

As they flew over the rock walls and ice layers, these transparent insects transformed into countless tiny ice crystals, filling the gaps between the rock walls and ice layers.

The first swarm of insects to return to the rift transformed into a wisp of silver mist and disappeared inside.

Then came the second and third strands.

A faint shimmer appeared where the fog met the rock wall, then vanished in an instant.

As the last wisp of silver mist disappeared into the depths of the ice, everything fell into a deathly silence.

Having already moved far from the ice cave and confirmed that no insects were chasing him, Gao De stopped, activated his Mandora's Eye, and looked back, only to see a smooth, mirror-like layer of ice and stone walls.

Every line on the ice layer of the stone wall has been restored to its original appearance, and the sunlight refracts on the ice surface, reflecting dazzling spots of light.

Even at that moment, a gust of air swept across the cliff face, but it only stirred up a fine dust of ice, making a soft rustling sound, and nothing else.

There was no buzzing sound of flapping wings, nor any translucent shadow flickering in the air.

Lan Wen hovered beside him, just like Gao De, gazing at the flawless ice and rock walls surrounding the ice cave.

His brows were furrowed.

If he hadn't just used magic to briefly confront the swarm of insects, he might have even doubted whether everything he had just experienced was an illusion caused by the extreme cold.

"What is this?" Lan Wen asked, half to himself and half to himself.

In terms of knowledge about ley line creatures, Gao De far surpasses Lan Wen.

As an Iceborn, Lanwen's understanding of leyline creatures was actually limited to the Northern Territory.

However, what exactly this insect is remains a blind spot in Gaode's knowledge base.

However, this is not without a solution.

A thought struck Gao De, his eyes narrowed slightly, and he began to clearly recall the appearance of those insects in his mind.

The transparent body, the tiny figure flapping its wings rapidly, the silvery-white light that flashed when it crashed into the ice wall—every detail was quickly imprinted in my mind.

At the same time, Gaode quietly activated a spell model within the spell star sea.

【Know Yourself and Know Your Enemy [Rare]+】(Prophecy System, First Ring):

If you recall a creature you encountered during the day, after casting the spell, you will gain some knowledge about that creature.

Bonus: You will gain more knowledge about the creature, including information about its population.

The magical light flashed and disappeared on the spell model, which resembled a constellation.

Immediately afterwards, a series of scattered pieces of information emerged in Gao De's mind like a sudden awakening, clear and direct.

"The Ice Silk Worm is a first-tier leyline creature. Its body is composed of countless tiny ice crystals. These ice crystals can reflect light, giving it the ability to become invisible. It usually inhabits ice fissures near extremely cold leylines."

This is not over yet.

The additional effect of "Know Yourself and Your Enemy [Rare]+" triggers, and more information follows.

This additional information not only covers the characteristics of individual ice silkworms, but also their group habits and survival patterns, giving Gaode a more comprehensive understanding of this unfamiliar creature.

Because the Ice Silk Worm is only a first-tier creature, the information obtained by [Know Yourself and Your Enemy+] under the Ascending Ring spell is exceptionally comprehensive.

Ice silk worms are the name of these insects.

This is a peculiar leyline creature that has undergone a mutation in the environment of the icy cave where malevolent energy and extreme cold meet. Due to the mutation, its body has changed from flesh to wondrous miniature ice crystals.

These crystals can refract light from the surrounding environment, thus enabling the ice silkworm to achieve near-perfect invisibility.

They are not of high rank, but they possess an astonishing number and collective mobility, gathering in units of tens or even hundreds of thousands, hiding in the crevices near the ice caves.

When they sense the body temperature of a living organism, the ice silkworm silently emerges, approaches the organism, and burrows into its body as the organism breathes. It then releases acidic ice liquid secreted from its body surface, slowly dissolving the organism's internal organs, which it then feeds on.

Finally, like a frog being slowly boiled in water, the body gradually corrodes and devours all of its flesh and blood from the inside out.

At first, it was difficult for creatures to detect the presence of the ice silk worms, and by the time they realized something was wrong, it was too late.

Furthermore, these ice silkworms are hidden inside the body, making them very difficult to treat.

Thanks to these characteristics and abilities, the Ice Silk Worm, though only a first-order creature, often manages to overcome stronger opponents and turn higher-order creatures into its prey. Based on what we just saw, we roughly estimate that this swarm of Ice Silk Worms already numbers over 100,000.

After obtaining information about the Ice Silkworm swarm and recalling the enormous sea beast skeleton, Gao De speculated that this former fifth-tier sea beast, the overlord of the sea, might have died at the hands of these Ice Silkworms, which were only first-tier in rank.

It may sound incredible, but that's how things are in this world, anything is possible.

Ultimately, it's just a concrete manifestation of the saying "too many ants can kill an elephant."

Gao De shared all the information he had obtained through the "Know Yourself and Know Your Enemy" spell with Lan Wen.

"My king, shall I lure away these ice silkworms while you retrieve the ice demon?" Lan Wen quickly came up with an idea after listening to Gao De's explanation.

The most terrifying thing about these ice silkworms is that they are invisible and numerous, and by the time they are discovered, they are often already "terminally ill" and beyond cure.

However, the Ice Silk Worms themselves are not particularly strong in terms of combat power; in fact, they can be described as somewhat weak. As a fourth-circle mage, simply luring away these Ice Silk Worms would be an easy task for Lan Wen.

“No need for that.” Gao De calmly rejected Lan Wen’s proposal.

Ice Silk Worms are essentially just first-tier ley line creatures, and no matter how many there are, that fact remains unchanged.

Given the suppression imposed by his rank, he had far better ways to deal with these ice silkworms.

He said no more, raised his right hand, and drew an extremely simple rune across his chest with his index and middle fingers together.

As his fingertips brushed across the air, a thin, almost transparent layer of pale golden light spread outwards from him like ripples on water, just enough to envelop his entire body before disappearing from sight.

Gaode waved again, and the same faint light covered Lanwen as well.

This faint light does not illuminate, but rather has a strange "concealing" property. It does not cause any visual distortion or blurring, but rather covers the space around the subject with a cognitive barrier.

"Let's go." After doing all this, Gao De signaled Lan Wen to continue on their way.

After learning about the "danger" on the island, the two were mentally prepared and no longer proceeded cautiously as before, but instead flew there quickly.

They were about to reach the ice cave once again.

This time, however, both of them approached the ice cave with complete ease and comfort.

According to Gaode Maps's perception, the oxygen content in the air did not change.

This indicates that the ice silkworms hiding nearby have not awakened and remain dormant.

This is naturally due to the magic that Gao De just cast.

A protective spell, [Animal Ignore].

Under the blessing of the "Animal Ignoring Technique," as long as the recipient does not touch or attack any animal, the animal will not be aware of the protected creature and will act as if the recipient does not exist at all.

Even if it possesses extraordinary sensory abilities, such as blindness, blindness, a keen sense of smell, and the ability to perceive vibrations, or even the heat perception of the ice silk worm, it is still unable to detect or locate the subject.

【Animal Ignore Spell】Although it is only a first-level spell, the Ice Silk Worms are only first-level creatures. Casting it at the level of a second-level mage is more than enough to deceive this group of Ice Silk Worms.

This is the benefit of having a deep enough spell library; often, a simple spell can accomplish many things that seem to require a lot of effort.

At this moment, the Ice Silk Insects do not perceive Gao De and Lan Wen, so they will not awaken and approach them.

Without the threat of the ice silkworms, the two once again stepped towards the ice cave.

As soon as you step into the ice cave entrance, a bone-chilling cold rushes towards you, several times more intense than outside the ice cave, as if you have instantly fallen into an ancient ice cellar.

However, Lanwen had already cast protective spells, while Gaode was protected by a mid-level Ice Protection Body, so he was completely unaffected by the cold.

The inner walls of the ice cave are made of dark blue ice, covered with strangely shaped ice spikes, like countless inverted sharp blades.

The ground was uneven and covered with a thick layer of white frost.

And within this ice-crystal-like space, hundreds and thousands of ice demons are stored.

They are densely distributed on the cave ceiling, rock walls, and in depressions in the ground.

Each icy aura was a stream of blue energy that would suddenly surge up and then condense, as if bound to the spot by an invisible force.

These ice demons shimmered with an eerie blue light in the dim cave, illuminating the entire space in a deep blue hue. If one were to pay close attention, one could sense the astonishing chill emanating from the ice demons.

Furthermore, the airflow was also accompanied by a sharp sensation, as if countless tiny ice needles were shuttling and colliding within it, occasionally emitting a faint "hissing" sound.

Occasionally, when two streams of icy energy touch each other, they spark a burst of blue flames before quickly separating and resuming their original forms.

Lan Wen held his breath, a hint of amazement and wariness flashing in his eyes. He whispered to Gao De, "My king, such a large number of third-tier ice demons is truly rare."

Gao De nodded. His left eye, the Mandora's Eye, had been activated, shimmering with a faint light. After scanning around, he obtained an accurate number.

There are 1,056 Tier 3 Ice Fiends here.

The entire cave is filled with a strong negative energy.

This is a necessary condition for the formation of Ice Fiend.

Gao De took out an ice crystal bottle from his pocket.

This was brought down from the ship.

He then focused his gaze on a relatively sparse corner of the cave wall.

There, five or six ice demons were circling around an ice ridge.

Gao De stepped forward slowly, grasped the ice crystal bottle in his right hand, aimed the bottle opening at one of the ice demons, and then cast [Mage's Hand] to guide the ice demon into the bottle.

The whole process is not complicated or difficult. The only thing to note is that when drawing in the ice energy, you have to resist the evil energy and coldness released by the ice energy.

This is clearly not a problem for Gaode Maps.

So Gaode easily took away the four ice demons and put them into the ice crystal bottle.

After everything was done, he sealed the bottle and gave Lan Wen a wink: "Let's go."

Yes, Gaode only takes four third-tier ice demons.

However, it wasn't that he was so "noble" as to leave the treasure to future generations.

Rather, it's because this ice cave is actually undergoing an upgrade, and in a few years, decades, or even hundreds of years, it will become a fourth-order ice cave.

At that time, the ice magic it produces will be fourth-tier ice magic.

If all the ice energy in the ice cave were removed, it would directly interrupt the ice cave's advancement. For the sake of long-term utilization and sustainable development, Gaode chose to avoid interfering with its advancement progress as much as possible.

He took four third-tier ice energies because his Icebound Blade only needed to incorporate three ice energies to be upgraded to third tier, and taking one more was a safety precaution.

For the more than one thousand third-tier ice energies in the entire ice cave, removing four of them would not have any significant impact.

Furthermore, with those ice silkworms "guarding" the ice cave, Gaode is not worried that others will beat him to it.

After placing the ice bottle containing four third-tier ice demons into their robes, Gao De and Lan Wen did not linger and quickly retreated from the ice cave along the path they had come from.

One used a Boeing aircraft, and the other used his flying skills; they quickly landed on the deck of the Columbus and returned safely.

(End of this chapter)