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Chapter 255 Third-Order Apostle!! (3 words, 25th update, please vote with monthly tickets~)

Lu Jiuyuan, holding his long sword, his sharp eyes also locked on the front, and said in a deep voice, "Are they going directly to that so-called 'Martial Saint Ruins'?"

His tone carried a hint of unbelievable absurdity.

During the voyage, the group used the Bureau of Justice channels.

With Fang Qingyu's close monitoring of the four core members of the Gods Society, a breakthrough was finally found among the "support personnel" they had recruited.

Several people, attracted by the generous rewards but actually from the Federation, immediately switched sides after learning that the four might be backed by the infamous Pantheon, and became the intelligence source for Fang Qingyu's team.

The intelligence is clear.

The bait thrown out by the gods is a "Martial Saint's Ruins" located deep in this glacial sea area.

Legend has it that a legendary powerful figure is buried within the ruins.

Such a huge temptation is what makes so many unruly peak second-tier powerhouses willing to take the risk.

According to the original plan, everyone should gather in the City of Glazed Light to rest.

Then, the "guide" leads them to the entrance of the ruins.

However, at this moment, the team's actions were completely different from the plan.

"Follow!"

Fang Qingyu's voice was deep and resolute, carrying an unquestionable determination.

The Eternal Night Territory enveloped the five people, like a moving absolute shadow in the wind and snow, closely following the trajectory of the three armored off-road vehicles.

The crunching sound of the wheels crushing the ice was muffled yet clear amidst the howling wind and snow.

The convoy traveled for nearly half an hour across the rugged ice plains, completely bypassing the magnificent ice city in the distance that resembled a colossal glass beast lying on the horizon.

Finally, it came to a stop at the edge of a broken, icy sea.

This place is quite a distance from the defensive line of Liuli Light City. At the edge of the field of vision, the black Great Wall, which is two hundred meters high and meanders like a giant ice and snow dragon, can only be seen as a blurry and oppressive outline in the swirling snow.

Above the icy sea.

Huge ice floes, like broken islands, drifted and collided slowly in the grayish-white sea, emitting a dull rumble.

The doors of several SUVs slammed open.

Wu Gang, Lin Wei, Chen Mingyuan, and the mysterious man codenamed "Gray Shadow" were the first to jump.

Following closely behind, fourteen imposing figures filed out of the two cars behind.

These were the "reinforcements" that the four of them had gathered on the ship during this time. They were all second-tier grandmasters or chosen ones, and their faces were filled with anticipation, excitement, and a hint of impatience from the cold wind.

A burly man with a fierce face, dressed in thin leather armor, looked around, his gaze sweeping over the nearby ice floes and then towards the distant silhouette of the Great Wall, almost swallowed by the wind and snow. His thick eyebrows furrowed sharply, and he roared in a deep voice:
"Boss Wu! Are you kidding me?! Martial Saint Ruins?! This godforsaken place?! It's so close to Glazed City, if there really were any ruins underneath, those white-robed charlatans would have dug them up to dust long ago! You guys aren't trying to trick us into this ice hole to feed the fish, are you?!"

Upon hearing this, the eyes of the people around him instantly sharpened, and they stared at Wu Gang and his companions with hostility.

Faced with the questioning, Wu Gang showed no anger whatsoever. Instead, he grinned, revealing a set of gleaming white teeth, and offered a shrewd, appeasing smile: "Brother Bao Xiong, calm down! Even if I, Wu Gang, had a hundred lives, I wouldn't dare to treat a dozen or so second-tier grandmasters like monkeys! Wouldn't that be courting death?"

He walked to the edge of the icy sea and pointed to the deep, dark blue water below: "The ruins aren't directly beneath this, of course. But this is the closest and safest entry point to that hidden entrance. Those arrogant Chosen Ones of Glazed City are focused on the front lines of defense; who's going to be watching this godforsaken, broken icy sea every day? Go down here, and nobody's going to notice!"

He paused, lowered his voice, and said enticingly, "Besides, think about it, could a relic that can even tempt an apostle be ordinary? The things inside might just be enough to elevate all of us to the highest level! Fortune favors the bold; if we're not even willing to take this risk, what kind of opportunity are we talking about?"

His words were a mix of truth and falsehood, employing both soft and hard tactics.

Although the bear and the others still had some doubts, the thought of the promised huge profits, and the sight of the dozen or so companions of the same level around them, overcame their unease with greed and a sense of luck.

The commotion in the crowd gradually subsided.

"Alright, stop dawdling and hurry up! Put on your gear and get ready to go in the water!"

Lin Wei urged her coldly, already quickly putting on a specially made black diving suit.

Seeing this, the others also unloaded waterproof backpacks from the car and took out similar diving equipment to put on.

Fang Qingyu and his four companions hid in the Eternal Night Territory.

They observed quietly from behind the shadow of a huge ice floe, a hundred meters away from the convoy.

"Qingzi, according to plan?" Wei Banmeng whispered.

Fang Qingyu nodded slightly.

He quietly took out a tiny device, no bigger than a thumb, completely black, and without any markings, from the inner layer of his tactical waist pack.

With a slight twitch of his fingertip, he subtly pressed a nearly invisible indentation at the top of the device.

This was before disembarking.

The aloof intelligence officer on the ship secretly gave him an emergency distress beacon.

Once activated, the signal will be sent to the nearest Federation Tier 3 powerhouse with the highest priority.

The officer's exact words were: "Captain Fang is exceptionally capable and probably doesn't need this. But just in case, it's always good to have a backup plan."

Once the beacon was activated, Fang Qingyu retrieved it.

The Eternal Night Realm once again isolated itself from all detection.

"Get in the water, stay close."

Fang Qingyu's voice rang out in the darkness.

The five people, like five dark shadows merging into the sea, silently slid into the icy, bone-chilling ocean.

The Eternal Night Territory remained underwater, not only isolating them from the impact of the water flow, but also perfectly concealing their aura, energy fluctuations, and even body temperature.

Ahead, Wu Gang and the others were already dressed. A dozen figures jumped into the sea like dumplings being dropped into boiling water, turning on their underwater searchlights and stirring up a cloud of murky bubbles.

Fang Qingyu and his group of five, like the most experienced predators, stayed far behind, maintaining a safe distance, and locked onto their target solely by their senses.

Beneath the icy sea.

It is another bizarre and desolate world.

The pale blue light struggled to penetrate the thick ice and seawater, forming hazy beams of light.

The massive iceberg base, resembling the skeleton of an ancient behemoth, stands jaggedly on the seabed. Strange, cold-resistant fish dart between the beams of light, while brightly colored jellyfish float like ghosts.

The seawater was icy cold, and the immense water pressure was everywhere.

Wu Gang and his group led the way, with a clear objective, and descended at a rapid pace.

They were clearly well-prepared and quite familiar with the waters, avoiding the huge ice shards and dangerous undercurrents.

Fang Qingyu and his group of five followed closely behind, traversing between rugged ice cliffs and deep trenches.

Time passed second by second, and underwater there was only the beam of the searchlight, the sound of the churning water, and the silent progress of the group.

About ten minutes later.

Wu Gang and the others, who had been descending and moving forward at a constant speed, suddenly slowed down.

Immediately afterwards, in the perception of Fang Qingyu and the other four, their direction actually began to change!
It's no longer moving forward or downward in a parallel path, but upward!

"Ok?"

Fang Qingyu's molten gold vertical pupils flashed with a sharp glint in the underwater darkness.

Soon, more than a dozen figures ahead began to rise rapidly!
"what the hell?"

Chu Kuanglan's voice, tinged with doubt, echoed throughout the Eternal Night Territory.

"Follow them, but be careful."

Fang Qingyu said in a deep voice.

The five of them also adjusted their direction, like five agile fish, and quietly floated upwards. However, they did not immediately surface, but stayed a few meters below the surface, using a huge floating ice rock to hide their figures and then probe the surface.

“Crash——!!!”

“Crash——!!!”

With the sound of water breaking and heavy breathing, Wu Gang, Lin Wei, Bao Xiong, and more than a dozen others emerged from the icy seawater, wiping the water off their faces.

However, when the bear finally saw its surroundings...

That rugged face contorted instantly, unleashing a deafening roar:

"Wu Gang! I curse your ancestors for eighteen generations!!!"

He pointed sharply to his side and behind him, his voice trembling with extreme anger and fear: "What the hell is that?! Open your damn eyes and see clearly!!!"

Everyone looked in the direction he was pointing.

The wind and snow seemed to thin out at that moment.

Just a few hundred meters behind them.

A magnificent wall, two hundred meters high and made entirely of an unknown black alloy and millennia-old solid ice, stands majestically like an insurmountable chasm!
Above the giant wall, one can vaguely see flowing halos of light, and huge watchtowers dotting it like stars.

It is the Great Wall of the Arctic!

They were now located outside the Great Wall.

The extreme northern ice plains are ravaged by demons of fate.

"Breaking through the defenses without permission?!"

A middle-aged man dressed in the robes of a chosen one instantly turned deathly pale, his voice shrill and distorted, “This is treason! It’s a capital offense!! A maximum warrant will be issued for his arrest at every outpost along the entire Arctic front! It’s a fight to the death! You…you’re all fucking insane!!”

"Damn it! I quit! Risk my life for some damn ruin?!"

Without a word, the other warrior, wielding two swords, turned and was about to plunge into the sea, shouting, "I'm going back! Maybe I can still save my life!"

Panic spread like wildfire among the dozen or so people in an instant.

Everyone realized what a terrifying forbidden zone they had stepped into.

In an instant, curses, screams of fear, and the sound of people jumping into the water created a chaotic scene!
"Ah"

In the midst of this chaos, a soft laugh, extremely charming and languid yet chilling, pierced through the wind and snow like an icicle, clearly reaching everyone's ears and instantly silencing all the noise.

"Want to leave now? I'm afraid it's a bit too late."

Accompanied by this sound.

A massive, icy, and terrifying pressure, carrying an absolute will, descended like an invisible, towering iceberg!
Pfft!Pfft!
The people who had just jumped back into the sea were as if they had been pressed down hard by an invisible giant hand. They froze instantly, unable to even struggle, and sank straight down.

On the shore, everyone, including Violent Bear and Wu Gang, whether they were at the peak of the first tier, or a second-tier grandmaster or a chosen one, felt as if their bodies had been poured into ten-thousand-year-old mysterious ice!

Can't move!

Even moving my eyes became incredibly difficult.

A bone-chilling cold, mixed with the fear deep in their souls, instantly overwhelmed everyone.

In the snow.

A slender, wine-red figure, like a ghost, slowly emerged from behind a huge ice rock.

Her chestnut-brown curly hair swayed slightly in the cold wind.

Her face wore a captivating smile that could charm anyone.

It was He Manhe.

But at this moment, the aura emanating from her was completely different from that on the ship!
It was a vast, abyss-like expanse, as cold as the core of the polar region, carrying a terrifying pressure that transcended mortal life.

apostle!

Level three!

……

Beneath the frigid sea surface, Fang Qingyu and his four companions were hidden in the shadow of a massive, suspended ice rock.

"Why are they still in the water?"

Chu Kuanglan's voice echoed throughout the Eternal Night Territory.

"Let's wait a little longer," Lu Jiuyuan said from the side.

The group stayed underwater for several more minutes before everyone on the surface began to evacuate.

Fang Qingyu waited a while longer before controlling the Eternal Night Territory to envelop the four of them, causing them to slowly rise like a giant black jellyfish.

wow-

Five people emerged from the cold, inky seawater.

"Holy crap!" Chu Kuanglan had just wiped the water off his face when he glanced around and immediately cursed, his voice filled with astonishment, "How the hell did we end up outside the defensive line?!"

Before me stretched a vast ice field, with fierce winds whipping up snowflakes and raging like a sandstorm.

Not far behind, a massive black city wall, constructed of countless huge ice bricks and special alloys, stood like an insurmountable chasm, radiating a suffocating sense of oppression.

Meanwhile, the City of Glazed Light had long been left far behind on the other side of the defensive line.

"How long have they been swimming? They can swim tens of kilometers in just over ten minutes?! Is this some kind of ghost?!" Chu Kuanglan was a little confused.

Wei Banmeng's usually cold face became serious as she quickly analyzed, "Spatial anomaly? Illusion? Or some kind of teleportation we can't understand?"

Deep within Fang Qingyu's molten gold-like vertical pupils, it was as if molten lava was boiling and churning.

Not right.

Something is very wrong.

From sensing the route after entering the water to the current strange position relative to the defense line.
There was a huge discrepancy between the sense of time and space.

This is a distance that is by no means achievable under normal circumstances.

"Still going to play?"

Wei Banmeng's cold voice rang out in the thick darkness, carrying an unprecedented solemnity. Her gaze pierced through the darkness, locking onto the blurry figures in the wind and snow ahead.

Fang Qingyu's vertical pupils, like molten gold, gleamed with a cold light in the absolute darkness, like a furnace burning in the abyss.

He nodded slowly, his voice low but resolute: "Follow!"

The Eternal Night enveloped the five people, like the most cautious ghosts, before they once again merged into the howling wind and snow.

Under He Manhe's terrifying pressure, the group ahead had long lost any will to resist and could only follow the wine-red figure numbly, like lambs to the slaughter, trekking across the vast ice plain.

Time passed in the deathly silence of the snowstorm.

I don't know how much time passed, maybe a quarter of an hour, maybe longer.

He Manhe, who was at the very front, finally stopped.

She turned around, her wine-red skirt fluttering in the wind, her chestnut curls flying, and her stunningly beautiful face now held only an almost eerie indifference.

She raised a slender hand and pressed it lightly against a glacier cliff covered with thick snow that seemed no different from other areas.

Om-! ! !
An indescribable, deep rumble, as if emanating from the depths of the earth, suddenly resounded.
Immediately after
The massive glacial cliffs, like ancient giants awakened from their slumber, emitted deafening "crack! boom!" sounds.
Under the influence of some invisible force, it was as if it had been cleaved in two by an invisible divine axe.

Ice chips mixed with snow cascaded down like a waterfall!

A deep, dark, and enormous crack, several meters wide, suddenly appeared before everyone's eyes.
The crack extends straight down into the heart of the glacier, as if leading directly to the netherworld.

A colder, more ancient aura, carrying the dust of time and a certain dormant power, surged forth from the depths of the crack like a tangible tide!

"hiss--!!!"

On the shore, all the "reinforcements," including Wu Gang and Lin Wei, gasped in shock, their pupils contracting sharply in utter astonishment.

The glacier has cracked open! A masterpiece of nature.

This is absolutely beyond human capability.

"The ruins of the Martial Saint are real?!"

A middle-aged man dressed in the robes of a chosen one muttered incredulously, his voice trembling.

"Ah."

He Manhe let out a soft, ambiguous hum, like an ice bead falling onto a jade plate.

Without even glancing at the stunned people behind her, her wine-red figure flashed, and she was the first to step into the deep icy crevice.

"go!"

Wu Gang gritted his teeth, suppressing the turmoil in his heart, and urged him on sharply.

Lin Wei, Chen Mingyuan, and Huiying followed closely behind, their eyes also surging with fear and fervor.

The dozen or so second-tier powerhouses, including Violent Bear, stared at the bottomless entrance to the ice abyss, then looked behind them at the black Great Wall defense line that resembled a giant beast crawling in the wind and snow, their faces filled with struggle and fear.

But in the end.

Greed for the "Martial Saint's Ruins" and fear of He Manhe's terrifying strength overwhelmed everything else.

A dozen or so figures, like moths drawn to a flame, with the last glimmer of hope for instant success, gritted their teeth and filed in.

The last person disappeared at the entrance to the ice abyss.

Fang Qingyu and his four companions appeared silently at the edge of the crack, like ghosts.

A biting chill mixed with an ancient aura swept over you, and even across the Eternal Night Territory, you could feel the bone-chilling cold.

"Keep absolutely quiet!"

Fang Qingyu's voice was low and deep, like a whisper.

The Eternal Night Territory enveloped the five people once again, like five drops of water merging into an inkwell, silently sliding into the massive glacial crevice.

The ice wall was as smooth as a mirror, reflecting the faint sunlight filtering down from above, forming patches of ethereal blue light.

The passage is not vertically downward, but rather at an angle, winding deep into the heart of the glacier.

The air was so cold it seemed to freeze the soul, and every breath was accompanied by the faint sound of ice crystals rubbing together.

The faint sounds of heavy footsteps, heavy breathing, and the crunching of ice crystals being crushed could be heard from ahead in the passage.

Fang Qingyu and his four companions were like true shadows.

They trailed far behind, concealing their presence to the extreme.

As they went deeper, the ice walls on both sides of the passage were no longer pure blue, and some strange sights began to appear.

Deep within the ice, some enormous and grotesque skeletons lie frozen.

It has a spine like a giant python, a ferocious skull full of fangs, and huge limbs covered with bone spurs.
These skeletons clearly belonged to powerful Icefield Ghosts, instantly frozen by some unknown force, solidified in millennia-old ice, maintaining the posture of struggling before death.

Even more chilling is that some of the ice walls contain frozen human figures!
They wore ancient armor or cloth that had long since decayed, their faces contorted, their eyes filled with extreme fear and despair, as if their lives had been taken away in an instant by an eternal freeze.

A heavy, suffocating aura of death permeated the passageway.

"Damn it, this godforsaken place!"

Chu Kuanglan's voice carried a barely perceptible dryness within the Eternal Night Territory.

Holding the knife, Lu Jiuyuan's eyes were sharp as a hawk's as he swept over the terrifying, frozen scene, his body constantly tense.

Wei Banmeng's usually cold face was now filled with seriousness, and she subconsciously moved closer to Fang Qingyu.

Jiang Wei remained suspended quietly, her small hand gently tugging at Fang Qingyu's sleeve. Her clear red eyes reflected the grotesque skeletons deep within the ice wall. Her small face was expressionless, but Fang Qingyu could feel her small hand tightening slightly.

After descending for about ten more minutes, the passage ahead suddenly opened up.

A huge ice cave, as if hollowed out from the belly of a mountain, appeared at the end of the field of vision.

The ice cave's dome soared high, with countless enormous, uniquely shaped ice spikes hanging down, like an inverted mountain of knives and a forest of swords.

The ground was relatively flat and covered with a thin layer of frost.

At the very center of this enormous ice cave, a massive altar, several meters high and constructed entirely of some kind of dark gold metal, stands silently like a sleeping behemoth.

The altar is pyramid-shaped.

The surface is engraved with countless intricate and dazzling runes, exuding an ancient and wild aura.

These runes were flowing with an extremely faint, dark golden light, like breathing.

An indescribable, overwhelming, and heavy aura, seemingly capable of suppressing all things, emanated from the depths of the altar.

It is this aura, intertwined with the chill of the glacier, that creates the unique oppressive atmosphere within this ice cave!

"altar?!"

"The core of the Martial Saint's Ruins?!"

"What kind of runes are those? I've never seen them before."

Ahead, the bear and his companions finally saw the scene at the center of the ice cave, and their suppressed gasps of surprise rose and fell.

Having endured fear and struggle to reach this place, their greed and fanaticism were instantly ignited to their peak as they witnessed this magnificent and mysterious altar!

however.

Just as this frenzied atmosphere was beginning to rise...

At the entrance to the ice cave, the wine-red figure slowly turned around.

Her gaze swept over the group of second-tier powerhouses who were trembling slightly with excitement, and her red lips parted slightly.

"Next, I'll have to ask you all to work hard."

"Don't worry, after it's done, no one will know you were outside the defense line, and the agreed-upon reward will still apply."

The crowd listened to the promises made to them personally by an apostle.

The minor friction on the sea surface was instantly forgotten.

"Rest assured, Apostle He, we will do our best."

Unlike their united efforts
In the darkness of the passage behind them.

Now it's Fang Qingyu and the others' turn to struggle with this.
"Still going to play?"

Wei Banmeng and the others all looked at Fang Qingyu, waiting for his decision.

They didn't know or where He Manhe had gone before.

Upon closer inspection, it became clear that He Manhe had been at the very front the whole time, and
And he's a third-tier apostle!!!
No matter how strong Fang Qingyu is, it is impossible for someone at the initial stage of the second tier to challenge a third-tier being.

So if we continue...
The risk might be a bit high.

Fang Qingyu stared blankly ahead, also struggling with this point.

He was actually more shocked than anyone else.

After all, he had killed He Manhe, who was at the Martial Apprentice level, and He Manhe, who was at the Martial Master level.

He never imagined that there would be an Apostle-level He Manhe.
And is this actually the real thing?

It is currently impossible to determine.

Just as the five were struggling with their decision...
From the darkness came another unfamiliar voice.

"Go with it, why not?"

　Three more chapters tonight! I had a slight writer's block this morning.

　　Please vote for me with monthly tickets, sob sob!
　　
　
(End of this chapter)