One person: Starting with the Snow Drinking Blade

Nie Lingfeng's voice wasn't loud, but it clearly drowned out the rustling of the insect swarm and the gurgling of the underground river. His voice was like ice falling to the ground, carrying an undeniable decisiveness, each word piercing the ears of everyone present like a nail.

The moment he finished speaking, he suddenly pressed his raised right hand down!

"Heavenly Frost Fist - Frost and Snow Fluttering!"

There was no earth-shattering explosion, no dazzling light. Only a pure, extreme chill, seemingly emanating from the deepest abyss of the far north, silently spread outwards like ripples from Nie Lingfeng's palm.

The chill wasn't something that "emerged"—it was more like it "seeped" out from another dimension. It had no sound, no color, only an absolute cold that made your very soul tremble.

The air froze instantly.

The temperature dropped sharply.

Zhang Chulan's breath condensed into tiny ice crystals in mid-air, which then fell to the ground with a "whoosh." He felt as if his lungs were stuffed with ice shards, and every breath was accompanied by a stinging pain.

The water surface at the edge of the platform, which was originally just a thin layer of ice, instantly froze into solid ice several feet thick! The ice layer didn't thicken gradually; it froze solid in an instant—"crack!"—from the surface to the bottom. The ice surface was as smooth as a mirror, reflecting the eerie green light of the fluorescent fungi overhead, like a giant piece of jade.

The carrion beetles attempting to climb up the water and rock walls froze in mid-air. Their six legs remained in the climbing posture, their mouthparts were still open, and their compound eyes were still reflecting light—but everything was paused for a moment.

Their bodies were covered with a layer of crystalline ice crystals, first white frost, then transparent ice, and finally a thick, armor-like ice shell. Then, like dumplings being dropped into a pot, they "plop, plop" fell back to the water's surface, crashing onto the ice with a crisp cracking sound—some shattered into pieces, while others continued to roll on the ice, but with each roll, several frozen, brittle legs fell off.

But this is just the beginning!

The chill continued to spread.

Following the water's surface, the damp ground, the rock face, every crack, every hole, every inch of surface exposed to the air...

Like the most greedy white plague, it frantically devoured everything around it!

Everything in its path froze!

The surging black swarm of insects seemed to be paused before this indiscriminately cold domain—and then, it froze!

"Click-click-click—!"

A series of chilling, freezing sounds rang out rapidly from the edge of the platform. It wasn't just one or two sounds, but thousands upon thousands overlapping, like countless ice needles piercing flesh simultaneously, or like the entire space contracting, tightening, and emitting its final groan.

The black swarm of insects was visibly "dyed" into a ghastly white.

First, frost forms on the surface—a layer of white, velvety ice crystals appears on the insects' black carapaces, as if they have been sprinkled with icing sugar.

Then the ice layer thickened—the white ice crystals turned into a transparent ice shell, completely encasing the insect inside.

The insects inside remained frozen in the transparent ice, still pouncing, biting, and wriggling. Some insects were still biting each other, their mouthparts biting each other, when they were frozen. Some insects were opening their elytra in preparation for flight, but the ice rushed up as soon as their wings were half open. Some insects had just crawled out of the rock crevices, with half of their bodies still outside, when they were immobilized.

They formed a bizarre and terrifying group of ice sculptures.

The ice layer continued to thicken and spread, and in the blink of an eye, the area within a hundred meters of the platform—whether it was the water surface, the ground, or the low rock walls—was transformed into a crystal-clear, yet imprisoned, frozen world filled with countless black insect shadows!

The fluorescent fungi overhead were frozen beneath the ice, emitting a hazy, filtered glow, like looking at a lantern through frosted glass. The moss on the rock face was frozen into brittle, thin flakes, crackling and peeling off the rock like a green snowfall.

The chill even reached the distant, shadowy figures.

Several suppressed, low growls, filled with pain and anger, echoed from the darkness. The sounds didn't seem to come from the throat, but rather squeezed from deep within the chest, muffled, heavy, and carrying a low-frequency vibration that instilled instinctive fear. The roars reflected back and forth in the cave, forming layers of echoes, like many giant beasts roaring simultaneously.

But soon, the roars weakened, as if those beings hidden deeper within were also intimidated by the sudden extreme cold and temporarily chose to retreat.

On the platform.

A blast of cold air hit him, and Zhang Chulan couldn't help but sneeze loudly, his snot almost freezing into icicles. He hugged his arms, his teeth chattering, and he trembled like a leaf in the wind.

"Achoo! Brother Nie... before you unleash your ultimate move next time... could you... could you at least give me a warning? You almost froze me into an icicle!"

The golden light spell on his body managed to resist most of the cold air—the golden light flowed across his skin, keeping the chill out—but the bone-chilling cold still made him shiver. It was a cold that seeped into his very bones; the golden light spell could block the external cold, but it couldn't stop the feeling of his blood freezing inside his body.

Master Wang Ye exhaled a puff of white breath and rubbed his hands together. His hands were so frozen they were numb, and it took him a while to warm them up a little. Looking at the scene around him that had instantly transformed into a world of ice and snow, his eyes were filled with undisguised shock.

"With a single thought, ice freezes; for miles, frost chills... Brother Nie, your mastery of cold energy is probably no less than that of those legendary cold-attribute spirit beasts."

As he spoke, the Qimen Dunjia formation beneath his feet was still slowly rotating, but the speed was noticeably slower than before—not because his skill was insufficient, but because the earth's energy was frozen. His Qimen Dunjia formation needed the earth's energy to function, and now that the earth's energy was solidified, he was suffering as well.

Zhang Lingyu silently circulated Yin Five Thunder. The inherent cold attribute of the Thunder Qi made him slightly more tolerant of low temperatures—Yin Five Thunder was inherently cold, and it shared some origins with Nie Lingfeng's cold energy, so they wouldn't repel each other. But seeing the terrifying swarm of insects that was instantly frozen and capable of devouring steel, his assessment of Nie Lingfeng's strength rose again.

He unconsciously thought of the Celestial Master of Longhu Mountain. The Celestial Master's Zhengyi Thunder Magic was extremely Yang and strong, completely opposite to the Yin Five Thunders. But Nie Lingfeng's... was neither thunder magic, nor palm magic, nor sword magic, but a pure, ultimate, and all-encompassing movement of matter... "Nirvana".

Curious, Feng Baobao squatted on the edge of the platform and poked a beetle frozen in the ice with her finger, still in a ferocious, wide-open mouth position.

"Click."

The insect broke into several pieces. The broken edges were covered with ice crystals and black carapace fragments; there was no blood, no flesh, it looked like shattered ceramic.

"It's rock hard; it could be used as a concealed weapon."

She commented in a very serious tone.

Chen Duo held Xiao Yun in her arms, a faint halo of color emanating from her body. It was a heat-insulating barrier spontaneously formed by her natal Gu—a palm-sized, crystal-clear silkworm-shaped Gu worm crawled out from her sleeve, lay on Xiao Yun's blanket, and slowly spit out a thin layer of faintly glowing silk threads, wrapping Xiao Yun's entire body in a warm cocoon.

Xiaoyun seemed less afraid of the cold. She peeked her little head out from under the blanket, blinked her big eyes, and curiously looked at the white, icy world around her. The frozen insects looked like hawthorns on a candied hawthorn skewer to her, and she even stuck out her little tongue to lick her lips.

"Papa's amazing...he froze all the bad bugs..."

The worst off is Bald Bear.

He was already severely injured—a leg broken, several ribs fractured, internal organs damaged, and he was coughing up blood. He had lost a lot of blood, and his body temperature was already low. Now, hit by this cold air, his face turned ashen, his lips turned purple, and he trembled uncontrollably, clearly on the verge of death.

His breathing grew weaker and shallower, like an engine about to stall, each gasp like he was using up his last bit of strength.

Chen Duo glanced at him and frowned.

With a flick of her finger, a tiny, bright red beetle, no bigger than a grain of rice and radiating a faint warmth, flew out from her sleeve, traced a red arc in the air, and landed on his neck, giving him a gentle sting.

Bald Bear immediately felt a warm current flow into his wound. The current wasn't large, like a red-hot wire passing through his blood vessel, but it was enough to dispel some of the chill. His face changed from deathly pale to sallow, and his lips from purple to bluish-gray. Although he was still shivering from the cold, at least his life was saved.

He gave Chen Duo a grateful look.

Chen Duo had already turned her gaze away, withdrawing her hand expressionlessly, as if she had just done something insignificant.

"We're safe for now."

Nie Lingfeng withdrew his hand, his expression unchanged. His breathing was steady, his heartbeat did not quicken, and his Qi flowed normally—it seemed that the terrifying technique of freezing a hundred-meter area in an instant had not taken much to his liking.

He walked to the edge of the platform and looked at the lifelike, yet lifeless, insect corpses beneath the ice. The insects remained in the postures they had just assumed before death; some were crawling, some were flying, and some were tearing at each other. Each one was like an actor whose pause button had been pressed, frozen in time on the stage.

He looked further into the depths of the cave, which was once again shrouded in darkness and silence, and frowned slightly.

Although the cold air drove back the swarm of insects, it also intimidated something in the shadows—he could feel that the aura of those huge life forms hidden in the darkness was retreating, shrinking, and curling up in deeper corners—but the aura of the being that Xiaoyun had sensed earlier, the one that made her feel "so big and so scary," had not gone away.

Instead, the stimulation of the cold air made it even more subtle and more... restless.

Like a pan of oil that has been doused with ice water, the surface appears calm, but the inside is even hotter.

"This chill won't last long, especially below the water's surface."

Master Wang Ye walked to his side and whispered. His voice was very low, as if he was afraid of disturbing something.

"The temperature and humidity here are hot and humid, which clashes with your cold attribute, causing the ice to slowly melt. Moreover, I just sensed that the earth's energy deeper inside is being violently stirred up by something, like... something huge is turning over."

His fingers moved rapidly within his sleeve, calculating a few times before stopping. Not because he was finished, but because he dared not continue. The divination result sent a chill down his spine—it was a chaotic mix of information he had never seen before, a mixture of "life" and "death," "new" and "old," "flesh and blood" and "metal."

"I know."