One person: Starting with the Snow Drinking Blade

Sneak attack!

Moreover, the timing was extremely precise—it was precisely the moment when Nie Lingfeng's attention was drawn to the monster under the ice and he was preparing to make a move!

The gray shadow was too fast and too stealthy; it wasn't until it was right in front of him that Nie Lingfeng's spiritual sense detected it.

In the rush, he didn't have time to turn around—turning around takes time, and the tentacles had already stuck to his back—nor did he have time to activate the Cloud-Dispelling Palm for defense—the palm force needed to be gathered, and his right hand was still condensing cold energy, while his left hand didn't even have time to lift up.

The only option is to instantly raise the protective aura to its maximum while shifting the body to the side as much as possible to avoid vital points.

"Brother Lingfeng!"

Chen Duo exclaimed in surprise. The Phoenix True Fire in her hand had already flown out, but the distance was too far, and it was too late.

"Brother Nie!"

Zhang Chulan's eyes were bloodshot. Lightning exploded around him, and electricity crackled beneath his feet, but he was on the other side of the platform and couldn't get there in time.

Just as the gray-black energy tentacles were about to pierce Nie Lingfeng's back—

"The clapper of the chaotic gong!"

A clear shout rang out!

It is Daoist Wang Ye!

The moment the gray shadow appeared, he had already begun casting a spell. His hands moved with incredible speed, his fingers flying across the air, leaving afterimages in his wake.

The target wasn't the gray shadow—because the gray shadow was too fast for his spells to lock onto.

It wasn't Nie Lingfeng either—because he couldn't cast spells on Nie Lingfeng.

But -

The "time" in that small area between the gray figure and Nie Lingfeng.

Feng Hou Qi Men, manipulate the four plates, and create chaos in time and space!

There's no need to "freeze" the entire gray shadow. Just make time "slow down" a tiny bit as it passes through that area.

The gray shadow's speed was visibly...slightly slower.

That "sliver" was extremely brief—perhaps only a fraction of a second, or even less—so brief that it was almost imperceptible to the naked eye.

But for a master of Nie Lingfeng's caliber, that's enough!

It was this slight difference that allowed Nie Lingfeng's body to complete the final sideways shift.

The gray-black energy tentacles grazed past his ribs!

"Sizzle—!"

His clothes were as if corroded by concentrated acid, instantly tearing open a large hole! The edges of the fabric were charred and curled, emitting blue smoke and a pungent, burnt smell.

Beneath, skin as white as jade was revealed, but instantly a charred burn mark appeared. The burn mark stretched from the ribs to the side of the waist, about the length of a palm and the width of a finger, with irregular edges, as if branded with a hot iron. The skin at the burn mark was no longer white, but an unhealthy, blackish-grayish-purple.

A chilling, excruciating force, carrying a strong sense of mental erosion, surged wildly into the body through the wound!

The feeling wasn't like an injury—it was more like something alive had crawled into his body from the wound. It was cold and slippery, like a snake swimming in his veins, devouring his vital energy, and polluting his meridians.

Nie Lingfeng grunted.

There was no scream, only a low, suppressed groan emanating from deep within his throat.

His eyes flashed with a cold light!

He endured the excruciating pain and the mental shock—a shock that felt like an awl drilling into his brain, causing his vision to blur—and used the momentum of his sideways movement to spin rapidly like a top.

The left hand's fingers are held together like a knife.

The palm strike, which had been poised to strike and was imbued with the soft power of the Cloud-Dispelling Palm and the chilling aura of the Frost-Heavenly Fist, slammed into the "root" of the gray-black energy tentacle—the spot that emerged from the shadows of the rock wall!

"Cloud Blade - Frost Slash!"

"puff--!"

There was no clanging of metal, no crisp "ding" sound.

There was only a dull thud, like cutting into tattered leather.

The gray-black energy tentacles snapped off instantly!

There was no blood, no muscle, nothing that should be present at the cut. Only thick, foul-smelling, grayish-black smoke billowed out!

The smoke, thick as ink, billowed from the broken surface, swirling and spreading in the air. It smelled like something burnt, or something that had been rotting for a long time.

The severed tentacle, like a living snake's tail, writhed wildly on the ground a few times—it bounced, rolled, and convulsed on the ground like a snake with its head cut off—before quickly turning into a pool of bubbling black pus.

"Hiss hiss hiss—"

The pus fell onto the ice, corroding a small pit with charred edges and wisps of smoke. The pit grew larger and deeper, the pus seeping in like a bottomless pit, and the surrounding ice began to blacken and soften.

From the shadows of the rock wall came a sharp, piercing scream, a mixture of pain, anger, and the wails of countless people!

The sound was unlike any other creature's cry. It was shrill like metal scraping against glass, yet deep and resonant like thunder from the earth. Countless tones overlapped, sounding as if hundreds of people were screaming, crying, and cursing simultaneously. The sound reflected back and forth in the cave, creating countless overlapping echoes that made one's eardrums ache and head spin.

A blurry, constantly twisting, grayish-black shadow flashed by in the shadows.

Its outline is difficult to describe—sometimes it looks like a person, sometimes like a snake, sometimes like an irregular cloud of smoke. It has no fixed shape, as if it is constantly changing, twisting, and recombining.

It quickly retreated into deeper darkness and disappeared.

All that remained was a hole eroded into the rock wall, its edges still hissing and emitting black smoke. The hole was about the width of a bucket, bottomless, and pitch black inside, where nothing could be seen. But you could sense that something was watching this side from the other end of that hole, from the deeper darkness.

The attacker, if he misses his first strike, immediately flees into the distance.

Cunning, ruthless, and extremely familiar with the environment.

All of this happened in the blink of an eye—from the gray shadow's sneak attack to being cut off and forced to retreat, it only took two or three seconds.

Only then did Zhang Chulan and the others' exclamations subside completely; their hearts had been in their throats, then returned to their stomachs.

"Brother Nie! Are you alright?!"

Zhang Chulan rushed over, lightning flashing beneath his feet, and arrived in front of Nie Lingfeng in two steps.

He saw the charred burn marks on Nie Lingfeng's ribs and gasped—hiss—as if he himself had been slashed.

The skin around the wound had an unhealthy grayish-black color and was still wriggling slightly, as if it were alive; it was a creepy sight. It looked like something was crawling under the skin, or like some invisible insects were gnawing at the edge of the wound.

"It's alright."

Nie Lingfeng waved his hand.

His face was a little pale—not from fear, but from the malevolent energy within him causing his Qi to become somewhat unstable—but his eyes remained calm.

He quickly circulated the pure Qi within his body to temporarily suppress and dispel the toxic energy that had invaded the wound. The Qi flowed through the meridians like brooms, gradually "sweeping" the grayish-black, viscous, tar-like energy out of the wound, forcing it out of the body through the pores, and turning it into wisps of grayish-black smoke.

A burning, stinging pain and a tingling numbness shot through the wound. The gray shadow's energy possessed strong mental and physical corrosive properties, making it extremely troublesome. If it weren't for his robust constitution, anyone else would have been crippled or killed in this attack.

He glanced at the hole in the rock wall, his eyes cold.

The thing that just attacked was definitely not an ordinary experimental monster. Its energy was strange and insidious, and it carried a sense of... decaying intelligence. It wasn't the instinct of a beast, but a calculated and premeditated ambush—it knew when to strike, from which angle to attack, and how to use the movements of the monster under the ice to cover its attack.

It was waiting. Waiting for the moment Nie Lingfeng would be distracted.

"They're ridiculously fast, they can even use energy attacks to ambush you, and they run away when they can't win... Are monsters this tactically sophisticated these days?"

"I don't know, but it's definitely related to the parliament."

Nie Lingfeng said in a deep voice, his gaze once again turning to the ice below.

After the interruption, the massive shadow beneath the ice seemed to have been startled—perhaps by the gray shadow's scream, or perhaps by the vibrations from the energy collision—and its writhing became less pronounced.

It stopped frantically ramming against the ice and instead slowly and cautiously sank downwards, its massive body casting a fainter and more blurred shadow beneath the ice.

But the cracking sound of the ice continued, a constant "crunching" noise. The cracks were widening, radiating outwards from the center, like a piece of paper being torn apart. Clearly, it hadn't given up; it was simply waiting. Waiting for a more opportune moment, or for someone else to make the first move.

"We can't stay here any longer."

Master Wang's expression was grave. He glanced up—the large hole they had fallen into was still there, but climbing back up from that height was virtually impossible. The surrounding rock walls were steep and slippery, offering no foothold. The only way forward was to keep going.

"The things that attacked earlier, and this thing under the ice, are just appetizers. The 'big guy' that Xiaoyun sensed, and the so-called 'Nidhogg' that the council talks about... we must find out the situation as soon as possible, or find a way out."

"A way out..."