Wandering Swordsman |

After leaving the central desert area, the two continued to travel swiftly using their lightness skills for more than a month, finally leaving behind the vast expanse of yellow sand that had swallowed countless heroic souls.

The yellow sand gradually thinned, the terrain rose higher, and the wind began to carry a biting, damp chill—the scent of snow, a silent warning from nature.

Ten days later, when the last grain of yellow sand was trampled underfoot, a breathtaking scene of death suddenly unfolded before them: ten thousand miles of ice, heaven and earth all white.

Beneath a clear, azure sky, the continuous snow-capped mountains, like ancient dragons, coil around the spine of the earth, their peaks piercing the clouds, gleaming with a chilling silver light; the boundless snowfield stretches to the horizon, devoid of birds or beasts, only a deathly stillness of pure white, as if time has frozen here, and all things have come to an end.

The cold wind howled in, like thousands of ice blades being unleashed simultaneously. When it scraped against the exposed skin, it made a faint hissing sound—not the sound of the wind, but the mournful cry of flesh rubbing against the extreme cold.

The air was so cold it was almost viscous; every breath felt like swallowing shards of glass, and my lungs felt like they were being pierced by ice needles.

The two immediately circulated their internal energy to ward off the cold, their true energy flowing throughout their bodies, yet they still felt the chill as if a venomous snake were burrowing into their meridians.

Shen Mo's black robe fluttered in the wind, yet remained unstained by a single snowflake.

With each step he took, the snow beneath his feet automatically solidified into crystal-clear ice steps, as steady as a rock, as if even the merciless snowfield was willing to pave a path for him.

In addition to using his internal energy to resist the cold, Hua Tianyou also wrapped himself in three layers of thick fur coats and wore an oil-soaked cowhide armor. However, his eyelashes were still covered with frost, and his beard was frozen into hard clumps. With each breath, tiny ice crystals condensed on his chest and fell off in a rustling sound, like dying fireflies.

He suddenly stopped, his gaze fixed on the snow slope ahead. A snow wolf skeleton lay half-buried in the ice, its fangs menacing, its eye sockets hollow, and its fur perfectly intact, without a trace of decay. Further away, a giant snow elephant lay dead on its back, its hooves stiff, its tusks like jade, yet it had been sealed by the ice for a thousand years, resembling a natural ice sculpture.

"Even they... are dead." Hua Tianyou's voice was hoarse, trembling with disbelief. "These creatures, born of wind and snow, thriving in extreme cold... were frozen to death here!"

His heart sank. If even ferocious beasts like snow wolves and snow elephants, adapted to the harsh cold, couldn't survive here, then what made them, two "outsiders," think they could possibly cross this desolate land?

For the next three months, the two walked through the snow, but they were no longer as fast as when they crossed the desert. The environment was so treacherous that they had to slow down.

The wind and snow never ceased, the ice cliffs were steep, and one could only rely on the stars at night to determine direction.

Finally, on the seventeenth day of the third month, they entered the central region of the snowfield.

In an instant, Hua Tianyou felt as if he had fallen into an icy hell. The cold here was no ordinary low temperature, but a "deathly cold" that could freeze the soul.

The air seemed to solidify, pressing down so hard it was hard to breathe; the moment his internal energy began to circulate, it stagnated in his meridians like an ice river, almost unable to flow. His knees trembled, his teeth chattered, and he couldn't even speak, feeling as if his internal organs were being slowly frozen by an invisible hand.

Just as his consciousness was about to fade, a hand gently pressed against his back.

The gentle, spring-like Buddhist power and the domineering, abyss-like demonic energy surged from his palm, instantly dispelling the chilling poison from his limbs and bones. The cold receded like a tide, and a warm current rose from his dantian. He regained sensation in his limbs, and even the frost on his eyelashes melted quietly, dripping into beads.

Hua Tianyou looked up at Shen Mo's profile and saw that his expression was calm and composed, with golden light flowing in his eyes, as if the extreme cold that could freeze even gods was nothing more than a breeze in his eyes.

His heart surged with emotion, overwhelmed with awe: with his lord by his side, crossing the 'Eternal Silent Ridge' in the heart of this frozen snowfield should not be too difficult.

However, not long after, the celestial phenomena changed drastically.

It was as if a giant god had splashed ink and wielded a brush, dyeing the entire sky a deathly black.

A fierce wind howled in from the far north, whipping up a blizzard of snowflakes, like millions of white butterflies dancing wildly, or like heavenly soldiers scattering deadly silver blades.

In an instant, visibility plummeted to within three feet, and the world became a chaotic blur, making even each other's faces indistinct.

Shen Mo and Hua Tianyou walked through the wind and snow, sinking into the snow up to their knees with every step.

However, after walking for an unknown amount of time, Shen Mo suddenly stopped, his brows furrowing slightly.

He looked down at his feet—the footprints he had just made were instantly covered by the fresh snow, leaving no trace.

He looked up and around. The wind and snow were like a curtain, obscuring the surrounding fields. Even the distant ice peak shaped like an eagle's beak had disappeared without a trace.

"No," he said in a low voice, his tone steady and calm, cutting through the wind and snow.

He carved a deep mark on the ice with the tip of his sword, took several dozen steps forward, and looked back—the mark had long been buried by snow, and the scenery in front of him was exactly the same as before! Even the wind direction, the snowfall, and the angle of the ice reflecting light were exactly the same.

They were going around in circles.

This blizzard not only obscures visibility but also distorts spatial perception, forming a natural "snow labyrinth." Ordinary people here would completely lose their minds within half a day, eventually collapsing from exhaustion and turning into yet another nameless skeleton on the icy plain.

Hua Tianyou seemed to sense something was wrong as well. His face turned deathly pale, and he used all his inner strength to resist the bitter cold. Even his voice trembled as he spoke: "My lord...have we...been going in circles?"

Shen Mo did not answer, when suddenly a crisp "snap" was heard!

The ice beneath Hua Tianyou's feet suddenly collapsed—it was a crack in the ice, covered by fresh snow, with only a thin layer of ice as thin as a cicada's wing on its surface.

Because his internal energy was fully protecting him from the cold, his senses were dulled, and he failed to notice the deadly danger beneath his feet. The instant he fell, a chill rushed towards him, and the abyss opened like a gaping maw. He instinctively screamed, "My lord—!"

Before he could finish speaking, his body was already plummeting downwards.

At the critical moment, Shen Mo's eyes flashed like lightning, and his right hand grabbed out of the air!

Without ropes or leverage, relying solely on a single thought, a jet-black demonic aura erupted from his palm, like a dragon's claws, instantly wrapping around Hua Tianyou's waist. This demonic aura wasn't a brute-force pull, but rather a precise envelopment of his meridians, isolating him from the cold poison, stabilizing his mind, and then gently lifting him—this was telekinesis!

Hua Tianyou felt a gentle yet irresistible force supporting him, his body rising as lightly as a falling leaf, and landing steadily back on the ice. The whole process took only a breath; he didn't even have time to feel the fear of falling before he was back on earth.

He collapsed to the ground, cold sweat mingling with snowmelt, his heart pounding like a drum. He looked up at Shen Mo, his eyes filled with the shock of surviving a near-death experience: "My lord!...You saved me again!"

However, before he could calm down—

Rumble...

The earth suddenly shook violently!

The ice field beneath our feet was like a giant beast that had been sleeping for thousands of years suddenly awakening, its back arching and then collapsing, the ice layer making a teeth-grinding "crack" sound, as if the entire snowfield was collapsing.

A muffled, thunderous roar echoed from the distant mountain peaks—not just one, but a continuous rumble, as if a pillar of heaven had collapsed and the earth's veins had ruptured.