Jared regarded the charging giant with a single, almost tired glance. He extended his right index finger and, as casually as one might dismiss dust, flicked it toward the advancing bear king. A crisp snap echoed across the basin, sharper than any bell.
Mid-stride, the Alpha Bear froze, shock widening its molten-silver eyes. It lowered its gaze to its chest as though searching for a reason its heart had turned silent.
There, a hole no wider than a man’s thumb had appeared. The rim shone mirror-smooth, and no blood spilled. Flesh, bone, even the creature’s very spirit, had been erased in an instant by a force beyond mortal grasp.
Thud!
The colossus toppled, kicking up a storm of frost-dust that drifted, sparkling, through the unnatural twilight.
At last, true animal instinct set in. The remaining beasts whimpered, scrambled backward, then broke in every direction, only to find the expanding tai-chi of fire and ice already enclosing them in a merciless ring.
Moments later, the dual energies dissipated, as quickly as fog on desert sands. Then, stillness reclaimed the basin.
More than three hundred Frostsoul Wolves, eight Mystic Ice Giant Bears, and their fallen monarchs—every last body had vanished. No shred of hide or shard of bone remained, as though they had been dreams that morning forgotten.
Only puckered craters, first melted by flame, then flash-frozen, scarred the rink of ice, while a haunting blend of heat and chill lingered in the air, proof of the brief, brutal slaughter.
Jared lowered his arms. A hint of pallor crept across his features.
Commanding two diametrically opposed energies on such a scale would drain any Heavenly Immortal; even the chaotic celestial energy had its limits, and the expenditure had not been small. Yet the result pleased him.
The Vermilion Demon Lord and Clara Cloudridge stood speechless. What they had witnessed lay far beyond their former definition of power.
That Ice-Fire Duality Array looked less like sorcery and more like the work of fabled gods.
“Rest for a while. We move on afterward.” Jared sat cross-legged, swallowed a recovery pill, and let his breathing slow until it matched the hush of falling snow.
The Vermilion Demon Lord and Clara formed a silent guard to either side, eyes sweeping the horizon. After the devastation they had just survived, no living thing dared approach the hollow for some time.
When the appointed rest ended, color had returned to Jared’s cheeks. The trio set out once more.
The nearer they drew to the heart of the ice plains, the more frequent, and the more violent, their interceptions became.
After crushing a fourth ambush, this one formed by thirty celestial warriors, they reached a landscape that felt disturbingly wrong. Ahead stretched a circular plain of glassy ice more than five hundred miles across. It mirrored the ashen sky like a dead lake turned to crystal.
Suspended above, however, lay a translucent blue membrane visible to the naked eye. Runes flowed across its surface, ancient characters that bled spatial power, locking the region within an invisible cage.
“This is a No-Fly Domain combined with an Amplified Gravity Field!” Clara’s face turned serious. “I can feel it; the air here is full of chaotic spatial currents, and gravity is amplified over a hundred times!”
“If we try to fly through, our speed will be drastically reduced… And the spatial turbulence could tear us apart. We have no choice but to proceed on foot.” Vermilion tested it and immediately felt his immortal energy sluggish, as if he were carrying a mountain on his back.
Jared lifted his gaze to the faint blue barrier.
His golden vertical pupils flickered slightly. To him, the light barrier wasn’t just a simple shield; it was a web of countless tiny sacred rune chains, connected deep into the veins of the icefield beneath. It continuously siphoned the cold and earth energy of the icefield to maintain itself.
The complexity and power level far surpassed any formations they had encountered before.
“This must be part of a massive defensive array laid out by the Northern Abyss Celestial Clan, guarding the core region,” Jared analyzed. “If we walk straight through… It’s exactly what they want…”
Sure enough, the moment the three of them stepped into the zone, three orderly formations silently appeared on the ice plains ahead. Each formation had fifty warriors, one hundred and fifty celestial soldiers in total.
Clad in standard ice-blue heavy armor and armed with uniform ice crystal spears, their aura was imposing, radiating murderous intent. These were no longer mere patrols or ambushers; they were the clan’s regular army.
The three formations arranged themselves in a three-point formation, their auras connected, forming a larger unified battle formation.
At the front of each formation stood a commanding celestial general.
The left general held a massive ice crystal shield, steady as a mountain, a Level Six Heavenly Immortal. The right general wielded twin ice spears, agile and at the peak of Level Six.
The central general was empty-handed, yet his aura was the most terrifying; he had reached Level Seven Heavenly Immortal! His ice-blue eyes glimmered with divine light, clearly the true commander.
This combination of power and scale likely surpassed every sect on Level Ten.
“You trespass into our clan’s sacred territory, breaking through seven of our defenses, slaying over a hundred of our warriors,” the general spoke, his voice like millennia of grinding ice, cold and bone-chilling. “Your crimes are unforgivable. Today, your blood will consecrate the souls of our fallen and restore the might of our clan!”
“Northern Abyss Immortal-Slaying Ice Array!”
At his command, the one hundred fifty divine soldiers roared in unison, their voices shaking the skies.
Boom!
The three formations erupted in blinding ice-blue light, merging midair into a massive array covering several miles.
Within the spectral projection, a faint form of a Black Tortoise coiled, radiating a deadly aura that chilled the heart.
Once the array formed, temperatures in the zone plummeted, gravity soared to nearly two hundred times normal, and countless razor-sharp ice spikes hung in the air like suspended blades, ready to strike.
More terrifyingly, the array perfectly unified the strength of all one hundred fifty soldiers. Any attack hitting the array would be shared among all participants, making it nearly impossible to break. And the array’s attacks carried the combined force of all one hundred fifty, terrifyingly destructive.
“Finally, some real action…” Jared said, a serious glint appearing in his eyes. The Northern Abyss Celestial Clan had the strength to dominate the Eternal Ice Plains; they clearly had depth. But Jared didn’t hesitate; he was eager to test himself.
