“Bloodshed?” Celadin’s mouth curved in a blade-thin smile. “To my people, outsiders are insects, crushed beneath a heel without remorse. Killing a handful of insects is no burden on my conscience…”
“Surrender that sword, seal your cultivation, and accompany me to the palace for judgment. Do so, and I may spare the two behind you. Refuse…”
He snapped his wrist. The crystal sword hummed, and frost crawled across the ground in a heartbeat, racing toward Jared and his companions. “And this place will become your grave!”
Power detonated from Celadin’s body. A deep bass note thrummed through heaven and earth. Within a three-thousand-meter radius, the world lost all color, plunging into absolute silence and unbearable cold. Snowflakes turned to paper-thin razor ice, drifting down in lethal sheets.
From the ground speared cruel ice spines, fanged maws eager for flesh. A domain, icebound and sovereign. Only high-stage Heavenly Immortals could weave such territory, and within it, Celadin reigned absolute.
Every shard of glacial energy answered his will, sapping an enemy’s strength even as it fed his own. No formation or battle array could hope to bridge that gulf.
Vermilion Demon Lord and Clara blanched. Their immortal energy stuttered inside them, blood threatening to freeze, thoughts turning sluggish. Inside this field, they would not survive a single stroke.
Jared’s brow tightened, a single furrow etching itself between steady eyes.
The enemy’s domain was already highly refined, its power not to be underestimated. Most importantly, Jared didn’t want Vermilion or Clara to be caught in the crossfire.
“You two, stay at the edge of the domain and protect yourselves,” he instructed through mental communication, then stepped forward, deliberately entering the core of Celadin’s domain.
“Seeking death!” A cold gleam flashed in Celadin’s eyes. His ice-crystal sword sliced through the air.
Inside the domain, countless ice blades instantly changed direction, raining down on Jared like a violent storm! At the same time, icy spikes erupted from the ground, surging toward him from all directions!
Each ice blade and spike carried the force of freezing laws, enough to pierce the defenses of a Level Eight Heavenly Immortal!
But Jared did not dodge or retreat. He slowly raised his right hand, palm upward.
“Your domain is impressive… But unfortunately, it has met me… Chaos Immortal Domain! Open!”
Boom!
An overwhelming aura erupted from Jared’s body—limitless, all-encompassing, surpassing everything else.
Within a radius of two thousand meters, the ice blades, spikes, and extreme cold seemed to encounter their natural nemesis; they melted and dissipated almost instantly!
In their place spread a gray, chaotic expanse, as if the world itself had just been born. In this chaotic domain, there were no elements, no light or darkness, only the raw, primordial flow of chaos.
Unlike the Cold Prison Domain, it didn’t have overtly aggressive or suppressive power. Yet it possessed the ability to “assimilate” and “negate” everything it encountered.
The ice blades and spikes that entered the Chaos Domain quickly lost their original forms and law properties. They dissolved into basic ice spiritual energy and were absorbed, assimilated by the chaotic flow, becoming nourishment for the domain itself.
“What… What kind of domain is this?” Celadin’s pupils constricted sharply, his face revealing genuine disbelief for the first time.
He had never seen a domain so strange and powerful. His ice domain, in the presence of Jared’s domain, melted and receded like snow thrown into boiling water!
“Impossible! Freeze it!” He roared, unleashing the full power of his domain, a dazzling ice-crystal pattern erupting from his brow, attempting to push back.
His expression remained calm. He focused his mind.
At the center of the Chaotic Domain, the Chaotic Fire Lotus appeared, rotating slowly. From its core, a dark-gold dragon-shaped flame rose.
“Chaos Dragon Fire—Burn!” A roar echoed, fierce and primal.
A faint dragon’s bellow rippled through the war-torn air. From its echo burst sheets of dark-gold fire, sweeping across the chaotic domain.
Wherever the blaze passed, the temperature plunged instead of rising, yet that impossible heat seemed ready to incinerate the very fabric of law.
Fire crashed head-on into the icebound realm conjured by Celadin.
The collision hissed and crackled. Entire swathes of glacial law vaporized, then collapsed into glowing embers.
A muffled groan escaped the armored giant. Blood beaded at the corner of his mouth as his own domain buckled and hammered back into him.
“What kind of monster are you?!” he exclaimed.
Shocked and furious, he dared not hold back. “Ice God Bloodline, awaken!”
He threw back his head and bellowed. The sigil of glacial crystal upon his brow ignited, soaring into the clouds as a column of cerulean light.
Muscles swelled. Scales the color of deep ice crawled over his skin. His eyes became a pure blue void. Power surged, tearing past Heavenly Immortal Realm Level Eight and clawing for the Ninth.
The technique was the Northern Abyss Celestial Clan’s forbidden rite, able to stir an ancient Ice God Bloodline for a heartbeat of strength far beyond one’s station.
The price was cruel. When the fury ebbed, only endless weakness waited.
“Ice God Slash! Permafrost!”
Both hands locked around his sword and lifted it high. In an instant, the blade swelled to a hundred yards of glittering crystal. Ancient runes shimmered along the weapon, each one whispering of space imprisoned and endings absolute.
That single swing brushed the edge of true cultivation. Even a Level Nine Heavenly Immortal could perish beneath it.
He poured everything into the stroke and hurled it at Jared. The colossal sword tore open the chaotic field, blue radiance intent on freezing all creation as it descended. Before the edge arrived, the ice plain below had already collapsed, leaving a vast fan-shaped crater.
Jared lifted his gaze toward the world-ending blade, his eyes utterly calm. He raised the Dragonslayer Sword, the tip aimed at heaven itself.
Within him, every reserve stirred: chaotic celestial energy, Chaotic Fire Lotus, draconic energy, even the newborn thread of Law of Chaos. He poured it all into the steel without hesitation.
The sword hummed like a living thing. Etched scales shimmered, and a mist-woven chaos dragon coiled along the blade, roaring at the vault above.
