Vermilion Demon Lord nearly vibrated with excitement, a crimson aura flickering around him. “Jared, this is splendid! The Blood Lotus is within reach at last!”
Jared answered with a sharp nod, hope lighting his tired eyes. “Yes…”
Moments later, several celestial handmaids drifted in, each bearing a tray. The trays gleamed under torchlight, crowded with crystal pills whose fragrance rolled like fresh snow-air, alongside fruits native to the frozen waste and a steaming pot of spirit tea.
“By the lady’s order, please heal and rest without worry…” Bowing in silence, the maids arranged the offerings and withdrew as softly as they had come.
Vermilion uncorked one vial, letting the aroma billow. His battle-worn blood immediately stilled.
“Top-tier medicine,” he murmured, admiration sneaking into his gruff tone. “Lady Aurora is more considerate than I guessed…”
Clara selected a single pill, settled cross-legged, and closed her eyes, letting its warmth thread through her meridians. Her wounds were not grave; the true threat was the chill of the Netherfrost Thread still gnawing at her channels, a cold that would take patience to melt.
Jared swallowed a recovery pill of his own, then eyed the remaining bottles. “Lord Vermilion, these pills are gentle yet potent, exactly what you need to restore your injuries.”
Vermilion Demon Lord lowered himself onto the crystalline floor, crimson vapors coiling around his frame like living smoke. He had no time for courtesy. Selene’s life still hung on the blood lotus, and every heartbeat squandered invited another shade of danger.
The small fire unicorn sprawled beside Jared’s boots, its flanks rising and falling in weary, shallow breaths. Moments earlier, it had traded a ferocious blow with Montar, and the effort had dimmed its golden flames to a trembling ember.
Jared ran a slow, calming hand over the creature’s scaled brow, slipping a thread of chaotic celestial power into its core so the ember could kindle anew. The little beast nuzzled his palm, humming a soft, contented purr that vibrated in the chilled air.
That night, the three of them sat in a side hall wrapped in silence, each mending wounds by the faint light of suspended frost-lanterns. Outside, patrols stamped past in practiced rhythm while an endless blizzard howled across the ice plains beyond the walls.
As Jared guided energy through fractured meridians, Lady Aurora’s earlier revelations replayed in his thoughts like distant thunder. Celestials, Divine Emperor, Golden Immortal Realm. Hatreds that had fermented for ten thousand years, names and numbers heavy enough to bend the spine.
For the first time, he saw the celestials with fearful clarity, and the weight of that vision pressed against his chest. Golden Immortal Realm—power so high he could not even glimpse its summit.
He stood at Heavenly Immortal Realm Level One. Yes, he could outfight peers and even cleave through an opponent at the top of Level Eight, but before a Golden Immortal, he doubted he could withstand even the echo of a careless breath.
I am still far too weak… Level eleven must be reached. Only there can I climb faster, claim Jadeheart Marrow Milk, find the Nine-Orifice Divine Soul Herb, and, above all, seize the chance to break through…
His chaotic celestial energy held every affinity, yet those very depths demanded rarer insight and rarer fuel whenever the next barrier loomed. He could feel the wall of Heavenly Immortal Realm Level Two beneath his fingertips, solid yet fragile, as though one missing puzzle piece kept the gate from yielding.
At dawn, when the first pale shard of light slipped through the ice-crystal lattice, Jared opened his eyes, and the hall, for one poised moment, exhaled with him.
Just then, the great doors drifted apart without a sound. Lady Aurora stood framed in the archway. She still wore an unadorned white gown, but her hair was now coiled with precise grace; last night’s grief had cooled into an austere, regal calm.
“Did you rest well?”
“Your elixir worked wonders, Lady Aurora. I’m fit to travel again.”
“Good… Come with me. I will take you to the Frostpool.”
Jared, Clara, and Vermilion fell in behind her at once. She brought no entourage save four serene celestial handmaidens whose auras pulsed like buried glaciers. Together they threaded through alabaster corridors, angling toward three jagged ice peaks that loomed behind the palace complex.
Every guard and servant they passed bowed low to Lady Aurora. Their eyes, however, slid toward the three outsiders, shining with curiosity, edged with wariness, bright with speculation. News of the Palace Master’s midnight guests had clearly raced ahead of them.
They exited a secluded side gate. Beyond lay a sunken basin, and only a few hundred paces farther, the Blood-Soul Frostpool waited, dark and still.
Day had fully broken; the night’s aurora had retreated, leaving the ice plain draped in ash-gray light. Three sky-piercing ice peaks stood like silent titans around the basin. The pool itself shimmered a deep, arterial crimson, and on its rim a single blood-lotus bud quivered in the chill breeze, rounder and richer than it had been the night before.
“The blood lotus is about to bloom,” Lady Aurora murmured, eyes locked on the swelling bud. “It opens for only three days. Your timing… it seems, is impeccable.”
Vermilion trembled from horn to heel, staring at the lotus as if salvation itself pulsed inside those petals.
But her voice sharpened like a blade sliding from its sheath. “My permission alone will not let you pluck it.”
“What obstacle remains, my lady?”
Aurora’s voice drifted across the frost-bitten basin, low yet carrying the unmistakable authority of a verdict. “The Blood-Soul Frostpool was born of pure, murderous negative energy. Any ordinary stalk would have withered in an instant, yet this Thousand-Year Frostblood Lotus chose to flourish here, proof it is no common bloom…”
“And make no mistake.” Her pale eyes shimmered like hoarfrost. “The lotus is not masterless. It has a guardian all its own.”
“A guardian?” Jared, Clara, and Vermilion echoed at once, their gazes whipping toward the Frostpool.
The surface lay utterly still—no ripple, no breath of wind—merely a dark crimson sheen that hinted at poison beneath, and a cold so vicious it seemed to gnaw straight through bone.
