The group continued moving forward. As soon as they neared the forest, they were immediately engulfed by thick fog. The sound of wind was sealed off, and the silence around them was so profound that they could only hear their own breathing.
The temperature kept dropping. Wen Shubai held the compass and pressed on ahead. All around was fog, and there was no way to tell directions.
They walked on and on, and the disciples at the rear steadily grew exhausted. They discovered that the fog drained a cultivator’s spiritual sense, and spells barely worked here.
Ji Zhaoxi had no spiritual root, and aside from feeling colder than the others, she wasn’t suffering as much.
“Why did the elders send us to find the Ice Marrow Pill?” a disciple finally began to grumble.
“We work so hard, and in the end the Ice Marrow Pill still has to go to someone else.”
Triangular Eyes’ hands had turned purple from the cold. He shivered and said, “Senior Brother, are you sure the direction you’re taking is right?”
Wen Shubai glanced at him and said in a gentle tone, “Junior Brother, if you know the way, you can take the lead alongside me.”
Triangular Eyes fell silent again, merely trudging forward, panting.
The wind whipped sideways, lashing against their faces until their skin stung.
Ji Zhaoxi clutched Wen Shubai’s hand, forcing herself forward.
“Tired?” Wen Shubai lowered his head and asked softly.
Ji Zhaoxi shook her head, but every breath she exhaled turned to white mist. Wen Shubai looked at her frost-reddened face, and he gently brushed his hand across her cheek. Wen Shubai possessed a fire spiritual root, so he fared slightly better than the other disciples in the extreme northern ice plains.
Wen Shubai shielded Ji Zhaoxi behind him and continued searching for the correct path.
The ground was riddled with cracks. Just then, a glacial fissure leading down into the earth appeared before their eyes. Wen Shubai descended without a moment’s hesitation.
The fissure was enormous. All around them were massive stones of deep blue, and below was pitch black. The cave echoed with the disciples’ rapid breathing—they were truly on the verge of suffocating.
They kept descending, and the cold grew ever more biting. Just as they were about to cross a crack in the earth, the ice wall suddenly writhed violently.
“Watch out!”
Wen Shubai’s gaze turned icy, and he immediately drew his sword.
A glacial flood dragon burst forth from the ground in an instant. It bore no scales, and its entire body was covered in ice crystals. It abruptly opened its monstrous jaws and lunged at them.
Wen Shubai stood firmly in front of everyone, his long sword letting out a resonant hum as he managed to block the flood dragon’s attack head-on.
The glacier beneath his feet began to collapse under the crushing pressure. Wen Shubai clenched his jaw so hard that the line of his mandible was taut.
“Help Senior Brother!”
The disciples behind him desperately channeled sword qi and tried to strike the flood dragon, but the moment they got near it, their hands went numb from the shock and their swords clattered to the ground.
Ji Zhaoxi cowered in a corner, terrified out of her wits, and kept hurling magic artifacts at the dragon.
Whatever they cost, cheap or expensive—if it could attack, she threw it all.
Once the flood dragon was struck, it went completely mad. Unable to gain any advantage over Wen Shubai, it turned its assault toward the disciples in the back, blasting chilling poison toward them.
Ji Zhaoxi had exhausted all her offensive artifacts, so she quietly sat in a corner with her pack in her arms.
It’s fine. I’ll just close my eyes and it’ll be over.
At least I’ll die during training—the Ji family’s reputation is safe!
“Senior Brother, save me!” Triangular Eyes screamed.
Just as Triangular Eyes was about to die at the flood dragon’s claws, the enormous beast suddenly let out a piercing shriek.
Wen Shubai, sword in hand, drove it precisely through the inverse scale beneath the dragon’s throat. Blood splattered across his face in an instant. His left shoulder was already a bloody mess, his body trembled slightly—yet the hand gripping his sword never wavered.
Hellfire surged through the dragon’s wound and ravaged the creature from within. The other disciples lay weakly on the ground, watching as the flood dragon was gradually engulfed in flames and its icy shell began to shatter.
Wen Shubai’s body was already dreadfully weakened. The left half of him was completely frozen, and the taste of blood filled his throat.
The flood dragon kept shrieking. Just as its heart was about to be destroyed by Wen Shubai’s hellfire, it unleashed a desperate survival instinct. Its tail viciously lashed out at Wen Shubai beside it.
At the moment the flood dragon was burned to death, a dull, heavy sound echoed through the depths—the crack of Wen Shubai’s ribs breaking was eerily clear in the silent underground, and the sheer impact sent him hurtling into that darkness.
“Senior Brother!”
The other disciples were equally weak, barely able to wipe the blood from their mouths and crawl to their feet.
Triangular Eyes stared at the vast, unfathomable chasm and said hoarsely: “Senior Brother isn’t coming back. Let’s go.”
Ji Zhaoxi clutched her pack miserably: “He’s coming back! We haven’t even gone down to look for him yet!”
“Senior Brother protected us with his life just now. Now that he’s fallen, how can you just abandon him?”
Ji Zhaoxi’s eyes were red with desperation.
She rummaged through her artifacts. How was she supposed to get down there? She didn’t want to just jump—she’d break her legs.
When the other disciples heard Ji Zhaoxi’s words, they lowered their heads, but no one volunteered to go down and rescue Wen Shubai.
Who knew what was inside the abyss? There had already been that flood dragon—what if there were even more ferocious beasts below…
“Then lower me down, I’ll go save Senior Brother myself!” Ji Zhaoxi glared at them in fury.
Still, no one agreed. The others only stayed silent. Finally, Triangular Eyes frowned.
“Little Junior Sister, stop making a fuss,” he said. “Even if you go down, what can you do? The most important thing right now is to go back and get reinforcements.”
Ji Zhaoxi was livid: “Then we can’t just leave Senior Brother here, and let the beasts eat him?!”
“Besides, I have all these artifacts—maybe they’ll come in handy.”
Ji Zhaoxi looked at them, her voice choked with sobs: “Let’s go save Senior Brother. He’s always so good to us. You’re his fellow disciples!”
The air was dead silent, unbearable to the extreme.
The disciple with the injured leg stared at Ji Zhaoxi, who was shedding tears, and said, after a long pause: “Then maybe… we should go down and take a look. We did make it this far anyway…”
“We’re not going down!” Triangular Eyes cut in sharply. A determined look passed over his face, and his tone carried a touch of pity: “The flood dragon is dead, but its blood will lure in other beasts. Senior Brother sacrificed himself for us—that’s the greater good. If we stay here and die too, that would betray all the kindness he’s shown us!”
The air was still for a moment, then the others quickly chimed in.
“I think that makes sense…”
“If Senior Brother were here, he’d definitely tell us to leave first.”
“Let’s hurry back and ask the elders to save him. Senior Brother surely still has a chance.”
They didn’t even dare look at that chasm. They walked with terrible speed—you could even call it a rout.
Ji Zhaoxi stood there staring, rooted in disbelief at their retreating backs. Then she wiped her tears away.
