by <unknown>
They found themselves accidentally trespassing on a weird, white world that replaced the previous world that had been living in. There was nothing except for themselves between the sky and the earth. Even their own breath and heartbeat were swallowed by the mist when they did not pay attention to listen to them.
Li Yao had thought about whether or not he could soar into the atmosphere and search for the Divine Palace from above.
When he had a try, however, he discovered that he was faced with an ocean of ivory clouds, and all the mountains appeared and disappeared like lone mountains. It was impossible to observe the details on the ground at all.
Therefore, they had to resort to the clumsiest way by groping inch after inch and setting up enormous marks in the zones that they had explored.
Thankfully, they had thousands of members. Other than those stationed in the camp, it was enough to build almost thirty search teams. When they pushed forward together, the speed of exploration was quite impressive.
After only three days, the zones closest to the camp had been explored. Everybody was moving toward the center of the mist.
As a result, the connection with the rear became even more difficult. Also, the temperature at the center of the mist was even lower, and the air was more corrosive to human bodies and magical equipment. The Cultivators in the Refinement Stage and the Building Foundation Stage could not last for belong before they had to go back to the camp to rest and recover.
Even the Core Formation Stage Cultivators and the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators such as Li Yao were exhausted and miserable when they exploited their brain cells to release their telepathic thoughts in search of the Divine Palace while they were exposed to the mist for a long time.
"Hu!"
Li Yao took a deep breath. The air immediately darted out of his face like an arrow and soon melted into the overwhelming mist around.
It was the seventeenth zone that he had explored. Still, he had found nothing. Except for the solid, frozen soil and the ice and rocks too thick to the measured, absolutely nothing.
Judging from the scale of the Divine Palace on the map, the 'palace' was so large that it was almost a minor city. If it was there, there was no way that they would not have found it after such a long time.
Unless, of course, the Divine Palace was below their feet, and it was a vast underground city.
If that was the case, things would be more troublesome. They had to enhance the magnitudes of their telepathic thoughts so that they could search below the ice. The cost of time and crystals would more than double.
While Li Yao was pondering, he suddenly felt a strong sense of danger.
His nose flapping, he inhaled the air that was as sharp as a saber, only to feel that it was stinging from his nostrils to his lungs.
The temperature had dropped more than ten degrees in that moment, and it was still dropping!
Chapter 1469: Tide of Ice Devils! |
What happened? Another polar outbreak?
It's impossible. A lot of Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators are staying on alert around. If the tempests with blizzards were arriving, they would've sent out alarms!
Li Yao felt that the frost was spreading to his stomach all the way from his nostrils like a pervasive bug, outlining his trachea and bronchia for him. He could even sense that a lot of his alveoli were freezing.
He suddenly fell on one of his knees and sensed the environment clearly by sticking his hands to the ground.
As he expected, he sensed a slight shivering, as if the ground in the mist up head had been split open, and something was crawling out from underground!
After only a few seconds, his palms had been frozen to the ground. When he removed them by force, even the thick gloves were ripped apart.
Li Yao stared at the mist in the front without blinking. Soon, ear-splitting shrieks were echoing from the mist. There was also the sound of something wriggling forward.
"Run!"
"There's a large area of ice up head. After we drilled through the ice, countless 'ice devils' flooded out!"
In the mist, dozens of Cultivators were staggering to run backward.
Everybody's face was extremely twisted, as if they had been smashed by the hammers of ice right in the head. Many of them were tottering, with their bodies and legs covered in thick ice shells. Despite the severe frostbite, they did not dare slow down at all. Exhausting their spiritual energy, they fled in panic like running fireballs!
Behind him, a giant translucent tide, as if the white snow had been blessed with life, was lunging toward them like a ferocious beast!
One of the Cultivator's legs was frozen in place. He managed to summon his flying sword, hoping to ride the sword out of danger. It was a pity that his flying sword was malfunctioning in such a frigid environment. Drifting up and down for a moment, he was soon caught up by the translucent tide.
"Hu!"
After the tide swept over, the Cultivator was immediately frozen into a block of ice in midair before he fell to the ground and shattered into pieces, leaving a ground of scattered, blood red ice pieces the size of fingernails!
The sight felt eerie to all the Cultivators who witnessed his end.
Before they marched into the Land of Eternal Night, they had also collected many notes from the previous adventurers and sorted out a large batch of files regarding the Land of Eternal Night.
The Land of Eternal Night was frequented by all kinds of brutal demon beasts living in the coldness. There were also gangs of frost barbarians. The blizzards and the tempests were terrifying natural disasters, too. However, of all the dangers, the most horrible one was doubtlessly the 'ice devils'!
The ice devils were a type of very special moss.
To survive in the harsh environment of the Land of Eternal Night, they spent most of time lurking inside the thick shells of ice and preserved their lives by means of hibernation.
When they perceived the arrival of prey, they would figure out a way to break out of the shells, proliferate, and move before they lunged at the prey like a man-eating swamp!
The ice devils' food was the heat in the air and in the body of their prey.
Therefore, when the ice devils went on a rampage, the temperature in the environment would plummet by dozens of degrees because all the heat in the air had been absorbed by the ice devils.
Should the prey be covered by the ice devils, all the heat and spiritual energy inside their bodies would instantly be drained, leaving an empty ice sculpture behind.
After all the prey was cleaned up and devoured, the ice devils would sneak back underground, waiting in hibernation for another batch of unfortunate prey to start a new round of hunting!
Li Yao had once seen a very weird primeval moss named 'blood tide' on Kunlun. Feeding on spiritual energy, it could cover dozens of square kilometers and was as thick as a carpet. It was even bold enough to attack the high-level Cultivators who were equipped with crystal suits.
The ice devils were probably the mutants of the 'blood tide' in the extremely cold area. They were even weirder and more dangerous!
"Damn it. I should've seen it coming!" Li Yao slapped his thigh hard.
All the information that he had collected regarding the ice devils stated that the terrible creatures were rather unpredictable. As long as the explorer was not too unlucky, it was unlikely to ever run into them.
However, if they were truly the mutants of 'blood tide', it was possible that they would have an equally keen sense of spiritual energy. Therefore, near the Divine Palace would certainly be their best shelter, just like Kunlun, as a land of dense spiritual energy provided sanctuary for the blood tide!
The appearance of the ice devils suggested that the Divine Palace was not far away. It was possible that the Divine Palace was right below the ice shells that they had drilled through!
It was a pity that Li Yao had failed to associate the ice devils with the blood tide in the beginning. When he figured out the connection between the
two parties, the translucent tides of ice had already lunged toward him!
"Run!" Li Yao roared and threw out more than ten grenades, which exploded right above the ice devils. However, the blossoming flames were frozen into half translucent flowers after only blocking the ice devils briefly. Their color changed from crimson to orange, from orange to blue, and from blue to bright green, until they became transparent and melted into the overwhelming tide of ice!
Not only did his attack fail to blow apart the ice devils, it even gave away Li Yao's existence. With a series of crunching noises, the ice devils flowed toward him mixed with ice and mist!
Cursing, Li Yao turned around and ran away. He was of a mind to ask everybody to keep calm and remind them that, based on his experience in the past, the ice devils would only attack when they perceived spiritual waves. So, as long as everybody concealed their spiritual waves to the minimum, they would not be attacked anymore!
However, on second thought, if they did not summon their spiritual energy to resist the bitterly cold environment, they would be equally dead!
Besides, with the thickness of the mist, even if he condensed his spiritual energy on his throat and roared at the top of his voice, it would not be able to reach hundreds of meters away!
Li Yao suddenly realized that the weird mist could have been a trap made by the ice devils. This place was their hunting ground!
Gritting his teeth hard, Li Yao could only flee in a hurry.
Due to the extremely low temperature, all the magical equipment became highly unstable, especially devices made of metal. They would be covered in thick shells of ice within a few breaths when they were exposed to the air. The circulation of spiritual energy on the rune arrays was seriously jammed. It took a much longer time for the Cultivators to prepare their flying swords.
Many of them had already been devoured by the ice devils before their flying swords were soaked in spiritual energy. Amid long, dry screams, they ended up being bizarre-shaped ice sculptures.
The other survivors were already lightheaded. In the obscure mist, they were wandering like headless flies, and if they missed one or two marks on the ground in their anxiety, it was very possible that they would miss their direction. Some of the more unfortunate guys were even running right toward the ice devils.
When they discovered that the air was freezing around them, there was already no time for them to react. The overwhelming tide of tide soon drowned each and every one of them!
"Don't run in panic. Follow me. Roar while you run to attract the companions nearby. Do not lose your way!" Li Yao was rather anxious.
Although he did not like the Cultivators of the Ancient Sages Sector very much, he was not heartless enough to watch them to freeze to death without doing anything. He did not know the situation about the rest of the exploration teams in the mist. At the very least, he wanted to bring the exploration team under his lead out of the mist in one piece!
In the mist up front, a lot of people were suddenly shouting and running toward them in panic. They had apparently lost their way under the devastation of the ice devils.
"Don't panic! The camp is over there!"
Li Yao snatched the Cultivator in the lead and shoved him hard.
He suddenly felt that the Cultivator was somewhat weird. The guy was wearing a battle robe made of smooth bear hide and a hat made of otter leather that dangled to his ears. Although there were no earrings, he could still see part of the tattoos on the guy's face.
The saber on his waist, the wolf fangs on the sheath as adornments, and the Seven-Star Agates, which were local specialties of the Dark Cloud Prairies, as well as their scream just now that was mixed with the unique accent of the Dark Cloud Prairies. All the signs suggested that it was a team of Ghost Qin Cultivators!
In the middle of the boundless mist, the Great Qian Cultivators and the Ghost Qin Cultivators looked at each other in a daze like two swarms of headless flies.
The atmosphere was a bit intense and awkward. Everybody's throat was rolling up and down. They were breathing so hastily that more white air was spurting out their nostrils, covering everybody's frozen faces in the hazy smoke.
It was not until then that Li Yao realized that the exploration team led by the Four Rapscallions must have reached the coordinates of the Divine Palace, which was enshrouded in the mist, at almost the same time as they did, except that the two parties were on different sides of the mist. They had been pushing toward the center from opposite fronts.
Because the vast mist blocked all the light, sound, and spiritual waves, and both parties were measuring and prospecting carefully, they did not discover each other in the beginning.
It was like digging a tunnel from the two ends of a mountain to the center of it. Before the two parts of the tunnel were connected, it was almost impossible for them to notice each other!
However, the weird ice devils sensed the two bunches of prey at the same time and attacked them indiscriminately!
Under the scourge of the ice devils, many people lost their way. Instead of running to their own camp, they ran toward the ice devils, or where there was noise!
The multiple forces there—namely Great Qian, Ghost Qin, the Heaven Battering Army, the White Lotus Cult, and Ghost Character—must have gotten mixed up. Everything was in chaos!
The situation could not have been messier!
"You—" Li Yao only hoped that the Ghost Qin Cultivators in front of his eyes maintained the most fundamental rationality.
Even an idiot could tell that fighting each other while being chased by the ice devils would do nobody any good!
Thankfully, the Ghost Qin people on the opposite side seemed to have realized it, or maybe, in an environment where the temperature had dropped to almost minus a hundred degrees, their fighting will and brutality had been frozen. Although they were clutching the handles of their sabers, they were retreating step by step in silence instead of unsheathing the weapons.
However…
Shua!
A sword aura rushed out from the Great Qian Cultivators behind Li Yao and darted into the Ghost Qin Cultivators, knocking one of them to the ground!
Chapter 1470: Battle in Chaos! |
Li Yao glared back angrily, only to discover that a Cultivator who was shivering in the cold was looking at the longsword in his hand in a daze, as if he did not believe that it was him who launched the sword aura just now. He then looked at Li Yao pitifully, completely at a loss as to what to do.
Li Yao almost wanted to kick the troublemaker to the ground, but there was already no time!
The Ghost Qin Cultivators were already highly nervous and ready to explode at any moment. The sword aura was like the fuse to detonate the tinderbox. All the Ghost Qin Cultivators lunged in fury!
For a moment, sabers and swords were colliding, and grenades and broken limbs were flying in midair together. Explosions and screams echoed with each other. Hardly had the hot blood spurted out when it was frozen into bizarre-shaped red flowers, and the flowers crashed to the ground into pieces, turning into clusters of translucent pearls of blood!
Li Yao found it impossible to stop the Cultivators from the two sides dying with each other.
Besides, this was definitely not the only battlefield in the boundless mist.
After avoiding the explosions of a few grenades that had been embedded with the pieces of bones of the Dragon Wolves, Li Yao felt that his ears were humming, and there was nothing but blankness in his eyes.
In his dizziness, he suddenly discovered that the marks for guidance had all been blown apart. He could not tell which direction the camp was in at all!
Li Yao cursed loudly in his heart. Lowering his head to evade a saber that was slashing at him, he kicked the Ghost Qin Cultivator who was coming at him ferociously away. Then, he stomped on the ground and soared into the sky. The wings of spiritual energy like greenish, ghostly fire surged out of his back crazily, but their size had almost been reduced by half in the extreme environme
nt!
Holding back the excruciating coldness, Li Yao exploited his cells crazily and summoned as much spiritual energy as possible to push himself upward. Layers of frost enveloped him, only to be shattered and obliterated by his surging spiritual energy. The ice devils were hissing below his feet and extending pillars that looked like claws toward him. Still, they were not as fast as him. He flew to an altitude of almost a thousand meters and craned his neck in the mixture of mist and clouds!
Li Yao was about to sharpen his eyesight to look for the camp when another huge head popped up in the mist not far away.
The newcomer had a dry, monkey-like face with a short, hard beard and hair that was soaring into the sky. Both his beard and his hair were in the most dominating red color, leaving the impression of aggressiveness and unreasonableness.
His eyes were bloodshot, but the blood threads were not actinomorphic but spread out in spirals. They seemed to be rotating all the time, and it was very easy for other people to be awed by him.
The guy noticed Li Yao the moment that he was noticed. His bloodshot eyes rotating even faster than before, he grinned, baring his golden, sharp teeth. "Master Spiritual Vulture?"
Li Yao's pupils constricted violently.
The guy's appearance was so queer that it was unique in the entire Ancient Sages Sector. Li Yao had seen his portrait a long time ago.
"Heaven Battering King?"
It was 'Heaven Battering King' Qi Changsheng, the leader of the Heaven Battering Army and one of the Four Rapscallions, who boasted a legendary indestructible body blessed by a fire fiend, had savaged the northwest for decades, and had risen again every time after his army was annihilated!
Qi Changsheng burst into laughter. He suddenly dived back into the mist, vanishing into thin air!
Li Yao's hair was standing on end. He felt even more alarmed when the ice devils were coming at him. Dozens of needles darted out, dragging the molecular mica threads to establish a sharp protective web around his body!