Chapter 206: Chapter 205: The Tragic State of North Snow
A deceased Chosen One does not return directly to their original world. The moment he was killed by Jiang Qiu’s punch, the Soul of [Gold]—also known as Yu Ri of the Western Church—returned to his original body, suspended in the Void Realm.
He was in the Void, surrounded by nothingness. He could not perceive the passage of time or sense any movement through space. It was as if he had arrived in a crevice ignored by all the Great Realms.
This was the Void, a place recorded in the ancient texts that the Western Church had translated from various ruins.
Each Secret Realm was, in truth, its own world. Some Secret Realms could even lead to the same world, just to different locations. At the edges of these worlds lay the Void, which blocked the connection between them.
So-called "Secret Realm traversing" could be understood as crossing bridges over the Void. What Secret Realm Experts excelled at was building these bridges or altering their endpoints.
But the principles behind Secret Realm traversing, and even Secret Realm fluctuations, were far more complex than the simple function of a bridge...
The image of Jiang Qiu killing him with a single punch was still replaying in his mind when he suddenly realized he was in the Void. His pupils constricted, and the realization hit him a moment later. "I can’t move? How can the Void even allow a Martial Artist to enter!"
He could feel the long-absent Spirit Charm filling his body once more, his blood—fiercer than a lion’s or a Tiger’s—boiling within him. Yet, no matter how he strained his will, he couldn’t move so much as a single hair, as if he were a corpse encased in plaster.
The Void was something that, in truth, was only recorded in ancient texts, something Secret Realm Experts had only managed to glimpse through special means. In reality, no Martial Artist could enter this place. It was a Restricted Area for all living things.
His current immobility was undoubtedly due to the constraints of this Restricted Area. Or perhaps... the Law of "motion" simply did not exist in the Void.
The thought pierced Yu Ri’s mind. His spirit trembled, and his Soul began to waver, like a guttering candle flame in the dead silence of the night.
PUFF.
Like a soft breath extinguishing a candle, Yu Ri’s Soul dispersed and spread out, enveloping a strange sphere. The sphere had no outline; it distorted time and space, bearing Ice and Snow and undulating ice fragments.
Perceiving it more closely, he was shocked to realize that the ice fragments were mountains, and the distorted time and space was sea ice!
His consciousness sank, falling through the clouds to land on a vast, snowy plain. He could glimpse fragmented scenes. In the northernmost region, several hundred powerful Martial Artists followed a young man, galloping south on horseback.
Jiang Qiu!
Only then did Yu Ri realize that what he was now seeing, as if he were a creator god, was the Northern Boundary itself.
Although he couldn’t observe every person in detail or actively follow the continuous flow of events, he was merely a spectator, like someone watching a film projector, waiting for the next scene to appear.
But he could see the locations of all the Chosen Ones with perfect clarity. Feng Li stood with his hands clasped behind him on the highest peak of Ice and Snow Ridge, gazing down at over a thousand Warriors at the cliff’s edge. He was in high spirits, his aura no less imposing than Jiang Qiu’s. His gaze was as sharp as a blade, sweeping over everything with disdain.
Meanwhile, the North Snow Tribe had been all but slaughtered, left with only a small central piece of their territory. Many tribespeople were eating ice and snow to survive. The lives of more than ten Warriors were traded for the corpse of a single Demon Race member from Cold Heaven Cliff to use as food.
The only thing still standing in the entire North Snow Tribe was a four-story wooden tower...
The other Demon Race Tribes were also mustering their elite troops. Their Chosen Ones seemed to have obtained ancestral inheritances from the major tribes, each one possessing formidable power as they prepared for the battle among the Chosen Ones three years from now.
As for Jiang Qiu, he had already gathered all the Chosen Ones of the Human Race... Huh? ’That person is also a Chosen One?!’
He had suddenly discovered something interesting. Yu Ri was shocked, and his Soul began to tremble as his interest soared. "Interesting, very interesting. Jiang Qiu, even if you’ve obtained that so-called ancestral inheritance, you’re not guaranteed to survive until the end!"
His mood brightened considerably, and he settled in to quietly watch the events of the Northern Boundary unfold.
...
After Jiang Qiu and the others emerged from the stairway in the North Sea, the chasm in the ocean floor immediately collapsed, submerging the descending steps. A thick layer of ice crystals quickly formed over the surface, as if to conceal an aura that did not belong to this era. The ancestral ruins were once again hidden deep within the North Sea.
They mounted their horses and galloped south, racing toward North Snow.
The distance between the North Snow Tribe and the North Sea was the shortest among all the tribes, but even so, it had taken Jiang Qiu and [Hunt]’s group half a month on horseback to make the journey.
Now, galloping at full speed day and night without rest, it would still take them more than a week!
As they raced onward, the North Snow Tribe was just recovering from an attack personally led by the Celestial Chosen Demon [Wind] of Cold Heaven Cliff. The already dilapidated tribe was now utterly devastated.
CLATTER.
Several thick wooden planks slammed onto the ground. [Flower] panted heavily, her large eyes gray and dull, reflecting no light.
She picked up an iron hammer and began repairing the simple shanty, which had collapsed under the wind and snow. The BANG! BANG! BANG! of her hammering rang out from her calloused palms. In the streets, amidst the jumble of shacks, other hammering sounds rose and fell in response.
Able-bodied adults squeezed through the already cramped paths, carrying wooden planks salvaged from the tribe’s outer perimeter to repair their shacks or light fires for warmth.
The outskirts of the North Snow Tribe had been destroyed. The power of their ancestors showed signs of failing under the relentless, wave-after-wave attacks from the Cold Heaven Cliff Demon Race. At the Elder Witch Priest’s direction, everyone had gathered near the North Snow Tower.
The Altar, the North Snow Tower, and the Elder Witch Priest’s dwelling—these three core structures supported the only conviction remaining in everyone’s hearts: to wait for their Leader to return with the Chosen One.
Legend had it that the Chosen One possessed the power to save the Human Race. They decided the fates of the many tribes in the Northern Boundary. As long as the Chosen One lived, their tribe would not perish and could even achieve unprecedented prosperity.
Legends, legends, passed down for tens of thousands of years. The last Chosen One was from a thousand years ago—how impossibly distant was that?
Did anyone truly believe that the power of a single person could decide the fate of the entire Northern Boundary?
They had all seen [Hill]’s excellence. That young man possessed a Talent more than ten times greater than his peers, effortlessly reaching a Realm that most people couldn’t attain in decades.
His physical cultivation had no bottlenecks; using the resources provided by the tribe, Jiang Qiu broke through with ease. Such a prodigy was truly out of the ordinary.
But Jiang Qiu was only human. He might be able to fight ten men, or even a hundred, but could he really fight over a thousand flying members of the Demon Race?
And even if he could, could he really save the North Snow Tribe?
A suffocating mood weighed on everyone. Even [Flower] had lost her usual cheerfulness, keeping her head down as she repaired her family’s shanty.
Her cheeks were sunken, and her pale, cracked lips trembled slightly.
Her father had died in battle a year ago. Three months ago, her mother had been snatched away and eaten by a One-eyed Snow Owl while protecting her. And still, the Chosen One she had been desperately waiting for had not appeared.
Less than a third of the North Snow Tribe’s people were left. Even if the legendary and powerful Chosen One returned from the North Sea, could he really save them all?
’Maybe I’ll die in the next Demon Race attack...’
DRIP.
A teardrop landed on the back of her pale hand. Before it could even soak into her skin, it was flung away by the arcing swing of her arm, vanishing with another loud BANG from the hammer.
