Several days later.
After leaving Maple Prefecture City, Wang Yu’s first destination was Blackbone Mountain. He should have come here long ago, but various matters had repeatedly delayed him.
This gave rise to a strange feeling in his heart.
It was as if the mysterious underground palace beneath Blackbone Mountain had been forgotten. After leaving that year, he had never heard of the Liu clan of Gu Poison Peak continuing their exploration of the underground palace.
All development efforts had stopped at the surface of Blackbone Mountain.
No matter how one looked at it, something felt off.
Moreover, he clearly remembered that the development rights to the underground palace had been contracted to the Liu clan as a Core Formation sect ruin. During that process, the two juniors Gu Zhengshun and Situ Hong had also managed to profit a little.
Now, aside from the Xuan Essence Flower and Black Bone Wood being regarded as local specialties, almost no one paid any attention to this place anymore.
Only Wang Yu knew how extraordinary it truly was.
The Blackbone Underground Palace possessed neither special feng shui array nor formation-based refinement, yet it had given birth to a corpse demon that should only have existed in ancient relic lands like Eastern Extreme Capital.
That was genuinely eerie.
There was also the Taiyin Nether Eye inheritance jade slip he had obtained from the corpse demon’s embrace back then. Even now, he had yet to unlock all of its contents.
However, times had changed.
With his broadened knowledge, he carefully reviewed the ancient and primordial sects that had once existed. Among those involving Nascent Soul inheritances, especially rare eye-technique lineages, there was only one hegemon that fit the bill.
The Taiyin Sect.
It was very possible that only the Taiyin Sect possessed such a legacy. If the Blackbone Underground Palace were viewed as a forward outpost constructed by the Taiyin Sect in the Endless Ice Plains, everything suddenly made sense.
After all, the scale of the Blackbone Underground Palace was not large to begin with. It leaned toward refined construction, with a compact layout. As a temporary foothold, it was more than sufficient.
The main hall was even named the Moon Condensation Hall, making its connection to the Taiyin Sect highly likely. Back then, he had left in too much of a hurry and had not explored many areas.
The Black Stone Tablet in the Scripture Pavilion was even more critical.
It was inscribed in demonic script, which he did not understand at the time. His primary objective on this trip was precisely that black stone tablet.
Blackbone Mountain lay extremely close to the Endless Ice Plains.
Starting from Maple Prefecture City, the journey took nearly half a month. Wang Yu flew from east to west, crossing more than half of Maple Prefecture before finally seeing the three Blackbone Mountains that resembled circular, tower-like structures.
Back then, it was here that he had accumulated his first advantage.
He had successfully semi-liquefied his spiritual power, and from there, he traveled east and west, continuously snowballing that advantage into something greater.
During the Qi Refining stage, it had taken him more than twenty years to reach perfection.
During the Foundation Establishment stage, it had taken him more than fifty years.
As for the Core Formation stage, he had now spent over fifty years as well and had already touched a corner of the peak. Overall, his cultivation speed had actually been accelerating.
Blackbone Mountain was utterly desolate for tens of thousands of miles.
Cold currents sweeping in from the Endless Ice Plains, combined with sea winds blowing from the Chaotic Ancient Sea, kept this region at low temperatures year-round. It was not only cold but also damp.
It was completely unsuitable for mortals to live in, which was why the prefectural authorities had never intended to build a city here.
In recent years, after being occupied by the Blackbone Bandits, the area had gained some semblance of human activity. This group was mainly composed of Qi Refining and Foundation Establishment cultivators, with four or five Core Formation cultivators among them.
With over a thousand people gathered, they already constituted a fairly large bandit force.
Wang Yu’s arrival did not alert anyone.
Considering that the underground palace below had once collapsed, directly burrowing underground would require clearing out a sufficiently large space for movement. The disturbance might draw the attention of these people.
“Better to kill them all.”
After a brief moment of thought, Wang Yu made his decision. His figure vanished into the air, as if he had never been there.
…
…
The abandoned camp between the three Blackbone Mountains.
This place had been converted into living quarters by the Blackbone Bandits. Most of the materials were gathered locally, making it crude and desolate.
But bandit cultivators lived meal to meal to begin with.
Even when a raid succeeded, the resources they obtained would be squandered quickly, after which they would plan another job, only to die during the next robbery. People like this were everywhere.
At this moment, it was a dark and windy night.
Several Core Formation leaders were gathered together, discussing matters.
“Boss, the Ice Demon Child who made a name across Maple Prefecture hasn’t shown any activity lately. Should we go and pull a job in Qingyuan City?”
“The brothers have already checked it out. There’s only one early-stage Core Formation cultivator stationed there. If we charge into the city and loot it thoroughly, we can really enjoy ourselves.”
The one speaking was a purple-faced, ugly man. At a glance, it was clear that something had gone wrong during his cultivation, causing his appearance to become grotesquely distorted. Such words immediately stirred dissatisfaction.
“Hmph.
“Fifth Brother, weren’t you hunted down by the Joyous Union Demonic Sect back then because you could not control the thing between your legs and ended up touching a high-ranking figure’s carefully raised cauldron?
“Now the entire Maple Prefecture is on edge.
“How could we take such a risk over a bit of lustful thinking? If that Ice Demon really comes knocking, even your stinking flesh would not be enough to burn.”
The purple-faced ugly man was so enraged that his eyes went wide.
“You… I was a handsome man back then too. If that woman had not seduced me, would I have ended up like this today?”
“Enough!”
The leader of the group, also the only Core Formation cultivator at the sixth layer present, took out a sealed letter and spoke.
“There are orders from above. We are to bypass the Northern Severed Boundary Mountains and take the smuggling route across the Endless Ice Plains, then carry out raids under the territory of the Biyun Sect.”
As soon as these words were spoken, an argument immediately broke out.
“Go to Taihu? That does not sound right. If we get trapped over there, who would survive?”
“But Taihu alone has hundreds of billions of mortals. With such a base, there will only be more cultivators. That means more targets for us to rob.”
“Why cling to this bitterly cold land?”
“No, no, this is not appropriate.”
“This is an order from above. Even if we do not want to do it, we still must.”
Hearing this, several people fell silent.
In the shadows,
Wang Yu’s brows were tightly furrowed. This conversation carried many implications. An order like this could not possibly have come from those who maintained the Blood Reversal Sect’s rule.
Although the Maple Prefecture Council of Elders had no shortage of useless figures, they were still beneficiaries of the Exalted Sect’s system. At a time like this, sending people to provoke Taihu sects was no different from handing them a legitimate excuse to start a war.
That was how the righteous path operated.
Everything had to have a justifiable cause.
As for demonic sects, weakness itself was a crime. If you were weak, you deserved to be bullied. There was no need for pretense at all. Otherwise, they would not have been cast into the demonic path.
From Wang Yu’s perspective, this felt like the handiwork of the Yellow Springs Monastery.
“Just a group of chess pieces.”
…
…
The north wind howled, and the cold intensified sharply in the night.
Even Qi Refining cultivators were shivering from the cold. Under the pitch-black sky, the stars were obscured, leaving only a single frost-white moon hanging overhead, breathtakingly beautiful.
“Tonight’s moon looks so close.”
“And the temperature suddenly dropped. It is freezing.”
“Stop talking. I just went to relieve myself and nearly froze my little bro off. Hey, you there… gather a few fireballs so we can warm up.”
“I am talking to you. Did you not hear me?!”
The cultivator on night watch grew irritated and strode over, shoving the man.
As a result, the fire-element cultivator fell straight to the ground. His entire body was frozen stiff, and he was already dead.
The man immediately sensed something was wrong. What kind of cursed wind could freeze even cultivators to death? This was not the Endless Ice Plains. Since occupying Blackbone Mountain, nothing like this had ever happened.
“Brother Luo, something is not right…”
Before he could finish speaking, he realized that the companion who had just been talking to him had also frozen solid. In the blink of an eye, all vitality vanished completely.
Terrified, he let out a piercing warning cry.
Yet the entire camp, though seemingly brightly lit, showed not the slightest movement. Staggering, he ran toward the leaders’ meeting hall.
With a loud bang, he pushed the doors open.
Inside, a boy stood before five pale-white flame cauldron, flashing him a horrifying smile.
“Interesting. You actually did not freeze to death.”
This abandoned camp was practically a natural burial ground.
Sandwiched at the very center by three Blackbone Mountains, any large-scale offensive divine ability cast from above would have its power extremely concentrated.
There was no moon tonight.
That frost moon was Wang Yu’s life-bound divine ability, the Guanghan Twelve Phases.
This was only the second time he had used it in a formal setting.
Its power did not disappoint him. The Guanghan divine ability, nearing the realm of great accomplishment, had almost instantly frozen all Qi Refining and Foundation Establishment cultivators to death.
Only few Core Formation cultivators could still move.
If the divine ability’s might were condensed into the Twelve Forms, almost no Core Formation cultivator could withstand it head-on. It had fully reached Nascent Soul-level power, which left him fairly satisfied.
The only issue was the remaining one.
“What exactly are you?”
He reached out. His spiritual power transformed into an illusory arm that seized the man and dragged him before Wang Yu.
The man trembled violently. His fear had reached the extreme, to the point where he had temporarily lost even the ability to speak. It did not seem like an act at all.
Being able to survive in extreme cold was something even some ice-attribute demonic beasts could not achieve. After all, this cold was mixed with the power of divine abilities and could not be equated with natural low temperatures.
His divine sense invaded the body.
Wang Yu’s pupils contracted sharply.
There was nothing wrong with this person’s flesh, meridians, or bones, yet the Qi sea was an icy blue expanse. That power was precisely the residual cold energy of the Guanghan Twelve Phases.
It seemed to have helped awaken a certain talent within him.
“A congenital spiritual body? No… this feels more like a transformation caused by the awakening of demonic bloodline heritage.”
He muttered to himself inwardly. This sudden development had truly caught him by surprise.
Using the Soul-Gouging Evil Boat Curse to probe deeper into the person’s memories, he traced them all the way back to infancy and finally uncovered some useful information.
In the memory fragments, this person had been born amid ice and snow.
Placed in a wooden basin, he drifted along a river that never froze, traveling from the frozen lands to Maple Prefecture. Judging by the direction, the river’s source should have been within the Endless Ice Plains.
The Unfrozen River…
A smile rose at the corner of Wang Yu’s mouth. He had more or less figured out the cause.
The Endless Ice Plains were home to large numbers of ice-attribute demonic beasts, as well as intelligent demon clans, which were considered one of the native forces.
In addition, there existed a type of lifeform condensed from ice crystals.
Some took human form, some beast form, and some avian form. A small number would awaken spiritual intelligence and were thus known as the Ice Clan.
Their cultivation system was similar to that of the human race, but Ice Clan born seemed unable to leave the Endless Ice Plains for their entire lives. The exact reason was unknown. Once an Ice Clan born being perished, it would give rise to a massive ice and snow storm.
It was said that the natural disasters on the Endless Ice Plains had accumulated in this way over countless years, eventually forming a natural chasm that even Nascent Soul cultivators could not cross.
This kind of top-secret information was something Wang Yu only learned after becoming the Seventh Elder of Cold Blood Peak, having accessed the hidden archives. Successive masters of Cold Blood Mountain had always maintained friendly relations with the Ice Clan.
The Frost Demon Sealed Ground was also guarded by these beings.
As for the lucky individual before him, he was most likely the product of interbreeding between the Ice Clan and the human race. Wang Yu’s cold energy had helped activate the latent talent hidden within his bloodline.
What caught Wang Yu’s attention the most was this resistance to extreme cold. It was outrageously strong, practically the nemesis of ice-path cultivators.
And he had encountered one just like that.
This suggested that the Ice Clan, trapped within the Endless Ice Plains, had likely begun attempting long ago to use human bloodlines to escape their mysterious imprisonment.
“Strange. Far too strange.”
The situation in Maple Prefecture had already been chaotic, riddled with holes everywhere. Now that he had uncovered this, there was little Wang Yu could do beyond sighing in amazement.
With a casual flick of his hand, he sent out an ice sword and killed the man.
The corpse was sealed and preserved in an ice coffin for future research.
After this minor episode passed, he gathered all the spoils of battle. The corpses of low-level cultivators were no longer of any use to him, so he only collected the Foundation Establishment corpses, placing them all into the Yin Fiend Corpse Nurturing Coffins.
They were left as food for the Two Corpses.
Frozen solid, preservation was absolutely not a problem.
As for the bandit leaders, he refined them using a Human Pill Art into pills that restored mana. After hastily disposing of the rest, he headed toward the underground palace beneath Blackbone Mountain.
Using the Purple Dragon Earth-Escape Technique, he moved through rock and stone without obstruction.
The Bone-Maned Lions and Corrosive Poison Bee swarms that lived underground posed no threat to him at all. After finding the collapsed area, he spent quite some effort clearing out a corner of the underground palace.
The underground collapse was even more severe than he had estimated.
Nearly the entire underground palace had been buried.
This did not match what Liu Jinxian had described after escaping back then. According to those accounts, at most the passages and part of the palace had been buried, nowhere near a total collapse.
After coming down here, if not for divine sense probing, he might have mistaken this entire area for solid ground. Clearing it out would be a massive project. He patted the Human-Seed Pouch, and Snowjade poked her head out, utterly confused.
Ever since she broke through to third-rank, her original spirit beast pouch was no longer sufficient.
The Human-Seed Pouch was a supreme-grade third-rank magic treasure capable of storing living beings.
Not only could it capture and restrain people, it also allowed Snowjade to cultivate inside. As for ambient spiritual energy, that was out of the question. Everything came from the spirit stones and pills provided by Wang Yu.
This kind of extravagant behavior was not commonly used and had only begun recently. After all, in the past, Wang Yu always had his little fox by his side. Now, however, he was the Ice Demon Child.
The methods were similar. As long as he did not expose the Yellow Springs divine ability or the Slaughter-path divine ability, the chance of anyone making connections was low. The difference in appearance was simply too great.
The only divine abilities he currently used were those for disguising aura and appearance.
From small to large, such secret arts were common. From large to small, they were not. Among the rumors surrounding the Ice Demon Child, there was one claim that his reverse growth was caused by cultivating a special technique.
This was also something Wang Yu had deliberately spread, to maximize the distinction between this identity and his true body.
As for the now smaller master, Snowjade had been very excited at first. After receiving a head-rubbing lesson, losing her freedom, and losing her master’s embrace, she immediately became dispirited, and her interest naturally faded.
Now that she was out, she cast him a puzzled look.
“Ahem… Snowjade, remember that the primary ability of your life-bound demonic treasure, Snow Fox Robe, is shapeshifting. I will leave the task of clearing this underground palace to you.”
The little fox widened her eyes and argued,
“Among the five shapeshifting treasure forms, there are only sword, ribbon, mirror, orb, and lamp. There is no shovel.”
Wang Yu’s expression turned solemn.
“If I tell you to do it, then do it. Look at you, stuffing yourself until your head is full of fat and intestines. You have no fox-demon charm left at all. It is time you got some exercise.”
With that said, he pulled out several storage rings from his robe, strung them together into a necklace, and hung it around the little fox’s neck. This was what he had the most of on him.
“Put the excavated earth into the rings first. Remember to reinforce the structure here with ice crystals.”
Snowjade said, “…sigh.”
