Chapter 2010: Frozen

Kui Luo appeared beside Lu Yin, and the old man frowned. "While she is still breathing, she isn’t far from death. Her body is full of blade energy, and it looks like Xia Ji’s. If she were some ordinary cultivator, or even someone as powerful as the Second Nightking, she would’ve already perished. However, there’s a mysterious power in her body that is resisting the blade energy. I can't tell what that power is exactly, but it won’t be able to hold out for much longer. She will die soon."

Lu Yin gritted his teeth, his eyes bloodshot with rage. So it was Xia Ji's blade energy.

Lu Yin understood that Xia Ji had most likely not intentionally attacked Ming Yan. She had simply been a bit of collateral damage. Still, why did the fight have to be in this place? Why in the middle of Black Street? Why did it have to affect Ming Yan?

Lu Yin's body trembled in anger and despair as he held Ming Yan. Right, the jade talisman! He hurriedly retrieved the jade from his cosmic ring and crushed it. Only Mister Mu could save Ming Yan!

"If you truly care for her, just kill her. Every inch of her body is being ravaged by blade energy. She’s suffering from thousands of cuts but is unable to die. The pain that she’s experiencing is worse than death," Kui Luo said quietly as he looked at Ming Yan sympathetically.

Lu Yin's body quivered as he caressed Ming Yan’s head. Even at the verge of death, Ming Yan’s forehead was creased as she endured unimaginable pain. His heart ached for her as he asked softly, "Is there any way to ease her pain?"

Kui Luo sighed. "The only option would be to freeze her injuries as well as the blade energy ripping her apart. That will buy some time, but you’ll need to use that opportunity to find a peak expert to help her. Otherwise, she can’t be saved."

"A Progenitor?" A bit of hope entered Lu Yin’s voice.

Kui Luo could not bear the idea of extinguishing Lu Yin’s faint hope, but he firmed his resolve and continued, "Not even Progenitors are omnipotent. They can’t live forever, let alone grant others eternal life. Right now, this child is experiencing thousands of slashes repeatedly slashing every inch of her body. That is the definition of being ravaged by blade energy. I’m not a Progenitor, but I do know that ordinary Progenitors can’t save her. However, that’s something that you can deal with later. Even if you manage to find a true expert who’s willing to save her, you still need to first freeze her injuries. At best, she has half an incense stick’s worth of time remaining. After that, not even the Origin Progenitor will be able to do anything for her."

Lu Yin stared off into the distance. Half an incense’s time. Mister Mu should arrive by that point in time. No, he had to arrive by then.

Lu Yin held Ming Yan, and she suffered in pure agony as blood flowed from her injuries.

Kui Luo continued speaking. "She's being tortured. If you don't have any way to freeze her wounds, then you need to end her pain yourself. Do you really want to see her be tortured to death?”

A thought occurred to Lu Yin, and he gently set Ming Yan down as took out the froststone from his cosmic ring. The Frost Emperor had once said that there was a legend that claimed that froststones could reach a level of strength where they could freeze all wounds, even those of a dead person. Lu Yin had not initially believed that story, but after Enhancing his froststone several times, he had changed his mind. This was because Enhancing the froststone cost a ridiculous amount of money.

If there was anything capable of freezing Ming Yan's injuries, it was the froststone.

Kui Luo looked at the froststone that Lu Yin had pulled out and shook his head. "That’s not enough. That thing can't freeze wounds made by a Semi-Progenitor.”

Lu Yin had no time to explain. He raised his hand and brought out his die before tapping it. At a time like this, he could no longer bother with hiding his innate gift.

The die slowly stopped on Blackhole Disassembly, so Lu Yin immediately tapped it again. Hurry, hurry!

Kui Luo’s interest was piqued by the sight of the die. "What’s that? Your innate gift? Do you have double innate gifts?"

Enhance! The two screens of light appeared, and Lu Yin's eyes lit up. He placed the froststone on the upper screen and threw out a massive amount of star essence onto it as well.

For Kui Luo, he had thought that he would no longer be surprised by anything as he was a Semi-Progenitor, but right now, he felt as though he was witnessing a miracle.

He could not describe what he was seeing, but he could feel the chill from the stone increase each time it dropped down a bit further.

Lu Yin had spent 400 million star essence to upgrade the froststone seven times already. The eighth upgrade cost him 800 million, the ninth 1.5 billion, the tenth cost 3.3 billion… The thirteenth Enhance cost him 30 billion star essence.

After the froststone fell through the lower screen for the thirteenth time, the void next to the stone froze. Kui Luo instantly moved, and he shifted the froststone over to Ming Yan with a finger.

𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

"Move,” he ordered.

Lu Yin scrambled out of the way.

The moment the froststone touched Ming Yan, thin threads of frozen air expanded and started to spread out. They completely enveloped Ming Yan and left her utterly frozen.

Lu Yin’s eyes never left Ming Yan for even a single moment. Inside the ice, her pained expression began to relax a bit.

"Yan'er," Lu Yin called out.

Kui Luo interjected, "There’s no point in calling to her, as she can't hear you. She’s in cryostasis right now, no different from people who are cryopreserved. This cold is enough to freeze even a Semi-Progenitor's wound. As long as one breaks this ice open, you and I will probably die of old age before she wakes up on her own."

"So is she fine now?" Lu Yin asked expectantly.

Kui Luo replied, "Of course not! It’s just that her injuries have been frozen so that they won’t get any worse. If no one heals her, she’ll die the moment she awakens."

Lu Yin let out a sigh of relief, as this meant that Ming Yan would be able to endure until Mister Mu arrived.

Kui Luo gave Lu Yin a curious look. The old man’s eyes contained surprise, puzzlement, and confusion.

Lu Yin felt the probing gaze. "What?"

"That thing just now was a die, right? Is that your innate gift?" Kui Luo asked inquisitively.

Lu Yin replied indifferently, "You must’ve seen wrong.”

Kui Luo’s face twitched. "I'm not stupid."

"I know.”

"Then what was that just now?"

A blade attack shot through space near the two, cutting open the void in the distance. Another sharp slash shot towards where Lu Yin and Kui Luo were waiting.

Lu Yin's expression grew cold. If he were not present, these two attacks would have ended Ming Yan.

Kui Luo blocked the approaching attack with a hand.

Some distance away, both Xia Ji and Undying God looked over and saw Kui Luo.

Undying God was surprised. "Another Semi-Progenitor? You look a bit familiar…"

When Xia Ji noticed Lu Yin, the old man’s expression grew stiff. Still, he did not say anything at all and just continued attacking Undying God.

Lu Yin’s expression hardened. Xia Ji might not have intentionally attacked Ming Yan, but he was a Semi-Progenitor, and he had clearly attacked recklessly and without any care for his surroundings. The people who had been living on Black Street had almost all been killed, and this could have been prevented if Xia Ji had simply controlling his attacks. He had treated the lives of all the people here as dirt. This was something that Lu Yin could not forgive.

Sooner or later, he would find Xia Ji and settle their grudges, both new and old. However, this was not the time.

Slowly, Xia Ji's battle with Undying God moved further away.

Lu Yin remained where he was, waiting for Mister Mu. A stick of incense’s time passed, and then half a day. Still, Lu Yin’s master had not arrived.

Mister Mu was likely busy fighting as well.

Given the fact that the Starfall Sea had just become a massive warfront, there was no way that Mister Mu would sit back and just watch. Not even he could stop Aeternus. The situation was far more serious than Lu Yin had ever imagined.

He finally understood the severity that he had ignored so far. Actually, if even Mister Mu was unable to do anything about this catastrophe, what hope was there for the Fifth Mainland?

Lu Yin decided to return to the Innerverse and lead everyone to Jupiter. He would figure everything out after they arrived and were safe.

"This is bad. Xia Ji can't hold out any longer," Kui Luo exclaimed.

Lu Yin turned to look at the battle, and he saw that the runes in the distance belonging to Xia Ji had started to fade, while the runes belonging to Undying God had spiked.

How were Undying God’s runes increasing in number? What was going on?

Kui Luo's expression grew ugly. "Xia Ji vastly underestimated the Seven Skygods. Aeternus’s schemes run too deep. If the Seven Skygods have revealed their true strength, then something disastrous is about to happen."

“What does that mean?” Lu Yin asked as he moved Ming Yan’s frozen body to somewhere safe. He had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He quickly reviewed everything he knew about both the Neohuman Alliance and Aeternus, and he quickly found some things that did not add up.

His deepest impression of the Seven Skygods was after ZENITH, when they had attacked Lu Yin and the other top ten finalists. However, Arch-Elder Zen and the other Semi-Progenitors had managed to stop those attacks. At that time, Lu Yin had not thought much of the matter. After all, both sides of each fight had been Semi-Progenitors, so it only made sense that humans would possess the strength to stand up to the Seven Skygods.

However, when Lu Yin looked back at that incident with all the information he had gained since then, something seemed off about the whole matter. There were different levels of strength between Semi-Progenitors. For example, Yao Di alone had been able to crush Lan Xian, Herb Immortal, and Xue Laogui despite the three humans cooperating while Kui Luo had been the only person who was able to go toe to toe with Yao Di. If Kui Luo said that the Seven Skygods were extremely strong, then how could the Fifth Mainland’s Semi-Progenitors possibly possess the strength to repel the Seven Skygods? Each side had possessed the same number of experts.

Lu Yin found it hard to believe that Jiu Chi and the other Semi-Progenitors from the Fifth Mainland possessed the same level of strength as the Seven Skygods. Even though Jiu Chi and the others all possessed Origin Matter and were among the strongest Semi-Progenitors, it was not possible for every single one of them to be at Kui Luo’s level. After all, Kui Luo was an expert who had cultivated in the Perennial World, opened his three meridian points, and possessed Origin Matter.

When Kui Luo had traded blows with Xia Ji, Lu Yin had been able to feel that Xia Ji’s strength was a bit lacking in comparison to Kui Luo’s.

Kui Luo looked pensive. "Since ancient times, humans have always claimed to be intelligent, but we may not be the most intelligent. The Aeternals are also intelligent. After all, they were born from humans. There are even corpse kings who were once humans who took the initiative to undergo the transformation. Due to the fact that corpse kings have much longer lifespans, the schemes that they can concoct are also different from what we humans can imagine.

"Humanity has an expression that says that it isn’t too late for a gentleman to get revenge even after ten years. However, ten years for a human is the equivalent of tens of millions of years for a corpse king."

Xia Ji’s blade shattered, and he was forced to retreat further and further. He let out a cry of disbelief. "Your strength… How is this possible? How could your Triple Blade Will surpass the ancestor's Triple Blade Will? You actually know the technique? This is impossible!"

Kui Luo looked up. "The Seven Skygods are seven ancient monsters. Each of them was born long ago, and they rank among the strongest of Progenitors. That’s what your Lu family’s ancestor told me. It’s impossible for regular Semi-Progenitors to stand up to even the Seven Skygods’ Semi-Progenitor incarnations. Here in the Forsaken Land, they’ve mostly remained in the shadows while concealing their true strength, even if it meant reducing their forces here. This was done intentionally to lower humanity’s caution towards them. The scale of their plans is so vast that they didn’t dare risk attracting any unwanted attention that could possibly interfere with their plans’ success. Given their abilities, they could’ve easily erased the Forsaken Land whenever they wanted, but as long as their plans were still unfolding, there was simply no need for them to go through that extra trouble.”

Lu Yin stared into the distance in a trance as Xia Ji coughed up blood uncontrollably. Undying God had displayed his mastery of the Triple Blade Will.

"The Seven Skygods’ true bodies are all monsters. They are able to send out Semi-Progenitor incarnations to various regions of the universe, which is something impossible for ordinary Progenitors. I’ll step in now." Kui Luo moved forward, but he did not attack. Xia Ji’s situation was not optimistic.

Although Lu Yin hated Xia Ji, this was not the time for infighting.

Off in the distance, Undying God's expression no longer looked as laid back as before. He casually raised his sword and rested it on his shoulder. "I didn’t plan on playing around with you, but you woke me up. Sorry, but please die now."

After speaking, Undying God’s withered gray hair stood on end. He released a single stroke that cut through space. This was still the Triple Blade Will, yet not. The blade energy was overpoweringly fierce, and this attack followed an indescribable path. It seemed as though it was crossing through time to slice through the timeline itself. This blade was in the present, yet it was also in the past. This was an incomprehensible attack.

Xia Ji had practiced Triple Blade Will to the point where his mastery was at the same level as Progenitor Chen’s clone, so Xia Ji had believed himself to be comparable to the past Progenitor Chen. At this moment, when facing an attack from an unknown point in time, Xia Ji felt powerless. His eyes numbly traced the falling attack. Suddenly, he heard a buzzing noise in his ear, and the path of the attack grew crystal clear.