The icy highway leading west out of Winter-Frost City wound through the jagged, pitch-black granite canyons of the Ash-Peak Ravine.
Here, towering rock walls rose thousands of feet into the overcast sky, blocking out the sun and casting permanent, violet-tinted shadows over the frozen trail. The wind inside the gorge did not blow in soft gusts; it whistled sharply through narrow rock crevices like the high-pitched weeping of trapped ghosts.
With the dark-violet Void-Piercing Needle completely atomized from his spine, Li-Wen's physical marrow and his Stage-5 Peak Sovereign energy were now fully fused.
As he walked down the canyon trail, his leather boots made quiet, rhythmically precise sounds against the frosted stone. His dark traveler's coat fluttered gently in the mountain draft, and the massive, pitch-black heavy blade rested across his broad back, its unadorned iron surface radiating a faint, microscopic hum of absolute-zero sapphire cold that kept the surrounding frost from melting.
Beside him, little Xiao-Yue was skipping happily over small, frozen puddles.
Her small leather boots made cheerful crunch-crunch sounds on the thin ice. In her small, gloved hand, she held her pink lotus lantern high. The lotus lamp—an ancient, protective spirit artifact—emitted a soft, crimson light that wrapped around her small sheepskin coat like a warm, protective cocoon.
"Brother Li-Wen! Look at that rock!" Xiao-Yue squeaked softly, pointing her small finger toward a giant basalt pillar shaped like a sleeping bear. "It looks like the giant stone bear outside our old mountain cabin!"
Li-Wen looked down at her small, smiling face. The coldness in his dark, void-like eyes softened by a fraction.
"It is just a stone, Xiao-Yue," Li-Wen murmured, his deep, raspy voice carrying a quiet, steady warmth into the chilly canyon air. "Keep your boots on the dry path."
"Okay!" She giggled, reaching up to squeeze his broad fingers tightly. "When we clear this dark ditch, can we buy those warm honey oat cakes again? The ones Sister Silver-Hair gave us?"
"We will buy a whole box," Li-Wen promised softly.
However, as they reached the narrowest bottleneck of the Ash-Peak Ravine—where the canyon walls narrowed to less than fifty feet across—the whistling wind suddenly died down.
The silence that followed was not peaceful. It was static, heavy, and drenched in the metallic stench of ancient, dried blood.
Li-Wen's boots stopped mid-stride.
His dark eyes narrowed slightly. His acute physical senses—now completely unhindered by void poison—detected a subtle, terrifying vibration in the tectonic plates four thousand feet beneath the canyon floor.
"Xiao-Yue," Li-Wen said flatly, his raspy voice dropping into a low, absolute warning. "Step behind me."
Xiao-Yue blinked, sensing the sudden, bone-chilling drop in temperature. She immediately pulled her small boots back, hugging her pink lotus lantern close to her chest, standing right behind Li-Wen's broad, iron-like calves. "Brother Li-Wen... the ground feels cold again."
Before Li-Wen could respond, the sky directly above the canyon turned pure, pitch-black blood red!
BOOOM—!
A terrifying, ancient array activated silently across a ten-mile radius of the Ash-Peak Ravine!
Thousands of dark-red, blood-stained bone runes erupted from the canyon walls, interlocking with one another to form a colossal, domed barrier—the Stage-6 Peak Blood-Eclipse Isolation Array!
The array did not rely on standard spatial law or elemental Qi. It was forged by burning the soul essence of ten thousand high-grade martial artists, creating an absolute spatial lock that completely severed the inner area from the outside world!
High above the crimson dome, three figures materialized out of thin air.
They were not dressed in the robes of the Golden-Eagle Sect or the City Governor's Mansion. They wore long, pitch-black robes embroidered with glowing, white skeletal eyes—the ultimate, hidden supreme ancestors of the Abyssal-Blade Coalition, the most terrifying underground assassin league spanning across all three western provinces!
The man standing at the center was a withered, tall figure carrying a jagged, long spear forged from dark void-iron—Ancestor Abyssal-Spear, a genuine Stage-6 Mid-Grade Sovereign who had been in secluded death-cultivation for two hundred years!
Flanking him were two Stage-6 Early-Grade Sovereigns, their faces concealed behind dark, bone-white demon masks, their bodies radiating a suffocating wave of spatial pressure that made the granite canyon walls crumble into fine dust!
"Hahaha... Northern Sovereign!" Ancestor Abyssal-Spear's voice boomed down like dry thunder echoing inside a sealed coffin! "You thought erasing Grand Elder Eagle-Ancestor at the medicine quarter was the end?! He was merely a noisy distraction sent to force you to reveal your restored strength!"
Ancestor Abyssal-Spear raised his dark void-iron spear, its tip crackling with a terrifying, pitch-black void flame!
"We knew the Ninth-Refinement Earth-Core Liquid would purge your poison! We knew your Stage-5 Peak energy would resonate with your primordial body! And that is precisely why we activated the Blood-Eclipse Array! Within this array, your physical kinetic shockwaves are reduced by eighty percent, and all spatial escape pathways are permanently sealed!"
The two masked Stage-6 Sovereigns on his sides sneered, drawing two curved, crimson spatial daggers! "Northern Sovereign! Hand over your life, and we shall refine your primordial bones into supreme artifacts for our coalition!"
Down in the narrow canyon, Li-Wen stood perfectly straight.
He did not draw the massive heavy blade from his back. He did not display a single grain of panic or surprise. His dark, void-like eyes looked up at the three Stage-6 Sovereigns with flat, absolute indifference.
"You brought three Stage-6 Sovereigns... just to die in a ditch?" Li-Wen said softly, his raspy voice carrying an unyielding, cold weight into the crimson dome.
"Arrogant brat!" Ancestor Abyssal-Spear roared in pure rage! "ACTIVATE THE SPEAR OF THE ABYSS! KILL HIM!"
BOOOOOOOOOOM—!
The three Stage-6 Sovereigns unleashed their ultimate combined attack simultaneously!
Ancestor Abyssal-Spear threw his dark void-iron spear straight down into the canyon! Driven by three Stage-6 spatial domains, the spear transformed into a colossal, three-hundred-foot dragon of pitch-black void fire, tearing through the air with enough force to level an entire mountain range!
Simultaneously, the two masked Stage-6 Sovereigns vanished into space, reappearing twenty feet above Li-Wen's head, thrusting their curved spatial daggers directly toward his chest and skull!
The combined kinetic and spatial force of three Stage-6 Sovereigns destroyed the spatial structure of the Ash-Peak Ravine instantly! Thousands of tons of granite boulders were ground into microscopic dust mid-air before they could even hit the ground!
Facing this apocalyptic, three-directional Stage-6 assassination strike, Li-Wen did not retreat a single inch.
He took a deep, rhythmic breath.
FLEX.
His broad chest expanded, his unsealed Stage-5 Peak Sovereign energy and his absolute-zero marrow exploding simultaneously!
"PUNCH OF THE FROZEN CONTINENT."
Li-Wen pulled his right fist back and threw a single, straight punch straight up into the sky!
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM—!!!!!
An absolute, terrifying column of sapphire-blue kinetic mass—a thousand yards wide—erupted from his knuckles!
The three-hundred-foot void-fire dragon? Vaporized in a microsecond!
The two Stage-6 Early-Grade Sovereigns descending from above? Their spatial daggers, their Stage-6 spatial domains, and their bodies were instantly hit dead-center by the sapphire column!
CRUSH—! SHATTER—!
The two masked Stage-6 Sovereigns didn't even have time to utter a final scream! Their bodies were instantly snap-froze into two solid blocks of pale-blue ice, before being violently pulverized into microscopic frost-dust that filled the entire canyon!
"WHAT?! TWO STAGE-6 SOVEREIGN INSTANTLY ERASED?!" Ancestor Abyssal-Spear, hovering high above, screamed in pure, unspeakable horror! His long hair stood on end, his Stage-6 mind completely collapsing under the sheer, impossible reality of Li-Wen's physical power!
Even within the Blood-Eclipse Array, Li-Wen's single physical punch had casually erased two Stage-6 Sovereigns as if stepping on two ants!
"MONSTER! YOU ARE AN ABSOLUTE MONSTER!" Ancestor Abyssal-Spear shrieked, completely abandoning his pride as a Stage-6 Mid-Grade Sovereign! He turned his body around, burning ninety percent of his blood essence to flee toward the edge of the crimson array!
Li-Wen stood on the cracked canyon floor, his right fist slowly opening into a flat palm.
He did not pursue the fleeing ancestor. He simply aimed his open palm at Ancestor Abyssal-Spear's back five hundred yards away.
"Freeze," Li-Wen murmured flatly.
A single, razor-thin beam of sapphire-blue physical kinetic energy shot out from his palm, tearing through five hundred yards of space in less than a microsecond!
CRACKLE—!
The sapphire beam struck Ancestor Abyssal-Spear dead-center in his lower spine!
"NOOOOOOOOO—!" Ancestor Abyssal-Spear shrieked as the absolute-zero frost instantly expanded through his body! His Stage-6 core, his blood, and his soul were frozen solid mid-air!
His frozen body plummeted from the sky like a heavy stone, crashing violently onto the canyon floor right in front of the crimson array wall!
The entire Ash-Peak Ravine fell into complete, utter silence once more.
The Stage-6 Peak Blood-Eclipse Isolation Array, lacking the energy of its creators, began to flicker violently, its crimson runes cracking into pieces.
Li-Wen slowly lowered his palm and tucked his hand back into his coat pocket. His expression remained completely flat, undisturbed, and calm.
He turned his body back toward the narrow path behind him, his dark eyes softening as he looked for little Xiao-Yue.
"Xiao-Yue," Li-Wen said softly, his deep, raspy voice carrying a gentle warmth. "It is over. We can keep walking."
However...
There was no cheerful, sweet response.
There was no sound of small leather boots stepping over ice.
Li-Wen's heart—which had remained as unyielding and immovable as a thousand-year mountain through endless battles—suddenly skipped a beat!
He looked down at the spot where Xiao-Yue had been standing just moments ago.
The narrow cobblestone path behind him was empty.
The small girl in her white sheepskin coat was gone.
Resting on the cracked, frost-covered stone floor was only her small, pink lotus lantern—its beautiful ruby glow now flickering weakly, its silver framework cracked down the center, a few tiny drops of fresh, crimson blood dripping silently onto the pale-blue ice.
Beside the cracked lotus lantern lay a single, dark-red wooden token carved with the image of a headless crow—the absolute, forbidden mark of the Grand Patriarch of the Blood-Shadow Sect!
"Brother... Li-Wen..."
A faint, trembling, microscopic whisper echoed from three miles deep inside the pitch-black canyon—a voice that was rapidly fading, choked with thick, bloody coughing!
Li-Wen's dark, void-like pupils dilated to the size of pinpricks.
The absolute, unyielding calm that had governed his face for years vanished instantly, replaced by a expression of pure, horrific, bone-chilling terror!
His broad chest heaved as he dropped to one knee on the cold stone floor, his trembling, calloused hand reaching out to pick up the cracked, blood-stained pink lotus lantern.
The blood on the lotus lamp was still warm.
Xiao-Yue's small, sweet aura... was vanishing rapidly from the world.
"Xiao... Yue...?" Li-Wen gasped, his deep, raspy voice trembling violently for the very first time in his life.
Deep within his soul, the final thread of sanity, peace, and human warmth that had kept the Northern Sovereign grounded in the mortal world... snapped into absolute, irreparable pieces.
RUMBLE—! BOOOOM—!
The sky above the Ash-Peak Ravine turned pure, pitch-black dark!
A terrifying, catastrophic aura of demonic, absolute-zero physical rage erupted from Li-Wen's body, shattering the five-thousand-foot granite canyon walls into fine dust in a single microsecond!
See you in next chapter.....