Through the Aurora, the Temporal Distortion Zone

"Come to think of it, was there really a place like this in the Permafrost Icefield?"

The Ice Empress's heart sank a little as she watched them descend deeper and deeper into the Temporal Ice Crevice.

She had spent so many years in the Far North, yet she had never known there was such a deep crevice here.

As they went deeper, an ice-element treasure, Profound Ice Marrow, appeared around them.

At first, it had only been ten years old. By now, it was already a thousand years old.

But... how deep did the crevice go?

The Ice Empress looked down into the Temporal Ice Crevice. All she saw was pitch-black darkness, with no sign of a bottom.

"That's only natural. Eternal Night Time Falcons are rare Soul Beasts with time as their sole attribute. They're especially fond of natural Time Disorder zones. They're born darlings of time. After all, which of the beings called Rare Beasts is easy to deal with?"

"Rare Beasts."

The Snow Empress softly murmured the words, a trace of helplessness welling up in her heart.

She had been the overlord of the Far North for so many years, only for someone to tell her in the end that she was just a gatekeeper? Who could feel good about that?

"Xue'er! Look! Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow!"

The Snow Empress abruptly pulled herself out of her thoughts and looked outside the aircraft.

Sure enough, the profound ice was now Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow, and it wasn't scattered in individual chunks. It lay in vast expanses.

No! Rather, this was a crevice formed from a vast expanse of Ten-Thousand-Year Mysterious Ice!

She had once treasured Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow, unwilling to take it out except when facing a heavenly tribulation. Yet... now someone was telling her that a vast vein of Ten-Thousand-Year Mysterious Ice lay beneath the Far North!

It was as if you had been poor your whole life, only for someone to tell you on your deathbed that there was a gold mine beneath your house. That feeling could hardly be called pleasant.

"Something's wrong."

The Snow Empress's expression grew grave.

It was indeed Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow outside, but its surface was covered by a thin silver film. No! The entire canyon was shrouded in that silver film.

This is... time...

If the Snow Empress could see it, how could the Ice Empress, the second strongest in the Far North, fail to see it?

The greed that had welled up in her heart sank away completely.

This was Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow! Vast expanses of it! If she could mine it, she wouldn't need much. Just a portion would be enough for her and Xue'er to successfully weather their tribulations and perhaps even go a step further.

"Bing'er, don't get any ideas about that Ten-Thousand-Year Mysterious Ice. Distorted time is no joke."

The Ice Empress pressed her lips together. She understood, but... sitting on mountains of gold and silver without being able to use them felt worse than never finding them at all!

Before, she hadn't had any. Now there was plenty, but she couldn't use it!

"Can this aircraft of ours withstand the Time Disorder?"

The Snow Empress's voice had also turned serious.

Time was one of the most supreme attributes. Nothing connected to it was weak.

"Don't worry. This Soul Tool was made with the feather of a hundred-thousand-year-old Eternal Night Time Falcon as its core. We can go wild in here."

Wei Lin had just turned his head to explain when everyone shouted him down in unison.

"Watch the road!"

Wei Lin: "...My driving really is good. It's been a while since I last spiraled up to heaven."

"Rest assured. How could we possibly gamble with the young master's life?"

Huang Tianyi led the Snow Empress back to her seat.

"Mm."

The Snow Empress breathed a sigh of relief.

The Time Disorder here was far too severe. She reckoned that if she entered an environment like this, it probably wouldn't take a day for her to become completely lost in time.

Perhaps... it wouldn't even take that long.

But the more she saw, the more curious she became about the Soul Beasts that could survive amid the Time Disorder.

"Eternal Night Time Falcons... what kind of Soul Beasts are they?"

Rare Beasts. Was this where the name came from?

"Time is revered, space is king; when fate does not appear, karma reigns as emperor. Nothing connected to any of them is simple."

The Ice Empress watched helplessly as her beloved Xue'er chatted animatedly with that detestable human female.

She felt like a useless wife, able only to watch without being able to do anything.

If only... if only... I could beat her... I... sob, sob, sob~~~ My Xue'er o(╥﹏╥)oo(╥﹏╥)oo(╥﹏╥)o.

"We're almost there."

A multicolored aurora had appeared at the very bottom of the Temporal Ice Crevice. Only by breaking through it could they truly reach the Eternal Night Time Falcons' habitat.

"Sit tight and hold on. We're going down."

Wei Lin glanced over at Qingfeng.

There wasn't a trace of fear in her eyes. She also knew that the Soul Beasts they were about to face were probably the true overlords of the Soul Beast Realm.

But... her brother had come all the way here to give her the best possible future. How could she possibly be afraid?

For Qingfeng, death had never been something she feared. There was only one thing she feared: the disappointment in her brother's eyes.

"Down."

The aircraft descended, and everyone was suddenly surrounded by the colorful aurora. The once-transparent protective shield turned a deep black.

This was to prevent visual interference from outside.

Even the view in front of Wei Lin was no exception. He simply followed the navigation, nothing more.

No one knew how much time passed. Perhaps it was days, perhaps years, or perhaps only a few seconds.

They couldn't feel the passage of time. One moment, it seemed to be dragging on; the next, it felt as though only an instant had passed.

They understood that this was a negative effect caused by the Time Disorder.

If not for the deep-black protective shield outside and the clock hanging almost directly in front of them, which let them know how time was passing,

the people (Soul Beasts) would probably have been long gone.

"Rumble!"

With a shudder, the aircraft finally passed through the aurora.

As the colors changed, everyone could finally see everything before them.

Above was the curtain of aurora they had just passed through. Below was a bottomless abyss of time. Towering gray-white clock pillars rose from the abyss of time straight into the sky, like towers of time frozen in place.

The surroundings were not gloomy. Instead, they were relatively bright, as rays of dazzling silver-white light dispelled the darkness in this region.

Of course, they had no desire to touch those beams of white light. They were all turbulent currents of time. Touch one, and you could say goodbye to the real world.

"This is the Polar Night Temporal Distortion Zone, or the Polar Temporal Zone for short."

Wei Lin took out a needle-shaped object and threw it at the protective shield.

As the object flew, it unfolded. Needle points extended from its top and bottom, stabbing fiercely into the distortion zone. The polygonal core in the middle rotated in a regular pattern—or rather, it rotated backward through time.

A Trailblazer fresh off the train would surely have found it familiar. That's right, it was a Teleport Waypoint.

"This will mark the route we took here, so we won't be unable to get back. But... we only have seven days before we must return."

Wei Lin's voice was grave, and everyone understood how little time they had.

Their gazes all turned toward the distortion zone.

"Eternal Night Time Falcons, here we come."