"Crack—!"
Almost the instant the leather scroll ribbon came loose, a clear crack appeared across the ground beneath the crystal ice throne.
"Move!"
Sikong Zhaixing acted without hesitation. A large black sack, prepared who knew when, swept out in a flash. With an unbelievably swift motion, he scooped up every item inside the crystal ice throne, causing even Jiang Dali's Dragon Subduing Hand, unleashed almost simultaneously, to grasp nothing but air.
Rumble—!—!
A deafening boom and violent tremor suddenly erupted from the thick ice below. Both men felt as though the entire ground beneath their feet had turned over.
In an instant—the dozens of thick black-ice pillars throughout the surrounding ice palace all cracked at once.
"Go!!"
The two kicked off together, both using the Thousand-Mile Turning Movement Technique. They shot forward like arrows, their bodies speeding through air that had become thick and sticky as paste, crossing nearly a hundred zhang in the blink of an eye and reaching the doorway.
But at that very moment, another heart-tightening explosion rang out. It was as though some immense structure beneath their feet had suddenly collapsed. Great cracks and sharp ice fragments burst forth in tangled profusion, while the entire space within the ice palace shifted and turned before sinking with a thunderous crash.
With a rumble, the nearly nine-ton Ice Gate at the entrance shook loose and dropped. Carrying the black bundle on his back, Sikong Zhaixing barely managed to slip out just as the gate descended halfway.
Though Jiang Dali could have slammed into Sikong Zhaixing and forced his way out at that same moment, he chose to slow down and let Sikong Zhaixing rush out first.
In that brief delay, the Ice Gate had already dropped to barely two feet above the ground. The whole ice palace began