When the Ice and Snow Began to Melt

The frigid wind of the Eternal Frost Abyss died away before dawn, as though heaven and earth themselves were holding their breath in wait.

Yu Xiaogang sat cross-legged before Yang Jun's grave, feeding Ice Thunder Power into the newly erected stele in fine, unbroken threads. For seven days and nights, he neither slept nor ate, guarding that faint ripple of soul fluctuation. At last, at the instant the first light of dawn appeared, the inscription on the stele suddenly glowed a deep blue. Fine cracks spread across the ice in a spider web pattern.

"Crack—"

With a soft sound, the crystal coffin at the center of the Ice Tomb slowly opened, cold mist billowing upward. A figure sat up—Yang Jun. His eyes remained shut, his face pale as snow, but the Ice Soul Heart in his chest pulsed faintly, like a star that had slept for a thousand years before finally being rekindled.

"Yang Jun!" Yu Xiaogang lunged forward, his voice trembling.

Yang Jun slowly opened his eyes. His pupils shifted from grayish white to deep blue, then flashed with a trace of silver. He looked at Yu Xiaogang, the corners of his lips lifting slightly. His voice was hoarse but familiar. "...You saved my life again."

Yu Xiaogang's eyes burned as he pulled him into a tight embrace. "You're finally back."

But at that moment, Yang Jun's fingertips trembled slightly, and a faint confusion flickered through his eyes—not amnesia, but more like implanted memories quietly awakening.

Yang Jun's return was celebrated by the entire clan. The Great Elder presided over a ritual and, with the Heart of Thunder as the catalyst, formally recognized Yang Jun as an "Ice Soul Guardian," bestowing upon him the Blue Lightning Clan's highest honor—the Thunder Pattern Ice Ring.

Yet Bibi Dong watched from the shadows. Using the power of the Rakshasa God to sense the fluctuations of Yang Jun's Soul Power, she furrowed her brow. "The way his Soul Core operates... is wrong. This isn't rebirth. It's... reconstruction."

Late that night, she found Yu Xiaogang. "Xiaogang, have you considered that Yang Jun's 'resurrection' may not be a blessing from the Ice God, but something far more dangerous?"

"You suspect he isn't really Yang Jun?" Yu Xiaogang's pupils contracted.

"I don't doubt his personality," Bibi Dong said, gazing at Yang Jun amid the distant lights. "I doubt whether his soul is complete. The Ice God Trial never revives the dead; it only passes down wills. But Yang Jun... he is too 'complete,' so complete that it does not feel like a natural revival."

Yu Xiaogang fell silent. He recalled the confusion in Yang Jun's eyes when he awakened, the trembling of his fingertips, and that fleeting trace of unfamiliarity when he looked at him.

Yu Xiaogang returned to the Ice Tomb and discovered a hidden crack beneath the stele. He pried it open with Ice Thunder Power and retrieved a third Jade Slip—entirely black, neither stone nor jade. It was ice-cold to the touch, as though condensed from the abyss itself.

He activated it with Soul Power, and blood-red words emerged on the Jade Slip:

Yu Xiaogang felt as though he had been struck by lightning.

"So... the Ice God was a lie? Yang Jun's 'resurrection' was the God of Thunder's lingering will completing itself? And the true price is—that one person must die?"

He abruptly raised his head toward the Capital of Blue Electric, an unprecedented chill rising in his heart.

Yang Jun jolted awake in the dead of night, cold sweat soaking through his clothes.

He had dreamed that he stood upon an endless frozen plain. Before him stood another "himself"—draped in icy gauze, with frigid eyes and no heartbeat in his chest, only an Ice Soul Heart burning within.

"You are not me," Dream Yang Jun said. "You are a 'substitute' created by me, a 'vessel' I left behind to resist the abyss."

"No... I am Yang Jun!" he roared.

"But do you remember?" the figure sneered. "The first time you awakened Ice Soul Power was after Yu Xiaogang fell into the cold pool. Before that, you had never possessed such power. Everything about you was 'bestowed.'"

When he woke, Yang Jun was still gasping for breath, but he found an ice crystal beside his pillow. Within it was sealed a fragment of memory—

In the image, Qian Xunji stood before the Abyssal Altar, holding a beating Ice Soul Heart in his hands. He murmured, "Using the God of Thunder's remnant soul as the catalyst and the ice marrow of the Eternal Frost Abyss as the foundation, create the 'Child of the Ice God.' If Yu Xiaogang does not die, then let this 'child' become his calamity."

"So... I... was created?" Yang Jun dropped to his knees, his tears freezing into ice.

When Yu Xiaogang found Yang Jun, he was standing at the edge of a cliff, gazing at the sea of clouds churning below.

"You know everything already?" Yang Jun did not turn around.

"I know." Yu Xiaogang spoke softly. "But I don't care whether you were created. What I care about is this—are you my brother?"

"But what if..." Yang Jun turned around, his eyes bloodshot, "what if the meaning of my existence is to kill you, so that I can complete the 'purification of the world'?"

"Then kill me." Yu Xiaogang drove the Hoe-Sickle into the ground and spread his arms. "But before I die, I need to tell you—you are not a vessel, not a tool, and not anyone's shadow. You are Yang Jun. You are the brother who endured wind and snow with me, who fought at my side. Even if you are fake, this bond is real."

Yang Jun trembled, the Ice Soul Heart pounding violently as though it were about to burst through his chest.

Suddenly, a streak of black blood spilled from the corner of his mouth. He whispered, "...It's too late. Qian Xunji's consciousness... is awakening inside me."

Black mist surged from Yang Jun's body, gathering into Qian Xunji's phantom. He sneered. "Yu Xiaogang, do you think you've won? I sealed my consciousness within the Ice Soul Heart long ago. The moment Yang Jun revived would be the moment of my rebirth!"

"You're wrong." Yu Xiaogang's ice-thunder eyes blazed. "You forgot—true Grave Keepers never rely on gods, nor do they fear resurrection."

He slammed the Hoe-Sickle into the ground, and Ice Thunder Power swept forth like raging waves, charging directly at Qian Xunji's soul form. At the same time, he sent a message into Yang Jun's sea of consciousness with his Spiritual Sense:

Yang Jun closed his eyes. Tears slid down his cheeks as he murmured, "...I choose to be Yu Xiaogang's brother."

In an instant, the Ice Soul Heart erupted with unprecedented radiance. It was neither Qian Xunji's darkness nor the Ice God's cold stillness, but a light that belonged to him alone—azure as ice, yet warm as spring snow beginning to melt.

"Boom—!"

Qian Xunji's soul form shattered in the light, howling as it dissipated. Yang Jun's body slowly fell, and the Ice Soul Heart returned to stillness.

Yu Xiaogang caught him and said softly, "The spring snow has melted. Let's go home."

A month later, the Capital of Blue Electric rebuilt the Gravekeeper Stele Forest, adding two new steles:

One was inscribed, "Grave Keeper · Yang Jun," with the epitaph: "Not made by gods, not bound by fate; he chose his own path and became his own soul."

The other was inscribed, "Grave Keeper · Yu Xiaogang," with the epitaph: "With thunder as his oath and ice as his heart, he guarded the land and protected the people, never asking anything of gods."

Bibi Dong stood before the steles and asked softly, "Do you... truly believe that without gods, you can still protect everything?"

Yu Xiaogang looked into the distance. Yang Jun was playing with children in the snow, their laughter bright and clear.

"It isn't belief," he said. "We are doing it."