Night slowly receded. Cold morning light pierced the heavy clouds and spilled across the frozen snowfield.
The wind had howled all night, leaving a fresh layer of frost inside and outside the valley.
In the ice cave, Xu An slept soundly, the tension he had carried through the previous night finally gone.
Li Yun, however, could not sleep.
The huge haul from killing that badly wounded Ice Bear, a beast on the verge of becoming a Middle Sage, had left him too stirred to rest.
Its hide, flesh, bones, and Core were all top-grade goods, worth far more than dozens of ordinary Ice Wolves.
After a brief rest, Li Yun woke Xu An.
Together, they packed away the enormous Ice Bear carcass, along with the many Ice Wolves and other Demon Beasts they had killed the night before, storing everything in the Storage Ring.
The Storage Ring was stuffed full. Xu An beamed at the weighty haul.
They dared not linger on the Icefield. Retracing their route, they hurried back toward Carter City.
The guards at the city gate were lax in the early morning. After showing their Identity Tokens, the two entered without trouble.
Without pausing, they headed straight for the city's largest buyer of Demon Beasts—the Ten Thousand Beasts Pavilion.
They had visited the day before, and the clerk already recognized them. Seeing the large quantity of Demon Beast materials they had brought, he hurried over to serve them.
When he saw the terrifyingly massive Ice Bear carcass in the Storage Ring, the shopkeeper came out himself and examined its quality and rank again and again.
After a careful tally, appraisal, and count, the figure was settled.
All the Demon Beasts from their night's hunt, plus that Frost Giant Bear half a step from becoming a Middle Sage—