Extreme Cold Mystic Ice Fire

"Junior brother, we can set off now."

After three days of quiet recuperation, Zhang Lexuan's injuries had not fully healed, but thanks to a Soul Douluo's formidable self-healing ability, they no longer affected her normal movement so long as she did not fight.

Lin Yan nodded slightly, swiftly packed their things, and the three of them set off southeast along the winding ice fissure!

The ice walls on both sides were smooth as mirrors, clearly reflecting their figures in the firelight rising from Lin Yan's palm.

After traveling for roughly two hours, the ice fissure's depth suddenly began to decrease sharply.

Seeing this, and with Zhang Lexuan still seriously injured, Lin Yan could only wrap an arm around each of the two women and fly upward.

Feeling the warmth of Lin Yan's palm at her waist, Zhang Lexuan could not help recalling the accident from three days ago.

She raised her eyes to look at the young man's focused, resolute profile. Within this pitch-black, enclosed underground environment, an indescribably subtle emotion quietly began to spread through her heart...

After flying upward for around five hundred meters, the steep slope finally began to level out.

However, not long after the three landed and continued onward, the ice fissure ahead abruptly plunged again. Looking down, they could not see its bottom!

After a brief discussion, though, they still decided to follow their original plan. Remaining alert, Lin Yan carried the two women as they slowly descended.

One hundred meters... five hundred meters... eight hundred meters...

Lin Yan silently calculated the depth of their descent. After dropping around a thousand meters, the three of them finally set foot on solid ice again.

After confirming that there was nothing unusual around them, the three rested briefly before rising and continuing onward.

As time passed, the bottom of the ice fissure grew increasingly narrow. In some areas, the ice layer overhead had completely sealed shut, turning the entire passage into a gloomy underground tunnel.

Suddenly, Lin Yan halted sharply. His pupils contracted slightly, and his expression instantly became wary!

By the flickering firelight in his palm, he clearly caught traces of activity from other living creatures ahead!

A natural ice cave had appeared in the ice wall ahead, and several winding, twisting crawl marks covered the ice within it!

Judging from the segmented impressions pressed into those tracks, they seemed to have been left by some kind of soft-bodied creature.

When Zhang Lexuan and Jiang Nannan saw Lin Yan stop so abruptly, they immediately followed his gaze and instantly noticed the anomaly in the ice cave as well.

In an instant, the three exchanged glances, all falling silent and holding their breath as they raised their guard to the utmost.

The next moment, Lin Yan's second Spirit Ring glimmered faintly. A Flame Spirit Bird burning with orange-red flames silently flew out and headed deep into the ice cave to investigate.

Through the shared vision of the Flame Spirit Bird, Lin Yan soon saw the ice cave's interior in full.

Although similar crawling trails still covered the floor of the ice cave, there were no traces of any living creature having recently moved about or dwelled there.

As the Flame Spirit Bird continued deeper, a full quarter-hour passed without it spotting any trace of a living creature. Only then did Lin Yan relax slightly.

Perhaps creatures had once existed here, but they had likely already left.

That was normal. Along the way, aside from endless ice and snow, Lin Yan and the others had seen no animals or plants at the bottom of the ice fissure.

Such a barren, desolate environment with no source of food could hardly support living creatures for long.

Although they had confirmed that no other living creatures posed a threat, Lin Yan did not leave immediately, because he had discovered something else inside this ice cave!

After telling the two women beside him, who remained vigilant, of his discovery, curiosity also appeared in Zhang Lexuan and Jiang Nannan's eyes.

The three slowly entered the ice cave along the crawling tracks on the ground. The farther inside they went, the narrower the space became. In some cramped sections, they even had to widen the ice walls before they could pass through.

After passing through another narrow crevice, the view suddenly opened up. Amid the Ten Thousand Year Cold Ice ahead, a translucent ice pillar over half a meter tall had been forcibly "squeezed" out.

Milky-white liquid circulated within the ice pillar, its channels undulating as though it possessed life and pulsed slowly.

Terrifying cold air continuously surged and spread around the ice pillar, freezing the surrounding air into a stagnant, viscous mass. The chill pierced to the bone.

"Ten Thousand Year Profound Ice Marrow?!"

Hearing Zhang Lexuan's cry, Lin Yan instantly recalled the records concerning Ten Thousand Year Profound Ice Marrow from the original work.

At the same time, he noticed that beside this small piece of Profound Ice Marrow stood another, thicker and similar ice pillar. However, its interior was already completely empty, its essence entirely gone!

Profound Ice Marrow... underground ice fissure... crawl marks left by a soft-bodied creature... These clues instantly connected, and a scene from the original work slowly surfaced in Lin Yan's mind.

Could this be the ice cave where the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm had once stayed, the very place that had directly propelled it into becoming a million-year soul beast?!!

At that thought, several new doubts arose in Lin Yan's heart.

This place was over a thousand meters beneath the surface. If this truly was the ice cave where the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm had stayed, then when it fell from such a height back then, how had it not been smashed into silkworm paste and still survived?!

Or were there other ice fissures connected to this place? Or had the terrain here undergone enormous changes over the countless years?

Though he had some doubts, they were not important at the moment.

Because if this truly was the ice cave where the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm had stayed, then even if the original Profound Ice Marrow had long since been completely consumed by it—

So long as some had been nurtured anew during the long years after it left, it would still be an enormous harvest for Lin Yan now!

Suppressing his speculation, Lin Yan immediately got to work. Using the hard Ten Thousand Year Cold Ice of the cave as a base, he quickly inscribed several Soul Guidance Arrays for sealing and locking energy, temporarily creating an ice chest capable of storing the Profound Ice Marrow.

Although this makeshift ice chest could not completely lock away the energy and would inevitably allow the Profound Ice Marrow to lose some of its essence, their current conditions were limited. None of the three possessed Ultimate Ice, so they could only make do for now.

With such a gain, the three became even more eager to continue exploring the ice cave!

Unfortunately, Ten Thousand Year Profound Ice Marrow was a wondrous treasure wrought by heaven and earth. After searching the entire ice cave, they only found two more newly formed pieces of Profound Ice Marrow.

When they reached the deepest part of the ice cave, there was nothing there apart from the frigid cold that had accumulated over countless years.

However, just as the three prepared to turn around and leave, Emperor Flame, Lin Yan's martial soul floating beside him, suddenly began to throb violently without warning.

The restless Emperor Flame released an extreme heat, clashing fiercely with the ancient chill within the ice cave. Waves of sizzling dissolution sounds instantly rang out.

Seeing this, the two beside Lin Yan hurriedly turned toward him and asked vigilantly, "Junior brother/Brother, what's wrong?"

"Nothing."

After sensing for a moment, Lin Yan waved his hand. Then, under the two women's watchful gazes, he slowly closed his eyes, calmed his mind, and began tracing the source of the disturbance through his connection with his martial soul.

As his perception continued to deepen, the source of Emperor Flame's disturbance gradually became clear. The origin lay deep underground—something there was drawing it in!

"There's something below!"

Lin Yan abruptly opened his eyes, his gaze locking tightly onto a patch of ice-covered ground as he spoke with certainty.

Zhang Lexuan and Jiang Nannan immediately followed his gaze, but they could not see the slightest difference in that patch of ice.

However, despite sensing no anomaly at all, Lin Yan chose without hesitation to trust the guidance of his martial soul!

With a wave of his hand, Emperor Flame suddenly swelled and descended upon the ice layer some distance away. For a time, the entire ice cave was filled only with the piercing sound of Ultimate Fire colliding with ten-thousand-year ice.

Sizzle—!

The hard, thick Ten Thousand Year Cold Ice melted as swiftly as butter before Emperor Flame, sending up great amounts of white mist.

As Lin Yan continuously poured in Soul Power, Emperor Flame's temperature rose steadily, and the blazing pillar of fire kept burning downward.

One meter, five meters, ten meters...

Finally, the more than twenty-meter-thick layer of hard ice was completely burned through, and a pitch-black, deep fissure slanting almost straight downward appeared before the three!

At the same time, an even denser, more ancient extreme chill burst forth from the depths of the fissure, carrying a terrifying might capable of freezing all things!

Having come this far, Lin Yan naturally could not possibly give up.

But with the situation below unknown, they could not act rashly either.

After a brief moment of contemplation, Lin Yan once again dispatched his loyal Flame Spirit subordinate!

Using Ultimate Fire to disperse the bone-piercing chill rushing toward them, the Flame Spirit Bird restrained its scorching aura under the wary gazes of the three and silently dove toward the depths of the fissure.

The fissure was much smaller than the ice cave above, yet far deeper.

The interior of the fissure was steep and winding. After diving nearly five hundred meters downward, Lin Yan finally saw the full scene at its end through the Flame Spirit Bird's vision!

The instant he saw the scene below, Lin Yan could not help holding his breath!

At the end of the fissure, within another ice cave, a massive Ice Lotus grew!

The entire Ice Lotus seemed to have condensed from the purest extreme chill in the world. Its thirty-six petals overlapped in layers, crystal-clear and translucent, with a faint icy-blue radiance flowing across the surface of each petal. It was sacred and ancient.

At the same time, the Ice Lotus's dense roots plunged deep into the earth, extending an unknown distance, as though they had long fused with the entire underground ice layer!

Most striking of all, at the center of the Ice Lotus's core, a clear, translucent icy-blue flame burned silently, blooming with an ancient, faint, and cold flame-light within the pitch-black ice cave!