Altar

The Rainbow-Gold Flame and the Bone Spirit Cold Flame collided with a thunderous crash, clashing fiercely in midair and producing a piercing hiss.

Great clouds of white steam billowed from the point of impact, sweeping outward like a sea of clouds and melting grooves of varying depths into the black ice below.

Under the scorching assault of the Rainbow-Gold Beastfire, the eerie white flame retreated steadily. After all, it was merely a wisp of Sub-Flame divided from the Bone Spirit Cold Flame's true body. Against Lin Yu, who had fused thirty High-Grade Beastfires, it ultimately fell short.

Seizing the opportunity, Lin Yu pressed the attack. Spirit-Realm Soul power surged from between his brows like an invisible tide, condensing into an incomparably sharp soul spike that pierced straight into the Nine-Eyed Demon Spider's body with lightning speed.

The demon spider had been dead for many years, sustained only by the Bone Spirit Cold Flame's Sub-Flame and a wisp of vicious soul. Its body was powerful, but its soul was exceedingly frail.

Struck precisely by Lin Yu's soul spike, that remnant soul burst apart and vanished like a bubble pierced by a steel needle.

The Nine-Eyed Demon Spider's massive body suddenly froze in place. The pale flames in its nine demonic eyes extinguished at once, and its thirty-foot-tall body crashed to the ground, striking the black ice with a muffled boom and scattering fine shards of ice into the air.

Han Shanshan hurried over from behind and wrapped an arm around Lin Yu's. Her gaze quickly swept over him, and only after confirming that he was uninjured did she quietly breathe a sigh of relief. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. This demon spider wasn't worth my notice." Lin Yu patted off dust that was not there and spoke smugly.

Han Shanshan could not help rolling her eyes at his self-satisfied look, but the hand looped through his arm secretly tightened a little.

The two continued deeper into the Death Domain. The farther they went, the more frequent the attacks became.

They encountered several more ambushes by ice corpses along the way. Every one of those ice corpses had once been a powerful magical beast that had gone extinct in ancient times.

Yet dead ice corpses were ultimately just dead things. They had lost the innate talents and battle wisdom they possessed in life, and could only rely on their ice-tempered bodies to launch the most primitive close-quarters attacks.

Though their numbers and fearless nature caused the two of them quite a bit of trouble, they were never able to truly endanger them.

Han Shanshan was even more in her element. She summoned her medicine cauldron, the Black God Cauldron. The ancient, entirely black cauldron hovered in midair, its mouth generating a powerful suction force that drew ice corpse after ice corpse inside.

Refined by the blazing alchemical flame, flesh and blood turned to nothingness, leaving behind heaps of rare bone materials gleaming with a cold, ghostly luster. Every piece contained the essence of ancient magical beasts tempered over their lifetimes, making them supreme materials for refining high-grade pills.

Han Shanshan examined the mountain of bone materials piled within the cauldron, unable to suppress the excitement in her voice.

To an alchemist, the bones of these ancient magical beasts were priceless treasures. Some of those magical beasts had long vanished from the continent. If not for the Bone Spirit Cold Flame preserving them in this Death Domain by a special method, she would never have touched even a single real bone in her life.

But Lin Yu sensed something unusual amid the endless waves of ice corpses.

The Bone Spirit Cold Flame's intelligence had clearly developed to a terrifying degree.

It sent the ice corpses to ambush them in batches, launching every new attack just as they had nearly recovered.

This was clearly a war of attrition. Its goal was to wear down their strength and battle qi through relentless assaults, leaving them exhausted and unable to resist by the time they reached the core.

The two had no choice but to take pills frequently, using them to ward off the increasingly biting cold while rapidly restoring the battle qi they had expended in combat.

Fortunately, they had obtained a vast number of seventh- and eighth-grade pills in the secret realm. Their reserves were outrageously abundant, and they swallowed pills without even blinking, forcefully piling their way forward with medicinal power.

At last, they crossed the final expanse of ink-black ice.

The black ice beneath their feet suddenly vanished, replaced by a soft grassy field. Lush green grass and wildflowers carpeted the ground, while gentle sunlight poured down from above, warmly dispelling the lingering chill within their bodies.

A clear spring flowed in the distance, birdsong rang crisp and pleasant, and the air was filled with the scent of earth and flowers. It was as though they had stepped from the depths of winter straight into warm spring.

"Something's wrong." Han Shanshan's smile lasted only an instant before freezing on her face.

Lin Yu's gaze passed over the seemingly peaceful oasis and settled farther ahead.

An ancient altar stood there. A group of people knelt around it, their faces twisted yet vacant, drool running from the corners of their mouths while feverish, hollow light burned in their eyes. Like addicts, they crawled upon the ground.

Translucent souls were being drawn from their bodies one after another by an invisible force, slowly drifting toward the top of the altar, where they were silently devoured by a cluster of pale, icy flames.

The Bone Spirit Cold Flame was feeding on their souls!

"Senior Sister, take the Soul-Protecting Divine Pill!" Lin Yu's expression changed abruptly. His Spirit-Realm Soul keenly caught an immensely powerful pressure sweeping toward them from the direction of the altar.

That pressure was like countless invisible tentacles stretching out from an abyss, reaching deep into his sea of consciousness and trying to forcibly drag his soul from its shell.

Without hesitation, he took out two Soul-Protecting Divine Pills from his Storage Ring, swallowing one and handing the other to Han Shanshan.

The pills melted the instant they entered their mouths, and a warm barrier spread outward from within, firmly protecting their seas of consciousness.

The icy pressure sent ripples across the barrier, but could no longer advance even an inch.

In that instant, all the greenery faded like a torn canvas. The birdsong stopped abruptly, and the sound of flowing water vanished without a trace.

The blessed oasis seen by those kneeling around the altar was merely an illusion created by the Bone Spirit Cold Flame as it eroded their souls.

And atop the altar, after devouring the final soul, the Bone Spirit Cold Flame finally revealed its true form.

It was a cluster of eerie white flames, and within its core, a blurry face slowly emerged.

That face had no features, only layer upon layer of outlines traced in flame. Cold and hollow, it radiated an icy aura like the abyss of the far north.

The temperature throughout the entire ice pit plummeted again the moment it appeared. The air froze with sharp crackling sounds, and even the light became distorted and dim.

Lin Yu did not hesitate for a moment. With a flick of his hand, the Spatial Ancestral Talisman appeared once more.

Spatial power erupted from the talisman, enveloping him and Han Shanshan and breaking free from the Bone Spirit Cold Flame's control.

Lin Yu's gaze turned cold. With a thought, the Spatial Ancestral Talisman erupted with its full power.

He did not choose passive defense. Instead, he boldly launched a counterattack.

His body flashed as spatial power wrapped around him. He vanished from where he stood, only to appear behind and to the side of the Bone Spirit Cold Flame in the next instant.