Xiao Wu walked across the icefield, the wind blowing from behind and lifting her long pink hair.
She did not walk quickly, but every step was firm. She had already left the ice behind, and now walked over gravel frozen rock-hard. It crunched faintly beneath her feet, feeling far more solid than the ice.
The horizon of the Far North dwindled behind her, and the sky, tinted pale purple by the aurora, gradually returned to grayish white.
The cold wind still blew, but it was no longer as biting as it had been on the icefield.
Xiao Wu stopped and glanced back.
The place where she had nearly died now lay quietly in the distance. Beneath the grayish-white sky, the white icefield almost blended into it, like a painting washed pale by water.
She withdrew her gaze, turned, and continued onward.
Inside her spiritual sea, the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm huddled in a corner, his head buried in his plump body and his tiny eyes tightly shut, without uttering a sound.
The Ice Snow Queen's icy-blue pillar of light had blasted that platinum barrier full of holes. It was the cast-off shell left after his nine molts, impervious to water and fire, blades and spears—the last reserve he relied on to save his life.
Now that last reserve was gone.
That strike had also shattered his spiritual power into scattered pieces, like glass smashed with a hammer. Cracks covered it, and every crack throbbed with a dull ache.
The Sky Dream Ice Silkworm had lived for a million years, and never had he suffered such a loss.
Back when Di Tian had captured him in the Star Dou Great Forest and imprisoned him beneath the Lake of Life to drain his energy, he had been helpless. He could do nothing