When the four giants rushed back to the tribe, the sight before them instantly froze their blood.
The mountain-like Iron Tree Stockade Gate had been smashed open down the middle. The thousand-year-old iron trees had been frozen by the power of cold ice and shattered inch by inch, leaving the gateway piled with broken trunks and ice shards.
Great numbers of Ice Yi Tribe warriors were pouring in like a tide, the power of cold ice forming ice-blue armor over their bodies, their spears gleaming with a chilling light.
They trampled over the ruined gates, crossed the collapsed watchtowers, and slaughtered their way into the settlement. Wherever they passed, houses froze and frost covered the ground, while wails and battle cries mingled into one.
In the distance, an even thicker column of smoke rose from the tribe's heart-the Ancestral Shrine, the sacred place where the Longbo Tribe honored its ancestors and sheltered its women and children.
The fighting had already spread there. The power of cold ice crept across the stone walls outside the Ancestral Shrine, ice-blue patterns spreading in every direction like venomous snakes.
At their head stood none other than Geng Pu, along with Yu Huang, a great general of the Bingyi Tribe.
Yu Huang stood out among the Ice Yi Tribe like a crane among chickens, yet he was still more than half a head shorter than Geng Pu. He held a spear formed from cold ice; wherever its tip pointed, freezing energy shot forth, condensing fine ice crystals in the air.
Even as the four breathed a sigh of relief, fury seized them all.
They had feared arriving too late, feared that the tribe had already fallen completely, feared that their desperate sprint home would end with nothing but corpses strewn across the ground and flames