At first, there was little movement.
Only the Wind-Swallowing Lord's pupils dilated, his entire eyeball becoming a pitch-black stone pool. Zhang Xing sat on its bank, his whole body still aching and weak.
Then the center of the hill-like island in the lake gradually stopped heaving. Steam and waves of heat still churned around it, but this was Heavenly Lake, after all, above the snow line. Whenever the surrounding winds swept in, they still carried that bone-piercing chill.
Next, the distant sunset sank closer to the ground, casting the whole of Heavenly Lake into a peculiar scene of dimness shot through with occasional flashes of color, as though everything here had been melted and solidified into one.
But suddenly, everything changed.
It seemed like wind, like snow, or perhaps frost, or perhaps mist. Yet in the Northern Lands in the depths of winter, beside Heavenly Lake on this highest peak, the wind was warm as rouge, the snow shone like riches, the frost was soft as flowers and grass, and the mist was harder than steel.
Then came raging winds and blizzards, frost and mist filling the sky, surging waves, the Three Luminaries becoming one, flowers blooming and falling, golden spears and iron steeds-everything upon everything.
And then, astonishingly, it seemed there was nothing at all.
Below, in Stone City outside Immortal Cave, Xu Shiying, Ma Wei, Lady Lu, Hei Yan, and many elite members of the Demon-Suppressing Guard stood before the Little Black Emperor Temple, staring blankly into the sky. Seven-colored radiance soared heavenward there, while clouds and mist gathered from every direction. Moments later, a vast wind descended from the summit, scattering all the clouds and snow with a force that almost seemed to topple the heavens. Those present with profound cultivation were horrified, for they sensed that