I Just Didn't Want to Fall Short Again

Huff, huff~

Huo Yuhao gulped down the icy air, but the air he inhaled carried freezing currents that sliced at his throat like cold knives. With his breathing already in disarray, all he could do was quickly slow it down and adjust his condition.

After entering the 200-meter range, he could feel that the freezing currents blocking his way had grown stronger.

It was almost as though he had enraged the entire freezing current. The currents ahead were more than three times as strong as those at the basin's edge.

Now, if Huo Yuhao remained still for even a second, a layer of ice crystals coated his body. Every time he moved, the shards produced by the breaking crystals cut his skin, already frozen red by the currents.

He advanced another eighty meters. By this point, he had consumed eighty percent of his Soul Power. Left with no choice, he used what Soul Power remained in his body to open his Storage Soul Tool, took out the pills Huo Yun and the others had prepared beforehand, and swallowed one.

The pill was translucent and pure white, with a lotus emblem imprinted on its surface.

It was a treasure Huo Yun and the others had made from snow lotuses native to the Far North. It could accelerate an ice-attribute Soul Master's cultivation and increase their resistance to cold, was better suited for ice-attribute Soul Masters to absorb, and had no side effects whatsoever.

The only issue was the materials. Making a single pill consumed at least one thousand-year snow lotus, while even a ten-thousand-year snow lotus could produce no more than twelve pills.

Huo Yun and the others had prepared only sixty-eight for Huo Yuhao.

But their effects truly were excellent. The moment Huo Yuhao swallowed it, every injured cell in his body rapidly absorbed its energy, replenishing his Soul Power completely. Even his skin, reddened by the freezing currents, visibly recovered at a rapid pace.

"Holy shit, he's popping pills. Isn't that going too far?" Seeing Huo Yuhao return straight to full condition after swallowing a single pill, the people around him were dumbfounded.

"So what if he takes pills? Without strength, he's still powerless. The farther he goes, the harder it gets. He's only just passed halfway, and the real test is still ahead. If he's already taking pills now, there's no way he'll hold out," someone declared with absolute certainty.

No sooner had that person finished than someone immediately agreed. "Exactly. The real test comes later. He won't last."

"I'd like to see how many pills he has and how far they'll take him." Others were simply looking forward to the spectacle.

In any case, one thing summed it up: at present, not a single person among the major human factions believed Huo Yuhao could succeed.

Even in the God Realm Committee, where the Five Great God Kings were watching everything, Tang San shook his head slightly when he saw Huo Yuhao taking pills. "He's just making a mess of things. Why get involved without the ability? Relying on pills alone will never earn the Ice God's Divine Seat's recognition. Thinking of relying on outside help whenever something happens-his mindset won't do."

"How long do you think he can last?" the Goddess of Kindness asked as she watched the screen of light.

The God of Evil rubbed his chin and mused, "That depends on how many pills the Black-Eyed Golden Dragon King prepared for him. Still, I estimate this one should let him advance another hundred meters or so. The second will only get him to around four hundred meters. That will already be his limit. The farther he goes, the harder advancing becomes. Eventually, taking pills will at most keep him alive in the freezing currents.

"Although the currents won't freeze him solid, they have a considerable effect on his consciousness. The farther he goes, the greater that effect will become. Especially after four hundred meters-that's where it truly becomes terrifying. He absolutely won't be able to move an inch.

"Once he gets there, it won't be a question of having some ability to stay alive. These freezing currents actually seem to be the Ice God's Divine Seat selecting who can approach it. If he's unsuitable, he's unsuitable. He shouldn't force it."

That was his judgment based on Huo Yuhao's earlier performance. Farther ahead, the freezing currents might even freeze Huo Yuhao's thoughts. Without a powerful will, even if his body did not freeze, the very thought of advancing would disappear.

The damage the freezing currents inflicted would increasingly eat away at his consciousness, giving him the sensation that his soul itself was freezing.

One could say that as Huo Yuhao continued forward, he would keep suffering injuries, and his will would gradually crumble within the ice.

Huo Yuhao, who was still advancing, felt this most keenly. Now, every step felt like walking through purgatory. With every step, the frost on his body carved tiny wounds into him. Before blood could even flow, the freezing currents froze it solid. This was no longer mere injury, but death by a thousand cuts.

The physical damage the freezing currents inflicted came from the ice crystals clinging to Huo Yuhao's body. When he moved, his flesh, made incredibly fragile by the cold, had its skin easily sliced open by those crystals. That was what had created the earlier sight of him seemingly being subjected to death by a thousand cuts.

His consciousness, too, was constantly worn away in the bone-piercing currents, like nerves stretched taut. The farther he walked, the more fiercely his body burned with pain. That cold had already penetrated his marrow.

And because he was a mental-type Soul Master, he felt the pain inflicted by the ice more clearly than anyone else.

Moreover, he was constantly repairing his skin with Soul Power. As a result, his perception of pain had not diminished with the cold. Because of his Mental Attribute, he could even clearly feel the agony of his skin being cut open by millions of knives. Every advance was another flaying by a thousand blades.

Yet even so, Huo Yuhao showed no intention of stopping. Step after step, he passed the three-hundred-meter mark, then three hundred and fifty, then four hundred.

The God of Evil had estimated that one pill could take Huo Yuhao at most another hundred meters. Yet Huo Yuhao forced himself through a hundred and twenty, reaching four hundred meters before taking out and swallowing his second pill.

Under the pill's effects, Huo Yuhao's body rapidly recovered, but his consciousness had already begun to grow hazy. He felt top-heavy and unsteady, as though he might faint at any moment.

The pills could replenish only his Soul Power and body. They could not restore his will, which had been tortured beyond endurance throughout those four hundred meters by agony like blade after blade carving him apart.

By the time he reached four hundred meters, a layer of ice crystals formed from blood had even coated his body. He looked utterly wretched.

The sight made quite a few people turn their faces away, unable to bear it.

"He's already in this state. Are they still not going to let that child come back?" Even the Goddess of Life in the Divine Realm was struggling to watch. As the goddess who governed life, she was softhearted to begin with and could not bear such sights.

She also could not understand what Di Tian was trying to do. Having the Snow Empress enter the passage was enough. Why arrange for a child to enter as well?

And a child who might even lose his life the farther he went, at that.

"Don't go any farther. Stop. If you keep walking, the suffering you'll endure won't be limited to this." The Goddess of Kindness pressed her palms together, seeming to mutter to herself and to pray.

As God Kings, every one of them knew perfectly well that beyond four hundred meters, practically every step was torture.

Yet Huo Yuhao stood at the four-hundred-meter mark for only three seconds, absorbing the pill and replenishing himself. Then he circulated his Soul Power to continue resisting the chill of the freezing currents and pressed on.

Compared to when he first entered the basin, when he could still stride forward, every step he took now was slow. Each time he lifted a foot, he could barely raise it above the snow.

At some point, Huo Yuhao had begun forcibly pushing through the snow ahead of him as he walked. Before he knew it, he had left two furrows across the platform.

As his walking movements grew smaller, the frost on his body stopped breaking and began accumulating instead. But that, in turn, slowed him even further.

Before, he could still take one step every second. Now, managing one step in ten seconds was already good.

At four hundred meters, the freezing currents were undoubtedly several times more terrifying than in the previous two stages.

And at this four-hundred-meter point, the situation became very unusual. If the terrifying freezing currents earlier had only ravaged Huo Yuhao's flesh-

If physical pain and cold had been wearing away his will, then here at four hundred meters, it was no longer merely physical cold. It was a chill that struck straight at the soul.

Put plainly, these freezing currents were formed by the Divine Seat resisting those unqualified to approach it.

The Snow Empress and Bing'er before her both possessed Ultimate Ice. The Snow Empress in particular was the darling of this entire stretch of heaven and earth. She had easily crossed it in nine steps.

By contrast, Huo Yuhao's ice Martial Soul was ice without a soul. Precisely because of that, its form could be altered like a blank sheet of paper. That was indeed true, but it could only be said that this Martial Soul had potential.

It did not mean that this soulless ice could approach the Ice God's Divine Seat. Quite the opposite: this ice was the least qualified to approach. That was what had brought about Huo Yuhao's current predicament, where every step forward was incredibly difficult.

It was the Ice God's Divine Seat rejecting someone unqualified to approach it.

Strictly speaking, Huo Yuhao should not even have been able to get this close, had the Power of Destiny and the Holy Necromancer's power within him not been protecting him.

That was tantamount to telling the other side that Huo Yuhao possessed an ice attribute and god-level potential. Yet the Divine Seat had spent all that time looking him over and tasting him, only to find that nothing seemed quite right.

Huo Yuhao's potential told it that he was qualified, and his attribute tasted right, too. Yet when that attribute and qualification came together, nothing fit.

That had led to the present situation: Huo Yuhao could approach, but only if he endured tremendous suffering along the way.

Now, with every step Huo Yuhao took, he experienced a cold powerful enough to freeze him completely.

"Yuhao, hold on! Another ten meters forward, and with around eighty meters left, you can use the Martial Soul Fusion Skill to charge straight through. There'll definitely be enough time." The Sky Dream Ice Silkworm knew what pain Huo Yuhao was enduring. As he encouraged him, he was also pulling Huo Yuhao's consciousness back, reminding him when to use his trump card.

Huo Yuhao did not reply-or rather, he had little strength left to reply. He had only one goal now: that white light ahead, the passage leading to the Ice God's Divine Seat.

Step after step, Huo Yuhao gradually advanced another ten meters.

"Now!" the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm reminded him, telling Huo Yuhao to use the Martial Soul Fusion Skill to charge through the final eighty meters.

But Huo Yuhao did not do so. Instead, he stuffed five pills into his mouth at once, while his mind recalled the scene from two years ago when his mother, Huo Yun'er, had collapsed before him.

Just that little bit. Just that little bit.

If Sister Lexuan and the others could have been faster, if Mother and I could have run a little faster, then we could all have won a prize. But in the end, we fell just that little bit short.

If not for that tiny shortfall, perhaps everything would have been different.

But in the end, it had to be that tiny shortfall. I lived. Mother died.

Yes. Just short.

He did not want to fall just short again. He did not know how powerful Tang San was, and he had no concept of a God King's strength. But he knew that the Divine Seat he was about to reach belonged to a First-Level God-below a God King, and absolutely no match for one.

So he had to become stronger, reach the level of a God King, do everything he could to the very best of his ability, and even surpass himself, to protect this world, protect his mother, and bring her back to life.

So he could not gamble. Nor was there any way to gamble. He had only one chance.

Keep going. It's still not enough. I can do this!

Holding on to that conviction and those thoughts, Huo Yuhao continued slowly forward.

The surrounding crowd who had originally been waiting to enjoy Huo Yuhao's failure was now utterly silent. Perhaps they did not understand why he was so determined to advance, when his body was already covered in wounds and his steps were already so stiff. Yet that small body kept moving forward. Even if he was slow, they could still see him advancing.

Even if every step consumed an immense amount of Soul Power, and every meter forward took him one or two minutes, or even five or six minutes, or longer still.

"Yuhao, Yuhao..." The Sky Dream Ice Silkworm's voice kept reaching his ears, but none of it stopped Huo Yuhao's advance.

By the end, Huo Yuhao no longer knew how long he had been doing this or how far he had walked. Before him stood an extraordinarily beautiful girl around his own age, quietly watching him with a complicated gaze. In front of her, that light which constantly radiated freezing currents hovered silently.

He had made it, crossing five hundred meters. He had originally planned to force his way through the final stretch with the Martial Soul Fusion Skill, but he had never used it.

"Why didn't you give up?" Looking at the wounded Huo Yuhao before her, the Snow Empress voiced her puzzlement.

"I just didn't want to fall short again." As Huo Yuhao spoke, the Soul Power around his body suddenly surged.

First, pale golden and white light erupted from him simultaneously. Behind him, a pale golden vertical eye slowly appeared.

Along with the vertical eye, a white sphere of light only the size of a billiard ball slowly rose. Compared with the entire vertical eye, that white sphere was so small and delicate. Their sizes were not remotely on the same scale.

Yet those two things, so vastly different in size, began slowly approaching each other. As though they had flown for a century, and as though only an instant had passed, the two met. At the moment of contact, the vertical eye, originally radiating pale golden light, suddenly became incomparably dazzling. Strands of golden thread flew out from its pupil, gently enveloping the white sphere.

As those golden threads touched the sphere, they were gradually absorbed and assimilated by it. The sphere also expanded at a speed visible to the naked eye.

At the same time, Huo Yuhao's body visibly swelled. The moment the entire vertical eye had unraveled into golden threads and been absorbed by the sphere, Huo Yuhao had reached a height of 1.9 meters. His physique was muscular, and his eyes had turned the pure white that represented the ice attribute.

The wind and snow around his body had already dispersed. With one step, Huo Yuhao entered that expanse of white light.

Watching Huo Yuhao's figure, the Snow Empress followed closely behind and stepped inside as well.

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