Forcing the Reverse Scale Seal: The Ice Marrow Promise

After those dark red eyes blinked, the temperature in the Ice Valley dropped a bit.

Just as Ice Empress regained his original form, his legs gave way and he almost knelt on the ice, but Snow Empress caught his arm.

The turbid air deep within the crack surged outwards like boiling ink. Nan Feng flipped his right hand, and all nine stories of the pagoda shone brightly. Azure-gold Immortal Mark pressed the surging turbid air back three feet below the crack opening.

"This thing is draining my Immortal Power."

Nan Feng frowned deeply. Waves of shock came from his palm, as if something was sucking at him from below the crack. With every inch he pressed down, the suction increased.

Old Huai's voice boomed from inside the tower.

"Don't force it! Those are gatekeeper beasts from the Abyssal Outer Domain, they grow by consuming sealing power. The harder you press, the more it absorbs!"

The Nan Feng immediately withdrew three-tenths of its force.

The foul air receded slightly, and the thing below stopped pushing upwards. Those dark red eyes remained pressed against the crack, fixed intently on the red ribbon on Nan Feng's left wrist.

"Tower Master..." the thing spoke again, its voice muffled as if it were being squeezed out of a cesspool, "Your ancestor imprisoned me here down here... for thirty thousand years. For thirty thousand years I haven't had a single full meal."

Ice Empress recovered and straightened up, leaning on Snow Empress's shoulders. Her short, emerald-green hair was plastered messily to her face, and she gritted her teeth and cursed.

"Who gave you a mouth that can eat sealed things? You deserve to starve for 30,000 years."

The thing beneath the crevice chuckled. The laughter rolled up from the black mist hundreds of feet deep, scraping the ice walls until they crumbled.

"Little scorpion, I recognize your scent. You've been eaten away by the Abyss for half a year. If the tower master hadn't arrived early, you would have had to come down and join me in another six months."

Ice Empress's expression changed.

Nan Feng stopped her, preventing her from continuing. He squatted down by the crack, his Treasure-Appraising Spirit Light probing downwards.

The gatekeeper beast's body was larger than the entire bottom area of Ice Valley, coiled at the interface between the Abyssal Outer Domain and the Far North ley lines. Its body was covered with blackish-purple turbid gas pipes, each of which pierced into the Far North ley lines.

No wonder Ice Empress's very essence was remotely eroded.

This thing cannot be killed. If it is, the pipes on its body will explode, and the foul air will fill the entire Far North permafrost. It cannot be sealed like this either. It lives by consuming the power of the seal, and the longer it is sealed, the fatter it becomes. In three years, even the shadow of the tower will not be able to suppress it.

"Old Huai, is there any way to make it vomit up what it has eaten?" Nan Feng asked in his mind.

The Old Huai remained silent for a few moments.

"Yes, there is. Your ancestor left a trick up his sleeve. The gatekeeper beast's Achilles' heel is the reverse scale on its forehead, and beneath that scale lies the sealing power it absorbed."

"If you can use your Immortal Power to penetrate along the seam of the reverse scale and force out the sealing power, it will retreat back into the Abyss on its own. Only someone who's had too much time on their hands would try to crawl out."

Where is the Achilles' heel?

"Eighty feet below the crack, right in the middle of its forehead," the Old Huai added, "But you have to lure it out first. If it stays hidden down there, you can't reach it."

Nan Feng stood up and turned to look at Ice Empress and Snow Empress.

"I have an idea, but I need both of you to cooperate."

"You say."

"I used the tower's shadow to create a crack, making it think the seal was loosened. Its brain is as big as a walnut; it only recognizes cracks and will squeeze in, so it'll definitely stick its head out."

"Once its head emerges from the crack, you two use the power of the Far North Origin to seal the crack's exit from both sides, preventing it from retreating. I'll take the opportunity to descend eighty feet and strike its weak point."

Ice Empress glared.

"What if it pops out completely?"

"It can't squeeze out," Nan Feng said. "The gap I opened is only wide enough for its head to pass through, but not its shoulders. If you two just seal the exit, it'll be like a fat man stuck in a bottle, unable to move forward or backward."

Snow Empress had remained silent until now. Then she spoke, her voice as clear as the deep water flowing beneath the ice.

"If you descend to the bottom of the crevice, the concentration of turbid air there is ten times that of the upper level. Can you withstand it?"

"I can handle it." Nan Feng patted the tower on his left wrist. "The Purification layer is fully activated; the turbid air can't get close."

The Snow Empress stared at him for three breaths.

I'll trust you this once.

Ice Empress opened her mouth, as if to say something, but was silenced by a look from Snow Empress. She turned her head away and muttered something.

"My original self has just returned; don't blame me if I can't contain it."

Nan Feng ignored her stubbornness, and with her right hand, the tower shadow sank downwards, causing a half-foot-wide crack to appear in the golden seal ring at the rift.

There was a moment of silence beneath the crack.

Then its dark red eyes suddenly lit up. Its enormous head slammed upwards, its blackish-purple scales scraping against the ice walls with a piercing crunch, causing the entire Ice Valley to tremble.

"Seal up!"

The Ice Empress and the Snow Empress attacked simultaneously. Two streams of emerald green and silver-white Far North Origin poured into the crack from the left and right, adding another layer of Ice Seal to the outside of the tower shadow gap.

The gatekeeper beast's head had barely peeked half a foot out of the crevice when it got stuck. Its front paws scratched at the ice below, sending shards of ice flying. Its shoulder was firmly wedged in the crevice, unable to move forward or backward.

"Now."

Nan Feng lightly touched the ground with her toes, and her body plummeted straight down through the crack.

The abyss was eighty feet Abyss, and the turbid air was as thick as ink, plastering him with it. The Purification Power of the eighth level of the tower was fully activated, and milky white light enveloped him as he descended.

When he fell to a depth of eighty feet, he saw the reverse scale.

The gatekeeper beast had a palm-sized, dark purple scale in the center of its forehead, with golden light seeping from the seams of the scale. That was the sealing power it had accumulated over thirty thousand years.

Nan Feng pointed his right hand together, and his Primordial World Immortal Power condensed into a golden needle, which he then inserted into the seam of the reverse scale.

The gatekeeper beast let out a miserable scream, shaking the entire crack. It desperately tried to push its head upwards, but Ice Empress and Snow Empress blocked it tightly from above.

The golden needle pierced the scale three inches deep. Nan Feng placed his left hand on the reverse scale and poured in his Immortal Power.

"Spit it out!"

The sealing power accumulated beneath the Reverse Scale for 30,000 years surged outwards through the golden needles like a flood bursting its banks. Nan Feng used the Power of Devouring of the second layer of the tower to absorb all this sealing power and transform it into tower energy.

The gatekeeper beast shrank in size. One after another, the turbid air pipes were pulled out from the earth's veins, and the dark purple mist was drawn back.

"Enough!"

The Nan Feng ceased its needle-like motion, and with a single step, it emerged from the crack. The tower's shadow pressed down, and the golden sealing ring closed once more, this time three times thicker than before.

The gatekeeper beast shrank back into the Abyss, letting out a muffled groan.

Like a watchdog that had been kicked, it obediently lay back down at the entrance to the Abyssal Outer Domain.

The Ice Valley fell silent.

Nan Feng landed on the ice, her legs felt a little weak, and Ice Empress grabbed her arm.

"You went down eighty feet and came back up without even breaking a sweat?" Ice Empress looked him up and down, her emerald green scorpion eyes filled with disbelief.

"You're panting, didn't you hear me?" Nan Feng shook his right hand, which was numb from the stale air.

Snow Empress returned from the crevice, her long, silvery-white hair covered in frost. She looked at Nan Feng's face, pale from the smog, and suddenly asked a question.

"When you went down just now, the sealing power within your Reverse Scale flowed back. Did it hurt?"

Nan Feng was taken aback for a moment.

No one ever asked him if he was in pain. Old Huai would just call him crazy, Shifang would just shout that Brother Nan was amazing, Ice Empress would just say, "Why didn't you say so earlier?" Snow Empress was the first person to ask him if he was in pain.

"It's alright," Nan Feng said. "Much easier than when I absorbed the Soul Ring beyond my limits."

Snow Empress didn't say anything more, turned around and took two steps, then stopped.

"Ice Empress's essence has been eroded for the past six months, and I've tried everything. I've used the Far North Origin to tough it out, used the ley lines of the Ice Valley to divert the flow, and even considered dismantling and reforging her Soul Bone."

Her voice was flat. Nan Feng could hear the underlying weariness in her voice.

"For six months, I watched her curl up in her cocoon every day, and there was nothing I could do."

Ice Empress interrupted from the side.

"Snow Empress, don't say such things--"

"Shut up." Snow Empress didn't even turn her head.

Ice Empress shut up.

Snow Empress turned around, her silvery-white eyes reflecting the red ribbon on Nan Feng's left wrist.

"I saw you at the valley entrance on your very first day in the Far North. I thought you were like those other Soul Beast who came to cause trouble for the Ice Empress, trying to take advantage of her loss of power."

"But you erected a barrier at the valley entrance, diverting your Immortal Power to block the turbid air from the Ice Valley. At that time, you hadn't even seen the Ice Empress's face."

Nan Feng touched his nose.

"I'm used to it. I come from Blacksmith Village, and I can't stand seeing people suffer."

Snow Empress's lips curved slightly. The curve was so small it was almost imperceptible, but Ice Empress saw it and her eyes widened.

"Snow Empress, you laughed? You actually laughed?"

"Shut up." Snow Empress's tone was half an octave heavier this time.

Ice Empress shut up, but Scorpion's eyes were full of gossip, like, "You're doomed, Snow Empress, you actually smiled at a human."

Nan Feng patted the ice shards off his backside and walked out of the Ice Valley.

"The rift is sealed, and the Ice Empress's essence has been cleansed. I should go. There's a lot of things waiting for me in Heaven Dou City."

"Wait a minute," Snow Empress called out to him.

The Nan Feng turns back.

Snow Empress walked up to him, took out a thumb-sized, ice-white bead from her sleeve, and handed it to him.

"The Far North Ice Marrow. It's something I've accumulated for 100,000 years. It's useful for repairing damage to the soul. You went down eighty feet and were exposed to the turbid air; it's impossible for your soul to be completely unharmed."

The Nan Feng didn't arrive.

"Keep it for yourself. The Ice Empress Source has just returned; you need it more than she does."

"You healed Ice Empress's essence." Snow Empress placed the bead in his hand, pausing slightly as her fingertips touched his palm. "I don't owe anyone favors. Take it."

Nan Feng looked down at the beads, then looked up at Snow Empress's face, which was as cold as an ice sculpture.

Ice Empress was peeking around from behind.

"Alright." Nan Feng stored the Ice Marrow into the Tower Spirit Space. "I'll come back in three years to reseal it, and I'll bring some wine with me."

Ice Empress immediately responded.

"It's strong! The liquor brewed from the icy springs of the Far North is like horse piss—"

"Ice Empress," Snow Empress called out in a flat tone.

Ice Empress has shut up again.

Nan Feng chuckled and turned to walk south.

After walking a dozen steps, Snow Empress's voice drifted from behind, clear yet carrying a barely perceptible warmth.

Three years. Don't be too late.

Nan Feng didn't turn around, but raised his hand and waved. The red ribbon on his left wrist fluttered in the Far North wind, facing the empty wine jar he had left behind at the Ice Valley.

The Old Huai's voice drifted out from inside the tower.

"That girl's gaze towards you is strange."

Which girl?

"Snow Empress," Old Huai clicked his tongue, "A seven-hundred-year-old Heavenly Snow Woman, upon seeing you, stuffed you with Ice Marrow and told you not to be late. If your ancestor had had this ability back then, he wouldn't have remained a bachelor his whole life."

"Shut up."

Nan Feng and Ice Empress spoke at the same time. Ice Empress's voice drifted from behind, while Nan Feng's voice was squeezed out through clenched teeth.

Old Huai chuckled twice and then fell silent.

Nan Feng emerged from the Ice Valley, the Far North wind rushed into his collar. He pulled his collar tighter, his mind already calculating his cultivation plan to reach the Foundation Establishment Perfection.

If the gatekeeper beast is still alive when he returns three years later, he will use his magic to pull it out of the crack and show it what the Primordial World Immortal Dao is all about.

Within the Tower Spirit Space, the Nine Heavens Treasure Pearl spun, and the Three Lights Divine Water condensed into a drop, which fell onto the roots of the Ancient Tree of Life.

Deep within the canopy, the Old Huai locust tree's branches swayed slightly.

"Three years... that's enough for this kid to solidify his Foundation Establishment." Old Huai muttered to himself, "When he comes back, that watchdog is going to be in big trouble."