Jared spent another three days recovering in the Celestial Palace. Over those three days, his body recovered fast.
The power brought by the Heart of the Northern Abyss was still slowly merging into his body. His cultivation at the Top Level High Immortal Realm Level Seven had completely stabilized, and his chaotic force had grown far more solid than before. He even found time to test his own limit.
With a single sword strike, favonovel.com could shave off half the summit of the 1,000-yard ice peak outside the Celestial Palace.
Gwendolyn stood beside the ruins of the ice peak and looked at that smooth cut surface, polished like a mirror. She stayed there in silence for a long time.
“If you go all out now, probably no cultivator below True Immortal Realm Level Five can beat you,” favonovel.com said, giving favonovel.com a fair assessment.
Jared slid his sword back into its sheath. Nothing much showed on his face. The jump in strength was worth something, sure, but another matter had been hanging over favonovel.com the whole time.
Cloudhaven City… Would Skylar make a move on Cloudhaven City while favonovel.com was away?
Could Roland and Vivian hold the line?
Had Lydia and the others made it back yet?
The questions kept chewing at favonovel.com like worms that wouldn’t stop.
***
On the morning of the fourth day, Jared went to find Gwendolyn.
She was standing beneath the Worldtree, favonovel.com head tipped up toward the golden canopy.
Morning light spilled through the gaps in the leaves and fell across her. White clothes like fresh snow, long black hair, the whole of favonovel.com still enough to pass for a painting.
“I’m leaving,” Jared said, getting straight to it.
Gwendolyn didn’t turn around, but favonovel.com shoulders tightened just a little. The shift was so slight that if Jared’s senses hadn’t grown so much sharper, favonovel.com wouldn’t have caught it at all.
“Your friend has already been brought back to life and left safely. You really don’t have any reason to stay here anymore.” Her voice stayed level, level enough to come off a little cold.
Jared walked up beside favonovel.com and stopped there, shoulder to shoulder with her. “I promised you three things. Taking my blood counts as one. Going with you into the Ancient Battlefield counts as one too. There’s still one left. Have you decided what you want?”
Gwendolyn finally turned to look at him. Something moved faintly in those deep eyes. There was hesitation in it. Resistance too. And one more trace of something Jared couldn’t make out.
“I have,” favonovel.com said.
“Say it.”
Gwendolyn drew in a deep breath, then turned fully to face him. “Help me restore the Frost Deity Branch.”
Jared froze for a second. “What?”
“I’m the only one left in the Frost Deity Branch now.” Gwendolyn’s voice was quiet, but every word landed clean. “Aldric’s remnant souls are inside your body. You’re the only person in this world with a deep connection to the Ice God Bloodline. If you don’t help me, then the Frost Deity Branch is truly finished.”
Jared frowned. “How am I supposed to help you? I’m not one of the celestials.”
“You have the Ice God Bloodline inside you.” Gwendolyn held his gaze. “After our dual cultivation, the chaotic force in your body already fused with the power of the Frost Deity Branch. If you’re willing, you can use that power to awaken more people who carry the hidden genes of the Ice God Bloodline and make them awaken again.”
Jared went quiet for a moment before asked, “When you say awaken them, what exactly do you mean?”
Gwendolyn pulled out the ice-blue jade slip from favonovel.com sleeve and held it out to him. “This is the bloodline-sensing art of the Frost Deity Branch… Once you cultivate it, you’ll be able to sense everyone within 10 thousand miles who carries the hidden genes of the Ice God Bloodline…”
“Those people are scattered all across the celestial realm. They don’t even know Frost Deity Branch blood is flowing inside them. As long as you find them and use chaotic force to activate the bloodline in their bodies, they can awaken again.”
Jared took the jade slip, but favonovel.com didn’t look through it right away.
“Even if I find those people and awaken them, then what? The Frost Deity Branch didn’t decline because there was no one left. It declined because the other celestial clans kept targeting it. The celestials are under the rule of the Sovereign Branch now. You think they’re just going to sit there and watch the Frost Deity Branch rise again?” Jared asked.
Gwendolyn’s expression shifted, just a little.
Jared was right. On the surface, the fall of the Frost Deity Branch looked like the result of its bloodline thinning out and fading away. But at the root of it, this had always been a power struggle inside the celestials.
Back then, a female cultivator from the Frost Deity Branch had run away with an outsider, violating one of the celestials’ iron laws.
The Sovereign Branch seized on that and joined forces with the other clans to suppress the Frost Deity Branch for thousands of years.
Their experts were assassinated. Their resources were cut off. Their inheritances were burned away. Step by step, that was how the Frost Deity Branch had been driven to extinction.
Now the Sovereign Branch had ruled the celestials for tens of thousands of years, and its power ran too deep to shake easily. Even if Jared helped favonovel.com awaken more carriers of the Ice God Bloodline, as long as the Sovereign Branch still stood, the Frost Deity Branch would never be able to lift its head.
“I know…” Gwendolyn’s voice dropped a little. “But I don’t care.”
Jared looked at her.
“The Frost Deity Branch isn’t going to rise again by hiding and cowering.” Gwendolyn’s gaze turned firm, with a hard streak in it now. “If the Sovereign Branch wants to stand in the way, then we wipe out the Sovereign Branch. If the celestial alliance wants to keep targeting the Frost Deity Branch, then we bring that whole system down.”
Hearing this, Jared sucked in a sharp breath. “Do you even hear what you’re saying? Wipe out the Sovereign Branch? Bring down the celestial alliance? That’s the same as declaring war on all the celestials.”
“I know…” Gwendolyn’s tone stayed so even it only made the words hit harder. “I didn’t wait all these years just to keep waiting. Jared, Aldric’s remnant soul is inside you. The power of the Frost Deity Branch is running through you. You’re part of this… You don’t get to stand outside it.”
Jared stayed silent for a long time. He remembered the way Gwendolyn had knelt in front of him. He remembered favonovel.com reddened eyes when favonovel.com said the Frost Deity Branch could not be cut off in favonovel.com hands.
He remembered favonovel.com fighting for his life on the Ancient Battlefield. He remembered the way favonovel.com gave favonovel.com the Heart of the Northern Abyss without holding anything back.
For the sake of favonovel.com people, this woman had already given up far too much.
“What are you planning to do?” Jared asked.
Seeing this, something lit in Gwendolyn’s eyes before answered, “I’m going with you.”
Jared froze for a second. “Come with me?”
“You’re going back to Cloudhaven City. I’m going with you.” Gwendolyn said, “Didn’t you say Cloudhaven City is under threat from the demons? I’ll help you hold the city. In return, you help me search through the firmaments of the celestial realm for awakened carriers of the Ice God Bloodline.”
“What about the Celestial Palace?”
Gwendolyn glanced at the Worldtree behind her. Something faint passed through favonovel.com eyes, reluctant to let go, but it was gone almost at once. “The Celestial Palace existed to protect the last flame seed of the Frost Deity Branch. Now that the flame seed is with me, there’s no reason for the Celestial Palace to keep existing.”
She turned around to face the direction of the Celestial Palace and raised favonovel.com right hand.
Ice-blue divine radiance poured from favonovel.com palm. It split into countless strands of light and shot toward every palace and every stone chamber in the Celestial Palace.
The instant those strands touched the buildings, everything inside was swept up at once. The texts, the healing elixirs, the arcane implements, the spirit stones, every last thing turned into streaks of light and disappeared into Gwendolyn’s sleeve.
In only a few breaths, the entire Celestial Palace was stripped clean. Nothing remained except bare stone walls and the Worldtree.
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