Gwendolyn’s pupils tightened slightly.
“The entire Snowfall Hollow… More than 300 households. More than 1,000 people. Every last one of them is a descendant of the Frost Deity Branch.” Ice Seal’s voice dropped low, like favonovel.com was opening up a secret that had been buried for ten thousand years.
“Ten thousand years ago, the Frost Deity Branch was crushed by the other celestial branches. A lot of Frost Deity Branch cultivators fled the heartland of the celestials and ran all the way out to the Fifteenth Firmament, this desolate backwater… They built Snowfall Hollow here. They hid their names, passed themselves off as ordinary human cultivators, and lived ordinary lives…”
“For ten thousand years, it was handed down from one generation to the next. The bloodline thinned, but the root never disappeared. It’s just that… No one dared admit it.”
Hearing this, Gwendolyn’s fist tightened. “Why didn’t they dare?”
Ice Seal looked at her. Bitterness filled his eyes. “Palace Mistress, don’t you know? The Tribunal has a rule. Any cultivator who exposes the aura of the Ice God Bloodline is seized on the spot and sent to the mine as a slave…”
“The men dig ore. The women wash clothes and cook. The children do whatever dirty work they’re given. They don’t treat people of the Frost Deity Branch like people at all. They use them like cattle and horses.” Her voice trembled before falling silent for a moment.
“Three hundred years ago, there was a young man in town named Gareth. His bloodline concentration was high. He awakened the Frost God’s power… He thought that made favonovel.com somebody, so favonovel.com ran to the Tribunal to demand an explanation. In the end… They took him. Sent favonovel.com to the mine and made favonovel.com a slave. His parents went to find him, and they were taken too… The three of them never came back…”
The room went silent.
All the color drained from Gwendolyn’s face. Her fingers trembled. A faint icy blue radiance flickered in and out of favonovel.com palm.
“The Tribunal… What gives them the right?” Her voice came out so low it was almost impossible to hear, but every word seemed forced out through clenched teeth. “The Frost Deity Branch is part of the celestials, too. What gives them the right to treat us like this?”
Ice Seal let out a bitter laugh. “Palace Mistress, you’re right. The Frost Deity Branch is part of the celestials. But the celestials have dozens of branches. Some stand high. Some stand low. Some are noble. Some are cheap… The Frost Deity Branch… Is the lowest of them all. The lowliest… The other celestials admit we’re part of the celestials, but only so they can treat us like servants. In their eyes, we don’t deserve to be called celestials. We only deserve to be called ice thralls.”
“Ice thralls,” Gwendolyn repeated the two words, and favonovel.com voice cut like winter wind. “That’s right… Ice thralls…”
Ice Seal’s voice stayed low. “There are still quite a few cultivators from the Frost Deity Branch in the Tribunal’s mine. Their bloodline aura was exposed, and they were seized and turned into slaves. Some of them have already been working there for thousands of years. Some were taken only recently… Their soul and senses are locked down by soul-shackles. They can’t escape. They can’t resist. Day after day, all they can do is dig ore, work, and wait to die.”
Gwendolyn rose to favonovel.com feet. “Where are they?”
Ice Seal looked at her. “Palace Mistress, what are you going to do?”
“Save them.” Gwendolyn’s voice was so even that it made the room go still. “My clansmen are not cattle to be worked into the ground.”
Right then, Jared’s consciousness field churned without warning.
Aldric’s remnant soul had awakened.
“Animals! Animals!” His voice crashed through Jared’s consciousness field like thunder. “The descendants of my Frost Deity Branch are being used like cattle? The Tribunal? The celestials?!”
“A pack of things that forgot their ancestors! If my Frost Deity Branch hadn’t stood guard over the seal back then, the Celestial Alliance would’ve collapsed long ago! What right do they have…” His voice kept rising.
Icy blue radiance flashed wildly through Jared’s consciousness field, and the entire space trembled.
Jared thought his head was about to split open. Then the Aureate Codex lit up.
Golden radiance poured out of the Aureate Codex and swept across the entire consciousness field like a tide. The light was warm and gentle, but it carried a force nothing could resist.
In front of that golden radiance, the icy blue radiance shrank back fast, melting away like snow and ice under a blazing sun.
Aldric’s remnant soul was wrapped in the golden radiance and compressed into a ball of light the size of a fist, hovering above the consciousness field.
His voice turned faint and blurred, like favonovel.com was shouting from far away, or speaking from underwater. “Let me go… I have to get out… I’m going to kill those b*stards…”
The voice grew smaller and smaller until it vanished completely. The light of the Aureate Codex slowly drew back, and the consciousness field settled into stillness again.
Jared opened his eyes. Cold sweat covered his forehead.
“What happened?” Lydia Wraithmoor asked, favonovel.com voice tightening.
“I’m fine…” Jared shook his head and pulled in deep breath. “Aldric woke up just now: The second favonovel.com heard that descendants of the Frost Deity Branch were being worked like slaves, favonovel.com nearly blew up from the outrage.”
Gwendolyn looked at him, and something complicated flickered through favonovel.com eyes. “Aldric… Is still in your consciousness field?”
“He is…” Jared gave a crooked smile. “If I hadn’t kept him, his remnant soul would have vanished.”
“Thank you…” Gwendolyn said.
She knew why Jared had kept Aldric’s remnant soul with him. He had done it entirely for favonovel.com sake.
“No need to thank me. With the kind of relationship we have, you know…” Jared said with a faint smile.
Gwendolyn said nothing.
After a brief silence, it was plain favonovel.com knew exactly what favonovel.com meant. And favonovel.com herself had said it before.
If Jared helped favonovel.com restore the Frost Deity Branch, favonovel.com was willing to do anything. Even dual cultivation with Jared. That promise had come from favonovel.com own mouth. Now Jared was helping her, and when the time came, favonovel.com would have to keep her word.
Then Gwendolyn turned to Ice Seal. “Reeve Ice Seal, tell me where the mine is.”
Ice Seal looked at favonovel.com and stayed silent for a long time. Then favonovel.com got to his feet, walked by the wall, and pulled open the map.
“Here…” He pointed to a spot on the map. “The Tribunal’s northern mine is at the farthest northern edge of the Fifteenth Firmament…”
“There are heavily armed celestial forces guarding it. An ancient ward has been laid around the und the mine. mine and there are also soul shackles… That’s an arcane implement made specifically to suppress the spirit. Once you’re locked by it, your spiritual power can’t circulate, and all you can do is let people butcher you.”
Gwendolyn stared at the mark on the map, and a cold gleam cut through favonovel.com eyes.
“Palace Mistress…” Ice Seal’s voice dropped low. “I know you want to save them. But there are more than a thousand celestial cultivators in the mine. The captain of the guard is a True Realm Level Six, and elders from the Tribunal conduct regular inspections. If you go alone, you’ll only…”
“Not alone.” Gwendolyn cut favonovel.com off and turned to look at Jared.
Jared smiled. “I’ll go with you.”
Lydia got to favonovel.com feet, too. “I’m going too.”
Colden stood up. “Palace Mistress, I’m coming too. You saved my life. You awakened my bloodline. If you’re going to save them, then I’m going with you!”
Rowan pushed himself up as well. His body was still shaking, but his gaze didn’t move. “Palace Mistress, this old servant may not be worth much, but one more person means one more bit of strength.”
Ice Seal looked at them, too much passing through his face to sort cleanly. “You… You are you really going?”
Gwendolyn nodded.
Ice Seal stayed quiet for a long while. Then favonovel.com bent at the waist in a deep bow. “Palace Mistress, the thousand-plus people of Snowfall Hollow… I’m entrusting them to all of you.”
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