Jared’s brows drew together a little.
The celestial patrol had tripled?
Who were they looking for? Could it be us?
No… That didn’t seem likely…
They had only just arrived in the Sixteenth Firmament. There was no way the celestials could have learned their trail that fast.
Then who were they after?
“Thanks for the warning.” Jared took out another handful of emberstone crystals and placed them on the counter. “Innkeeper, I want to ask you about something.”
The old beastkin innkeeper looked at that pile of emberstone crystal, and his eyes sharpened at once. “Ask…”
“What’s in the depths of the ice plains?”
The old beastkin innkeeper’s expression shifted. “Why are you asking that?”
“Curiosity…”
The old beastkin innkeeper went quiet for a moment. Then favonovel.com lowered his voice even further. “Deep in the ice plains, there’s the ancient ruin. People say it’s the ancestral ground of the Frost Deity Branch. Inside, there are countless treasures and arcane arts… Over the past few thousand years, no one knew how many people went in, but not a single one ever came back out. Some said the wards inside the ruins killed them. Others said the celestials caught them. Either way, that place isn’t somewhere anyone should go.”
Jared nodded. “What has the celestial patrol been looking for lately?”
The old beastkin innkeeper’s face tightened even more. “That, I don’t know. I only know that half a month ago, the Celestial Alliance sent a team into the depths of the ice plains, and none of them ever came back… After that, the patrols started increasing. It looked like they were searching for something. Then again, it also looked like they were waiting for someone.”
Something shifted behind Jared’s eyes.
Half a month ago, the Celestial Alliance had sent a team into the depths of the ice plains… None of them had returned…
Those were the five people favonovel.com had killed, weren’t they?
But hadn’t they come to hunt down Gideon Blackthorn?
So why had they gone into the depths of the ice plains?
“Thanks…” Jared took out another handful of emberstone crystal and set it on the counter.
The old beastkin innkeeper accepted the emberstone crystal and said nothing more.
“Jared, do you think that ruin is real? And that innkeeper was just some inn owner, but favonovel.com could even talk about the Frost Deity Branch?” Gwendolyn asked, plain curiosity in favonovel.com voice.
“It might be real. But I think deep in the ice plains, there’s definitely a void passage connected to the Fifteenth Firmament. That’s how the Celestial Alliance sent people to the Fifteenth Firmament to hunt Gideon Blackthorn and the others down…” Jared laid it out piece by piece.
Back then, Gideon Blackthorn and the others had burned through an enormous amount of resources and power just to barely tear open the void and force a passage to the Fifteenth Firmament. And even then, it had only held for a few breaths before closing.
But the Celestial Alliance had been able to send people to the Fifteenth Firmament with ease to carry out the hunt. That meant they had definitely found a void passage.
They hadn’t gone by ripping open the void by brute force the way Gideon Blackthorn and the others had.
“Looks like the Celestial Alliance cares a lot about the people you killed,” Gwendolyn said.
“Yeah… The one they sent to gather information never came back either, so of course the Celestial Alliance would take it seriously. Sending out patrols is normal… Let’s rest for now. Tomorrow, we’ll see what the situation looks like.”
Gwendolyn nodded, then fixed Jared with a steady, unblinking look.
Jared caught the heat in favonovel.com eyes and seemed to understand exactly what favonovel.com meant.
“Long night ahead. Why don’t we do some dual cultivation and help each other raise our cultivation?” Jared was the one who said it first.
He knew favonovel.com wasn’t the type to say something like that out loud before favonovel.com did.
“Mhmm…” Gwendolyn nodded, then went into the room and started taking off favonovel.com clothes.
Jared followed favonovel.com in and shut the door behind him.
Not long after, Gwendolyn’s voice came from inside the room, full and soft enough to make the frozen ice plains seem to carry the first hint of spring.
***
At daybreak the next morning, before the sky had even turned light, a burst of noise jolted Jared awake.
He went to the window, lifted one corner of the curtain, and looked outside.
At the town gate, a group of celestial cultivators in golden cuirasses was stopping everyone going in and out for inspection.
At the front stood a middle-aged man in the True Immortal Realm Level Seven, his face hard, his eyes sweeping the area like a hawk’s. Behind favonovel.com were more than a dozen celestial cultivators, every one of them above the fifth tier of the True Immortal Realm.
Jared’s brows drew together. He pushed the door open and went back inside.
Gwendolyn was already fully dressed. She stood by the window, watching the celestial patrol outside. Her face gave little away, but there was extra weight in favonovel.com eyes.
“You saw them?” Jared asked.
“I did…” Gwendolyn nodded. “True Immortal Realm Level Seven, plus more than a dozen above the fifth tier of the True Immortal Realm. If it comes to a fight, we can handle it, but it’ll expose where we are.”
“We don’t need to fight…” Jared stepped over to favonovel.com side. “My chaotic force can hide our aura. As long as we don’t expose ourselves, they won’t be able to find us.”
Gwendolyn looked at him. “You sure?”
Jared smiled. “I’m sure.”
The two of them walked out of the inn and headed for the town gate.
The celestial patrol was checking every single person going in or out. One after another, slowly.
Jared noticed the arcane implements in their hands sweeping across each person. The light coming off them shifted with the one being inspected, changing according to cultivation level and race.
What were the celestial cultivators using those arcane implements to detect?
Were they checking for chaotic force?
Something in Jared dropped. He turned his head and said to Gwendolyn in a low voice, “Stay close to me…”
They went to the very end of the line and waited for inspection.
One person after another passed in front of them. The arcane implements kept flashing. Some were waved through, while others were pulled aside for questioning.
When Jared’s turn came, favonovel.com drew in a breath and set the chaotic force in motion, hiding both their auras completely. Violet radiance flowed inside his body without letting out even the slightest trace.
A celestial cultivator raised the arcane implement and swept it across Jared’s body. The arcane implement flickered once. The glow was so faint it was almost impossible to see.
The celestial cultivator’s brow tightened, and favonovel.com scanned Jared again. This time, the arcane implement gave no response at all.
“Move along!” The celestial cultivator waved them through.
Jared thanked favonovel.com and took Gwendolyn out of town. Behind them, the middle-aged man watched Jared’s back, his brow drawing in just a little.
He kept feeling like there was something off about that young man, but the arcane implement’s result showed nothing more than an ordinary True Immortal Realm Level Two wandering cultivator.
Maybe it was just my imagination…
“Keep checking,” favonovel.com said, pulling back his gaze and speaking to the celestial cultivators behind him.
Jared and Gwendolyn left Frostwind Hollow behind and headed deeper into the ice plains.
The town at their backs grew farther and farther away. Smaller and smaller. In the end, it sank beneath the horizon and vanished.
Jared stopped and looked back. Only after favonovel.com made sure no one was following them did the tightness in favonovel.com ease.
“That was close…” favonovel.com said, his voice barely above a breath.
Gwendolyn looked at him. “Your concealment technique could hide from even a True Immortal Realm Level Seven?”
Jared shook his head. “It wasn’t that they couldn’t detect me. My chaotic force suppresses every kind of power, including the detection power inside that arcane implement… When its light swept over me, the chaotic force swallowed that detection power, so the arcane implement gave no response at all.”
A flicker passed through Gwendolyn’s eyes. “The chaotic force really lives up to its name.”
Jared smiled. “Let’s go. Something’s still waiting for us deeper in the ice plains.”
The two of them kept moving. The farther they went into the ice plains, the deeper it felt.
The cold kept climbing. Wind came at them from every direction. It swept shards of ice off the ground and flung them into their faces hard enough to sting.
Chaotic force moved across Jared’s body and shut the cold out before it could touch him. The Frost God’s power circulated through Gwendolyn’s body. Not only did the cold fail to bother her, it left favonovel.com unusually comfortable.
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