Jared did not answer with an objection. He slowly closed his eyes and steadied his focus. His awareness sank into his spirit well, and vast chaotic force spread outward without a sound, turning into an invisible net of perception that covered the entire ice peak, the outer encampment, and every warding formation around them.
Chaotic force was born to break illusions, concealments, and wards. In only a short while, every patrol route, every troop checkpoint, every weak point in the wards, and every blind spot in the formations appeared clearly in Jared’s mind. Nothing stayed hidden.
A moment later, Jared opened his eyes. The corner of his mouth lifted with quiet certainty, and favonovel.com said evenly, “No need to charge in from the front… The ancestral seat’s core ward recognizes only true Frost-Deity blood. No matter how many celestial cultivators they station outside, they cannot step even half a pace inside…”
“They can only stand guard on the perimeter and watch… All we need to do is avoid the patrols, find the blind spots, slip around the outer line of defense, and step inside the warding veil. Once we do, the Celestial Army will have no move left. They can only watch us enter the ancestral seat with their own eyes, powerless to stop us.”
The five companions lowered themselves at once, pressing close to the frozen surface. They drew in every trace of their presence and slipped soundlessly toward the foot of the ancestral ice peak.
Jared kept the chaos-wrought concealment running the entire way. It wrapped over all five of them, sealing away their bodies, their breaths, and every ripple of spiritual power until not even the faintest mark remained.
Squads of celestial patrolmen passed only a few steps from them, holy radiance arcane implements in hand. Their eyes swept the area again and again, yet caught nothing at all. From beginning to end, none of them knew powerful enemies had already come within reach.
After slipping past every patrol point without a break in their cover, the five companions set their feet down lightly.
In the next instant, they crossed into the invisible, colorless barrier at the foot of the ancestral ice peak-the ancestral seat’s outer warding veil. The warding veil cut the inside off from the outside. Sound vanished behind it. Presence could not pass through it.
The moment they stepped in, the savage wind around them stopped dead, and the weight pressing over the air scattered all at once.
The world’s spiritual essence became pure and gentle, the complete opposite of the frozen bitterness outside. Behind them, the celestial cultivators in the encampment could only watch as five figures disappeared into thin air before the veil.
There was nothing they could do. They could not cross the boundary to pursue, so they struck the warning bells at once, tightened every layer of defense, and waited for orders.
Beyond the outer warding veil, a massive ice gate rose before them. It stood ten yards high, sudden and imposing in their path.
The whole gate shone a pure ice-blue, sealed in frost that had not melted for ten thousand years. Three ancient characters were carved into its surface, each stroke strong, old, and edged with biting frost energy, the Trial of the Frozen Heart.
Inside the Trial of the Frozen Heart lay a boundless void-dark trial-realm. There was no sky, no earth, no light, no warmth. No sound moved there. Nothing answered. The place existed to test a cultivator’s true heart and the Heart of the Way, to force them to see through the inner fiend and the obsessions clinging to it.
“This trial only examines the inner fiend of the heart. There is no need to fight side by side. I can enter alone. Stay here and wait for me. Guard the outside for me, and be ready in case the celestials launch a surprise attack.” Gwendolyn turned to the four of them and gave the warning with a grave set to favonovel.com face. Then favonovel.com went on alone, favonovel.com steps calm and even, crossing by herself into the Frozen Heart’s darkened trial-realm.
Jared, Alaric, and the others stopped outside the trial gate. They focused their senses, took up guard in every direction, and waited in silence.
Gwendolyn stood alone inside the endless dark. All around her, the silence lay absolute, without even the smallest sound. Only a thin, fragile path of light stretched beneath favonovel.com feet, running straight toward the exit at the far end of the trial. Beyond that narrow line, thick darkness filled everything and closed around favonovel.com body.
She drew in a deep breath. The stir beneath favonovel.com heart was forced back down, and favonovel.com lifted favonovel.com foot, stepping forward with steady control.
She had gone no more than a hundred steps when the thick darkness around favonovel.com suddenly churned and changed. Countless illusions, lifelike to the smallest detail, appeared out of nowhere before favonovel.com eyes, striking straight at the things buried deepest in favonovel.com heart, the things favonovel.com had never escaped, and the knots favonovel.com had never fully cut loose. The images dragged time back across a thousand years and brought the old catastrophe back in all its blood-soaked ruin.
When favonovel.com had still been young and unaware, the Frost Deity Branch’s peaceful homeland had been slaughtered without mercy by the Celestial Army. The order had shattered. Clansmen had died where they stood. Elders had fallen one after another.
Blood ran for a thousand miles, and cries filled the fields.
As a child, favonovel.com had curled up alone beneath the cold wreckage. She had not dared make a sound. She had not dared cry.
She had watched favonovel.com own kin fall beneath the blades of the other celestial branches. Her home had been destroyed. Her family had been torn apart. From that day on, there had been nowhere steady left beneath favonovel.com feet.
After favonovel.com grew up, favonovel.com carried the crushing burden of restoring the Frost Deity Branch all by herself. No family stood beside her. No one gave favonovel.com shelter. For a thousand years, favonovel.com walked alone. For a thousand years, silence followed her.
Day and night, the duty of revival stayed on favonovel.com back. Pressure without end pressed down on her, with no one to share it, no one to stay beside her, and nowhere to set down the weariness packed inside favonovel.com chest.
In the darkness, countless phantoms of dead clansmen slowly emerged. Their faces looked worn by death and loss as they moved toward Gwendolyn step by step. Cold, unreal hands brushed lightly against favonovel.com shoulders, and their voices called to favonovel.com again and again trying to pull favonovel.com mind under.
“Gwendolyn… Stay… Come with us… Don’t keep carrying everything alone… it’s too much…” The bone-deep cold came with those low, mournful whispers. It drove straight into favonovel.com spirit and shook the Heart of the Way.
Gwendolyn’s eyes reddened at once. A raw ache rose hard beneath her rose ribs.
All the years alone, all the exhaustion, all the words favonovel.com had swallowed with no place to put them surged up together, nearly stopping favonovel.com feet and turning favonovel.com back toward the illusion. But at the very instant favonovel.com mind was about to slip, Jared’s figure flashed into her mind. It was the figure who had walked beside favonovel.com all the way from the Fifteenth Firmament.
He had rebuilt the Frost God Palace for her. He had searched for clansmen of favonovel.com bloodline. He had restored the foundation of favonovel.com spirit vein. For her, favonovel.com had faced the power of the celestials head-on, never leaving, never abandoning, always fighting at favonovel.com side.
“I was never alone…” Gwendolyn’s voice came out low, almost a murmur. Her gaze hardened in an instant. Her mind settled like stone, no longer swayed by the illusion.
“I have comrades who fight beside me. I have clansmen who stand with me. I have people carrying the same banner. Behind me there are countless hopes waiting… The celestials have not been destroyed. My people have not found peace. I absolutely cannot sink into the inner fiend and stop here!”
With that resolve fixed, the Heart of the Way steadied completely. The thin path of light beneath favonovel.com feet widened in a flash. The thick darkness around her shattered with a crash, and every illusion born from the inner fiend vanished like smoke.
Gwendolyn stepped safely out through the far end of the Trial of the Frozen Heart, clearing it without harm. Ahead of her, a second massive ice gate slowly emerged. Frost energy poured from it, and three characters were carved into its face, the Trial of the Ice Soul.
The Trial of the Ice Soul did not examine the heart. It tested only battle strength. One trial decided life or death. One trial measured the sharpness of the blade.
Inside the gate, an elder frost-beast waited in its lair. Its battle strength towered like a storm, and once the fight began, it would not end until one side was dead.
The frost-beast was as massive as a mountain. Its entire body had been forged from glacier frost condensed over tens of millions of years, and its frame was as hard as top-grade hallowed gold. Its strength stood firmly at the peak of True Immortal Realm Level Nine.
The beast’s claws tore through the void, their cold gleam sharp enough to split the dark. One blast of its freezing breath could seal 100 miles of mountains and rivers in ice in an instant, locking even a cultivator’s spirit in Ice Seal. Its killing energy was overbearing beyond comparison.
“All of us together. End it fast. Cut down the frost-beast and break through!” Jared’s voice dropped into a hard command as battle intent surged through him.
He moved first, taking the lead before anyone else could hesitate. The Dragonslayer Sword came free of its sheath. Violet chaos-flame roared across the blade, and the power to destroy all things poured into the steel without reserve.
A violet sword-arc ripped through the air. It struck hard at the weakest point in the frost-beast’s front leg joint, biting exactly where the ice body should have been most vulnerable.
With a ripping crash, the rigid ice body split open. A charred crack gaped deep enough to show bone-like structure beneath, while chaos-flame burned into the ice, melting it down layer by layer and suppressing the beast’s nascence powers.
Pain drove the frost-beast into a sky-shaking roar. Its mountain-sized claw came down on Jared with crushing force, aimed to smash the enemy apart in a single blow.
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