Jared stepped across the void underfoot, his body flashing aside like lightning.
At the last possible instant, favonovel.com slipped clear with a sharp sideways shift. The giant claw slammed into the ground and blasted out an ice pit several yards deep, sending shards of ice and broken stone spraying in every direction. The raw force of it left no room for doubt.
At the same time, Alaric rushed in from the left. His lifebound frost-blade carried a biting sheen as it stabbed with precision into a weak ice seam beneath the beast’s ribs, breaking through the ice and wounding the channels beneath.
Elara’s wrist snapped through a blur of motion. The long frostwhip lashed out and coiled around the beast’s thick hind leg, binding it tight, dragging against its movement, and cutting off its room to reposition.
Cedric gathered his focus and drove his power into form. A sharp frostlance condensed from all the spiritual power in his body, then shot straight for the vital point of the beast’s eye, attacking the dead angle no ordinary strike could reach.
Gwendolyn stood on the higher ground behind them, favonovel.com hands forming seals at speed. Across the air, ice-blue Hallowbind Needles burst out as densely as rain. Each one locked onto the major spiritual power points across the beast’s body, sealing the flow of its power in ice and slowing both its movements and its footwork.
The five companions moved with seamless understanding. Their offense and defense fell into order: one controlled while another attacked, one struck from range while another pressed in close. Their tactics left nothing unused!
Jared held the front, clashing head-on and dragging the beast’s attention onto himself. The other four attacked from the flanks, restrained it, and controlled the field, never giving the beast even half a breath to turn the fight back on them.
Chaos-flame restrained the frost-nascence. Frost spiritual power broke ice and defenses exactly where it needed to.
The five of them filled the gaps in one another’s strength, grinding through the battle for a full half an hour without stopping for even a moment.
The frost-beast roared again and again. Cracks spread wider across its ice body, its spiritual power drained away step by step, and its battle strength kept sliding lower. At last, with a thunderous crash, the massive ice body shattered apart. It broke into countless fragments, became a storm of tiny ice crystals, and scattered through the Ice Soul’s void-realm until nothing of the beast remained.
“Jared slid his sword back into its sheath. His breathing shifted slightly, and his face had gone a little pale. The nonstop, high-intensity battle had taken a real toll, but the light in his eyes still held sharp and bright as favonovel.com spoke in a low voice. “Rest for a moment. Then we enter the final trial…”
The final trial was the Trial of Frostblood, the ancestral seat’s final ordeal. Above its doorway, four iron-law words had been carved deep into the lintel, “Blood Alone May Pass”.
Anyone without pure orthodox Frost-Deity blood would be shut out by the trial’s invisible barrier. Even if their cultivation could reach the heavens, they would still be forced to remain outside, unable to step even half a pace in.
Jared, Alaric, Elara, and Cedric were all cut off outside the Trial of Frostblood. Not one of them could move forward by even the smallest measure.
“Wait here without worry. I’ll go in and retrieve the heirloom blade.” Gwendolyn gave them a nod, drew in a steady breath, and stepped forward alone. Without a ripple in favonovel.com pace, favonovel.com entered the heart-sanctum of the Trial of Frostblood.
Inside the trial, an ancient and magnificent icebound hall stood in silence. Dense frost energy filled the hall, carrying a long-buried ancient presence and a solemn pressure that settled over everything. Above the void at the very center of the icebound hall floated two dazzling clusters of ice-blue nascence radiance. They shone with a brilliant glow, and the spiritual essence rolling off them pressed against the air.
Inside the radiance on the left rested a complete, flawless set of ancient Frostwrought Panoply.
Ancient ice-path sigils were carved across its plates, and a bitter cold that had not gone out in ten thousand ages flowed over it. It carried three heaven-defying effects at once, protection, amplification, and Ice Seal.
Inside the radiance on the right stood a long, slender ice-blue sword. Its blade was clear as crystal and unmatched in sharpness. In its hilt was set a fist-sized lifebound frost-crystal, deep with accumulated power. This was the heirloom blade itself, the Frostbrand.
Gwendolyn walked forward slowly. She raised favonovel.com hand and lightly touched the Frostwrought Panoply.
The panoply awakened at once. It turned into a stream of ice-blue light and flowed into favonovel.com limbs, bones, meridians, and spirit well. A vast surge of ancient Frost-Deity might swept through favonovel.com entire body. It washed through favonovel.com foundation, repaired what lay beneath, and drove favonovel.com cultivation higher.
The aura around favonovel.com climbed in sharp stages. In a single breath, favonovel.com broke through from True Immortal Realm Level Eight, forced past the bottleneck, and reached True Immortal Realm Level Nine. Her foundation held firm, while the depth of favonovel.com reserves rose by a massive margin!
Then favonovel.com lifted favonovel.com hand again. This time, favonovel.com closed favonovel.com grip steadily around the Frostbrand’s hilt.
The sacred sword trembled as its spirit stirred. A clear sword-cry rang through the icebound hall, bright and resonant, like a blade greeting the master it had been waiting for.
The lifebound frost-crystal set into the sword hilt flared wide open. In the same instant, the Frost Deity Branch’s complete inheritance-stream, vast enough to drown thought itself, poured straight into the deepest reaches of Gwendolyn’s mind.
It carried everything. Ancient frost arcane arts. Killing sword techniques. Formations meant to trap enemies. Comprehension of the Absolute Law of Frost. Nothing was missing!
Gwendolyn closed favonovel.com eyes and let the inheritance settle through favonovel.com in silence.
A short while later, favonovel.com eyes opened again. Everything about favonovel.com had changed. The chill that had always clung to favonovel.com now carried a steadier weight, a quiet authority that had not been there before. Her cultivation stood firm at the Top Level of the ninth tier.
With only half a step more, favonovel.com could cross into the ranks of the Golden Immortals. The strength in favonovel.com was no longer what it had been.
She turned to leave the icebound hall. Then favonovel.com gaze cut aside.
In one quiet corner, the strange violet crystal hovered in place, its whole body warm with a soft glow. A familiar pulse leaked from it, faint but unmistakable.
Gwendolyn lifted a hand and took it down. The moment it touched favonovel.com palm, warmth seeped into favonovel.com skin, and a chaotic aura rushed toward favonovel.com face.
She did not linger. She strode out of the Trial of Frostblood and placed the crystal directly into Jared’s hand. “I found this in a corner of the hall. It holds an extremely dense chaotic nascence-aura. It may be something left behind by Aldric’s progenitor. It fits your constitution perfectly and can help you break through your cultivation level.”
Jared’s fingertips had barely brushed the Primal Chaos-Stone when a warm, burning texture of nascence followed the meridians in his palm and shot through his limbs and bones. There was no jarring violence in it. No savage edge. It was pure, almost flawless.
In the next second, a thick, overwhelming torrent of chaotic nascence burst out of the stone with a deep roar. It was like a nascence springwell that had slept since the beginning of ages had suddenly been unsealed.
The force surged hard through the seventy-two main meridians in Jared’s body. Deep in his spirit well, the lifebound chaotic force that had been arcling and setting there answered at once vibrating across the distance before merging with it.
Around his ears, there was only the heavy, powerful rumble of spiritual power rolling through his body.
Violet radiance filled his eyes in an instant, dense and pure. His mind cleared until nothing outside could reach him. The world beyond, the cutting wind, even the movement from the celestial camp in the distance, all of it was sealed away. None of it could disturb favonovel.com anymore.
Jared drew his awareness inward and looked through himself. Only then did favonovel.com clearly grasp how precious this stone truly was.
This was not ordinary cultivation material. It was the primal chaos-nascence crystal left from the first opening of the world, it held not the slightest It mixed impurity, not a trace of violent killing, and it matched his innate chaosborn vessel as it had been made for him.
The nascence foundation sealed inside the stone was powerful, full, refined, and dense. More than that, it filled the exact gap in Jared’s current cultivation. Not too much. Not too little. It was enough to carry favonovel.com steadily from the peak of True Immortal Realm Level Two, break through the barrier in one push, and step into the third tier.
There was no need to forcefully overdraw his foundation. There was no need to worry that the new cultivation level would be hollow. This was the kind of top-grade opportunity that could be sought for a lifetime and still never appear.
“The Primal Chaos-Stone. A gift of world-nascence…” “Jared’s lips parted, and the words left favonovel.com in a low murmur. His voice held no ripple, but beneath that still surface, the conclusion had already settled.
This breakthrough was all but certain. There would be no mistake.
Beside him, Gwendolyn’s gaze lay still as water. The ice-blue frost energy around favonovel.com quietly tightened into a barrier, shutting out every stray sound of wind and snow nearby.
When favonovel.com spoke, each word came clean, steady, and decisive. “This chance is rare, and the timing is right. Don’t hesitate. Sit down where you are and absorb it with clear mind. As for everything outside every hidden danger around us, the four of us will hold it for you. Not half a step yielded. Not the slightest disturbance allowed.”
Jared gave a slight nod and wasted no words.
He let his body sink with the motion and settled cross-legged onto the black-ice dais that had not thawed in ten thousand years. The ice beneath favonovel.com bit cold enough to pierce bone, but it could not affect favonovel.com in the slightest. His palm stayed locked tight around the Primal Chaos-Stone.
His eyes slowly closed, and his awareness sank fully into the secret realm of his spirit well. Every part of favonovel.com turned toward the breakthrough. Not one stray thought remained.
In the next breath, layers of spiritual light peeled away from the surface of the stone. A vast mass of chaotic nascence poured out like a surging river and sea, then flowed into favonovel.com through the meridians in his palm at a steady, orderly pace. It washed gently through every blocked channel in his body.
The faint, mixed traces of killing qi left behind from past cultivation, along with the hidden injuries his meridians had accumulated over time, were swept clean by the chaotic nascence. One after another, they dissolved until nothing remained.
The meridians throughout Jared’s body were slowly propped open by the immense spiritual power. They widened. They were tempered. Their toughness and capacity climbed together, rising by a sharp margin.
At the center of his spirit well, the chaotic energy vortex that had never stopped spinning suddenly accelerated. It expanded wider and wider. It condensed heavier and heavier. Violet spiritual light coiled around the vortex, and the pressure it released rose step by step.
Around him, the aura of his cultivation advanced layer by layer, climbing higher with each breath.
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