Chapter Thirty-Seven: The Battle of North City

A great number of mutant beasts surged toward the palace within the city. Not long after the protective barrier shattered, the warriors manning the Godfall Cannons atop the city walls were killed by the beasts. Even in death, their hands gripped the firing handles tightly. One warrior’s lower half remained standing rigidly beside the cannon, blood still oozing from the severed stump.

Before the palace, hordes of mutant beasts plunged into the abyss, their bodies crushed to pulp upon impact. Yet, despite the sheer number, the chasm was not awash in blood as one might expect. Instead, not a drop of blood could be seen; only piles of mutant beast corpses filled the depths. Another beast fell, but no fountain of blood erupted on impact. Every spatter of blood that flew into the air vanished inexplicably. The fabric of space and time near the freshly killed beast seemed subtly different.

Upon closer inspection, an amber-hued, translucent ant fed upon the blood, its mandibles at work. So much blood, enough to form a river, had been absorbed by this solitary ant. Still, the distant insect’s veins showed only the faintest red.

Outside the northern gate, Ye Bai’s battle with the mutant saber-toothed tiger raged fiercely. His single elemental power could do little harm to the beast. Eager to finish the fight quickly and aid the ruler of Snow City against the Frost Dragon, Ye Bai divided his three elemental forces into layers: water as the foundation, wood as the core, forming a short dagger, and earth encasing the blade. The earth not only increased the dagger’s lethality but reinforced its wooden core.

Ye Bai gazed at the tricolored dagger in his hand, surprise flickering in his eyes. He recalled seeing this method in the “Manual of Body Fusion”—the so-called Five Elements, though here, the attribute of Metal was absent, severed by Heaven’s decree.

Reversing his grip on the fusion dagger, Ye Bai’s eyes gleamed as he faced the mutant saber-toothed tiger. Snowflakes exploded beneath his feet as he launched into the fray. The saber-toothed tiger, sensing danger in its crimson eyes, beat its wings and took to the sky, energy gathering in its jaws.

Ye Bai would not allow his foe to escape. With a forceful step, he sprang from the back of a passing mutant beast, whose limbs snapped under the pressure, howling helplessly as it continued to crawl toward the city. Borrowing this momentum, Ye Bai shot into the sky, switching his dagger to a forward grip. In midair, his body arched like a drawn bow as he cleaved toward the flying tiger.

At that instant, the saber-toothed tiger unleashed its attack—a white energy orb erupted from its maw, enveloping Ye Bai. From behind, Hu Yan Jiayi, acting as support, witnessed the clash: Ye Bai’s tricolored dagger slashed at the tiger’s head as the white orb swallowed him whole. Yet, in the next moment, Ye Bai burst forth from the orb. His dagger drove deep into the tiger’s skull, the innermost layer of water elemental power surging forth. Stimulated by water, the wooden core spread violently into the creature’s brain, while the earth layer widened the wound ever further.

When Ye Bai landed, he turned to see the saber-toothed tiger’s massive corpse slam into the snow, sending up a white spray. Its head was split in two and shriveled, little blood leaking from the gash. Ye Bai could sense a newfound strength in his elemental powers.

As Ye Bai took in these changes, a soothing warmth suffused his body, like the first sunlight of home. Opening his eyes, he saw himself bathed in white light, its source a woman in a white dress who watched him with a gentle smile. Ye Bai nodded to show he was recovered, brushed the scorched hair from his head, and returned to the battle.

The sky above was a maelstrom, fierce beyond anything on the ground. It was as if the realms of fantasy penned by ancient writers had come alive. The Frost Dragon used every weapon at its disposal—jaws, wings, claws—assaulting the sword-wielding man before it. Ice spears and dragon’s breath rained down.

Yet the man, wielding the Quenched White Jade Divine Sword, conjured formation after formation beneath his feet—Fiery Departure, Water Abyss—each step summoning a new array that kept the dragon’s attacks at bay.

Now, the king held his sword to his chest, its tip aimed skyward, fire pouring from its blade. He circled the Frost Dragon, shifting positions.

“Water Abyss!” the king roared. His white Kirin battle armor shimmered with light, and a rectangular frame appeared at his feet, marked with the characters “Water Abyss.” Until now, he had only shouted the term; for the first time, it manifested visibly.

Simultaneously, two diagrams of Fiery Departure materialized above and below the Frost Dragon’s wings. As four arrays emerged from the void, the king’s sword unleashed torrents of fire, coalescing into a mighty Kirin that strained against its bonds, scorching the very air.

The four diagrams of Fiery Departure were unlike those used against the Phoenix; now, from each array’s heart, a flaming sword with a dragon-shaped hilt appeared, a miniature Kirin glaring fiercely from every point. Four swords, four Kirins, pierced the Frost Dragon’s wings from above and below, vaporizing them in fire that spared nothing.

Ye Bai, ready to rejoin the fight, looked up at this spectacle in awe, wiping sweat from his brow. Was such power truly within mortal reach? Dragons and phoenixes were one thing—this was a virtual world, after all—but these formations, these conjured Kirins?

He watched as the wingless Frost Dragon plummeted from the sky, landing between two bottomless chasms—the very places where its wings had been severed. The king, drained from his feat, appeared pale; his once blazing sword now looked ordinary, his stance unsteady as he nearly collapsed upon landing.

The earlier display had drawn all eyes, Hu Yan Jiayi’s among them. Seeing the king’s pallor, she immediately enveloped him in healing energy. As he absorbed her strength, the king wondered why he had not killed the Frost Dragon outright. That had been his intention—what, then, had changed?

Elsewhere in the Arya Realm, in a place as serene as a hidden paradise, an old man wiped the cold sweat from his brow and looked toward a green-robed figure.

“I did not expect the Five Elemental Formations to be developed to such a degree. That was clearly a second-tier array, but why only Fiery Departure and Water Abyss? Where were the others?”

The green-robed man teleported to the display screen and replayed the footage, releasing an aura so potent that the entire space trembled. The old man quickly bowed his head—the majesty of a king was not for mortals to behold.

The sudden arrival of the Celestial Wood King had startled him. Upon appearing, the king had simply said, “Do not let the Frost Dragon die,” and then the rest had unfolded.

A commander-class beast indeed lived up to its stature—upon landing, the Frost Dragon immediately slew several human warriors, including five candidates who were whisked from the field before they could react.

The Frost Dragon rose and roared, causing the mutant beasts to split and clear a space a hundred paces wide for the final showdown: one dragon, twelve humans.

In the places where the Frost Dragon and Ice Phoenix were born, as the dragon roared, waves of newborn mutant beasts leapt from platforms, dying upon impact at the bottom of vast pits. Soon, the pits brimmed with blood, forming small lakes.

Above these lakes, a device resembling an electrical generator began to radiate arcs of energy. At first, the sparks were small, but as the blood-lakes boiled, bolts of lightning lashed out, carving deep pits into the walls, the arcs hissing and corroding everything they touched.

In Snow City, the Frost Dragon was undergoing a second mutation.