239: Burn everything together

“But our ship…”

“It’s just a tool, not our life.”

“We must get the crown of wisdom one step ahead of them before they completely disrupt the city’s defense system.”

“Senior Dongfang, if you and I join forces, can we tear open a bloody path?”

Oriental Shuo glanced at Su Lei, then at the Puppets, glowing with crimson light, that were once again closing in outside the window.

“This old man’s sword has not truly left its sheath for a hundred years.”

He said in a low voice, “Today, let these lifeless iron lumps witness what the edge of Heavenly Dao is.”

Li Xue凝 walked to the weapon control console without a word and pulled out a rhomboid crystal from a hidden recess.

That was the black tortoise’s last self-destruct energy.

“I’ll cover the rear.”

The three exchanged glances, no more words were needed.

The tacit understanding between life and death transcended all language.

The heavy hatch opened with a grating metallic screech, and a cold wind swept in.

The moment the hatch opened, dozens of ice crystal spears whipped up a storm of death, whistling in like a downpour, sealing off all possible exits.

“Good timing!”

Oriental Shuo advanced instead of retreating, letting out a low shout, and his entire being transformed into a blurry afterimage, actually charging headfirst into that barrage of death!

He pointed two fingers like a sword, and in front of him, he seemingly casually made a light slash.

An invisible and formless transparent Sword Qi appeared out of thin air.

All ice crystal spears that touched it instantly began to disintegrate from within, breaking down into their most primitive ice elements, and dissipating into the deep water!

This was Oriental Shuo’s lifelong immersion in the Dao of the sword, Guiyuan.

With one sword strike, a temporary, massive gap appeared in the Puppet formation ahead.

“Go!”

Su Lei seized this fleeting opportunity, his figure flashing, already appearing a hundred meters away like a phantom.

However, the number of Puppets was simply too great.

As soon as the gap appeared ahead, even more Puppets from behind and on both sides fearlessly surrounded them, their cold gleaming battle axes and long spears forming cold, rapidly operating meat grinders in the darkness.

At the same time, deep within the city, the dark energy fluctuation belonging to the Forgotten Ones Sect was rapidly approaching their direction at an alarming speed.

Attacked from front and back, above and below, all were dead ends.

“Now!”

Su Lei’s Divine Soul power erupted at this moment.

“Eternal Instant!”

Buzz!!

Centered on Su Lei, within a spherical space with a radius of three hundred meters, the entire world seemed to have been paused.

Time was forcibly taken away.

Those Puppets with raised battle axes, those piercing ice spears, those splashing ice shards, along with the slowly flowing cold Qi around them, were all frozen into a still, grayscale sketch devoid of all color at this moment.

“Xue Ning!”

Su Lei’s mental transmission was like a thunderclap, exploding in Li Xue凝’s Sea of Consciousness.

Li Xue凝 was already prepared.

She unhesitatingly pressed that last energy core into the black tortoise’s bridge self-destruct device.

“Goodbye, old friend.”

She whispered softly, then her figure shot out of the hatch like an arrow from a bowstring, catching up with Su Lei and Oriental Shuo.

Just one second of stillness was enough to rewrite life and death for experts like them.

When the time confinement was lifted and the world resumed flowing, the figures of Su Lei, Li Xue凝, and Oriental Shuo had already appeared a thousand meters away.

Behind them, the loyal black tortoise, after a moment of extreme silence and a flash, exploded with a roar.

A violent, destructive energy sun rose slowly beneath the eternal ice layer.

A terrifying energy storm swept in all directions, turning hundreds of ice Puppets, who had just awakened from time stagnation, along with the mountain-like thick ice layer beneath their feet, into the most insignificant dust.

The massive explosion not only bought the three precious breathing room but also acted like a bloody signal, completely igniting the City of Frozen Ice that had slept for ten thousand years.

The entire city came alive.

Beneath the ice surfaces of countless streets, pairs of glowing blue eyes lit up one after another.

Tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of ice Puppets, awakened from their ten-thousand-year slumber, pouring out from buildings, from underground, from every corner of the city, converging into a blue, unstoppable torrent of death, surging madly towards the center of the explosion, which was the direction Su Lei and the others were in.

“Lunatics.”

In the distance, from the shadow of a collapsed tower, several mysterious figures in black robes quietly emerged, and the leader, looking at the slowly blooming energy mushroom cloud in the distance, let out a hoarse and satisfied sneer.

“To choose to self-destruct their vehicle, they do have some guts.

Good, they’ve drawn all the firepower for us.”

“Bishop, should we head to the White Tower now?”

A cultist asked softly behind him.

“No hurry.”

The man called the Bishop shook his head, his crimson eyes filled with calculation and greed.

“Let those remnants of the Council of Venerables go scout the way for us first.

The Queen’s Guards defending the tower are not comparable to these miscellaneous soldiers outside.

Once they and those cold guards are both severely wounded, we will reap the benefits.”

“Pass on my order, everyone, conceal your Qi and advance stealthily.

Remember, we are hunters in the shadows, not gladiators on a stage.”

“Understood.”

...Su Lei and the other two ran wildly, with the Puppet army behind them, like maggots on bones, in hot pursuit.

They did not choose to charge straight towards the central White Tower; that would be suicide.

Instead, they weaved and maneuvered through the intricate ice city buildings, using the complex terrain to try and shake off the endless pursuit.

“This isn’t going to work, our consumption is too great.”

Li Xue凝, while running, waved her hand to condense dozens of thick ice walls, temporarily blocking the Puppets behind, but those ice walls were instantly shattered by the steel torrent of the Puppet army.

Her Ice Phoenix Gang Qi, in this city constructed purely of ice Law, was repelled and suppressed by the entire environment every time she exerted power, and fine beads of sweat had already seeped onto her forehead.

“We must find a place to shake them off.”

Although Oriental Shuo’s Sword Qi was indestructible, each strike also consumed a huge amount of energy, and he was, after all, old, and his Protective Aura had begun to show signs of disorder.

Su Lei’s gaze swept over the surrounding buildings like the most precise radar.

These houses, constructed of solid ice, were mostly empty, crystal clear, with nowhere to hide.

Just as they were about to be completely submerged by the Puppet army behind them, Su Lei’s footsteps suddenly halted.

He stopped in front of a half-collapsed ice house.

Unlike all the other crystal clear and spotless buildings, the entrance of this ice house was covered with a thin layer of gray dust.