118: Chapter 118 Shadow Abyss, an Ambitious Man

The Ice Crystal Race's Extreme Cold Domain and the Ash Elves' Furnace Power collided on the Ash Scorched Earth.

Ice and fire, cold and heat, blue and red—two extreme forces intertwined, tearing apart the earth, the sky, and every inch of Yin Qi in the air.

Ice Crystal Race warriors wove through the Ash Elves, their ice blades severing the bodies of the Ash Elves and freezing their flames into ice sculptures. Ash Elf warriors charged through the Ice Crystal Race, their flaming longswords melting the bodies of the Ice Crystal Race and evaporating their cold ice into steam.

The battle lasted for seven days and seven nights.

The Frost King and Jin clashed on the highest peak of the Ash Scorched Earth. Ice blades and flaming longswords collided as the Extreme Cold Domain and Furnace Power stood in opposition. The two forces were evenly matched, with neither able to overcome the other.

But the number of the Ice Crystal Race was too small. Fifteen thousand against nine hundred thousand—even if the individual combat power of the Ice Crystal Race was stronger, it could not make up for the gap in numbers.

On the seventh day, the Frost King's Extreme Cold Domain began to shrink. It wasn't that his power was insufficient, but that the environment of the Ash Scorched Earth was too harsh. The Yin Qi in the air was heated by magma, turning into scorching gray-white mist that eroded the bodies of the Ice Crystal Race, causing their Ice Crystals to begin melting.

The Frost King sensed danger.

He ordered a retreat.

Thirty thousand Ice Crystal warriors retreated to the Extreme Cold Ice Plains, leaving behind ice crystal fragments and ash remains scattered across the ground.

The Ice Crystal Race lost eight thousand warriors. The Ash Elves lost fifty thousand.

The Ash Elves won, but they couldn't smile. Their home had become even more desolate during the war; volcanoes were frozen, ashes were solidified, and magma was cooled. It would take them at least ten years to recover.

After the Ice Crystal Race retreated to the Extreme Cold Ice Plains, they began to expand frantically. They extended their Extreme Cold Domain to the banks of the Gray River and built an ice wall on the river's surface, completely separating the Ash Scorched Earth from the Extreme Cold Ice Plains.

From then on, the Gray River became the boundary between ice and fire.

Su Bai watched this war from the world core without intervening.

He needed to know if these races could find their own place within the Netherworld World.

If they couldn't, then they didn't deserve to exist.

The Human Race had already found their place in the Netherworld, providing the purest Power Of Faith every day.

The fiftieth year.

The Shadow Walkers of the Gloom Realm began to take action.

Shadow Walkers were shadow creatures living in eternal night. Their bodies were condensed from pure shadow energy, having no fixed form and able to transform at will in the darkness. Their eyes were eerie purple, flickering with a strange light in the dark, and their voices sounded like the night wind whistling through withered branches.

One million Shadow Walkers were settled in the Gloomy Swamp. That swamp was located at the southernmost tip of the Netherworld World, shrouded in thick fog year-round, where sunlight could never penetrate the mixture of Yin Qi and mist. For the Shadow Walkers, this place was paradise.

But the Shadow Walkers were not satisfied with paradise.

Their nature was expansion.

The leader of the Shadow Walkers was an existence called "Ying Yuan." His body was three times larger than other Shadow Walkers, his shadow energy condensed into substance, and his eyes were deep purple, with countless struggling souls devoured within his pupils. His rank was the peak of the Fifth Order.

Ying Yuan did not intend to attack head-on like the Blood Race. He had seen the fate of the Blood Race—that hunched old woman holding a bowl of soup had turned six hundred and fifty thousand Blood Race members into ashes. In a direct confrontation, the Shadow Walkers were no match for the Netherworld.

But the Shadow Walkers didn't need to fight head-on.

Their abilities were stealth, infiltration, and assassination. Their bodies could blend into any shadow, their presence hidden within any wisp of Yin Qi; they were inherently part of the shadows.

Ying Yuan's plan was simple: infiltrate every corner of the Netherworld World, gather intelligence, find weaknesses, and then strike a fatal blow.

They wanted to become the masters of the entire Netherworld World!

Ying Yuan was a true ambitious man; he not only wanted to unify the entire Mortal Realm but even the Underworld as well!

In the fifty-first year, the first batch of Shadow Walkers infiltrated the New Era Ruins.

They turned into shadows, attaching themselves to human shadows and moving as the humans moved. While humans prayed, they observed from the shadows; while humans worked, they learned from the shadows; while humans slept, they waited in the shadows.

No one discovered them.

By the fifty-fifth year, the Shadow Walkers' tentacles had spread to every corner of the Netherworld World. They observed the Ghost King in the shadows of the Ghost Gate Pass, sensed Meng Po at the bottom of the River of Oblivion, eavesdropped on Black and White Impermanence from the rafters of the Hall of Impermanence, and peeked at Ox-Head and Horse-Face at the entrance of the Tongue-Pulling Hell.

Under Su Bai's instructions, the Ten Great Yin Marshals and Meng Po all pretended not to notice the presence of the Shadow Walkers.

Su Bai was also curious; this was the first such ambitious existence in his Netherworld World.

He wanted to see just how far this Ying Yuan could go.

Of course, if Ying Yuan truly launched a massive invasion of the Netherworld's Underworld, they wouldn't even be able to pass the Ghost Gate Pass.

Under Su Bai's instructions, the Shadow Walkers gathered a massive amount of intelligence.

The Ghost King's Ghost Domain could expand to a diameter of a hundred zhang, and the ghost king sword's Nether Slash required charging. Black and White Impermanence's Life and Death Impermanence skill had a seven-day cooldown and required both of them to act simultaneously. Ox-Head and Horse-Face's Escort Impermanence ignored spatial lockdowns, but the escort distance was only a hundred li. Meng Po's Meng Po Soup needed to touch the target to take effect, and Meng Po herself never left the Bridge of Helplessness.

Ying Yuan felt he had found the Netherworld's weaknesses.

In the sixtieth year, the Shadow Walkers launched a full-scale infiltration.

It wasn't a war, but an infiltration.

Ying Yuan personally led one hundred thousand Shadow Walkers to infiltrate the core area of the Netherworld World.

Underworld Space.

Their target was the Ghost Gate Pass.

As long as they controlled the Ghost Gate Pass, they could cut off the Netherworld World's source of power. The Ghost Gate Pass absorbed the energy of departed souls and converted it into the Netherworld's power. Without the Ghost Gate Pass, the Netherworld would wither.

One hundred thousand Shadow Walkers turned into invisible shadows, following the flow of Yin Qi and silently approaching the Ghost Gate Pass.

The Ghost Gate Pass stood towering, the runes on its doors flickering with a faint blue light. One hundred thousand Shadow Walkers gathered in the shadows of the Ghost Gate Pass, preparing to infiltrate the cracks in the doors and erode the energy of the runes.

Ying Yuan stood at the very front, his deep purple eyes looking at the thousand-zhang-tall gate, a weird curve rising at the corners of his mouth.

"The gateway to the Netherworld is about to become the territory of the shadows."

He raised his hand, and one hundred thousand Shadow Walkers released shadow energy simultaneously. That energy gathered into a pitch-black torrent, surging toward the doors of the Ghost Gate Pass.