129: Chapter 129 Resurrection

The owner of the footprints was struggling to trek forward.

Shen Xiao's footsteps landed in the accumulated snow, heavy and unsteady, his gait dangerously wavering.

The wound under his ribs was agitated by the cold, aching like needle pricks, and every breath carried the taste of rust.

Yet his gaze was like a blade quenched in fire, sharply cutting through the dim world before him.

They did not return along the original path.

In the direction of the Ice Abyss, although the nauseating aura of the Lin Yun Puppet had faded, who knew if it had left any contingencies behind?

Relying on his hazy memory of the original plot, combined with the occasional flickers of vague danger zone alerts from the System, Shen Xiao chose a more circuitous and dangerous route, heading northwest.

There was a dense forest there, called the Forest of Buried Bones.

The name itself exuded an ominous feeling.

The wind and snow eased slightly, and twisted shadows gradually emerged in the gray-white world before them.

They were not mountains, but something far more massive and deathly silent.

They had arrived at the Forest of Buried Bones.

The towering ancient trees had long since frozen to death. Their trunks were covered in thick shells of ice, reflecting a ghostly blue cold light under the bleak moonlight, like giant ice spears thrust into the earth.

Even more shocking were the skeletons scattered throughout the forest—huge skeletons belonging to Vicious Beasts of the ancient ice plains.

Some were dozens of feet long, their spines like collapsed city walls; others had skulls as large as houses, their empty eye sockets filled with ice and snow, emitting a wailing sound similar to weeping when the wind blew through them.

The air was bone-chillingly cold, mixed with a faint, indescribable scent of decay—the taste of death that even time could not completely freeze.

Shen Xiao stopped, his body leaning slightly forward, his right hand subconsciously pressing against his ribs.

It was not because of the pain, but because he "felt" it.

That wisp of cold energy from the Tomb Guardian Seal was vibrating slightly in his Meridians like a cold probe.

This made him exceptionally sensitive to the loose icy energy in the surrounding environment.

"Something is wrong."

He said in a low, hoarse voice.

Xia Lengbai stopped almost the moment he spoke. Her ice-blue eyes scanned the front, but she did not detect any obvious spiritual energy fluctuations or signs of life.

"What is wrong?"

"The energy... it's very chaotic."

Shen Xiao narrowed his eyes and looked at an area to his front-left, obscured by giant ribs.

There was nothing there, at least not to the naked eye.

But in his perception, the "temperature" of that area was abnormally low, and it was pulsing slowly and irregularly, as if something was... coalescing.

Just then, in the corner of his vision, the System interface, which only he could see, silently refreshed with a line of cold blue text:

[Detected residual "Heavenly Dao Correction" energy traces]

[Energy status: Fused with subterranean Yin Qi]

[Aggregating and generating: Mutant Chaos Beast (Prototype)]

[Threat Rank: Low (Current state) / High (Complete form)]

[Suggestion: Avoid or Utilize]

Heavenly Dao correction energy?

Shen Xiao's eyes narrowed.

It seemed the commotion he caused in the Ice Abyss earlier was significant, as even the Heavenly Dao rules in this area had been "polluted," creating this bizarre derivative.

Avoid?

He licked his somewhat cracked lips, tasting ice shards and blood.

Avoiding it was the safest choice; he could just bypass it while injured.

But he didn't move.

Of the last two options in that line of text, "Avoid" was gray, while "Utilize"... was glowing faintly.

Utilize.

How to utilize it?

Shen Xiao's gaze swept quickly across his surroundings.

Frozen ancient trees, massive animal bones, cold subterranean Yin Qi, and that coalescing, resentment-filled Chaos energy.

A rough yet bold idea split through his mind, which was somewhat chaotic due to pain, like a bolt of lightning.

"There's something there."

He lowered his voice and said to Xia Lengbai, his tone resolute,

"It's not a living creature, it's... residual Heavenly Dao garbage that is taking shape."

Xia Lengbai looked in the direction of his gaze. Deep within her ice-blue pupils, a faint silver light seemed to flash—this was the power of the Tomb Guardian Seal actively perceiving.

"I feel it. It's very filthy energy, carrying... resentment and Death Qi."

Her voice also turned cold. She instinctively loathed this kind of energy.

"Can we deal with it?"

Shen Xiao asked directly.

"It's troublesome."

Xia Lengbai said truthfully,

"This thing exists between the virtual and the real. Ordinary spiritual energy attacks have limited effect unless we use purer cold energy to wear it down, or find its energy core to destroy it in one blow."

She paused and added,

"But I'm not in good condition right now. If I force myself to use too much power from the Tomb Guardian Seal, I won't be able to suppress it."

"Not in good condition" was a euphemism; the "anchor point" set by the Heavenly Dao in her body and the trauma caused by Shen Xiao's previous plundering were both hidden dangers.

Shen Xiao didn't expect her to confront it head-on.

His gaze landed on a particularly massive skeleton not far to the side.

It was the skeleton of an ice plain wolf, over ten meters long. Even though it had long since died, the skeleton still exuded a fierce aura from when it was alive.

What was most special was its skull, with deeply sunken eye sockets and a relatively intact cranium.

"Can you inject cold energy into that skeleton?"

Shen Xiao said quickly, pointing his finger at the wolf bone,

"Not to freeze it, but to guide it, like controlling a Puppet... to make it move. Can you do that?"

Xia Lengbai was slightly stunned. She looked at him, her eyes filled with scrutiny and a trace of imperceptible surprise.

Controlling the skeleton of a dead thing?

This required extremely precise control of cold energy, and... it sounded very much like the methods of a demonic cultivator.

But she didn't ask more, nor did she hesitate.

She stared at Shen Xiao for half a second with ink-black eyes like painted lacquer, then nodded:

"I can try. But the control time will be very short, and..."

"That's enough."

Shen Xiao interrupted her,

"I don't need it to fight, I just need it to... be 'conspicuous' enough."

He quickly explained his plan in a low voice.

It was simple, even somewhat crude, but filled with a sense of desperate risk-taking.

After hearing it, Xia Lengbai didn't say yes or no.

She just walked to the giant ice plain wolf skeleton, reached out, and her pale, slender fingers hovered in the air, pressing down above the wolf's skull.

A wisp of extremely pure cold energy, as if capable of freezing the Soul, quietly overflowed from her fingertips, like a silver snake possessing life, winding its way into the wolf bone's eye sockets.

Hum...

An extremely slight vibration.

The ice shell covering the massive wolf bone fell off with a rustling sound.

Immediately after, two points of ghostly blue, icy light suddenly lit up deep within the eye sockets!

Clack... Clack-clack...

A teeth-grinding sound of bones rubbing against each other rang out.

The wolf bone, which had been silent for who knew how many years, first trembled slightly, and then, the bone claws of its forelimbs dug into the ground, its hind limbs exerting force...

It, surprisingly, was really trying to stand up!

The movements were stiff, slow, and full of dissonance, but that suddenly erupted, cold and violent "life" fluctuation, burst outward!

It was like throwing a boulder into a deathly silent pond.

The anomalous energy area ahead, that slowly coalescing Chaos energy, seemed to have received the most direct provocation and attraction!

Whoosh!

Without warning, a twisted shadow mixed with ghastly white resentment, pitch-black Death Qi, and countless ice-blue fragments lunged out from that area!

It had no fixed form, like a cloud of maliciously squirming mist, and in the center, there was vaguely a blurry face full of pain and resentment!

The mutant Chaos Beast, completely enraged by this abruptly appearing "living creature" carrying an icy aura, instantly locked its predatory target onto the wolf bone Puppet that was struggling to stand!

"Retreat!"

Shen Xiao gave a low shout, grabbed Xia Lengbai's arm, and the two retreated without hesitation toward the back of a huge beast bone remnant to the side.

At the same time, Shen Xiao's will, through the weak connection remaining in that wisp of Xia Lengbai's cold energy, slammed fiercely toward the core of the wolf bone...

The final command was not to attack, not to defend.

It was to self-destruct!

The ice plain wolf bone, which had just struggled to stand halfway up, saw the ghostly blue light in its eye sockets instantly surge to the extreme!

The entire skeleton emitted an unbearable, sharp humming sound, the ice shell on its body surface cracking inch by inch, and destructive cold light shone through the cracks!

The Chaos beast shadow had already lunged close, and the giant claw condensed from resentment was about to strike down!

At this very moment...

Boom!!!

There were no flames, only extreme cold and destruction.

The wolf bone Puppet exploded completely!

Tens of thousands of bone fragments, soaked in the cold energy of the Tomb Guardian Seal, mixed with the subterranean Yin Qi of the ice plains compressed to the extreme, turned into a ghostly blue storm of destruction that swept across a radius of ten zhang!

At the core of the storm were those two points of exploding ghostly blue light, containing a wisp of Xia Lengbai's pure power from the Tomb Guardian Seal.

The Chaos beast shadow crashed headlong into this storm.

"Awoo!!!"

A shrill, neither human nor beast, wail rang out.

The body composed of resentment and Death Qi was crazily torn and pierced by countless bone fragments containing extreme cold and purification properties!

The ghostly blue cold energy of the Tomb Guardian Seal was like strong acid poured on snow, crazily dissolving the filthy energy that made up its body.

The storm lasted for a mere two or three breaths.

When the last bone shard fell with a trail of ice blue, that hideous Chaos beast shadow had shrunk by more than two-thirds, becoming extremely thin and transparent, with even that face of resentment becoming blurry and indistinct.

It let out a sharp cry full of unwillingness and fear, and suddenly shrank backward, attempting to flee back to that energy gathering place.

But after such an explosion, its originally slow aggregation process was interrupted, its core was damaged, and the surrounding Yin Qi became disordered. It wouldn't be able to return to its original state anytime soon, let alone pursue them.

Residual, faint resentment energy dissipated in the air. Part of it merged into the surrounding ice, snow, and skeletal remains, while part of it quietly... seemed to be absorbed by the deeper subterranean Yin Qi in that area.

Shen Xiao leaned against the beast bone remains and coughed violently.

Pfft...

A mouthful of dark red blood mixed with ice shards sprayed onto the snow, shocking to the eye.

The opposing cold energy and spiritual energy in his body clashed even more fiercely, and his internal organs felt as if they had been displaced.

But after he finished coughing, he lifted his head.

In those eyes, which were slightly dim due to blood loss and exhaustion, there was now a startling brightness, as if two clusters of cold flames were burning.

His gaze remained on the area where the wolf bone had self-destructed and the Chaos beast had dispersed.

The corners of his mouth slowly pulled into an extremely subtle arc.

The power of the Tomb Guardian Seal... could actually be used like this.

Using Xia Lengbai's pure cold energy as a guide, injecting it into a dead object, simulating "life force," attracting aggro, and then detonating it... This was not just a successful trap attack.

This was like a key.

A key that might be used to pry open even more things.

He wiped the bloodstain from the corner of his mouth, his cold fingertips stained with red.

Then, coughing, he slowly straightened his body, his gaze crossing the messy battlefield before him and casting toward the further northwest direction filled with wind and snow.

Xia Lengbai looked at his blood-stained mouth, then followed his gaze, her ice-blue eyes narrowing slightly.

Shen Xiao didn't look back, but opened his mouth in a hoarse voice, carrying a trace of weakness after just coughing up blood, yet it was exceptionally clear:

"Do you think..."