75: Chapter 75 Resonance of Destiny

The bone-chilling cold returned before his consciousness did.

Shen Xiao was frozen awake, or rather, dragged back to reality by the unfamiliar, sluggish sensation in his Dantian and the blade-like pain in his Meridians.

He lay on a floating ice floe, half his face submerged in the eerily blue, bone-chilling pool water, every breath bringing out ice shards condensed within his lungs.

His body was as stiff as a frozen rock, but thanks to the terrifyingly pure cold-attribute spiritual energy in this deadly pool constantly washing over him, the wounds torn by the spatial turbulence had actually stopped bleeding and even begun to slowly heal; the price, however, was the cold—a cold that made even the gaps in his bones tremble.

The real trouble lay within.

He gathered his remaining sliver of consciousness and sank it into his Dantian.

The Dark Gold Core was still spinning, but it did so in a stumbling, jerky manner, like an old, haphazardly repaired gear.

On the surface of the core, the silver border that had originally coiled around it, radiating a cold, surveillance-like aura, was gone. In its place was a circle of extremely faint silver markings that had almost fused with the core itself.

Those markings were crooked, like an ugly scar, or perhaps some strange circuit forced onto it, deeply embedded in the core's energy cycle.

[System Log Refreshed.]

[Status: Unknown high-level protocol marker (Conversion State) has been embedded into the host's core. Energy compatibility initially established. Stability pending observation.]

[New Passive Ability: Weak 'Destiny Resonance' (Perception range severely limited; only produces vague sensing for intense fluctuations in Luck and specific residual homologous energy).]

[New Restriction: Due to permanent changes in core structure and energy channel compatibility loss, the host's core energy maximum output efficiency is permanently reduced by 30%.]

Shen Xiao looked at that last line, and the corners of his mouth twitched.

A permanent thirty percent reduction.

Good grief, this was equivalent to slapping a permanent debuff of weakness on him, the kind that couldn't even be uninstalled.

The Gravekeeper terminal's "surveillance patch" had completely backfired; not only did it fail to monitor him, but it had "welded" itself to his core, throwing in a crippled version of a new ability and a deadly permanent penalty as a bonus.

He tried to mobilize his spiritual energy.

The Dark Gold Core shuddered slightly, and the silver markings on its surface lit up with an imperceptible glimmer. A surge of spiritual energy rose at his thought, only to immediately collide with an invisible "blockage."

It was as if a rough weld had suddenly appeared in a water pipe; when the flow passed through, it was no longer smooth but stuttered, its speed and power slashed by a significant margin.

By the time it reached the ends of his Meridians, that sluggish sensation became even more pronounced, even pulling at his unhealed internal injuries and bringing a dull ache.

A thirty percent loss—the physical sensation was even worse than that.

But at the same time, another strange sensation was triggered.

It wasn't visual or auditory; it was more like a vague "sense of touch" on an energetic level.

When he focused his attention on this nascent passive ability, "Destiny Resonance," extremely faint ripples seemed to stir in the depths of his Sea of Consciousness.

He "sensed" it—on the other side of the cold pool, in a place extremely far away where the direction was hard to judge precisely, there was a trace of familiar, cold, silver fluctuation, so weak it was almost about to extinguish at any moment. It flickered like a candle in the wind, then vanished completely, leaving no trace.

It was Xia Lengbai.

The homologous energy of the Tomb Guardian Seal.

She was very far away and had clearly used some extremely advanced concealment method.

Shen Xiao's heart sank slightly, but he quickly cast this fluctuation aside.

Now was not the time to look for that woman.

Because another perception, far more intense than Xia Lengbai's faint signal, was rolling in from the general direction he had come from—the area where the portal had collapsed! It was like a scorching sun in the dark night, carrying undisguised aggression and oppression.

It was a mass of scorching, vast golden light of Luck, filled with a twisted "sense of destiny"!

It moved extremely fast, like a red-hot branding iron sliding across the ice field; wherever it passed, even the pervasive cold air was pushed aside and evaporated by an invisible force.

What made Shen Xiao's spine chill even more was that the mass of golden light was not aimless; its "tentacles" had already swept across a large area like a searchlight and were currently tilting slightly, faintly locking onto the area of the cold pool where he was!

Lin Yun had pursued him. And, the guidance of destiny had allowed him to lock onto the general vicinity.

"Shen Xiao!"

The voice, like a cold wind scraping across the ice field, rang out abruptly. With the reinforcement of vast spiritual energy, it ignored distance, clearly spreading in all directions, even causing debris to fall from the ice walls by the pool.

"Hand over everything you have plundered, and this seat might grant you a quick death."

There was not much anger in the voice, only a sense of high-and-mighty, cold judgment.

Accompanying the voice was an increasingly heavy pressure of Luck, like an invisible tide washing over the ice field.

On the surface of the cold pool, the ice layer near the shore emitted a "creaking" sound, unable to bear the weight, as fine cracks spread out.

Shen Xiao lay on the floating ice, his eyes cold.

Fight him head-on?

In his current state of low health, plus the permanently weakened core, facing Lin Yun, who was in perfect condition and bolstered by Luck, was no different from throwing his life away.

Run?

This cold pool was open; although there were some huge ice prisms and broken icebergs by the shore to provide cover, under the coverage of Lin Yun's near-cheating perception of Luck, moving rashly would only make it easier to expose his precise location.

His brain worked at high speed, his gaze sweeping over the surrounding environment, finally landing on the Dark Gold Core with the silver markings in his Dantian, as well as the crippled ability he had just unlocked in his Sea of Consciousness.

Destiny Resonance... the weak points in the perception coverage...

Time to gamble.

Shen Xiao took a deep breath of the freezing, lung-stinging air, suppressing the pain in his Meridians and the sluggishness of his core.

Instead of fully restraining his aura, he carefully squeezed out a sliver of extremely weak spiritual energy from his Dark Gold Core.

This wisp of spiritual energy was dark in color, but mixed with a point of highly uncoordinated, dim silver radiance at the core—that was the aura brought out when the silver markings on the core's surface were triggered; it was the "Impurities" resulting from the System's abnormal conversion, and also the unique trace left behind after the Gravekeeper terminal was forcibly fused with his core.

He mixed this wisp of spiritual energy into the thick, cold water vapor around him, like a drop of ink falling into clear water—extremely subtle, yet carrying an "abnormality" that could not be ignored.

Then, he used this wisp of spiritual energy mixed with the abnormal aura like throwing bait, and gently "tapped" it onto a complex shadowy area by the pool formed by the intersection of several huge ice prisms.

The spiritual energy flashed and vanished, leaving only a faint yet unique fluctuation, like a startled fish blowing a bubble.

Almost at the same time, Shen Xiao poured all the remaining strength in his body, including the sliver of energy he had just recovered, into his limbs.

Like a real stone, he slid silently from the edge of the floating ice into the bottomless, eerily blue pool water.

The bone-chilling cold instantly enveloped his entire body, almost freezing his blood.

But he ignored it, his body rigid, and like the most seasoned deep-water fish, he swam with all his might toward the depths of the cold pool, and in the opposite direction of that cluster of ice prisms.

At the same time, he focused all his concentration on that nascent "Destiny Resonance" perception, like an invisible net, nervously capturing any change in the area covered by the golden Luck above him.

He was gambling—gambling that Lin Yun would be distracted by that suddenly appearing, familiar yet abnormal (System trace + Gravekeeper silver radiance) energy fluctuation; gambling that the vast perception of Luck would subconsciously prioritize rushing toward the "anomaly point," thereby creating a tiny, fleeting "blind spot" or "lag" in other areas of its massive coverage network, especially beneath the seemingly calm deep water.

Above.

Lin Yun's figure had already appeared above the cold pool, wreathed in golden light, his eyes sweeping over the eerily blue pool water below like lightning.

His powerful Divine Sense and perception of Luck were like mercury pouring onto the ground, covering every corner.

Just as he was about to complete the full scan.

That faint yet unique abnormal fluctuation coming from the ice prism cluster by the pool was keenly captured by him.

"Hmm?"

Lin Yun knitted his brows.

That fluctuation... it had Shen Xiao's detestable plunderer aura, but deeper down, it seemed to be mixed with a trace of... cold silver radiance that was homologous to this Forbidden Ground of the Ice Abyss, yet completely different?

Was it the Legacy power of the Gravekeeper?

Or was it some new trick of that System?

Better to kill the wrong one than to let one slip. Especially these kinds of abnormal signals.

Almost the moment the thought arose, Lin Yun had already acted.

He did not even move his body; he simply pressed a palm down from a distance, aimed at that ice prism area.

A huge palm print, condensed purely from golden Luck spiritual energy, appeared in the air. The edges of the palm print burned with an invisible fire of fate, carrying the might to suppress everything, and slammed fiercely onto that cluster of ice prisms!

Crack! Boom!

Several huge blue ice prisms, over ten zhang high and harder than fine iron, instantly exploded like fragile glass under this palm!

Countless ice blocks, large and small, were lifted, crushed, and evaporated by the violent force, leaving behind a scorched black palm print with a diameter of several tens of zhang. The cold air was swept away, and large swathes of white mist were steamed up from the pool water.

And it was precisely when this golden palm print erupted, when Lin Yun's attention and power of Luck were inevitably tilted toward that "anomaly point," and simultaneously, in order to expand the battle results, he concentrated part of his perception to judge the effect of the palm print and search for any spatial traces hidden within the range of the palm print.

In an instant.

In Shen Xiao's tightly strained "Destiny Resonance" perception, he clearly "saw" that the golden "great net" covering the water area above his head, specifically in the area directly below the deep pool, especially in an area near the shadow of a huge broken iceberg, "thinned" for a fleeting moment!

It was like a tiny gap being blown open in thick clouds by the wind!

Now!

Shen Xiao's curled-up body, like a spring compressed to the limit, suddenly stretched out!

He no longer swam; instead, he kicked his feet hard against a piece of underwater dark ice behind him, and using the recoil force, like an arrow leaving the bow, he shot diagonally upward, bursting out of the water from that "Luck-thinned" shadow area!

Splash!

The water splashed slightly, but he quickly suppressed it with his remaining spiritual energy.

His whole person was like a ghost, sticking tightly to the shadow on the back of that huge broken iceberg. The moment his body touched the cold ice, the bone-chilling cold made his wounds twitch, but he crushed even a groan deep in his throat.

He didn't even look back to see if Lin Yun had noticed.

Relying on the feedback from his "Resonance" perception—the extremely tiny overall "shift" and "inertia" of Lin Yun's power of Luck caused by that palm strike—Shen Xiao used his hands and feet like a gecko. Following the shadow of the iceberg and the areas where the water mist was thickest, he fled for his life toward the Ice Rift Valley area, which was more complex and fragmented in terrain, and completely opposite to the direction where Xia Lengbai's aura had disappeared!

His movements were fast to the extreme, and quiet to the extreme.

Every step landed on the most solid ice, and every leverage avoided broken ice that might make a sound.

The Dark Gold Core operated frantically, regardless of the consumption, providing the spiritual energy needed to support this short burst. The silver markings on its surface flickered violently, bringing waves of sharp pain, but also allowing his body to maintain a strange "coordination" in this extreme state.

Above, the aftershocks of the golden palm print slowly dissipated.

Lin Yun hovered in the air, looking at the ice prism ruins below, which had been smashed into a mess by one palm but were now empty, his brows furrowed.

No corpse, no obvious residual spatial fluctuations, and even that trace of abnormal energy fluctuation had dissipated under the palm print, leaving only the purest aura of destruction.

Not right.

His Divine Sense swept across the entire cold pool water area like a violent wind, especially the depths of the pool.

The pool water was deep, the spiritual energy chaotic, and the weak Dark Gold Spiritual Energy fluctuations brought up by Shen Xiao when he dived remained, but... where was the person?

The next second, Lin Yun's gaze suddenly turned to the other side of the cold pool, toward the shadow of that huge iceberg.

There, a trace of Shen Xiao's plunderer aura, extremely faint and almost covered by the overall cold aura of the pool, was drifting away like a gossamer thread in the wind, and moving rapidly!

The direction... that Ice Rift Valley to the northeast!

He had been played!

Lin Yun's handsome face instantly darkened until it could drip water, golden light flashed violently in his eyes, and the monstrous anger mixed with the shame of being toyed with by an ant erupted.

He didn't even bother to think about how Shen Xiao had managed to pull off this feint to escape under his lock of Luck; that didn't matter.

What mattered was that the prey had escaped again, and in a way that was almost provocative.

"Seeking death!"

The two cold words were squeezed out from between his teeth.

Golden light flared around Lin Yun, and without holding anything back, his figure transformed into a golden lightning bolt tearing through the sky, chasing after the trace of aura that was rapidly dissipating, and violently rushed toward the direction of the Ice Rift Valley!

His speed was so fast that it left a sonic boom in the air, and wherever he passed, even the falling ice crystals were shredded by the fierce energy.

The cold pool returned to deathly silence, with only the messy ice surface and the gradually merging ripples in the pool proving the danger that had just occurred.

In the distance, in the shadow of the dog-tooth, bottomless rift entrance of the Ice Rift Valley.

A figure, drenched and covered in wounds, like a wounded beast that had exhausted its last ounce of strength, stumbled and collapsed behind an inverted ice cone.

Shen Xiao leaned against the bone-chilling ice wall, gasping violently, every breath carrying blood foam and ice shards.

He looked up, glanced at the direction from which Lin Yun's golden light had come, and then quickly lowered his head, his gaze landing on his palm, which was trembling slightly from the excessive mobilization of spiritual energy, and where the silver-gold key marking on the back of his hand seemed to have become a fraction clearer.

He tugged at the corners of his frozen, blue-tinged mouth, and silently, revealed an arc mixed with pain, exhaustion, but also a hint of grim anticipation.

Then, he closed his eyes, the Dark Gold Core within him gradually slowed down, and all externalized auras retracted rapidly like a receding tide.

The temperature on his skin surface dropped rapidly, his heartbeat slowed to an almost standstill, and his breathing became so weak it was almost undetectable.

His whole person seemed to turn into a piece of lifeless ice, completely merging into the depths of the shadows of this broken, cold, and death-filled Ice Rift Valley.