76: Chapter 76 A Mischievous Hand Tests a New Cheat

He curled his body, embedding himself into the narrow angle formed by two inverted ice stalactites. The space here was just enough for him to barely bend his knees; even an inch more would be a luxury.

He pushed his Turtle Breathing technique to its limit, slowing his heartbeat to an extreme, his breathing so weak it had almost ceased. His skin temperature was no different from the surrounding ice; at a glance, he looked like a human-shaped stone covered in thin frost.

Only in his Dantian, the Dark Gold Core with its Silver Pattern was rotating at an impossibly slow speed, with extreme difficulty.

Every faint cycle of spiritual energy tugged at his unhealed Meridians, bringing a dense, continuous pain, but it also maintained his last thread of life, preventing him from truly freezing into an ice sculpture.

Further within, in his Sea of Consciousness, the newly unlocked "Destiny Resonance" was like a malfunctioning radar—its screen flickering with static, yet it persistently scanned the surroundings.

There were no concrete images, only some vague "tactile sensations" based on the energy level.

He could "feel" that in the direction of the Ice Rift Valley entrance, that scorching, massive golden ball of Luck, filled with a sense of twisted destiny, was unhurriedly combing through the area near the valley entrance, over and over again, like a comb.

Each "combing" carried a cold sense of scrutiny and expulsion.

Lin Yun was not in a rush.

He was playing a game of cat and mouse, or perhaps, confirming whether the prey had truly crawled into this pocket.

Shen Xiao narrowed his eyes, hiding in the shadow of the ice stalactites, a layer of white frost forming on his eyelashes.

Passive perception was too slow, too blurry, like looking at the world through a layer of thick frosted glass.

He needed clearer intelligence; he needed to know the exact movements of that "golden light," and he needed to find a gap in this "pocket."

A thought emerged uncontrollably.

Test it.

He was already on his last legs, the System was half-dead, and the Core still carried a permanent debuff—how much worse could it get?

Carefully, he split off a wisp of "attention," so faint it was almost non-existent, from the stumbling rotation of the Dark Gold Core.

It wasn't spiritual energy, but more like an extension of his will, following the vague perceptual channel of "Destiny Resonance," moving extremely slowly and cautiously toward the most conspicuous golden light ball in the direction of the valley entrance.

It was like using a spider silk to touch burning charcoal.

The moment the probe made contact.

"Hmph!"

A cold snort, filled with supreme majesty, seemed to explode directly in the depths of his Divine Soul!

It wasn't a real sound, but an instinctive counterattack from the vast Luck after being "spied upon." It rushed back along that weak connection of intent like a burst dam, crashing toward him!

It wasn't a physical impact of force, but a crushing of pure "momentum," carrying intense intentions of "locking," "marking," and "erasing," slamming violently against his perception!

"Pfft!"

Shen Xiao's body trembled violently; his throat tasted sweet as a mouthful of blood surged up, which he swallowed down hard, a trickle of blood seeping from the corner of his mouth.

Inside his Dantian, the Silver Pattern on the surface of the Dark Gold Core suddenly stung, as if branded by a red-hot iron, its light flickering rapidly.

The connection snapped instantly.

Cold sweat instantly soaked through the already damp and cold clothes on his back.

"Damn..."

Shen Xiao cursed in his heart, gritting his teeth.

The reaction was too fast; it was like stepping on a high-voltage line.

The results of Test One were laid out in bloody detail: Resonance could actively establish an extremely weak connection, but it was no different from lighting a lamp in a dark forest; it would immediately expose his precise location and invite a ruthless backlash of Luck from the opponent.

Just from that one moment, if Lin Yun had been any closer, or if his probed "tentacle" had been even a fraction stronger, the backlash would have been enough to damage his Divine Soul.

It was not worth the loss.

He took a few heavy breaths filled with ice shards, suppressing the churning blood and the dizziness of his Divine Soul, forcing himself to calm down.

Since actively connecting to external targets was suicidal, then... what if he changed direction?

Shen Xiao withdrew his focus, no longer trying to "look" outward, but instead further shrinking and condensing the vague perception range of "Destiny Resonance," focusing on "listening" to and "touching" the surrounding environment itself—the more basic, more primitive energy flows deep within this Ice Rift Valley.

The flow of the cold air, the subtle changes in the stress within the ice layers, the faint sounds of ice crystals forming and peeling off on the distant ice walls, the trickling sound of pool water (if there was still water at the bottom of the valley) seeping through the ice crevices...

At first, it was still all Chaos.

But when he focused all his attention on this "background noise," some extremely faint, rhythmic things gradually emerged from the Chaos.

It was a... pulsation.

Coming from the deepest part of the Ice Rift Valley, from a distant corner whose direction was hard to determine.

It was extremely weak, so weak it felt like it might just be an illusion.

But its presence was so intense it was heart-stopping, because the cold-attribute energy contained within that pulsation was pure to an unbelievable degree, far more pure, ancient, and profound than the water in this cold pool, the ice walls of this Ice Rift Valley, or even any cold marrow he had encountered before.

It was like the... heart of all the cold in this extreme northern ice plain, slowly rising and falling in its sleep.

What made Shen Xiao's pupils contract even more was that when his resonant perception captured this pulsation, the Silver Pattern on the surface of the Dark Gold Core in his Dantian actually produced an extremely subtle, almost imperceptible resonance!

Certain parts of the pattern, following that deep pulsation, became slightly hot and slightly bright, as if there existed some unknown... synchronization between the two?

"System marker... homologous energy?" Shen Xiao's heart chilled.

He recalled the "Ice Abyss cold marrow (millennial)" and "heavenly dao chessboard - Northern Water Attribute Node - Derived Energy Crystal" that the System had previously prompted.

Could the source of that deep pulsation be the core cold marrow nurtured by this Ice Rift Valley?

Or... was it the thing guarding it?

No sooner had this thought arisen.

"Roar!!!"

A low, ancient roar, sounding as if thousands of ice layers were grinding and crushing against each other, suddenly exploded from the deepest part of the Ice Rift Valley!

The sound was not loud, but it carried a chill that could freeze the Soul, instantly sweeping across the entire valley!

On the walls of the ice crevice where Shen Xiao was hiding, a rapid "crackle" sounded across the deep blue ice surface, instantly freezing a thick layer of pale, sharp-spiked frost flowers!

The air seemed to be frozen, becoming viscous and heavy; every breath felt like swallowing ice shards.

That heart-stoppingly pure chill was no longer a pulsation; it had transformed into a tangible, primitive, and violent pressure, rushing up from the valley floor like a tsunami!

The hair all over Shen Xiao's body stood on end instantly!

He had alerted it!

His focused resonant "spying" was like a pebble thrown into the dream of an ancient sleeping beast, waking it up!

This was not a simple cold marrow energy source at all; it was an ancient ice plain Vicious Beast that fed on pure cold marrow or lived right at the core of the cold marrow!

The pressure it emitted was pure, cold, and violent, making him feel an instinctive fear in his current heavily injured state, even more so than the pressure of Lin Yun's vast yet "orderly" Luck!

Almost at the same instant the beast's roar sounded and the pressure erupted, Shen Xiao's body reacted before his brain.

Like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, he shot out from the ice crevice where he was hiding, ignoring the agonizing pain of his wounds tearing open, and not bothering to conceal his movements, he scrambled and kicked off the ice walls with his hands and feet, fleeing for his life in one direction!

The direction was carefully chosen—neither where Lin Yun was at the valley entrance, nor directly below where the beast's roar came from, but an area at an angle to both, on the side wall of the Ice Rift Valley where the ice layer looked the most shattered and the crevices were the densest.

The terrain there was complex; perhaps there were crevices where he could hide, or... it would allow him to crawl deeper and use the complex terrain to maneuver.

"Crackle! Boom!"

Behind him, the ice wall where he had just been hiding, along with dozens of feet of the surrounding area, suddenly exploded!

It wasn't shattered by external force, but frozen and compressed from within by a terrifying chill, and then crumbled!

Countless huge ice blocks mixed with pale frost shot into the sky, and a massive, deep blue figure slowly "flowed" out from the depths of the shattered glacier.

The thing had no clear form; it was more like a constantly writhing and changing aggregate of deep blue glacial crystals, over a dozen feet tall, barely revealing the outline of a thick torso and several "limbs" made of sharp ice stalactites that were constantly waving.

It had no eyes, no nose; where its head should be, there was only a huge, deep, constantly opening and closing mouth. Inside the huge mouth was a rotating, absolute-zero-like deep blue vortex. Every time it opened and closed, it spewed out a cold wave capable of freezing the Soul, and wherever it passed, even light was distorted and frozen.

Its intangible "perception" firmly locked onto Shen Xiao, the little bug that had disturbed its slumber. Its massive body looked clumsy, but it moved surprisingly fast, like a collapsing glacier, carrying a cold current that destroyed everything, crushing toward the direction where Shen Xiao was fleeing!

The ice stalactites and ice walls along the way were not just smashed when it passed; they were directly frozen into powder by that extreme chill!

What was even more deadly was the other end of the Ice Rift Valley.

That golden ball of Luck that had been hovering near the valley entrance just paused slightly the moment the beast's roar erupted and the fierce aura permeated, and then its light flared brilliantly!

"So you really were hiding here... and you've even stirred up such trouble."

Lin Yun's cold voice came through via spiritual energy, revealing no joy or anger, only the indifference of someone who had everything under control.

He clearly also sensed the terrifying aura of the Ice Plain Cold Marrow Beast, but instead of retreating, he turned his direction, transforming into a golden lightning bolt that tore through the cold wave, accelerating rapidly, and began to flank the area where Shen Xiao and the Vicious Beast were from another direction!

Ahead was an ancient ice beast; behind was a pursuer of Destiny.

The pocket of the Ice Rift Valley, under Shen Xiao's "itchy-handed" testing, suddenly tightened, turning into a deadly pincer trap!

"Damn it, does this Resonance come with a built-in taunt aura?!" Shen Xiao cursed in his heart, but the corner of his mouth curled into a nearly savage arc.

Fear had reached its limit, but it squeezed out an even crazier will to survive.

While pushing his movement technique to the limit, fleeing for his life between the jagged ice pillars and bottomless crevices, his cheeks stinging from the ice shards and wind blades, he frantically operated the "Destiny Resonance."

This time, he didn't try to connect to either side, but spread his perception out like an invisible net to its maximum extent, simultaneously capturing the energy field trajectories of the two deadly threats.

Behind him was the overwhelming, cold, and violent deep blue cold wave; that was the beast's energy field, pure, direct, and destructive.

To the side was that high-speed, scorching, and "orderly" oppressive golden Luck energy field, carrying a sense of locking and judgment.

The two energy fields were rapidly closing in on the area where he was from different directions, like two giant palms closing shut.

And Shen Xiao was the bug in the palm.

In his resonant perception, the edges of the two massive energy fields had already begun to touch, rub, and compress, forming brief energy turbulence in certain areas and... extremely subtle, fleeting "gaps."

Not enough!

The gaps were too small, and the duration was too short; in his current state, it was impossible for him to pass through that kind of energy turbulence precisely.

Shen Xiao's eyes were bloodshot, his brain working at an unprecedented speed.

Charging head-on was suicide, stopping was waiting for death; he had to find a "fulcrum," a fulcrum that could cause the encirclement of these two forces to experience a momentary "lag" or "deviation"!

His gaze was "fixed" on the resonant perception—at the core of the beast's energy field, that source of cold marrow that was pure to the extreme and pulsing violently with the beast's roar!

That was also... the source of the resonance with the System Silver Pattern!

Gamble!

Shen Xiao gritted his teeth hard. The moment he darted out from between two ice crevices again, he didn't just flee; he fiercely compressed the remaining, sluggish Dark Gold Spiritual Energy in his Dantian, twisting it into an extremely sharp, solid "needle."

At the tip of the needle, he deliberately drew out a trace of the aura from the Silver Pattern on the core's surface, allowing a wisp of faint, abnormal silver radiance to be mixed into that bit of dark gold.

Then, without looking back, he backhanded the "needle" and fiercely "flicked" it toward the deep blue cold wave that was pursuing him closest from behind, now less than a hundred feet away, especially toward the direction of the beast's faint "core" deep within the cold wave!

It wasn't to injure the enemy; that bit of attack didn't even count as scratching an itch for the Cold Marrow Beast.

It was for "marking."

To use this wisp of weak energy, carrying the System's abnormal aura (Silver Pattern) and his own predator characteristics (Dark Gold), like a red-hot needle, to pierce the most sensitive and core energy source of the ice beast!

The cold wave behind him suddenly stalled, and then erupted with an even more violent and angry roar!

The "attention" of that deep blue giant beast was suddenly drawn to this wisp of energy that dared to touch its core and carried an "alien sensation" that it loathed!

Its massive body instinctively turned slightly, its several ice stalactite tentacles waving and slapping at the flying energy needle, while the spewed cold wave was no longer completely focused on pursuing Shen Xiao, but split off a stream, coiling like an ice dragon toward the direction from which the energy needle came.

Now!

In the instant the beast's movements stalled, its attack diverted, and its energy field showed a trace of uncoordinated fluctuation due to anger, in his tightly strained "Destiny Resonance" perception, Shen Xiao clearly "saw" that the edge of the golden Luck field in front of him, which was originally about to close with the beast's cold wave, had a "gap" that was several times clearer and slightly longer in duration than before, due to the beast's sudden distraction and change in attack direction!

Behind that gap was an area where the ice layer was relatively intact but covered in vertical ice stalactites; it looked equally dangerous, but at least... it wasn't a dead end!

Shen Xiao's curled body suddenly stretched out, his feet kicking hard against a protruding ice rock. The ice rock shattered, and he shot out like a cannonball, diagonally toward that fleeting encirclement gap created by the beast's "cooperation"!

The golden edge of Luck grazed his back, the scorching aura scorching his tattered clothes.

The edge of the deep blue cold wave froze half of his pant leg, the bone-chilling cold instantly causing that leg to lose sensation.

But he had finally made it through!

The moment he rolled and fell into that area of vertical ice stalactites, Shen Xiao didn't pause at all, nor did he bother to check his injuries. He scrambled up using his hands and feet, and continued his desperate flight, staggering toward the deeper part of the ice stalactites, in the direction where the energy turbulence in his perception was weaker.

Behind him, the ice beast's roar and Lin Yun's increasingly cold snort mixed together. The two terrifying forces seemed to have experienced a brief misjudgment and collision because the target suddenly "disappeared" outside the encirclement, erupting in violent energy roars.

Shen Xiao didn't care about that; he only knew that the opportunity was only for this instant.

He had to run further, deeper, to find a place where he could truly hide or escape.

The ice stalactites became denser, the light grew dimmer, and the temperature was so low that even his thoughts were about to freeze.

Just as he was almost exhausted, and his vision began to blur due to blood loss and cold, below a particularly thick ice wall ahead, resembling a glacial cliff, a narrow, downward-sloping black crack appeared at the end of his vision.

The wind blowing out of the crack seemed to be... slightly "warmer" than the surrounding area by a hair?

No, it wasn't warmth; it was that within that extreme chill, there was a trace of an extremely faint, unusual energy fluctuation mixed in.

Shen Xiao had no choice left.

He took one last look at the golden light and blue shadow vaguely approaching from behind, and using his last bit of strength, he dove headfirst into that black ice crack.

His figure was instantly swallowed by the darkness.