78: Chapter 78 Luring the enemy into the trap, a worthy opponent

Below the ice field, the silent undercurrents never ceased, while above the ice field, the true storm had only just begun.

Shen Xiao's foot crushed a rock covered in thin frost; his entire body, like an arrow shot from a bowstring, fled desperately between the jagged ice prisms.

His lungs felt as if they were stuffed with burning crushed ice, every breath carrying sharp, stinging pain and a metallic, fishy sweetness.

The wounds on his back tore open again from the violent movement, warm blood streaming down his spine. Before it could hit the ground, the cold air froze it into dark red ice shards, sticking to his tattered clothes and emitting faint cracking sounds as he ran.

His "Destiny Resonance" was like a tattered fishing net full of holes, forced to its limit, strained tight in two directions at once.

Behind him.

The Cold Marrow Beast's massive, deep blue body was like a moving glacier, every "writhing" motion crushing the ice structures in its path, emitting a dull, continuous roar.

The cold tide permeating its body had become so intense that it condensed into tangible ice crystal particles in the air. Those tiny crystals refracted the deep blue light on the ice walls, forming a brilliant yet lethal trail of frost, bearing down on Shen Xiao's direction at a speed that was not the fastest, but unstoppable.

To the side.

Lin Yun's golden Luck radiance was like a blazing bolt of lightning tearing through the polar night, moving with unbelievable speed.

That light was not a straight line, but carried an exquisite arc, circling at high speed in the area dozens of yards ahead of Shen Xiao. He was predicting Shen Xiao's escape route, attempting to cut off the path ahead and drive this exhausted rat back into the frontal impact range of the Cold Marrow Beast.

Pincer attack, an inescapable net.

But Shen Xiao's attention suddenly froze after catching a subtle detail.

The Cold Marrow Beast's "movement trajectory" showed a minute deviation.

When it sensed that mass of rapidly moving golden Luck radiance to the side, the cold-attribute energy field emanating from its body experienced a momentary "disorder," much like a wild beast guarding its food suddenly discovering another, stronger predator approaching its hunting ground.

Hostility.

Not only that, in his resonance perception, a more ancient, instinctive "reaction" faintly came from the depths of that deep blue cold tide: the pure cold marrow energy core actually revealed a trace of... greedy attraction toward Lin Yun's vast, scorching Heavenly Dao Luck?

Shen Xiao's pupils shrank.

He understood instantly.

This Ice Rift Valley Cold Marrow Beast was essentially an ancient Vicious Beast that fed on pure cold-attribute energy, or rather, its very existence was deeply bound to cold marrow energy.

And Lin Yun's vast Luck, blessed by the Heavenly Dao, although biased toward "fire" and bright, scorching heat, contained a massive total amount of energy and the "nutrition" of Heavenly Dao rules. For this old monster that had lived for who knows how many tens of thousands of years, was it not an even richer feast?

It regarded Lin Yun as "prey" as well.

Or rather, an intruder.

A nearly savage arc slowly pulled at the corners of Shen Xiao's mouth, on that face covered in frost and blood.

In the depths of his eyes, a flash of madness flickered and vanished.

"Come on," he said in an almost inaudible voice, addressing the overwhelming deep blue cold tide behind him and the golden lightning closing in from the side simultaneously.

"Let's hurt each other."

The next instant, he violently changed his escape direction.

He no longer ran in a straight line, no longer tried to widen the distance between himself and the two.

Instead, he veered diagonally, his whole body like a shell blown off course by the wind, charging fiercely toward the path where Lin Yun was about to complete his interception!

This move was too abrupt, too crazy, so much so that Lin Yun, in the midst of his high-speed maneuvering, was slightly stunned.

Within that golden light, Lin Yun's figure faintly emerged in the ice mist.

He wore a spotless white robe, surrounded by a faint golden halo, his face handsome and cold, his brow bearing the composure of one favored by destiny.

Only at this moment, the first crack appeared on that mask of composure.

"Seeking death?"

Lin Yun's voice came through spiritual power, cold and carrying a hint of offended anger.

In his view, Shen Xiao's move was no different from a moth flying into a flame.

A piece of trash heavily injured to the point where his spiritual power was nearly exhausted, voluntarily rushing into his interception net—what meaning could it have other than accelerating his own death?

But what Shen Xiao wanted was never to rush past his interception.

During the sprint, the Dark Gold Core with Silver Patterns inside Shen Xiao's body whirred at a speed bordering on self-destruction, squeezing out the last remnants of his spiritual power.

Those strands of spiritual power mixed with a wisp of pure cold intent carried from the depths of the cold pool, as well as the System's abnormal aura emanating from the core's Silver Pattern that even he couldn't explain.

All of it.

Without reservation.

Sprayed toward the direction of the Cold Marrow Beast behind him!

It was not an attack.

It was a provocation.

It was a mark.

That energy was like a rope soaked in the scent of blood, tied to Shen Xiao at one end, while the other end was precisely whipped toward the Cold Marrow Beast's most sensitive cold marrow core.

The energy aura it contained, while of the same origin but much more "chaotic," was, for this ancient Vicious Beast that fed on pure cold marrow, no different from a hard slap across its face.

You want to chase me?

Come on.

That guy behind you glowing with golden light is your real feast!

"ROAR!!!"

Behind him, the deep blue cold tide surged violently!

The Cold Marrow Beast's invisible "perception" instantly shifted most of its attention away from Shen Xiao, that little bug, and instead locked firmly onto the golden Luck radiance to the side that it instinctively loathed yet coveted.

That massive aggregate of deep blue ice crystals let out an earth-shaking roar, several ice-crystal tentacles waving frantically, and its massive body, with a speed completely inconsistent with its size, suddenly veered and charged toward Lin Yun!

Lin Yun's expression finally changed.

The Luck web he had laid out had originally covered all escape routes in front of and to the side of Shen Xiao, and he was just about to scoop this rat into it.

But now.

This lunatic actually took the initiative to charge at him?

And that Vicious Beast behind him, emitting terrifying cold intent that even made him palpitate, had also been thoroughly enraged, wrapping itself in a destructive cold tide like a collapsing glacier, bearing down on him!

"Damn it!"

Lin Yun had no choice but to change his tactics on the fly.

He crossed his palms, and the vast Luck originally used to intercept Shen Xiao was suddenly retracted, condensing into a thick golden barrier in front of him, while his left hand struck out with a palm.

The palm wind was not aimed at Shen Xiao.

It was blasted toward the ice wall to the side!

"BOOM!"

The dozens-of-yards-high ice wall exploded under this palm, countless massive ice blocks collapsed and toppled, instantly creating a temporary ice-rock barrier between Lin Yun and the Cold Marrow Beast.

He had to block the Vicious Beast to buy himself room to change tactics.

This was exactly the instant Shen Xiao wanted.

The instant Lin Yun's attention was diverted, his Luck barrier retracted, and his palm wind veered off.

He twisted his body to the limit during the sprint, bending at an almost impossible angle, his right foot kicking heavily against a flying piece of ice rock.

"CRACK!"

The ice rock shattered, and his body, like a stone shot from a slingshot, narrowly brushed past the edge of the aftermath of Lin Yun's palm wind, grazing the golden Luck edge that was hot enough to ignite the air.

He charged into a special area he had previously sensed through resonance.

The ice structure there was abnormally fragile, filled with dense, spiderweb-like fine cold marrow crystals.

It was the solid carrier of pure cold-attribute energy.

And also the best fuel to ignite a small energy storm.

The moment Shen Xiao dove into that area, the Dark Gold Core inside his body had already twisted the last thread of spiritual power into several extremely fine "needles," the tip of each needle carrying a vibration of resonance frequency.

Then, he detonated them all simultaneously on several key cold marrow crystal nodes in front of him.

"BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!!!"

A chain explosion.

But it didn't produce a huge shockwave.

Instead, it caused a chain reaction of energy disorder and rapid volatilization of the cold marrow crystals.

Within a range of dozens of yards, the pure cold-attribute energy that had been accumulating for who knows how many years inside the ice layer was instantly stimulated, released, and vaporized.

"HUM!"

White.

Overwhelming white.

A thick, almost solid white mist of cold air gushed out from the cracks in the ice, instantly swallowing the vast area where Shen Xiao, Lin Yun, and the Cold Marrow Beast were located.

That was not ordinary water mist.

It was a lethal mist formed after the rapid volatilization of pure cold marrow energy, containing extremely high cold-attribute spiritual energy.

Probing into it with Divine Sense was like sticking one's hand into a bucket of boiling lava, being scorched, twisted, and shredded.

The golden Luck radiance protecting Lin Yun's body dimmed violently under this sudden extreme cold impact, a thin layer of frost even condensing on the surface of the light.

"What?!" Lin Yun's voice showed obvious shock and anger for the first time.

His Divine Sense was severely interfered with in this mist, and his ability to precisely locate Shen Xiao was instantly lost by more than half; he could only vaguely sense a chaotic, weak aura mixed with dark gold and silver radiance moving at high speed.

And the Cold Marrow Beast.

"ROAR!"

After that behemoth charged into the mist zone, it didn't slow down at all; instead, it became even more violent.

Its deep, massive mouth opened crazily, greedily devouring the pure cold air permeating the air like a whale swallowing a hundred rivers.

With every mouthful it devoured, its deep blue ice-crystal body expanded by a fraction, and the cold intent it radiated grew even thicker.

But its actions became even more disorderly. The influx of a large amount of cold air of the same origin caused this Vicious Beast, which already acted on instinct, to fall into a kind of frenzied "feeding" state, its several ice-crystal tentacles waving about wildly, its huge body crashing through the mist.

Lin Yun and the Cold Marrow Beast inevitably collided several times in the thick white mist.

"You wicked beast!" The golden Luck radiance surged, and Lin Yun struck a palm at a swinging ice-crystal tentacle. The tentacle shattered, but more cold air instantly condensed into new ice spikes.

The golden halo around his body was eroded by the extreme cold, the light flickering, and a layer of frost formed on the surface of his white robe.

And Shen Xiao at this moment.

He was like a loach weaving through raging waves, using his resonance to sense the edges of the Cold Marrow Beast's violent, disorderly energy field and the boundaries of Lin Yun's severely interfered Luck field, weaving through the chaotic energy turbulence and the gaps in the huge beast's body.

Fleeing desperately.

A sideways roll, dodging an ice-crystal tentacle that swept across from above his head—the wind pressure from the tentacle sliced open a deep, bone-visible gash on his left arm.

A sudden stop, barely avoiding a ripple of Lin Yun's Luck that had been twisted in direction by the mist—the ripple grazed his hair, and dozens of strands instantly turned to ash.

A forward lunge, rolling between the two closing ice-crystal limbs of the Cold Marrow Beast, the rocks and ice shards behind him digging deep into his flesh.

Every part of his body hurt.

But he didn't stop.

More and more blood overflowed from the corners of his mouth, every violent movement pulling at his unhealed Meridians and internal organs, and the Silver Patterns on the surface of the Dark Gold Core sent waves of burning stabs—a warning that the core was over-operating and the Silver Pattern load was exceeding its limit.

But he couldn't stop.

Behind him, Lin Yun's furious roars and the Cold Marrow Beast's earth-shattering bellows came from the mist, the two sounds mixed together, echoing repeatedly between the rock walls of the Ice Rift Valley, like a symphony of the apocalypse.

Shen Xiao gritted his teeth, using his bloody hands to pry open the edge of a narrow ice crevice ahead, and his entire body, like a dehydrated fish, suddenly burst out from the other side of the mist zone.

Fresh but equally bone-chilling air rushed into his lungs. He stumbled a few steps, his knees softening, almost falling to his knees, but he forced himself to stand firm by leaning against an ice rock.

Behind him, the white mist continued to churn, golden light and blue shadows colliding, entangling, and roaring within it.

Shen Xiao looked back, and in those bloodshot eyes on his blood-stained face, there was not the slightest relaxation.

Lin Yun was no fool.

With the blessing of Heavenly Dao Luck, he would soon find a way to break free.

And that Cold Marrow Beast, after devouring the cold air in the mist, would also turn its attention back to him, the culprit who awakened it.

He had at most half an incense stick's worth of time left.

Shen Xiao turned around, dragging his almost numb right leg, and limped toward the deeper, more complex terrain of the Ice Rift Valley.

Every step left a dark red bloody footprint on the ice surface.

Which was quickly blown away by the cold wind.

The rock walls of the Ice Rift Valley towered on both sides, like two rows of silent, giant beast fangs, squeezing the faint sliver of daylight above into a narrow, grayish-white crack.

Shen Xiao's figure gradually disappeared into that increasingly thick darkness.

In the distance behind him, in the churning mist area, a cold shout filled with monstrous rage suddenly exploded.

"Shen Xiao!"

The voice pierced through the mist, vibrating repeatedly between the ice walls, carrying a kind of near-uncontrollable fury after being repeatedly toyed with by an ant.

Shen Xiao didn't even look back.

He just raised his hand, covered in blood scabs, and toward the direction of the mist where golden light was flashing behind him, he raised his middle finger.

Then, dragging his broken body, he disappeared behind an inconspicuous shadow corner deep in the Ice Rift Valley.

The wind howled.

Ice chips flew.

That raised middle finger stiffened for a moment in the cold wind, and eventually, it slowly lowered, disappearing into the endless white expanse.