82: Chapter 82 The Ice Fairy and the Raiders

Shen Xiao did not know what this flickering meant.

Was it a deeper level of activation, or some kind of mark?

He only knew that the "Stillness" emanating from his palm was growing heavier, as if he were holding an entire frozen river of time.

The burning pain of the System Silver Pattern and the deathly cold of the ice fragment intertwined beneath his skin, forming an eerie, near-tearing equilibrium.

He dared not stay where he was for even another second.

When Lin Yun's tangible gaze swept over him, he felt as if he had been stripped naked and thrown into the snow; all his disguises fell away, rustling under that stare.

Opportunities are fleeting.

Deep within the dark cave entrance, another gray-white cold wave, far more violent than before, surged out like the breath of a glacier, instantly sweeping across nearly half the valley.

The beast horde let out even more shrill wails, and even the golden light surrounding Lin Yun was buffeted backward, flickering unsteadily.

All perception was drawn away by that ancient cold current sweeping across the world.

Now is the time.

Shen Xiao, like a boneless shadow, slid out from the shadows of the ice stalagmites.

He did not run, but instead, in a near-crawling posture, pressed himself close to the ice surface, using every undulation and every protruding rock as cover to move toward the deeper, narrower regions of the Ice Rift Valley.

The injury to his right leg gave his movements an imperceptible limp, and every muscle pull brought piercing pain, but compared to the dual "torture" of the ice fragment in his palm and the System within his body, this pain became an anchor that kept him conscious.

He found a fissure in the ice.

Located at the angle between two collapsed ice rocks that resembled the fangs of a giant beast, the entrance was only wide enough for one person to pass through sideways.

It was pitch black inside, emitting a cold air more dense than the outside; this cold was not merely low temperature, but carried a musty, tomb-like scent from deep within a grave.

Shen Xiao did not hesitate and squeezed inside sideways.

The inside of the ice fissure was a world of its own.

It did not lead straight through, but wound downward for a few meters, forming a small but relatively hidden alcove.

Light was almost completely cut off, with only a faint, chaotic, and fragmented gleam of dim blue light, refracted by ice crystals, filtering in from the entrance.

The air was bone-chilling, and every breath tugged at his frostbitten respiratory tract, bringing a searing, painful sensation.

The rock walls were covered in thick, ancient ice that had never been touched, smooth as a mirror, reflecting his blurry, blood-stained figure.

Shen Xiao slid down to sit with his back against the innermost ice wall.

The violent movement aggravated his internal injuries, and he let out a muffled groan as blood seeped from the corner of his mouth again.

Without bothering to wipe it away, he immediately opened his left hand, which he had been clenching tightly.

The ice fragment lay quietly in his palm; in the absolute darkness, its deep ice-blue color instead emitted a faint, inherent cold glow, illuminating the lines of his blood-stained, frost-pale palm.

The burning sensation of the Silver Pattern had slightly subsided, but the tug-of-war of "analysis" and "being analyzed" between it and the ice fragment had become even clearer.

"Beep... Loading progress 1.3%... Adapting host energy circuits... Preliminary model of unknown protocol structure established... Establishing... Error... Model collapse... Re-analyzing..."

The System's voice was intermittent and filled with static; it was no longer the emotionless broadcast from before, but instead sounded like a human struggling to read and understand an incredibly profound and obscure celestial book, stuttering from time to time and starting over.

Shen Xiao paid no attention to the System's confusion.

All his attention was focused on his palm.

He carefully guided that faint yet condensed Dark Gold Spiritual Energy.

This time, he deliberately infused it with more of the "abnormal" aura of the Silver Pattern, like the gentlest of tentacles, reaching out toward the ice fragment once more.

The moment they made contact, that heavy, deathly torrent surged back again.

But this time, Shen Xiao was prepared.

He guarded the single point of clarity in his mind, letting the cold wash over his Meridians, while focusing the majority of his concentration on "perceiving" the torrent itself, as well as the extremely subtle "information fragments" generated when it collided with the power of the Silver Pattern within his body.

It was no longer just pure pain.

Beneath the layer of painful ice, he vaguely "touched" some extremely fragmented "images."

They were not images, but rather the imprint of a "state": the coldness of the endless Void Realm, the final "gaze" of some vast will before it fell into slumber, the absolute stillness when rules were forcibly "inscribed" and "sealed"... and, a trace of something extremely faint, yet causing his Soul to tremble instinctively... the implication of a "contract."

These fragments flashed and vanished, impossible to capture or understand, yet they left a cold scratch deep within his consciousness.

Just as he was fully focused on this dangerous "internal observation" and probing.

At the entrance of the ice fissure, that pitiful, dim blue light filtered through the ice crystals was, without warning, blocked by a purer, colder, moon-white figure.

The light dimmed for an instant.

Shen Xiao's muscles suddenly tensed, like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, all pain temporarily suppressed by the adrenaline.

He jerked his head up, his Dark Gold Spiritual Energy reflexively surging rapidly through his Meridians, but it immediately aggravated his severe internal injuries; a metallic, sweet taste rushed up his throat, which he swallowed back down, instantly filling his mouth with the taste of rust.

Standing quietly at the entrance of the ice fissure was a person: Xia Lengbai.

Her moon-white Spell robes seemed to glow against the backdrop of the dark ice fissure, immaculate and spotless, forming a stark contrast with this filthy, chaotic battlefield and Shen Xiao's wretched state.

She looked like an ice and snow spirit passing by by chance, rather than someone who had just walked out of the disastrous beast horde and Seal eruption from earlier.

Her gaze landed first on the ice fragment in Shen Xiao's palm, which was emitting a faint cold glow.

Her ice-blue eyes shifted, almost imperceptibly.

It was like a tiny pebble thrown into a calm, deep pool, the ripples vanishing in an instant.

Then, she raised her eyes to look at Shen Xiao's face.

That face was pale from blood loss, frostbite, and intense pain, his lips even slightly purple, but only those eyes were startlingly bright in the darkness, filled with vigilance, ruthlessness, and a hint of exhaustion from being at the end of his tether.

"That thing," Xia Lengbai spoke, her voice clear and cold, like icicles clinking against each other, carrying a faint echo in the narrow ice fissure, "is too hot to handle."

She paused, her tone as flat as if she were stating the fact that "it is snowing heavily today": "You hold it, are you not afraid of burning yourself?"

Shen Xiao's heart pounded heavily in his chest.

He forced the corners of his mouth to twitch into a smile devoid of warmth, which pulled at the wounds on his face, making him squint in pain: "Fairy Xia, shouldn't you be outside watching Young Master Lin show off his power? Why run to this godforsaken corner..."

He deliberately slowed his speech, enunciating every word clearly, "It couldn't be that you came specifically to remind me, this 'Marauder,' right?"

He emphasized the last three words heavily, like throwing three stones to test the waters, hurling them at her inscrutable attitude.

Xia Lengbai did not respond to his probing.

She walked in slowly.

Her skirt brushed over the ice-crystal-covered ground without making a sound, as if she had no weight.

She stopped a few steps in front of Shen Xiao, a distance that was outside the instant-cast range of most Spells, yet close enough to see the subtlest emotions in each other's eyes.

She tilted her head slightly.

This sudden, somewhat girlishly naive gesture, combined with her cold, stunningly beautiful face and bottomless eyes, formed a hair-raising contrast.

"I am just curious," she said, her voice still flat, "On you, there is a 'scent' similar to my Tomb Guardian Seal, yet also different."

Her fingertip unconsciously tapped her smooth forehead; the pale blue Tomb Guardian Seal seemed to ripple with a faint light under the reflection of the ice fragment's cold glow.

"That fluctuation in the valley earlier," she looked at Shen Xiao, her ice-blue pupils clearly reflecting his vigilant face, "you were involved in that too, weren't you?"

Shen Xiao neither admitted nor denied it, only pressing his pale lips tight.

Xia Lengbai did not seem to need his answer.

Her gaze turned to the chaotic energy roaring vaguely from outside the ice fissure, and for the first time, her tone carried a trace of an extremely subtle, almost indifferent emotion: "Lin Yun is looking for you. Like looking for a mouse hiding in a hole."

She paused and added, her voice as light as a snowflake falling: "However, he cannot come over for now."

In that last sentence, the indifference toward Lin Yun's setback seemed to deepen, even... mixed with a faint, chilling sense of pleasure.

From her short sentences, Shen Xiao quickly captured key information: First, the Tomb Guardian Seal was related to this ice fragment (as well as the ancient protocol represented by the ice stele), and Xia Lengbai was not entirely ignorant of this.

Second, her attitude toward the "Child of Destiny," Lin Yun, was by no means as submissive as it appeared on the surface, and might even harbor some hidden hostility or... pleasure in seeing him thwarted.

"So what?" Shen Xiao asked slowly, his voice somewhat hoarse from his injuries.

Secretly, he tried to mobilize that trace of indescribable, purer power of "Stillness" that was being fed back while the ice fragment in his palm was slowly being analyzed by the System, mixing it into his own already chaotic Qi.

This was a crude interference, an attempt to blur any potential perception and investigation by her.

Xia Lengbai seemed to have detected the imperceptible change in his Qi, which was trending toward "deathly stillness."

A faint trace of interest flashed in her eyes, and suddenly, she smiled softly.

The smile was very shallow, just the corners of her lips curving upward ever so slightly, still cold, yet it inexplicably made a chill crawl up Shen Xiao's spine.

"So," she extended a hand, her white, onion-like fingertips not pointing at Shen Xiao, but pointing vaguely at the ice fragment in his palm from a distance, "how about we make a deal?"

She leaned forward slightly, her ice-blue eyes locking onto Shen Xiao's gaze, her voice dropping lower, carrying a cold temptation: "I am more interested in the thing beneath that cave than I am in you. And you need time, don't you?"

Shen Xiao held his breath.

"Tell me," Xia Lengbai stared at him, saying clearly, word by word, "what you 'saw'."

She withdrew her finger and tucked her hands back into her sleeves, her posture becoming distant and aloof once again, as if the oppressive closeness from just a moment ago was merely an illusion.

"Perhaps..."