168: Beneath the polar regions lies an abyss!

Before she could finish speaking, the entire Dragon Palace began to rotate, revealing a giant armillary sphere at the bottom, powered by the energy of the ice crystal bead.

Lu Chen recognized that the arrangement of the twenty-eight mansions was exactly the same as the star map in the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor in Huaxia.

The Ice Emperor of one hundred thousand years ago learned quite a lot in Huaxia!

This Formation is indeed impressive.

The aggregate of vengeful spirits broke through the Seal at this moment, transforming into the form of the nine-headed Xiangliu.

Lu Chen activated the "Luo Shu" to unfold multiple barriers, while Shelley seized the opportunity to inject her ice-attribute magic into the armillary sphere.

When the Huaxia star patterns coincided with the Arctic aurora, the ice crystal bead suddenly detached from the giant whale's eye socket and flew toward the core of the armillary sphere, releasing the ultimate forbidden Spell that suppressed the sea eye...!

The Secret Realm merged into one with nature.

The heavenly dao contamination was hidden deep within the seabed abyss.

Such a Secret Realm, rather than calling it a Secret Realm, is better described as a place where generations of polar powerhouses have fought, one after another, to dominate the firmament.

...

In the abyss rift three thousand meters deep within the Arctic deep-sea Secret Realm, two clusters of ghostly blue Soul Fire suddenly ignited.

They had arrived at an even deeper location.

Even ordinary magic barriers could not hold up.

It required power at or above the eighth rank.

To be able to move in such a place.

Lu Chen's bony, rugged palm brushed over the ancient Talismanic Incantations frozen on the ice wall; these seemed to be totems drawn by the Cultivators of the ancient Polar Kingdom using whale blood and dragon scale powder.

They were glowing with an eerie purple light, illuminating the entire seabed like a demonic realm.

"It has been one hundred thousand years; this place has become increasingly interesting." Lu Chen's black robe snapped in the undercurrent. Where his skeletal fingertips brushed, the ice crystal-formed pillars collapsed with a roar, revealing a spiral corridor behind them where a swarm of glowing jellyfish was entrenched.

Each tentacle of those translucent, umbrella-shaped creatures was wreathed in stardust-like light particles, staining the seawater into a wondrous spectacle of an inverted galaxy.

Shelley held the scepter embedded with an ice crystal across her chest, the ice-blue magic patterns unique to an eighth-rank mage spreading from her neck to behind her ears. "Be careful. These jellyfish were once the eyes and ears of our Polar Region, but now they appear to be nothing more than Puppets of the heavenly dao contamination."

She tapped her toes lightly, and steps formed of ice crystals bloomed one after another in the pitch-black seawater, as if she were walking on a staircase paved with moonlight.

Twelve ice shards condensed from the Void Realm, pinning the approaching jellyfish swarm to the coral reef.

Lu Chen grabbed her wrist, his bones gleaming with a cold, grayish-blue light under the refraction of the ice crystals. "Your Highness, listen."

From the end of the abyss came the sound of a massive creature swimming, shaking the seabed gravel with a rustling vibration.

"It seems there is still a giant creature hiding below!" As Lu Chen chuckled lowly, the humming resonance of his chest cavity vibrated with the ocean currents, actually overpowering that heart-palpitating tremor. "Just watch how I crush these ants; just watch."

As he spoke, Lu Chen took half a step forward, and the entire sea area suddenly fell into an eerie silence.

Thousands of ghosts poured out from under his black robe. Those translucent undead emitted a silent shriek, and wherever they passed, even the glowing coral polyps instantly petrified.

When the giant beast finally broke through the ice wall—it was a frost Dragon Whale over a hundred meters long, with the ice statues of countless explorers frozen between its scales!

—however, Lu Chen wrote a blood-colored Talismanic Incantation in the air, the dark red characters burning like purgatory fire in the deep sea. "Ten thousand bones form a river, blood serves as a boat, the Yellow Springs roll backward, causing ghosts and gods to despair. Today, I trample the High Heaven Palace, only to realize that the netherworld has no lifespan."

The moment the Spell was completed, countless bone spurs suddenly burst from within the Dragon Whale, and the remains of the swallowed explorers actually broke out of its body under the impetus of the Undead magic.

Amidst the ice crystals drifting all over the sky, Lu Chen's Soul Fire cast a ghostly blue hue on Shelley's silver hair.

"The Princess's ice crystal barrier is likely unable to trap this true abyss; it had better be left to me, Lu Chen!"

Shelley smiled gently upon hearing this.

In her eyes, Lu Chen looked more and more like the emperor she had admired since she was a child.

That indomitable powerhouse.

The corpse of the Dragon Whale turned into white bones.

Forming a massive archway.

That was the deeper part of the Secret Realm.

Passing through the bone archway formed by the Dragon Whale's corpse, the seawater temperature plummeted to the point where even Shelley's frost shield developed cracks.

What suddenly unfolded before their eyes was a sunken city carved from a single piece of ten-thousand-year black ice.

The complex of buildings presented an eerie hexagonal structure, with ice shards sealing ghosts floating at every corner. On the streets were frozen ice statues of Inuit people in running poses, the Seal-tooth decorations on their animal-skin garments gleaming cold white in the ghostly light.

"What is this?" Lu Chen asked.

Shelley walked among these people. After examining them one by one, she couldn't help but say in shock:

"Legend has it that one hundred thousand years ago, before the generation of the Ice Emperor and his peers, there was actually another civilization, even older than our current Arctic Realm kingdom, called the Frost Civilization. The people at that time looked just like this, but I don't know why that civilization suddenly disappeared!"

Shelley looked into the distance, her beautiful eyes focused. "Their monarch was a woman called the Frost Queen!"

"The Frost Queen? Perhaps it was a civilization before the last Heavenly Dao destruction." Lu Chen analyzed calmly. "If she is still here, she probably couldn't escape the fate of becoming a Heavenly Dao Puppet!"

"These people now are just like ice statue toys."

"Indeed, this place is just like the Frost Queen's toy city." Lu Chen's skeletal palm pressed against the ice stele at the city gate, and the ancient characters suddenly swam about as if coming to life!

Lu Chen was slightly startled and retreated! He then looked at these characters and read:

"Requires the sacrifice of the souls of a pure-blooded royal and an immortal to open?"

He turned to look at Shelley, playfulness dancing in his Soul Fire. "Shelley, are you willing to enter into a blood pact with this King? It seems this is aimed at us."

Shelley's ice crystal boots crushed the frozen shells on the ground, and eight layers of ice lotuses bloomed at the tip of her scepter. She rolled her eyes at Lu Chen and said indifferently, "Would the Undead Monarch also be stumped by such a low-grade trap?"

She suddenly plunged her scepter into the ground, and ice-blue magic spread like a spiderweb; the ice statues throughout the entire city actually began to form Seals in unison.

When the thirteenth rune lit up, the black ice city walls collapsed with a roar, revealing a palace of flesh and blood inside, where glowing microorganisms floated—hundreds of human eyeballs were embedded in those sticky flesh walls, and at this moment, they were all turning in unison toward the intruders.

—How bizarre!

—But it also fits the nature of the Heavenly Dao.

Always this kind of Cthulhu-esque style.

Are all the Incarnations of the Heavens things like this?

Lu Chen felt disgusted every time he saw it.

The Incarnations of the Heavenly Dao include bronze giants, as well as various evil tentacles, and eye-based Incarnations are quite common.

"I feel disgusted every time I see this!" Lu Chen's tone was filled with contempt. His eyes were full of loathing.

As Lu Chen's black robe billowed, nine Bone Dragons burst through the air, tearing the pouncing flesh tentacles into shreds!

"Not a bad trick." He stepped on the wreckage of the Bone Dragons as he walked toward the core of the palace, black ice flowers blooming with every step he took. "But I am more interested in knowing... how much the Heavenly Dao has hidden here."

The Soul Fire of the Undead Monarch suddenly surged, illuminating the clusters of ice coffins hanging from the dome. Inside those transparent coffins slept a faceless woman, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say, a female corpse!