Breaking the Formation

Buried in Gu Yang's embrace, Lan Caidie felt the terrifying killing intent surging from all directions—an intent potent enough to tear a Core Formation cultivator to shreds—and her delicate body trembled uncontrollably.

Yet, held tightly by Gu Yang's strong, powerful hand, what welled up in the depths of her heart was actually a twisted, breathtakingly beautiful sense of suffocation, a feeling of sharing life and death with him.

Gu Yang watched the terrifying beast horde sweeping toward them like a black tsunami.

A bone-chilling sneer finally curled the corners of his thin lips.

The fourth-tier Dao Platform, Nether Shadow Evasion, was explosively activated underwater.

Holding the soft, warm jade-like beauty in his arms, his entire being instantly transformed into a translucent ripple of water that even divine sense could not lock onto.

In the split second before the beast horde's massive maws snapped shut, he slipped past those razor-sharp fangs with absolute smoothness, gliding into the deeper layers of the water.

He was in no rush to return to the surface.

Instead, like a phantom musician dictating the rhythm of death, he led the utterly frenzied tens of thousands of ferocious beasts of the frigid pool behind him, drawing an extremely lethal arc of death across the gloomy lakebed.

A hundred zhang above.

Separated by thick layers of mystic ice and pool water.

That was the icy rock shoal where Mo Bufan had laid down the Blood River Slaughter Array and was currently cornering Su Lingyan.

Gu Yang looked up, his deep black eyes seeming to pierce through hundreds of zhang of freezing pool water.

With extreme ruthlessness, he flicked his sleeve.

He precisely and firmly pinned that cluster of aura—a mixture of their lifeblood and Gu-poison fragrance—deep in the waters directly beneath that icy rock.

Then, the gray phantom abruptly changed direction, completely vanishing into the bottomless undercurrents.

And that terrifying beast horde, akin to an apocalyptic natural disaster, followed that deadly exotic fragrance like hundreds of thousands of ghostly blue torpedoes.

With extreme ferocity and inescapable momentum, they violently crashed toward the ice layer beneath Mo Bufan's feet.

Rumble—!!!

An earth-shattering boom erupted from the deepest depths of the Sunken Water Frigid Pool.

Tens of thousands of mutated water beasts, driven to utter madness, formed a ghostly blue tsunami forged of flesh and scales. With extreme brutality, they surged upward, slamming viciously into that layer of crimson icy rock array!

A scalp-numbing sound of shattering exploded in the air above the entire frigid pool.

Mo Bufan's proud Blood River Slaughter Array failed to hold on for even half a breath under the impact of the absolute numbers and the frenzied beast horde.

The array patterns wildly snapped, like blood vessels being forcibly torn apart.

Pfft—!

Mo Bufan looked as if he had been struck by lightning, throwing his head back and spewing a large mouthful of black blood mixed with fragments of his internal organs.

His bloodshot eyes stared fixedly at the explosively shattering ice layer beneath his feet, the depths of his gaze filled with unbelievable horror.

Where did so many beasts come from?! This is impossible!

Countless bloody maws lined with fangs burst through the ice.

A sickeningly thick stench of blood instantly overwhelmed Mo Bufan. With no time to think, he could only swing his Bloodthirsty Bone Sword in utter disarray, engaging in a bloody melee with those mindless monsters.

The moment the array shattered.

The suffocating blood-colored chains on Su Lingyan's body explosively dissipated.

She knelt on one knee in the icy, slushy muddy water, gasping heavily for breath.

Her unblemished, snow-white flowing immortal dress was already torn to shreds. Large patches of cold, jade-white skin were exposed to the biting, freezing wind, covered in crisscrossing bloody gashes.

With every rapid breath, the tattered neckline clung tightly to her breathtaking curves, rubbing against her skin with faint rustling sounds.

But she did not even have the time to feel the joy of surviving a disaster.

A bloody wind hit her face.

Dozens of Iron-Scaled Sword Crocodiles, driven mad by the scent of blood, had already locked their ghostly green, slitted pupils onto her Pure Yin physique, which exuded an ultimate temptation.

Rip!

A five-zhang-long sword crocodile opened its massive maw, its mouth full of interlocking fangs acting like a meat grinder as it bit viciously toward her fragile neck.

Su Lingyan gripped her sword hilt tightly, forcing herself to try and stand up.

But the spiritual energy within her body had long dried up, and that faintly discernible phantom fox tail had also grown dim and lackluster due to her extreme weakness.

Despair, much like the bone-chilling pool water beneath her, completely submerged her nose and mouth.

Meanwhile, beneath this chaotic, meat-grinder-like ice surface.

Gu Yang, like a weightless phantom, smoothly evaded all the frenzied beasts.

Following the route marked in the intelligence, he plunged straight into the hidden ice cave at the very bottom of the Sunken Water Frigid Pool.

The water temperature here had reached an unfathomably extreme freezing point.

Even the dark golden membrane protecting his body, formed by the Great Sun Heaven-Burning Sutra, had developed a very thin layer of frost.

Gu Yang's feet touched the ground, the soles of his boots stepping onto the hard floor of the ice cave without making the slightest sound.

Ahead was a massive altar naturally condensed from Nine Nether Mystic Ice.

Suspended right in the center of the altar was a bead radiating an ultimate ice-blue halo, pulsing like a beating heart.

A genuine Tier Two High-Grade item: the companion demonic spirit of the Mystic Ice Chi-Dragon.

And coiling beneath that demonic spirit was a behemoth exceeding thirty zhang in length.

The Mystic Ice Chi-Dragon.

The scales all over its body were ashen and peeling, with large sections of white bone exposed to the icy water, emitting a strong stench of decay.

This was an ancient remnant species that should have died countless years ago.

But at this moment, those tightly shut, massive slitted pupils opened without warning the instant Gu Yang stepped into the ice cave!

Roar—!

A terrifying coercion comparable to the early Golden Core stage, mixed with an extremely frenzied aura of death, explosively blasted outward within the confined ice cave.

The pool water was instantly pushed away, forming a massive vacuum zone.

Although it was only lingering on its last breath with a wisp of a remnant soul, its Golden Core realm foundation was still enough to instantly crush any Foundation Establishment cultivator who trespassed here.

Its massive body, like an overturning iceberg carrying world-destroying power, viciously lunged toward Gu Yang to kill him.

Gu Yang stood in place, his gray hemp garments fluttering loudly in the violent astral winds.

His deep black eyes showed not the slightest ripple, like an ancient well incapable of reflecting any emotion.

He did not retreat, nor did he draw his sword.

He merely raised his right hand with extreme casualness, his slender fingers lightly snapping together in the void.

A flame as pitch-black as ink, completely devoid of temperature, bloomed silently like a flake of black snow drifting down from the Nine Nether Hell.

The Nine Nether Soul-Locking Flame.

Go.

A light utterance, devoid of warmth.

The black flame transformed into a phantom shadow that even divine sense could not capture, directly bypassing the Mystic Ice Chi-Dragon's thick ice armor, which was tantamount to an absolute defense.

With extreme precision, it drilled into those massive slitted pupils flickering with the frenzied remnant soul.

Howl—!!!

An extremely shrill, agonizing wail that did not belong to the physical plane at all explosively resonated deep within the ice cave.

The Mystic Ice Chi-Dragon's massive body abruptly stiffened in midair.

The domineering power of the Nine Nether Soul-Locking Flame, which specialized in burning the divine soul, acted like billions of greedy ants. Within a single breath, it cleanly devoured that lingering wisp of the Golden Core remnant soul in its sea of consciousness.

There was no earth-shattering explosion, nor the tragic sight of flying flesh and blood.

Only extreme silence.