Chapter 667 - Frozen Cloud Celestial Shadow
Even though Yun Che and Ye Xinghan had only met once, Ye Xinghan’s behavior at the Seven Nation Ranking Tournament and the Primordial Profound Ark had clearly revealed his nature to Yun Che. Once Ye Xinghan knew that he still lived, there was a great possibility that he would rush over as fast as he possibly could to kill him… and he would even come himself!
Right after he had solved the crises that Blue Wind Imperial City and Frozen Cloud Immortal Palace were facing, an even greater one popped up. From the sky, he surveyed Frozen Cloud Immortal Palace which had more or less calmed down and heaved a long sigh of relief before summoning the Primordial Profound Ark and returning to Blue Wind Imperial Capital.
However, what he did not notice was that in the sky far above him a pair of beautiful, crystalline eyes had been observing him silently. It was only until he left that those beautiful eyes finally withdrew their gaze as faint emotions bloomed on those features that were wrapped in cold mist; she was dressed all in white, as wispy as a fairy, and the ice spirits that floated all around her were even clearer and purer than the most perfect crystals in existence.
“Master, the conclusion of Frozen Cloud Immortal Palace was completely different from what was expected,” the blue-clothed girl who stood by her side said. Her voice was laced with joy because she knew that even though the white-clad woman in front of her had sworn a vow of neutrality, she was still not able to completely let go. Because if that was the case, she would not have taken a risk today and venture here once more. “However, the sect master of Frozen Cloud Immortal Palace has now actually become a man… even though he was the one who resolved the crisis and there was no other alternative, I still feel that it’s a bit… weird.”
“If he can truly help Frozen Cloud Immortal Palace safely live through this crisis, whether he is a man or a woman is of no concern.” The white-clothed lady replied in a gentle tone, “Men are also able to cultivate the Frozen Cloud Art and the Frozen End Divine Art. The regulation that only allowed women to be accepted as disciples within Frozen Cloud Immortal Palace was merely meant to protect it.”
“I just feel that it's weird. Besides Senior Brother Hanyi, all of those men in our Snow Song Realm are so hateful.” The blue-clothed girl’s tender and pink fragrant lips pouted, but after that, she asked curiously, “Master, just now you kept looking at that person called Yun Che, was his body strange in any way?”
“…” The white-robed lady faintly looked to her side and replied, “He has the Frozen End Divine Art in his body, and he has already unlocked its sixth stage, but he can also ignite the Golden Crow flames. His body houses both fire and ice, and it is the extremely cold Frozen End energy and the extremely violent Golden Crow flames that are mixing together. However, the profound energy in his body is incomparably stable, and no disorder can be detected in his body… it is far too peculiar.”
The brows of the white-robed lady wrinkled slightly… as if she could not understand something. And at her level, there were not many things left that could cause her any confusion at all.
“Ah? So the flames he used to burn that purple-clothed man to ashes was truly the Golden Crow divine flames? I had thought I was mistaken.” The blue-clothed girl said in astonishment, “So that is to say that this continent actually contains one of the legacies left behind by the Golden Crow? Ooh… if the Flame God Realm’s Golden Crow Sect finds out about it, they will definitely send people to investigate immediately.”
“...” The white-robed lady remained silent.
“Master, is anything the matter? Why have you suddenly become so serious?” the blue-robed girl asked as she looked at her.
“...” The white-robed lady faintly closed her eyes and looked as if she was focusing her spirit to the greatest degree. “Have you sensed that… there is someone peering in at us from some other location?”
“Ah?” The mouth of the blue-robed girl widened but she immediately shook her head. “How can that be… how can any person on this plane discover our presence? I think Master must have been mistaken.”
“...” After a short while, the white-clothed lady’s eyes slowly opened and she softly replied, “Perhaps…”
At this time, the ice spirits around her suddenly fluttered chaotically and the celestial body underneath those icy mists shook violently as a mouthful of dark red blood suddenly spurted from her lips, dyeing her cloud-white robes in patches of red.
“Master!!” The blue-robed girl cried out in alarm as she hurriedly supported the body of the white-clothed lady while exclaiming in fright, “Why… why is it like this… didn’t you just have a relapse half a month ago… why did it happen again so quickly…”
With a light wave of a cloud-white sleeve, ice flowers appeared in the air and all of the bloodstains instantly faded away into nothingness, but the complexion of the person wrapped by the icy mists had turned even more white, and even the trajectory of those dancing ice spirits had become extremely disorderly. The white-robed woman moderated her aura, but her voice still remained as indifferent as mist, “My injuries have fatally wounded me, and there is no reprieve for this situation. To be able to linger on for the past thousand years is already the kindness of fate. I have no complaints.”
Her words signified that she had already began to feel her life coming to an end. The blue-robed girl’s eyes started gushing with tears. “No… Master cannot just yield to fate like this… the wounds master sustained a millennium ago were so severe. but Lord Realm King was still be able to deal with it… this time… Lord Realm King will definitely also have a way… or perhaps… I… I can go and plead with the Flame God Realm…”
“You are not allowed to speak foolishly!” the white-robed lady rebuked her in a soft voice. From the moment she vomited blood until now, in the span of slightly over ten breaths, her profound energy aura had already weakened by more than half. Eyeing the boundless icy world below her, she gave a light sigh and said, “Let us depart, the aura of this place is muddy, and it will merely accelerate and exacerbate my condition…”
“I had originally thought that I could part ways with it, but in the end… it is still like a child to me… and perhaps I will be unable to stop myself from coming here once again in the near future.”
She held onto the blue-robed girl’s arm and slowly floated upwards as they entered a profound formation which had silently appeared above them.
After the profound formation had disappeared, the figure of a girl with long, blood-red hair that fell to her waist and eyes which exuded a bewitching light slowly appeared where they had been standing.
“Snow Song Realm?” The girl gave an extremely low and cold snort, “Hmph! No wonder I had always felt that the Frozen End Divine Art felt somewhat familiar… Looks like it was the ‘Ice Phoenix God Investiture Canon’ that does not contain the soul of the Ice Phoenix!”
“This is interesting indeed,” she said as she gave a low laugh, and following that, her body faded away and completely disappeared from that place.
The moment he appeared in the skies over Blue Wind Imperial City, the strange energy fluctuations caused Yun Che’s brows to furrow greatly as his gaze immediately swept towards the south… In the location where he had used the Yellow Springs Ashes to destroy the land, there was now astonishingly traces of an even greater destruction that took place. A deep crater that stretched several kilometers now existed in the ground that had already been levelled flat! And even though it seemed that a long period of time had passed since that cataclysmic event, there were still traces of an extremely powerful profound energy aura lingering within that crater.
That seemed… to be the aura exuded by someone in the Sovereign Profound Realm!
“Lord Prince Consort! You have returned!” On the wall, Feng Yunlie, who stood at the forefront despite his wounds, let out a joyous and emotional cry as he spotted Yun Che. The surrounding Blue Wind troops raised their heads as well, and strong emotions surged in their eyes… it was as if they were looking upon a deity.
Yun Che descended from the skies and asked, “General Feng, what exactly happened here? What events transpired while I was away?”
Feng Yunlie hurriedly replied, “About an hour after Lord Prince Consort had departed, there was yet another troop of Divine Phoenix soldiers which rapidly approached from the west, and there were also a large number of Fire War Horses and flying profound beasts with them as well…”
“What?” Yun Che’s brows sunk. “Why didn’t you send a sound transmission to me?!”
“At that time, her majesty tried sending a sound transmission many times to Lord Prince Consort, but every time she tried, it ended in failure,” Feng Yunlie replied. “At that time, Lord Under Heaven guessed that Lord Prince Consort may be in a location which contained an isolation barrier, so you would be unable to receive any sound transmissions…”
Sound transmission failure… isolation barrier? Yun Che was completely dumbfounded but then he remembered that he and the ladies of Frozen Cloud had been in the Frozen Cloud Secret Grounds which held the bodies of all the past Palace Mistress of Frozen Cloud Immortal Palace. Could it be…
“But Consort Yun does not need to be worried.” Feng Yunlie said in an excited voice, “When those Divine Phoenix soldiers were about to attack, an incomparably powerful… hero that seemed to be as strong as Lord Prince Consort himself appeared, and that hero was actually also…”
Bang!!
Following the sound of something being violently smashed aside, Yun Che heard a rough and heavy voice that he was all too familiar with. Not only that, but that voice also clearly contained the sound of sobbing as it rang out, “Bro… Brother-in-law… Brother-in-law!!”
This was Yuanba’s voice. and in this world, only Yuanba would call him “Brother-in-law.” Yun Che’s heart abruptly swelled in his chest and he swivelled around to look at the figure which was barrelling towards him… and before he could even begin to become emotional, he was instead given a huge shock.
Because the originally huge Xia Yuanba… had actually grown even larger with the passage of three years, and he had grown so huge that Yun Che’s eyes nearly popped out of his head in shock.
Boom!!
As Yun Che was still in a state of shock, he unconsciously side-stepped that rush and Xia Yuanba immediately flew into the air, and with a huge crash, he blew the corner of a wall into fragments. Xia Yuanba turned around and immediately began to bawl, “Brother-in-law! Looks like you really didn’t die… that's just great… Senior Sister Xueruo said you had returned… I… I… I thought I would really never be able to see you again…”
“I am so hardy, so how would I die so easily,” Yun Che smiled as he looked at the huge Xia Yuanba. With that, he went over and patted his arm… When his hand came into contact with that arm, he realized that the muscles that he touched were so hard that it was practically like steel. “Yuanba, I haven’t seen you for three years and you have… grown once more. Alright, stop crying already. In the future, unless you see the body, don’t believe that I have died.“
“I… I… Mn!” Xia Yuanba vigorously wiped his eyes and energetically nodded his head as the corners of his mouth curved upwards and grinned with all of his might. “Right… I shouldn’t be crying! Brother-in-law is clearly doing great and nothing happened to him, so I should be laughing instead. Ah, I should have known this would happen in the end. Brother-in-law is the luckiest man in the world… so how would he die so easily.”
Cang Yue, Number One Under Heaven, Xiao Yun, and Number Seven Under Heaven had already come out. They looked at how Xia Yuanba, who had terrifying strength, exuded an overwhelming pressure, and had obliterated the Divine Phoenix Army in one punch, cried like a child in front of Yun Che and how just one word from Yun Che caused him to cry and smile at the same time. The discrepancy was simply too great, and it caused Xiao Yun’s group to be completely stunned.
Cang Yue looked at their dazed expressions, and she gently laughed, “My husband and Yuanba grew up together. They are the most important kinsman in each other’s lives. Their relationship is so good that it is admirable… and no matter how strong they become and how exalted their positions are, this is one thing that will never change.”
What was shocked Yun Che even more than the change in Xia Yuanba’s appearance was the change in his aura. The profound energy aura that was swirling around Xia Yuanba’s body was so thick that even Yun Che could scarcely believe it. He stared at Xia Yuanba and asked, “Yuanba, right now what level… is your profound strength at?”
“This…” Xia Yuanba smiled in a rather bashful manner, “If I say it, Brother-in-law might not even believe me, but right now, I seem to have already reached… the sixth level of the Sovereign Profound Realm.” Right after he said this, he hurriedly added words for emphasis, “It’s true, I am definitely not lying to Brother-in-law!”
“He is really not tricking you.” Jasmine said immediately after, “His current profound strength is indeed at the sixth level of the Sovereign Profound Realm!”
In Illusory Demon Realm’s Demon Imperial City, Yun Che had seen many Monarchs, so he was extremely clear on what the words “Sovereign Profound Realm” truly meant. He knew that even though the difference in strength between each level of the Tyrant Profound Realm was huge, the difference between each level of the Sovereign Profound Realm was also like heaven and earth. The Overlord Pellet, which would allow someone to break through the bottleneck of the Emperor Profound Realm and allow that person to become an Overlord, was already one of the most valuable treasures in Demon Imperial City. Breaking through the bottleneck of the Tyrant Profound Realm to enter the Sovereign Profound Realm was something that, to common folk, was as hard as scaling the heavens…
And Xia Yuanba had actually, in the short span of three years, jumped from the mid-stages of the Tyrant Profound Realm… to the mid-stages of the Sovereign Profound Realm!
The speed of this growth could not even be described with ten thousand “unimaginables,” and even if someone like the leader of a Sacred Ground were to find out, he would still be so jealous that he would vomit eight liters of blood.
Looking at Yun Che’s stupidly dazed expression, Xia Yuanba weakly said, “I never thought that my profound strength would rise so fast. Master said it is because of my Tyrannical Emperor’s Divine Veins… and I also slowly came to realize that my Tyrannical Emperor’s Divine Veins were actually so awesome.”
“...” The corner of Yun Che’s mouth twisted and he used his thoughts to ask, “Jasmine, you said before that the Tyrannical Emperor’s Divine Veins were the profound veins of the Ancient Era’s War God, right…”
Jasmine, “??”
“And you also said that the Heretic God and the Rage God were transcendent existences even among the gods that existed during the Ancient Era… but, I have the profound veins of the Heretic God, the divine art of the Rage God, and I even have the blood and marrow of the Dragon God, the bloodlines of the Phoenix, and the Golden Crow… and I even endured the extremely cruel spatial storms for all of those years while I absorbed a large amount of energy from the Sea of Death… so I always thought that my growth rate was already heaven-defying!!”
“Yet now, I realize that, in front of Yuanba’s Tyrannical Emperor’s Divine Veins, the Heretic God and Rage God and everything else… seem to be as weak as trash!!” Yun Che snarled as he gnashed his teeth. Xia Yuanba’s frightening and peerless rate of growth… could not help but make even him jealous.