The appearance of the Thunderclap Realm King was already enough to push the Divine Ice Phoenix Sect into a corner… Much less the appearance of a peak Brahma King!
Qianye Zixiao was not deliberately releasing his Brahma Monarch might, but everyone in the Divine Ice Phoenix Sect, from disciple to elder, felt their bodies go cold and stiff in his presence. They could not even breathe.
When the gap in power and level was this large, the shock and fear that was naturally produced by this gap was not something that could be overcome by pure will.
“Sect Master…” Everyone looked toward Mu Bingyun.
Even though Qianye Zixiao was being very sincere, and his tone was so gentle that it was actually rather terrifying, all of them knew that they could not reject a single thing that he was saying.
“You’re only ‘inviting’ me, right?” Mu Bingyun said.
The Snow Song Realm had also witnessed the destruction of the Eternal Heaven G.o.d Realm through those screens projected throughout the entire Eastern Divine Region. The devil people had shown their terrifying prowess, their soul-shaking might, to the entire region. As such, Mu Bingyun could easily surmise why the Brahma Monarch G.o.d Realm had extended this invitation to her.
Were they going to use me to threaten Yun Che when the time was ripe?
Heh… Yun Che’s feelings for the Snow Song Realm were all focused on Big Sister. You’re grossly overestimating my importance to him.
However, she naturally wouldn’t say such things. Now that a Brahma King had appeared, it was this “importance” that would be crucial to protecting her sect.
“Of course,” Qianye Zixiao said with a faint smile. “Realm King Bingyun does not need to worry, neither my king or I bear any malice toward you. My king repeatedly urged me to escort Realm King Bingyun back to the Brahma Monarch G.o.d Realm, so this servant truly hopes that Realm King Binyun will not make life difficult for me.”
His warm and gentle smile remained fixed on his face, but his eyes were languidly sweeping over the Divine Ice Phoenix Sect behind her. The word “truly” had contained a threat and a warning he had not bothered to conceal.
“Alright.”
Mu Bingyun gently nodded her head without any hesitation. “As an insignificant middle realm king, it is my great fortune to have been invited to the Brahma Monarch G.o.d Realm. What reason do I have to refuse?”
“Hehe.” Qianye Zixiao chuckled. “Realm King Bingyun is indeed wise and intelligent. Then… if you please.”
He moved to the side and a silver profound ark that was over two hundred meters long appeared in the middle of the snowy region. The surface of the profound ark was inscribed with many isolating profound formations that could greatly hide one’s aura.
“Sect Master…” Every Ice Phoenix elder and palace master looked at Mu Bingyun. Their eyes were trembling and their hearts were filled with sorrow.
They knew all too well that if Mu Bingyun left with Qianye Zixiao, it was practically guaranteed to be a one-way trip. However, there was nothing they could do to stop it.
Mu Bingyun did not immediately move to enter the profound ark. She gently pushed out a hand, causing the Snow Princess Sword to fly through the air. Cold light glinted off its body as it fell into Mu Huanzhi’s hand.
“Huanzhi,” she said in a soft voice, “if I don’t return even after a long time has pa.s.sed, you will take over as sect master. Make sure that you properly nurture Feixue and Hanyan, they definitely have brilliant futures ahead of them.”
Mu Huanzhi closed his old eyes as he clasped the Snow Princess Sword in both hands. He managed to choke out a reply, “Yes… This Huanzhi will obey the will of the Sect Master.”
She pa.s.sed Mu Huanzhi two more items. The first was the symbol of the sect master’s authority, the Ice Phoenix Engraved Jade, which could open the barrier surrounding the Heavenly Netherfrost Lake. The second was an ice-blue spatial ring. Mu Bingyun then turned around and stepped into that silver profound ark with incredible calm.
The moment the isolating profound formations on the profound ark lit up, Mu Bingyun’s figure and aura vanished without a trace.
Qianye Zixiao turned around with a faint smile. His gaze coolly swept past the people around him and it was as if he was merely staring at a bunch of ants before his body vanished into mist… The profound ark rose into the sky, instantly disappearing along with Mu Bingyun into the distant horizon.
The barrier around the Divine Ice Phoenix Sect slowly repaired itself, but the entire sect had fallen into a deathly silence. A silence that lasted a very long time.
Mu Huanzhi arrived at the Ice Phoenix Sacred Hall with a heavy heart. He wanted to pray to the previous sect master, to ask her to protect Mu Bingyun and make sure that she returned safe and sound… But just when he was about to offer up the Snow Princess Sword, his old eyes grew as wide as saucers. Shock overcame him and rooted him to the ground.
The Snow Princess Sword had actually vanished without a trace!
The silver profound ark swiftly flew out of the Snow Song Realm and entered the vast sea of stars.
Mu Bingyun stood at the fore of the profound ark. Her jade face was calm and composed, and there wasn’t a single trace of panic on her face. She wasn’t surprised that this moment had finally come.
After Mu Xuanyin had left them, her already icy heart and soul had become even more sealed off.
Qianye Zixiao walked over to her. His expression was calm and relaxed, and the faint smile on his face showed his pleasure at having complete control over the situation. “That Thunderclap Realm King looked like a frightened mouse the moment he caught sight of me, yet you, a middle realm king, remain so calm and composed. Your fort.i.tude leaves me no choice but to raise my estimation of you. Or perhaps it would be better to say… that you truly are the sister of Realm King Xuanyin.”
When she heard Qianye Zixiao mention Mu Xuanyin, Mu Bingyun’s eyes turned frosty. But that iciness immediately faded away before she coolly replied, “To think that a distinguished Brahma King would actually come personally to invite an insignificant middle realm king such as myself. You took such great pains to come here, but weren’t you afraid that you’d be exposed along the way, making all of your efforts go to waste?”
Qianye Zixiao chuckled before replying, “The devil people of the Northern Region are rampaging through the Eastern Divine Region like lunatics, but none of them have even approached the Snow Song Realm. Moreover, it seems as if Realm King Bingyun was the one who found Yun Che in the lower realms and brought him to the Eastern Divine Region. Just these two points alone merited my trip here.”
Mu Bingyun, “…”
“If the timing is right, any friend can suddenly turn into an enemy, and the reverse is also true. This has been the guiding principle of our Brahma Monarch G.o.d Realm. Also…” Qianye Zixiao’s gaze turned dark. “I would strongly advise Realm King Bingyun to value her own life. If anything happens to you… who will protect the Snow Song Realm?”
He was warning Mu Bingyun that suicide was not an option.
However… Mu Bingyun truly thought that Yun Che, who had returned as some rampaging devil G.o.d, was no longer the same as before. His heart was clearly filled with hatred and he was now willing to slaughter a world with a flick of his fingers. It was clear that all of the emotions and attachments in his heart had been burned up by the fires of his pain and hatred.
Using her to threaten Yun Che… was merely wishful thinking on the part of the Brahma Monarch G.o.d Realm!
However, neither Qianye Zixiao or Mu Bingyun detected a dark shadow trailing behind the profound ark. Her body had nearly perfectly melded with this dim star region and even someone as strong as the Tenth Brahma King was not able to detect her presence.
Chi Wuyao stared at the silver profound ark from a distance as her crescent brows deeply knit together.
She did not have any skills that would conceal her presence and it was much harder to cloak herself in darkness, something she was most skilled at, in the Eastern Divine Region. This distance was already the closest she could get without risking being noticed by Qianye Zixiao. The closer she got, the more likely it was for him to detect her presence.
It would be all too simple for her to defeat Qianye Zixiao, but this Tenth Brahma King was clearly an incredibly cautious person. Even though Mu Bingyun was only a level eight Divine Sovereign, someone who posed no threat to him whatsoever, he still stood within ten steps of her. Furthermore, he never stopped using his energy to suppress her. It was clear that he would not allow any incidents to happen.
If she tried to force an attack, it was very likely that Mu Bingyun would get caught up in it.
As her brows tightly knit together, her expression suddenly changed.
Wait a minute…
This aura…
Could… it… be…
Her profound energy and eyes were suddenly thrown into an extremely rare moment of confusion and chaos and she also started to slow down. But she still remained firm in her decision. Dark light gathered in her gently-raised hand and a seductive but gloomily cold devilish light began to gleam in her eyes.
It was at this moment, the moment when Qianye Zixiao had chosen to have a leisurely conversation with Mu Bingyun, that a cold icy-blue light suddenly erupted from the s.p.a.ce in front of him.
This attack had come with no warning whatsoever, not a single ripple of energy or aura. In fact, it had been launched a mere ten meters from Qianye Zixiao, a distance that was completely negligible to a Brahma King.
This beam of cold light had appeared out of thin air, it was as if it had shot out from a crack in s.p.a.ce.
It was a flawless icy-white sword which gleamed with a l.u.s.trous blue light that streaked through the air faster than any shooting star in the universe.
Mu Bingyun was only a level eight Divine Sovereign, but Qianye Zixiao had not looked down on her. However, even though he had taken all the necessary precautions, there was no way that he would be wary of her in terms of raw power.
He had not been guarding against any attack and this had been launched from such a short distance too… Qianye Zixiao’s pupils instantly shrank. There hadn’t been any time for his body or profound energy to react and he had barely even managed to circulate a smidgen of his protective profound energy before that icy light transfixed his chest.
Icy energy that was so indescribably dreadful that it even made a Brahma King like him s.h.i.+ver flooded his body the moment that icy light pierced through his chest. It immediately sealed his bones, organs, meridians, blood and even his swelling profound energy with tyrannical force.
Dancing ice-blue hair appeared in his shrunken pupils… along with a pair of icy-blue eyes which seemed to contain all of the coldness in the universe.
His shrunken pupils instantly widened into saucers when he saw those eyes. Because he was witnessing the most incredulous scene in the universe.
He was one of the Brahma Monarch G.o.d Realm’s Brahma Kings, a mighty level nine Divine Master. Even if he was caught completely off-guard, how could anyone escape his spiritual perception?
However, when that beam of icy light had shot out at him from a distance of less than ten meters, he had not sensed anyone at all. He hadn’t even sensed any auras or hints of the other person’s presence.
Furthermore, this person, how could she still be…
Just when that sword transfixed Qianye Zixiao, a long black cloth was filled with a dense darkness energy shot at him from behind as well. The darkness gently brushed over his half-frozen body.
BUZZ——
There was no explosion of dark power but it was as if the black light radiating from the cloth was filled with countless independent ghosts. It crazily surged into his body the moment the cloth touched him.
The soul of a Brahma King was incredibly strong.
But a sword had been thrust through his heart and half his body had been frozen in ice, causing shock and panic like he had never felt before to well up in his heart. Thus, when Chi Wuyao’s devil soul attacked him, he actually put up little to no resistance. His vision suddenly turned pitch-black and his consciousness started to fall into a lonely and boundless darkness.
Bang!
An ice crystal exploded, hurling Qianye Zixiao’s body through the powdery ice that filled the air. He smashed into the ground a great distance away, and stopped moving after that.
The profound ark stopped flying under the sudden force of the explosion. Chi Wuyao slowly descended as she stared at the blue-haired woman from a distance. She was wearing blue robes and she held a snowy sword in her hand. Emotions that were far too intense and complex started to swirl in Chi Wuyao’s heart.
“…” Mu Bingyun did not seem to notice Chi Wuyao’s arrival. She dumbly stared at the person in front of her. Her vision had turned blurry, her soul was violently shaking, her mind was in chaos. It was as if she had suddenly been thrust into some ephemeral dreamscape.
The sword the blue-haired woman was holding in her hand was the Snow Princess Sword. It could only display half of its divine light when Mu Bingyun held it, but it was currently blazing with a heavenly light that was filled with boundless cold might.
When she had appeared out of thin air, she had done so by using a skill that belonged solely to Divine Ice Phoenix Sect, Moon Splitting Cascade. A skill that only two people had successfully cultivated.
Furthermore, the figure of her back and her aura… were things that only appeared during her tearful reminiscence.
“Big… Sister…”
She whispered those words through trembling lips, her vision completely blurred by tears. “Is… that… you…”
Four years ago, she had personally witnessed Mu Xuanyin’s icy and lifeless body sink into the Heavenly Netherfrost Lake. Over the last few years, she would return to the Heavenly Netherfrost Lake regularly to visit her and talk to her.
She was clearly awake right now, it was clearly reality, but why did it suddenly seem so fantastical…
As she softly called her name, Mu Bingyun slowly raised a hand as she started to walk toward her. But when she took just a single step forward, the world suddenly spun around her as she collapsed to the floor in a daze…
She felt her body fall into a cloud of icy cotton. What followed was the warmth and security that had long been carved into her soul, the warmth and security she had missed for the longest time.
She closed her eyes and allowed her snowy face to deeply bury itself inside that abundant pillow of cotton, causing an icy jade fragrance to fill her senses, her entire world… Even if it was a dream, she was willing to sink into it forever and never wake up.