Chapter 1295: Primordial Forbidden Zone!

Three days passed after Phei stepped into of the Great Immortal elixir.

Three days in which his own body felt slightly unfamiliar.

Walking, breathing had become strange, even closing his hand required restraint he had never needed before so he’d just use his Void-Ice to create clothes onto himself, because the tempering had not simply made him stronger:

It had rebuilt the body carrying that strength. His marrow had changed, his meridians had widened, his organs had been refined and his bones possessed a density that made his former physique feel almost like an infant’s by comparison.

Dragon Regeneration had memorized the new foundation as well. Every small injury now healed toward the body created by the Great Immortal essence rather than the weaker form Phei had carried before entering the spring.

Maybe that’s why he had expected Sienna to give him time to enjoy that:

Perhaps a day of walking around, looking unfairly pleased with himself and occasionally testing whether expensive furniture could survive being squeezed or if a bullet could leave a dent on his unnaturally soft skin yet so hard when attacked.

Apparently the Nether Goddess considered comfort a bad cultivation habit.

Phei had been standing within one of the dark stone halls when the world disappeared without warning as the space folded, the hall vanished, and freezing ground struck the soles of his bare feet.

Cold entered him instantly and Phei’s eyes widened.

His first reaction was almost offended disbelief.

’Cold? Seriously?’

He commanded enough ice to turn an entire battlefield into an extension of his will with his Void-Ice that was basically him right now. Phei had believed, with what now seemed a deeply unfortunate amount of confidence, that he understood cold; he didn’t feel cold whatsoever even win the Dead Winter Realm.

But the cave corrected him before he finished the thought; a gust of wind came through the darkness and touched his chest.

His newly tempered skin split upon touch!

Several razor-thin wounds appeared across his shoulder, ribs and abdomen so quickly that blood had already surfaced before Phei properly understood what had happened before his regeneration kicked in.

Another current came but this time True Void Sense caught everything.

It was not like there were some hidden small sharp weapons inside the rush gust of the winter wind; it was simply coldest winter gusts, saturated with such savage frozen essence that crossing his skin felt like thousands of tiny swords dragging themselves along his body when his very skin was tempered that his skin was more than steel.

Phei slowly looked down at the blood.

It froze before it could fall and his renege nation only healed the wound hidden under the layer.

Dark-red crystals clung to his skin.

His expression flattened: "Well."

Another stream of freezing air crossed the chamber.

He raised one hand and Void-Ice’s black-white essence swept over his naked body and wove itself into long robes, dark layers edged in pale frost settling around his shoulders and falling loosely over his legs. The garment should have protected him since he made it so strong.

The cold wind passed through the hard robe harder than steel with insulting ease, sank through his so hard skin and reached his muscles before continuing deeper.

His blood cooled; his bones developed a dull ache.

Phei stared into the darkness. "You’ve got to be fucking kidding me."

Blue radiance opened across his sight.

[Ding! Emergency Mission Triggered!]

Phei’s brows drew together.

[Emergency Mission: Tempering Beneath Primordial Winter]

[Location: Primordial Frozen Zone]

[Description: Host has entered one of the few Primordial Frozen Zones on the Earth Realm, ancient regions formed from frozen essence.]

Phei’s amusement disappeared.

That explained more than he liked.

[Mission Objective: Survive the Primordial Frozen Zone, cultivate Host’s newly tempered body and harness the Primordial Frozen Essence within this region to further temper and evolve Host’s Void-Ice.]

[Warning: The cold within a Primordial Frozen Zone does not merely freeze flesh. Prolonged exposure may invade blood, marrow, meridians, organs, cultivation, soul and elemental foundation.]

Phei read the warning twice.

Then looked around. "Of course it does."

Apparently ordinary hypothermia had lacked ambition. He dismissed the window and spread True Void Sense farther. Calling the place a cave became increasingly ridiculous.

The darkness ahead opened into distances vast enough to bury mountain ranges. Frozen hollows descended and climbed far beyond ordinary sight while colossal pillars of blue-black ice rose toward a ceiling so distant that even his perception struggled to gather its complete shape. Entire frozen cliffs existed underground, some climbing for kilometers before disappearing into darkness, their surfaces layered with ice so old that blue had deepened through countless shades until portions appeared almost black.

There was nothing ordinary left as everything his perception found had been surrendered to frost long enough ago that the idea of spring felt almost offensive here.

A tremendous crack tore through the heights.

Phei looked upward; something had broken loose.

At first he mistook it for part of the ceiling collapsing.

Then the thing continued falling.

An immense formation of primordial ice descended from somewhere beyond sight, larger than several buildings fused together, its underside crowded with spear-like protrusions that shredded the air around it. Pale blue-white brilliance ignited along its surface beneath the violence of the fall, yet even that glow carried no warmth:

It resembled dead light imprisoned inside something that had forgotten warmth much less fire existed.

The frozen mass struck several kilometers away.

The cavern convulsed as an ancient stretch of frozen ground vanished beneath the collision. An enormous ring of pulverized ice erupted hundreds of meters into the air, and broken fragments screamed through the darkness with enough force to bury themselves deep inside distant cliffs. The shockwave reached Phei a heartbeat later, snapping his robe violently around his body as a storm of ice dust swept over him. Millions of particles finer than sand crossed his face, neck and exposed hands, each one carried upon the Primordial wind howling through the abyss.

His skin opened again.

That alone said more about the wind than the destruction surrounding him.

Phei’s flesh had already been tempered to a monstrous degree. Ordinary blades could shatter against him before drawing blood much less leaving a dent and even treasure weapons struggled to leave more than shallow marks, and even weapons built for cultivators far beyond the Mortal Realms could not casually pierce the adamantine Dragon flesh Great Immortal essence had refined again and again.

Yet the Primordial wind cared little for any of that.

The ice dust riding within it became countless invisible blades.

Thin cuts appeared across Phei’s cheek, fingers and jaw almost simultaneously. Some barely broke the skin, while others sank deep enough to burn with sharp pain, opening flesh that sacred weapons would have struggled to breach.

A few grains struck harder still, carving narrow crimson lines across his knuckles before disappearing into the darkness behind him.

The blood froze the instant it surfaced.

Then the thunder reached him.

It travelled through the cavern walls, disappeared into passages beyond his perception and returned in overlapping waves until the entire Primordial Frozen Zone seemed filled with the groaning of ancient worlds buried too deeply beneath the ice to die.

Before those echoes faded, another section of the unseen heights shattered, then another.

Far across the darkness, something resembling an inverted frozen mountain detached from the roof.

It fell silently.

For several breaths there was nothing.

Then it struck a glacial ridge.

Half the ridge disappeared.

Billions of tons of ancient ice exploded sideways, an avalanche racing through the cavern rather than down any recognizable slope. It swallowed smaller frozen formations, crushed through entire fields of ice pillars and struck a distant cliff with enough violence to send another blue-white cloud climbing toward the ceiling.

The storm produced by that destruction found Phei next; there should not have been weather this deep beneath the world.

The Primordial Frozen Zone possessed its own opinion on the matter.

Winds screamed from colossal shafts hidden throughout the cavern, travelling through narrow passages before erupting into the greater hollows with enough pressure to turn air itself hostile. Powdered primordial ice moved inside those currents, microscopic shards sharpened against ancient walls until every breath of wind carried countless edges.

A gale struck Phei from the side.

His Void-Ice robe remained whole.

The flesh beneath did not.

Cuts opened across his chest beneath the cloth before more appeared along his shoulders, throat and jaw. One deeper line crossed the back of his hand and bit through skin before reaching flesh dense enough to stop it.

Phei looked down where his blood gathered.

The cold entered the wound before Dragon Regeneration could close it.

He felt primordial frost spread beneath his skin in branching pale lines, resisting regeneration until Primordial Blood surged through the area and forced the frozen essence outward.

Only then did the flesh heal.

Phei raised his brows.

"Wonderful." His voice left his mouth wrapped in vapor; the vapor froze and moisture crystallized before traveling even a meter, tiny pieces of his breath glittering briefly in the air before the screaming wind tore them away.

Then breathing itself became painful.

Phei inhaled.

Cold stabbed through his throat.