Son of a bitch…
Pure otherworlders probably wouldn’t understand the dual meaning of ‘Gu-er’ [which literally means ‘orphan’ but is also gaming slang for a toxic bastard], but adding that intimate ‘-er’ suffix after another man’s name… after seeing that look in his eyes, this guy is definitely gay!
This “Empire” place is a bit terrifying. Could it be the legendary Muscle Temple faction…
Weilin shuddered.
“Just call me ‘Wu Du’ (alias).” The man in the trench coat twitched the corner of his mouth, his voice cold and hard. “Let’s keep going. The sooner we get the Ice Soul Lotus, the less time there is for trouble.”
The two of them continued deeper into the cave as they spoke.
The two shadows hidden in the cave’s darkness moved to follow, but Wu Gu seemed to sense something and abruptly turned his head back. Using the flickering firelight, he looked toward the cave exit, startling the two shadows so badly that they instantly plastered themselves against the stone wall at the corner, not daring to even breathe.
“What is it?”
The burly man also frowned thickly, turning his head to scan the area. Weilin caught a glimpse of a fierce and imposing Imperial face.
“Nothing.”
His Highness, the Second Prince, frowned slightly and shook his head faintly, dismissing it as paranoia. He turned first and strode into the depths of the cave.
＃
Even after Wu Gu and the Imperial citizen vanished from sight, the two didn’t dare move a muscle.
Not long after, the roar of battle echoed again from deep within the cave.
“That was close…” Airi frantically patted her chest, letting out a breath of relief. Yet her slender brows furrowed, a puzzled look on her face. “Could this Second Prince be…”
“He’s the Second Prince of the Snow Kingdom. A whole bunch of ‘Wu Du’ [Five Poisons] bastards, every last one of them. As for Huan Xuezhi’s ‘Huan,’ it’s her mother’s surname.”
“I see…” Airi’s eyes were filled with shock, her expression turning indignant. “So, the Second Prince is actually colluding with the Empire? How despicable…”
“When the nest is overturned, no egg remains intact. Naturally, it’s better to become a running dog while you still can. Besides, the Illusory Snow Queen never treated her older brothers well, so they have even less inhibition about rebelling.” Weilin paused, looking ahead. “…Alright, let’s follow them.”
“Yeah!”
The cave had no forks, only a single path to the end, ensuring they wouldn’t lose their targets. But correspondingly, it also made them easy to spot during an escape.
“Just in case, let’s establish this: if the situation turns against us, use your Explosive Fireball on the cave exit and collapse it to block the way out.”
As they advanced, Weilin considered potential contingencies, instructing the Ranger girl.
“But what about you, Weilin…”
“I have Spatial Warp. I can definitely run faster than you. You need to watch out for yourself.”
“Understood!”
Even Airi couldn’t quite explain why she obeyed Weilin’s orders so blindly.
Then, following the sounds of battle echoing from the depths, they trailed all the way to the bottom of the cave.
—And saw a Snow Demon Lair, vast as a small plaza.
There were “Snow Demon Casters” here, superior to the “Elite Snow Demons.” Dwarf-sized, but floating high in the air, they had dazzling ice-white mana rolling within their semi-transparent bodies. Magic arrays unfurled in the void around them, shooting countless ice lances that shrieked through the air toward the Imperial warrior. An Ice Prison followed, erupting from the ground to trap him.
Surrounding the Snow Demon Casters, countless ordinary Snow Demons stood in dense, impenetrable ranks of three layers.
Using ground troops to protect air units is just plain stupid…
The broad-bladed greatsword could block multiple ice lance attacks like a shield, but a few still struck the Imperial warrior’s body. The ice lances tore his outer adventurer’s leather armor but were blocked by the gilded chainmail hidden beneath…
A layer of frost crept over the Imperial warrior’s body, inflicting a debuff that slightly slowed his movements.
He mustered a heavy, powerful swing, shattering the Ice Prison. His gaze fixed on one of the Snow Demon Casters in the air, its eyes an eerie, icy cold. Suddenly, a savage grin spread across his face. He violently hurled his greatsword, “Throwing Arc Kill!”
At the same time, he drew his Flame Musket, aiming it at that Snow Demon Caster. A fireball erupted from the roar of the gunshot.
The Snow Demon Caster, sensing the crisis, instantly condensed twelve rapidly circling Ice Shields around itself. But at the same moment, the greatsword, carving a deadly arc, ripped through them like a whirlwind, devastating the entire formation. The sturdy shield group teetered on the brink of shattering.
And the fireball that invaded the next second used kinetic energy alone to pierce the ruined ice shields, blasting into the Snow Demon Caster. Its frail body, along with its precious Snow Essence, were buried together in the searing flames and explosion roar.
But two more Snow Demon Casters remained!
As Weilin wondered how they would deal with them…
On the other side, Wu Gu, who had been maintaining a low profile, finally unleashed the magic he’d been chanting.
Trails of freezing mana sketched a massive, complex magic array pattern in the air above him. The moment the magic array formed, an ancient, desolate cold current overflowed from it. From within the fierce, radiant array, a colossal Snow Giant Hand, so immense it nearly filled the entire cramped lair, began to climb out!
Boom…!!!
Like a giant’s hand from myth, but covered in snowy down and madly releasing terrifying, sub-zero hundred-degree cold into the surrounding space, it launched a single straight punch. The remaining two Snow Demon Casters, along with forty or fifty ordinary Snow Demons, were all ground into icy dust…
Even though Wu Gu had been careful enough to avoid direct contact with the lair structure, the entire cave system still began to tremble violently, on the verge of collapse from the shockwaves transmitted through the ground…
“Truly worthy of being the Second Prince, inheritor of the ‘Snow Giant’ magic! My Miss wants to cooperate with Your Highness, and completely disregards the other princes, precisely because she values your strength as a Legendary Mage, Second Prince!”
From a distance, the Imperial warrior began flattering Wu Gu.
This was almost the opposite of Wu Yin’s situation with Virgo Star God Feilin.
But of course, that depended on the people involved. The Imperial warrior was at Platinum Rank, weaker than the Legendary Mage Wu Gu. But how many people in the vast world could withstand the majesty of a Star God?
The Snow Giant Hand slowly retracted back into the freezing magic array. Wu Gu, the caster, now had his entire trench coat covered in thick frost, looking like an ice sculpture.
Wu Gu’s gaze swept past the icy dust of the Snow Demons carpeting the ground, past the dozens of glittering Snow Essences, and landed on a quiet stone platform at the very bottom of the lair. A pure, flawless snow lotus, radiating a calming, serene snow-white icy aura, bloomed in silence.
(Since the Snow Giant Hand is a physical attack, the Snow Essences it smashed out could survive.)
In the corner of the stone platform, about a meter away from the snow lotus, an unknown, mysterious flower shimmered with a faint light, swaying gently. But its glow was far too dim compared to the dazzling snow lotus, making it utterly inconspicuous…
“Lord, help me get the Ice Soul Lotus.”
Wu Gu’s eyes flickered with a dark light as he addressed the Imperial warrior.
“As you wish, Your Highness.”
The Imperial warrior named Lord agreed without suspicion, hefting his sword and stepping forward.
Just then, several hundred meters away on the stone platform, a figure emerged from the void as if stepping out of thin air, blatantly appearing right beside the snow lotus.
And simultaneously, as if planned long ago, the Snow Giant Hand, which had almost completely retracted into the magic array, suddenly blazed with brilliant white mana light again. With terrifying speed, it shot forth fiercely toward the figure that had appeared before the snow lotus!!!
Weilin’s eyes flashed with a sudden chill, as if she couldn’t believe Wu Gu’s reaction speed was so fast… or perhaps, he had been vigilant all along, waiting just for her to reveal herself?!
“Lord, get out of the way!!!”
“Airi, go first!!!”
Wu Gu’s roar and Weilin’s shout rang out almost simultaneously!
Both the Imperial warrior and the Wind Ranger were momentarily stunned. This mid-way tracking battle had, unbeknownst to them, long since become a contest between just Weilin and Wu Gu.
Facing life and death, Lord, with his tenacious survival instinct, desperately threw himself down, narrowly dodging the Snow Giant Hand that roared past overhead.
As for Weilin… Spatial Warp, the mage’s most powerful evasion skill, still had a one-second cooldown. Meaning, she had to take this attack head-on!
Her gloomy expression relaxed calmly. A faint, mocking smile curved her lips. Her black hair danced wildly in the windstorm. The girl faced the Snow Giant’s Fist, which was dozens of times her size, and made a move no one could have anticipated… She raised her own small, pale, delicate right palm toward the hand of death.
A colorless yet visible light flickered eerily, and a small, transparent, colorless mirror surface appeared covering her slender, beautiful palm. The mirror extended rapidly up, down, left, and right.
“Absolute—Deflection—Prism!”
In an instant, it unfurled into a bizarre, transparent triangular prism, encasing the girl as if preserving a biological specimen, isolating Weilin from the world.
…
[Absolute Deflection Prism (9th-Tier Divine Artifact)]
[Type: Defense]
[Attribute: Prism Body, All Things Are Deflected. Automatically and perfectly reflects one fatal attack of any energy form, once per day.]
[Note: Attributes don’t need to be complicated, they just need to be powerful.]
