novel bin Chapter 115 Snowfield, Valley Bottom
Chapter 115 Snowfield, Valley Bottom
Chapter 115 Snowfield, Valley Bottom (4K)
On his first day outside the city, Xu Hao understood why Zhao Poyue had called Yanzhou a bitterly cold and desolate place.
The wind is blowing horizontally.
I'm not exaggerating, I'm telling the truth.
The gray wolf fur cloak was being torn and fluttering loudly, and shards of ice bounced wildly off the goggles.
Visibility was less than five steps, and only one color remained between heaven and earth—white.
The snow beneath our feet was getting deeper and deeper.
From above the ankles, to above the knees, and then above the thighs.
With each step, you have to first lift your leg to tamp down the snow before pulling the other leg out.
This isn't marching; it's digging trenches.
Xu Hao circulated the Myriad Transformations Heavenly Scripture, and dark cyan qi formed a thin film on his body, forcing back the cold air.
However, his vital energy was consumed very quickly, and the low temperature on the snowfield was like an invisible, hungry beast, constantly consuming his life force.
After walking for two hours, he stopped.
The black tortoise on the pack on its back poked its head out, then shrank back halfway, letting out a muffled groan of extreme reluctance.
"Stop talking nonsense and get to work." Xu Hao unpacked the package.
The black tortoise stood on all fours, and the dark blue patterns on its shell lit up.
A protective shield expanded from the tortoise shell, covering an area of three feet in radius.
The wind and snow were kept out, and the temperature rose a few degrees.
It's much less strenuous than him having to maintain his inner energy himself.
"Is that all you've got? Eat more later." Xu Hao squatted inside the protective barrier and took out frozen noodles and a pot of strong liquor from the Sumeru Warehouse.
The bread was so hard it could kill someone, so he broke it into pieces, stuffed them into his mouth, and chugdled it down with strong liquor.
After the wine entered my stomach, my blood and qi surged, and my hands and feet finally warmed up.
Within his mind, the compass needle steadily pointed to due north slightly west.
The light spot did not shift, but the distance was decreasing.
At this pace, it's still about a hundred li.
The snow-covered plains stretch for miles, though they're not far away.
On the official road of Chenzhou, it would take half a day for a fast horse.
But in this vast, white wasteland, a hundred miles is enough to bury an army.
After resting for half an incense stick's time, Xu Hao patted the black tortoise's shell.
The Xuan Turtle withdrew its protective shield and obediently crawled back into its pack.
He fastened the straps again and continued north.
Another hour passed.
The wind suddenly stopped.
It doesn't gradually shrink; it freezes instantly.
There was nothing in my ears except the sound of my own breathing.
Xu Hao paused in his steps.
It's too quiet.
The wind on the snowfield never stops.
The military map Zhao Poyue provided had a special marking—the endless snowfield was constantly swept by freezing winds, and when the winds stopped, it meant one thing.
A big guy is passing by.
The size of the snowfield behemoth is enough to alter local airflow.
When it gets close, the surrounding aura is suppressed by its primal power, and even the wind has to give way to it.
Xu Hao squatted down and slowly gripped the hilt of the Devouring Sea Blade at his waist with his right hand.
Spread your left hand's five fingers and press it onto the snow.
The powerful energy emanated from his palm and spread outwards along the frozen soil.
The ground is shaking.
It was very light and rhythmic, with each beat spaced about two breaths apart.
pace.
Extremely heavy footsteps.
It's coming from the northeast, about half a mile away, and is moving slowly.
Xu Hao did not get up.
He lowered his body, his dark cyan aura was compressed to the extreme, and his aura was almost completely suppressed.
The color of the gray wolf fur cloak blended seamlessly with the surrounding snow.
A huge shadow gradually appeared in the white curtain half a mile away.
First, two curved, giant horns emerged from the mist.
Icicles, over two zhang long, hung from the tips of the horns.
Next came a huge head covered in thick, grayish-white mane, which was covered in patches of ice armor.
Snowfield Frosthorn.
Its size was even larger than the heavy warships on the Cold Iron Island dock, and its four legs were like city gate pillars. With each step it took, the snow layer within a radius of ten feet would collapse.
This thing was marked on military maps.
Its individual combat strength is between the peak of the Inner Strength Realm and the early stage of the Opening Aperture Realm. It is thick-skinned and not fast, but its impact force is enough to flatten a watchtower.
The key point is that it is not alone.
Behind the frost-horned beast were seven or eight figures riding on dwarf snow wolves.
Barbarian hunting party.
They were all wearing uniform animal hide armor, with gray wolf skulls draped over their shoulders, and carrying bone spears in their hands.
The leader at the front was a size larger than the others, and a swirling blue wolf pattern was tattooed on his bare left arm.
They were driving away the frosty-horned beasts.
It wasn't hunting, it was driving them away.
Spears were planted in the snow on either side of the behemoth, and the riders worked in perfect coordination, guiding the Frosthorn to the southwest.
southwest.
The direction of Desperate City.
Xu Hao narrowed his eyes.
An old man in town who was well-informed said that recently, barbarian hunting teams had been bringing things to the Bone-Eating Tent.
It now appears that they were transporting these kinds of live creatures.
Why is the Barbarian Royal Court stockpiling snowfield behemoths in Desperate City?
Xu Hao had no intention of provoking these people.
His goal was the incomplete scroll of the Martial Ancestor's Divine Skill, not to fight the barbarian hunting party.
But one of the riders in the hunting party changed his plans.
The barbarian rider at the rear suddenly stopped, pricked up his ears, and howled softly in the direction where Xu Hao was hiding.
Snow wolves have a sense of smell that is a hundred times more sensitive than humans.
No matter how well it conceals its aura, its body temperature and the smell of flesh and blood cannot deceive it.
The rider grabbed the reins around the wolf's neck, turned his head, and roared a barbarian phrase at the leader.
The leader reined in his horse and glanced back.
His gaze landed precisely on the snow slope where Xu Hao was.
Even from half a mile away, Xu Hao could feel the ferocity in that gaze.
The barbarians viewed the Daheng people no differently than they would look at wild boars by the roadside.
If they can be taken away, they will be used as slaves; if they cannot be taken away, they will be slaughtered and skinned on the spot.
The leader raised his bone spear and roared.
Two riders broke away from the group and drove the snow wolves toward Xu Hao.
Extremely fast.
The snow wolf ran through the deep snow as if it were flat ground, its four paws outstretched, its feet sinking into the snow without sinking an inch.
Two riders, one on the left and one on the right, spread out to encircle the enemy.
Xu Hao stood up.
The gray wolf fur cloak remained motionless in the still, windless silence.
He took off his goggles and hung them around his neck.
A pair of calm eyes were revealed.
"If you're looking to die, don't blame people for being impolite."
The Sea-Devouring Blade was drawn.
The blue blade of light drew a dazzling arc across the gray-white sky.
The first snow wolf that pounced forward, along with its rider, was struck head-on by the blade's edge.
The cold air chilled them to the bone, and both the wolf and the man froze, falling into the snow pit and breaking into several pieces of frozen flesh.
The second rider had already thrown his bone spear.
The spearhead was coated with dark red blood and qi; its power, honed to the late stage of the Bone Forging Realm, was enough to pierce through a pine tree as thick as a person's embrace.
Xu Hao turned to the side.
The bone spear grazed past his shoulder and embedded itself in the snow behind him, its shaft trembling violently.
He took a step forward with a powerful stride, his figure flashing across the ground.
The sea-devouring knife slashed horizontally.
The second rider, along with his mount, was cut in two with a single stroke.
The blood splattered on the white snow was particularly conspicuous.
From drawing the sword to sheathing it, it took two breaths.
The remaining barbarian hunters saw it from half a mile away.
The air seemed to freeze for a moment.
The leader's pupils contracted, and he uttered a barbarian word.
The sound wasn't loud, but Xu Hao heard it clearly.
"Aka Na."
The old man who sold information had taught him a few words of the barbarian language.
The word means "wolf".
The barbarian term for the strong.
The leader made an unexpected gesture.
The remaining riders did not rush forward for revenge. Instead, they neatly regrouped, continued to drive the frost-horned beasts, and retreated southwest without looking back.
The barbarian rule—survival of the fittest.
If someone dies, it's because they were less skilled; the living have no obligation to avenge a useless person.
Xu Hao flicked the ice shards off the blade and watched the hunting party's departing figures.
His gaze fell on the massive body of the Frosthorn, then he looked at the shattered remains of the barbarian rider at his feet.
He crouched down and tore something off the mangled corpse's neck.
A domino the size of a thumb.
A symbol is engraved on the card.
A totem of intertwined bones.
The patterns are exactly the same as those on the ground floor of Wanghailou and on the ghost ship.
These hunters were no ordinary barbarian cavalry.
They are the people of Bone Mother, or rather, the people of the Bone Devouring Camp, subordinates of the White Bone King Wuyan.
Xu Hao tucked the dominoes into his pocket and put his goggles back on.
In the distance, the hunting party disappeared into the end of the snowstorm.
The world fell silent once more.
After a dozen or so breaths, the wind started to blow again.
He continued walking north.
Two hours later, the compass needle's vibration frequency suddenly increased.
The light spot was right there.
Xu Hao pushed aside the snow curtain in front of him, and the terrain beneath his feet changed.
A huge rift valley appeared on the flat snowfield.
The rift valley is about 100 feet wide and bottomless, with dark green ice covering the rock walls on both sides.
From the bottom of the rift valley came an extremely low sound.
It wasn't the sound of the wind, nor the sound of flowing water.
It's breathing.
Even, long, breathing that belonged to some enormous creature.
With each breath, the ice on both sides of the rift valley trembled slightly, and ice fragments peeled off the rock walls.
In his mind's eye, the scroll depicting the blessed land burned painfully.
Ancient seal script reappeared, with even sharper strokes than before.
Do not disturb their sleep.
The incomplete scroll of the Martial Ancestor's Divine Skill is located at the bottom of this rift valley.
Buried together with things that are sleeping.
The wind at the edge of the rift valley is even more vicious than on the snowfield.
It's not cut horizontally, it's poured vertically.
The airflow rising from the valley floor carried fragments of ice, which felt like sandpaper rubbing against my face.
Xu Hao lay down on the edge of the valley and looked down.
Dark green ice clung to the rock face, stretching into the darkness at the edge of sight.
The two sides of the rift valley are hundreds of feet apart, and there is nothing in the middle except for the breaths rising from the bottom.
The breathing sounds were too even.
It was so uniform that it didn't seem like a living thing, but rather like the heavens and earth themselves breathing.
With each exhale, the ice layer on the valley wall trembled as a whole, and ice fragments fell down in a flurry.
The interval was about five breaths, as precise as a water clock.
Xu Hao retreated to the edge of the valley and untied the bundle on his back.
The miniature tortoise poked its head out, its two tiny green bean-sized eyes darting around before quickly retracting.
The dark blue patterns on the tortoise shell flickered wildly, clearly in protest.
"What are you cowering for? It's not like I'm asking you to get down."
Xu Hao placed the black tortoise, along with its package, in a sheltered rock crevice by the valley and patted its shell.
"Stay put and don't wander off. Ignore anyone who comes before I get up here."
The black tortoise retracted all four legs and its head into its shell, and the eerie blue light of its shell diminished to almost invisible.
He played dead very professionally.
Xu Hao drew the Sea Devouring Blade, gripped the hilt with one hand, and dug the other hand into the ice crevice of the rock wall.
Down the valley.
The qi seeped into the ice layer through his palms, and with each step he had to use the dark blue qi to carve out a support point before moving his body down.
It was extremely slow, even more strenuous than digging a hole in a snowfield.
The temperature actually rises as you go down.
It's not warm, it's a different kind of cold.
The coldness in the bones turned into coldness in the blood vessels, even slowing down the circulation of qi and blood.
This is not a naturally low temperature.
It's the aura emanating from this sleeping thing.
The mere lingering aura was enough to suppress the blood and qi circulation of a martial artist at the Opening Aperture Realm.
Xu Hao silently assessed the strength level of the person below him, and further etched the words "quick take and quick leave" into his mind.
It descended by about two hundred feet.
The light disappeared completely.
In the pitch-black darkness, only the dark blue patterns on the Devouring Sea Blade provided faint illumination.
A different sensation came from underfoot.
It was no longer a hard rock wall, but some kind of smooth surface.
It resembles bone, yet also jade, possessing a warm and gentle quality that exudes a chilling aura.
Xu Hao moved down another dozen or so feet until his feet finally touched solid ground.
The Devouring Sea Blade thrust forward.
A dark blue halo illuminated an area within a five-step radius.
He stood on a huge, curved surface.
The surface is covered with a thin layer of white frost, beneath which is a translucent dark blue substance, with faintly visible internal patterns flowing within.
It's not a mineral vein, and it's not a rock.
It's scales.
The area of a single scale is larger than the deck of the Zhenyuan.
Xu Hao stood on the body of something.
The scroll depicting the blessed land in his mind made his temples throb.
The ancient seal characters flickered repeatedly, as if they were roaring hysterically.
Do not disturb its sleep. Do not disturb its sleep. Do not disturb its sleep.
Xu Hao reduced his internal energy to a minimum.
Even their breathing was compressed into thin threads.
The chilling aura of the Devouring Sea Blade was mostly extinguished, leaving only a faint glimmer to barely illuminate the way.
He carefully moved across the surface of the giant scales.
Each step felt as light as stepping on an eggshell.
Just how big is this thing?
He walked about a hundred steps along the curve of the scales before the curvature of the surface changed.
A finger-width gap was visible at the junction of the two scales, from which a faint dark golden light shone.
The compass spun wildly in his mind.
The pointer pointed straight down, and the brightness of the light spot reached the peak he had ever seen.
The fragments of the scroll were found between the scales of this body.
Or perhaps, the Martial Ancestor stuffed the incomplete divine skill manual into this monster.
No wonder the scroll painting of the blessed land says that "the seal has been loosened".
The fragment itself is part of the seal.
If the tattered scroll is removed, the seal will inevitably loosen.
I dare not think about what will happen after it loosens.
Xu Hao squatted down and slowly probed the crevices of the scales with his left hand.
The gap is deeper than it appears.
My arm was halfway in when my fingertips finally touched something hard.
It was warm, with sharp edges, like a piece of metal.
The qi gently enveloped the edge of the hard object and pulled it outwards.
tight.
It felt like I was being sucked in by something.
Xu Hao added three points of force.
The hard object loosened slightly, and a very faint hum came from deep within the crevices of the scales.
The giant scale beneath their feet trembled.
The breathing has changed.
The rhythm, which was originally five breaths per beat, suddenly sped up by half a beat.
The ice throughout the entire rift valley cracked simultaneously.
Ice fragments rained down from the two-hundred-foot-high valley wall.
Xu Hao's heart skipped a beat.
The hand movements didn't stop; instead, they increased.
The moment the hard object detached from the scales, a burst of dark golden light erupted out.
It is a metal nameplate about the size of a palm.
The front is covered with ancient seal script, and the back is a fist-shaped mark.
The fist imprint was deep, and the pattern was the same as the dark gold fragment obtained at the bottom of Wanghai Tower.
The incomplete scroll of the Martial Ancestor's Divine Skill, "The Secret of Suppressing Ten Thousand Bones
The compass in his mind suddenly stopped spinning.
All the points of light converged into one, shining as brightly as the sun.
The scroll of blessed land swallowed the metal nameplate on its own, and the edges of the scroll expanded rapidly.
New lines of seal script appeared one after another, too many to read.
The tremor underfoot went from a slight tremor to a violent shaking.
The breathing rate was shortened from four and a half breaths to three breaths.
This thing is waking up.
Between slumber and semi-awake state, this ancient behemoth, which has existed for countless millennia, is slowly but irreversibly awakening.
Xu Hao took off running.
It's not about climbing up.
There wasn't enough time to climb up.
He sprinted along the surface of the scales, charging towards the valley wall.
When the Surging Waves Step is pushed to its limit, each step leaves an ice crack on the giant scale.
Behind them, the dark golden light emanating from the cracks in the scales grew brighter and brighter.
A part of the giant object moved.
It wasn't a full awakening; I just subconsciously turned over.
Just this one action.
A hurricane swept through the bottom of the rift valley.
Xu Hao was swept up by the air currents, tumbling like a fallen leaf in a storm. He gritted his teeth and plunged the Sea-Devouring Blade into the ice of the valley wall, barely managing to steady himself.
A dull thud came from my right arm as it cracked.
This is just the aftermath of the turnaround.
A cracking sound came from above.
Above the rift valley, a huge shadow was moving; the valley entrance was blocked by something.
It wasn't a rockfall.
It is the skeleton of a giant beast from the barbarian tribe.
A makeshift fence, pieced together from dozens of Frosthorn skeletons, is being pushed down from both sides of the valley entrance, blocking the way out.
A voice drifted down from the edge of the valley.
Female voice.
It was cool and serene, with a languidness that seemed out of place in this harsh, cold land.
"Guests from the south, who have dug up other people's graves, should at least stay and be buried with them."
Xu Hao looked up.
At the edge of the valley, a slender figure draped in a black robe stood in the wind and snow.
The wind lifted a corner of the hood, revealing half of a pale face.
A pair of purple eyes.
Bone Lady looked down from her high vantage point, gazing down at the bottom of the valley.
Her gaze passed over Xu Hao and landed on the huge scales behind him that were undulating slightly.
His purple eyes reflected a dark golden light, both greedy and devout.
"It's waking up soon," she whispered, "three years earlier than expected. Thank you."
The breathing sounds from the bottom of the valley turned into a deep roar.
The entire rift valley began to tremble.