Chương 37: Chapter 18 Part 4

The Abyssal Frost Wyrm did not roar with vocal cords; it emitted a sound like grinding tectonic plates, a deafening screech of shifting glaciers that physically shook the frozen ocean of Floor 20. It lunged. Its massive jaws opened, unleashing a torrent of absolute-zero breath. The attack wasn't a stream of ice; it was a localized erasure of thermal energy.

The very air flash-froze, turning the oxygen into falling blue snow as the beam of death swept across the cavern, aiming directly for the tiny speck of black and crimson. Ming Xuan Ji didn't retreat. [Yin-Yang Dance Stride]. She pushed off the ice, her footwork leaving a trail of phantom afterimages. She didn't try to outrun the breath attack; she moved through it.

Her Dantian roared to life, violently circulating her Yang-aligned Qi, projecting a searing, invisible heat shield inches from her skin that instantly vaporized the absolute-zero frost before it could touch her. She closed the distance in a fraction of a second, appearing directly beneath the Wyrm's towering, crystalline neck. She planted her feet, twisted her hips, and unleashed a barrage of strikes. [Demonic Chain Palm].

Her hands blurred into a dozen overlapping strikes, each palm hitting the corrupted, jagged ice of the Wyrm's scales with the force of a dwarven siege hammer. BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG. The impacts rang out like cannon fire. Massive chunks of dark blue ice exploded outward, but the floor guardian was a mythical entity. The ambient, toxic Yin mana of the cavern instantly rushed into the wounds, flash-freezing and regenerating the shattered scales faster than she could break them.

The Wyrm snapped its head down, its massive, jagged snout crashing into the ice where Xuan Ji stood, attempting to crush her under hundreds of tons of weight. Xuan Ji blurred to the side, the impact launching a tidal wave of jagged ice shards into the air. Before the Wyrm could pull its head back, Xuan Ji leaped. She landed flawlessly on the beast's snout. The floor guardian thrashed violently, its ghostly blue eyes flaring with rage as it attempted to buck the human off.

Suddenly, the Wyrm's colossal, spiked tail whipped through the blizzard, swinging around in a massive horizontal arc designed to wipe her off its face. The tail moved so fast it broke the sound barrier, carrying enough force to level a city block. Xuan Ji didn't dodge. She bent her knees and raised her bare arms in a cross-guard. CRASH. The impact of the Wyrm's tail against her forearms generated a shockwave that cleared the blizzard in a hundred-yard radius.

The sheer weight pushed Xuan Ji backward, her boots carving two deep, smoking trenches into the Wyrm's icy snout, but her [Heavenly Demon Raiment] and peerless physical tempering held absolute. Her bones didn't even fracture.

"Too light," Xuan Ji muttered, her eyes narrowing. Before the Wyrm could retract its tail, Xuan Ji reached out and dug her fingers directly into the solid ice of the appendage. [Demonic Echo]. She channeled her signature technique directly into her grip and activated her [Enigma Ring]. A highly concentrated, destructive vibrational shockwave erupted from her fingertips, bypassing the external armor and traveling straight into the internal structure of the tail.

The Wyrm shrieked as the entire final third of its massive tail vibrated violently and then exploded into a million pieces of glowing blue dust. You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. Enraged by the loss of its limb, the Wyrm's body began to glow with a blinding, saphire light. The toxic mana of Floor 20 surged. The shattered ocean of ice beneath them suddenly erupted upward.

Thousands of razor-sharp, ten-foot-long ice spears shot into the sky, converging on Xuan Ji from every possible angle in a lethal, inescapable dome.

"You want to play with the environment?" Xuan Ji asked, her voice calm despite the apocalyptic spell descending upon her. She dropped into a low crouch and drew upon the depths of her Dantian. She didn't just use her Yang energy; she perfectly balanced it with her deep Yin. [Yin Yang Vortex Strike]. She threw both hands outward.

Her right hand blazed with the searing, white-hot soul-fire of the Flame-Devouring Star Spear, while her left hand swirled with the absolute-zero, freezing depths of the Frost-Devouring Demon Palm. The two diametrically opposed energies collided in the air directly above her. The resulting sub-atomic explosion was catastrophic. A massive, swirling vortex of boiling frost and freezing fire erupted outward, obliterating the thousands of incoming ice spears instantly.

The thermal shockwave hit the Wyrm's body, causing its corrupted ice scales to rapidly expand and violently crack. The Wyrm recoiled, disoriented and physically cracking from the massive thermal disparity. It was the only opening the Heavenly Demon needed. Xuan Ji shot into the air, using the falling debris of the ice spears as stepping stones. Her Qinggong carried her higher and higher until she was positioned directly above the Wyrm's massive, crystalline skull. She descended like a falling star.

She brought her right hand back, condensing every ounce of her offensive Qi into a single, localized point on her palm. The air around her hand physically warped from the sheer density of the gathered energy. [Heavenly Demon Palm: Shattering Heavens]. She slammed her open palm directly onto the center of the Wyrm's forehead. The sound of the impact was completely muted by the sheer scale of the destruction.

The compressed shockwave fired downward, traveling straight through the Wyrm's skull, down its long serpentine neck, and detonating directly inside its central chest cavity. The ghostly blue light in the Wyrm's eyes violently flickered, then permanently extinguished. For a split second, the colossal beast hung frozen in the air. Then, it shattered. Millions of tons of corrupted blue ice rained down upon the frozen ocean, a spectacular, glittering avalanche that marked the death of the unkillable floor guardian.

Ming Xuan Ji landed gracefully amidst the settling dust of the destroyed behemoth, exhaling a soft, controlled puff of steam as her internal engine settled down. She didn't celebrate. She didn't cheer. Even when a huge surge of golden energy is being absorbed by her body like a black hole, the exhilarating feeling of growing stronger embraces her. She turned her attention immediately to the massive crater where the Wyrm's chest cavity had detonated. She raised her hand. [Invisible Hand of the Void].

Invisible, spiritual tendrils lashed out, diving into the rubble. With a sharp tug, she ripped the prize free. It floated toward her, hovering gently above her open palm. The Abyssal Frost Marrow and an SS-rank Ice Crystal Core. It was a fist-sized, pristine crystal that glowed with a deep, mesmerizing azure light. It was flawlessly beautiful, radiating a primordial, stabilizing Yin energy that was completely uncorrupted by the dungeon's miasma. It was the zenith of medicine. It was Evanthe's cure.

"Thirty days," Xuan Ji scoffed quietly, a genuine smile of victory touching her lips.

"I did it in seven. It would take three to four days at most to return to the surface; that leaves a lot of spare time." She activated her Void Storage Ring, intending to store the Marrow and the core. But the exact second the crystal crossed the spatial threshold of her ring, a violent, agonizing burning sensation erupted in the center of her mind. Xuan Ji gasped, her hand flying to her temple. She didn't actively trigger the skill, but her [Divine Eye of Veritas] violently tore itself open.

Her irises flared with a blinding, terrifying golden light that illuminated the dark blizzard around her. Burned directly into her retinas, overriding her physical vision, was a spiritual coordinate. A singular, bright crimson beacon flashing wildly in the darkness of the world above, cutting through miles of stone, earth, and magical jamming. The black jade charm. It was broken. The smile vanished from Ming Xuan Ji's face. The victorious warmth in her chest turned instantly into a hollow void.

She knew exactly what the beacon meant. Durgan and Axel had fallen. The Vael estate had been breached. Evanthe was taken. The blizzard around Xuan Ji suddenly stopped. It didn't naturally fade; it was physically dominated. The sheer, overwhelming, catastrophic bloodlust erupting from Xuan Ji's Dantian crushed the ambient mana of Floor 20 entirely. The air pressure dropped so violently that the frozen ocean beneath her boots began to spider-web and crack in a mile-wide radius. She wasn't a streamer right now.

She wasn't an adventurer exploring a new world for fun. She was the Heavenly Demon, and someone had just stolen her disciple. Xuan Ji looked up toward the ceiling of the cavern, her golden eyes burning with a promise of genocide. She moved and left the floor 20 so fast as if teleporting.

"Lynx," Xuan Ji whispered to the empty air, her voice a terrifying, vibrating frequency that shattered the remaining ice pillars around her into fine dust.

"We are leaving. Now."