Trials of the Abyss

A giant circular altar made of rubble filled a vast underground stone hall deep beneath the Giant Stone Palace. Six thick stone pillars surrounded the altar. These pillars were decorated with mysterious runes and murals of one-eyed giants performing sacrificial rites.

Wang Yisen's and Maverick Ling Yun's bodies lay near the pillars beside the altar.

Pang Jian stood outside the altar, using the earthflame energy from his spiritual sea and the sun in his dantian to resist the soul-chilling coldness permeating the air.

As Pang Jian studied the cracks and gaps in the altar and pillars, he soon realized these structures had been previously destroyed only to be rebuilt from the rubble.

Whoosh!

An otherworldly figure wearing a feathered crown silently emerged from the shadows.

"Maverick Ling Yun!" Pang Jian exclaimed before realizing it was one of Luo Hongyan's Spirit Devils.

"The soul of the Sinister Soul Temple cultivator was stronger, but unfortunately, it couldn't be refined into a Spirit Devil." Luo Hongyan sighed regretfully.

Maverick Ling Yun had been aware of the peculiarities of the Sinister Soul Temple and had used the power of the altar to kill Wang Yisen and dissipate his soul. By the time Luo Hongyan descended underground, Wang Yisen had already died, and she had not been able to sense any remaining fragments of his soul.

"Pang Jian, your guess was right. One-eyed giants built the city above us. The city shares its name with Ice Rock Island and is known as Ice Rock City," Luo Hongyan explained. "Even Maverick Ling Yun didn't know why Ice Rock City was here or how it was destroyed.

"There was nothing unusual about this fragmented land when he first occupied it, but after discovering this underground palace and rebuilding it from the rubble, the cold leaked out of the altar and into the air.

"The underground palace we're in now is the real Giant Stone Palace."

Luo Hongyan continued to share what she had learned from Maverick Ling Yun's memories, explaining how the one-eyed giants had originally used the underground Giant Stone Palace and the partially rebuilt altar to communicate with ice demons.

After the broken altar was rebuilt, the Giant Stone Palace became bitterly cold, and so Maverick Ling Yun named the fragmented land Ice Rock Island.

Maverick Ling Yun harnessed the cold of the altar and leveraged its power to kill Wang Yisen.

"Did he manage to communicate with the Ice Demons?" Pang Jian asked curiously.

Luo Hongyan shook her head. "The altar only retained a small part of its mystical power after being rebuilt. Maverick Ling Yun tried countless times but never succeeded.

"But...you could go to the altar and feel it yourself."

"Me?" Pang Jian was taken aback.

"Yes, don't worry. The altar can't be activated now that Maverick Ling Yun is dead. Just sit on the altar. You'll feel something remarkable," Luo Hongyan said with a mysterious smile.

Pang Jian frowned and walked down the steps to the altar before sitting down.

Looking around, he touched the cold rocks and felt around the gaps, but noticed nothing unusual.

"Try closing your eyes," Luo Hongyan suggested.

Pang Jian closed his eyes.

An all-encompassing sense of loneliness overwhelmed him. It was like he was in a dark, empty world. There was no sign of life around him, only eternal silence and emptiness.

A terrifying icy aura enveloped him. The cold aura seemed capable of freezing his body and soul.

Pang Jian's face paled. Cold sweat dripped down his back.

If not for the extreme cold, it would have felt like he was lying in the copper chest without the bronze pendant, in a dark world of eternal emptiness and deathly silence.

The only difference was that, on the altar, he could touch the cold stones with his hands and feel the rocks beneath him. Aside from that, it was almost identical to being in the copper chest without the bronze pendant.

"Do you feel it?" Luo Hongyan asked, eyes gleaming. "The altar feels like the chest from Eight Trigrams City."

The experience had horrified her when she first encountered the altar.

"Perhaps the Ice Demons' world resembles that?" Pang Jian wondered aloud.

"The one-eyed giants are now in the Fifth World. Perhaps the Ice Demons are also somewhere in the Fifth World," Luo Hongyan speculated.

Pang Jian shook his head. "No, the Fifth World doesn't feel like that."

Luo Hongyan was taken aback. Then, she recalled how Pang Jian had entered the murky energy in Eight Trigrams City. Between them, he was undoubtedly more familiar with the atmosphere of the Fifth World.

One-eyed giants, Ice Rock City, Split Sky City.

Pang Jian suddenly wanted to study Split Sky City in the Fifth World. Split Sky City was also a city of one-eyed giants, and the Celestial Maiden could still be there discussing the matter of the ascension with them.

Calming his mind, he activated the Qi Nurturing Divine Cauldron Art and prepared to establish a connection with the Giant Abyssal Serpent.

Whoosh!

The harsh icy aura of the altar flooded his spiritual sea when he activated the Qi Nurturing Divine Cauldron Art. Pang Jian's eyebrows and hair were covered with frost in the blink of an eye.

"Quick, get down from the altar!" Luo Hongyan shouted in alarm. "Maverick Ling Yun activated this altar's power. That's why it's so cold here. It's how he killed Wang Yisen!"

She feared the altar would freeze and shatter Pang Jian's body and soul, killing him instantly.

"I'm fine," Pang Jian said. His eyebrows and hair were covered in frost but he quietly endured the cold. "I want to use this altar to cultivate. My body and soul can withstand the cold. I can absorb its energy."

Luo Hongyan was taken aback. Her eyebrows raised in shock. "Are you saying..."

"The cold energy is beneficial to me!" Pang Jian replied firmly.

Luo Hongyan's expression turned strange, but she eventually nodded.

"You don't need to stay here. I'll be fine," Pang Jian added.

"No." Luo Hongyan shook her head. She was determined to stay by Pang Jian's side.

Pang Jian did not try to dissuade her.

He stopped trying to establish a connection with the Giant Abyssal Serpent and focused on using the Qi Nurturing Divine Cauldron Art to absorb the cold energy from the altar. Soon, he had seemingly turned into ice. A layer of frost covered his body and his limbs glistened like crystals.

Luo Hongyan stood guard on the side. As she watched Pang Jian, she saw cold lights shoot out from the altar like lightning and enter Pang Jian's frozen body.

White cold air rose from the gaps in the altar and enveloped Pang Jian.

The temperature in the Giant Stone Palace rose. The extreme cold leaking out of the broken altar was now being reabsorbed.

On the surface of Ice Rock Island, Gao Yuan was pulling a spatial pouch from a rogue cultivator's corpse when he noticed a peculiar change beneath his feet. The cold ground beneath him was no longer frozen over and the chill in the air had dissipated.

The climate of Ice Rock Island was subtly changing.

Deep beneath the Giant Stone Palace, Pang Jian sat on the altar, eyes closed in meditation.

He felt like he had been transported to an icy void.

As he absorbed the streams of cold energy, it condensed into crystalline ice crystals and formed a small ice pool not far from the fiery pool in his spiritual sea.

As this happened, fragmented images from the past flickered through Pang Jian's mind.

Pang Jian's back was toward the clear, sunny sky. Below him was Ice Rock City before it collapsed. One-eyed giants bustled about the grand and majestic city, using crude stone tools to start fires and cook.

Male one-eyed giants, dozens of zhang tall and wearing only animal skins around their waists, laughed heartily as they emerged from a golden mountain range, hauling high-ranked Vicious Beasts behind them.

One giant in particular stood out among them. He was taller than his kin and exuded an aura as vast as mountains and seas. A pale green serpent coiled around his waist, and he carried a giant axe that seemed capable of splitting the heavens. Laughing heartily, he led his hunting party into Ice Rock City, where they were greeted with cheers of admiration.

Whoosh!

The scene changed.

The chieftain of the one-eyed giants kneeled on one knee as he held a small one-eyed infant in his broad left palm. His eye glistened with tears as he gazed down at the shriveled heart in his child's chest. The child's life force was steadily waning.

"Ah Man!" The old chieftain cried out in grief, unable to accept the cruel reality that his newborn heir was doomed to die, and becoming increasingly despondent in the following days.

Wanting to help his child survive, the chieftain brought out an ancient stone tool of his tribe and chiseled out the Giant Stone Palace underground. He then installed a giant incense burner and set up an altar to communicate with the Ice Demons.

His grandfather had repeatedly warned him not to use forbidden techniques to communicate with the Ice Demons. However, those warnings were nothing in the face of potentially extending his child's life.

Black smoke rose from the giant incense burner as he established a connection with the Ice Demons through the altar. Following the Ice Demons' instructions, he sacrificed a serpent, a spirit turtle, and a number of vermillion fruits in exchange for a life-extending liquid.

After consuming the liquid, Ah Man's shriveled heart no longer lost its life force and his young son lived on.

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