Splitting the Heavens - Chapter 1167: Endless World of Frost
Shang Xia heaved a sigh of relief he didn’t rush over too quickly. Otherwise, he might have fallen for Hua Jianlou’s trap.
Also… The sword light summoned by Hua Jianlou was truly impressive. It managed to stir up the space before the spatial tunnel, turning it into a region of chaos. Clearly, he didn’t wish for anyone to be able to rush in behind him.
Of course, it didn’t matter if it was Wen Juxiang or Hua Jianlou. They both clearly underestimated Shang Xia.
What was more important was that Shang Xia gained yet another reason to continue the pursuit!
After Zhuge Xiang’s clone entered the spatial tunnel earlier, the boundless frost energy that came from the other side caused the Crimson Soul Tablet in his sea of consciousness to thump violently.
It was a feeling different from anything he felt before. Instead, he felt a sense of familiarity from the energy coming from the other end of the spatial tunnel.
It wasn’t like the power of the stars that was a pseudo-Seventh Order energy, and it wasn’t anything like the power of Starfire Refinement. Instead, it was world origin that could excite the Crimson Soul Tablet.
Shang Xia once felt the presence of a spatial barrier when he was escaping from Wen Juxiang in the past with the use of the Six Harmony Teleportation Talisman. That seemed to be the source of the world origin he was feeling.
He could tell that what lay on the other end of the spatial tunnel wasn’t a mere secret region or anything comparable to that. Instead, it was a hidden world, and it was a world of a higher level than a Spirit World!
Since it had to be a world that surpassed a Spirit World, at the very least…
Information flooded his mind and Shang Xia’s thoughts spun. He didn’t have any doubts about it any longer. The thing that was hidden in the void north of the Spirit Abundance World that was causing the powerful frost waves had to be an Essence World!
The only question that remained was the relationship between the hidden Essence World and Star Origin City. After all, Zhuge Xiang’s clone wouldn’t be bringing the Star Origin Lord Robe to the hidden Essence World for nothing.
With the experts of the Essence Ming World and Essence Hong World knowing about the existence of the hidden Essence World… Shang Xia had tons of questions in his mind but no time to think about any of them.
If he continued to hesitate, he would lose his chance to enter the Essence World!
Even though it seemed like he discovered a lot of things in a short moment, it had only been several seconds since he was forced to stumble through the air by Hua Jianlou’s sword qi.
The spatial tunnel was still emitting faint traces of light even though the space outside its entrance was affected. The beautiful illusions could still be seen through it, but the power of frost that emerged in the form of the frost wave didn’t reduce in the slightest.
When Shang Xia passed through the region of fragmented space, a thick layer of frost appeared at the edge of his domain. Frost energy started to inch closer to him, and his domain showed signs of freezing up.
Having prepared for it a long time ago, Shang Xia started to circulate his inner qi. Warmth filled his domain and quickly forced the frost energy away.
The next second, he brought out the Six Harmony Teleportation Talisman he crafted before head over and along with the spatial crack swallowing him up whenever he used it, the hidden Essence World was revealed. Forcing his way through the spatial barrier, he quickly entered the world.
In order to prevent any accidents from happening throughout the process, Shang Xia also wore the tattered bamboo hat.
Above the world that was completely frozen over, a pitch-black tear in space appeared without warning. A figure wearing a bamboo hat tumbled out and Shang Xia started free-falling into the world.
The wind whistled around him as the power of frost continued to reach into his body. It even showed signs that it could freeze his inner qi over.
Shang Xia tried to force the power of frost out of his body, and he also tried to stabilize himself and stop himself from falling. He felt a powerful sense of suppression which forced him to fall faster, and he felt that he was being completely rejected from the world. The inner qi in his body might not have been completely sealed off, but it was becoming difficult to circulate it. Every action he made needed ten times the effort!
Shang Xia was no stranger to the feeling. It was the World’s Will suppression to cultivators not of their world.
The only thing was that the world he just arrived at was an Essence World, and everything he felt before was from Azure or Spirit Worlds. The suppression he felt in the past was nothing like what he was experiencing.
Even when Shang Xia stepped into the Spirit Abundance World or Spirit Faith World for the first time, he was able to accurately change his aura to fool the World’s Will. He could easily pass himself off as a native cultivator, causing the World’s Will suppression to be much weaker.
However, he discovered that his usual method of doing things wouldn’t fly in the frozen world.
That was because he couldn’t find anyone he could imitate, and as such, he would be unable to fool the World’s Will into thinking that he was a part of them.
The whistling around him grew stronger and stronger, and Shang Xia was falling faster and faster. He was also getting closer to the ground rapidly.
What was even worse was that the power of frost was growing stronger and stronger. Not only was his body growing stiffer by the second, his inner qi was also slowing down considerably. Even his thoughts were frozen and his reaction time became a lot worse than before.
If nothing changed, Shang Xia was afraid he was going to crash directly into the ground below.
Even though a True Immortal had a sturdy body and falling from a height of thousands of miles might not be enough to kill him, that was only if he was in his peak condition. He already suffered heavy injuries after fighting with Wen Juxiang previously.
If he really slammed into the ground at the speed he was going, he was afraid his internal organs would shatter.
Fortunately, he never gave up. He forced his inner qi to continue circulating through his body according to the flow he developed through his Six Harmony Flawless Rod Technique and he continued to struggle free of the suppressive frosty qi.
Perhaps it was because it was activated due to Shang Xia’s strong desire to prevent himself from falling, but the Crimson Soul Tablet became active once again. It started to thump hard, and Shang Xia felt it pulsating in his glabella. It was as though the tablet would emerge the next moment.
He instinctively raised his hand to punch his glabella, only to realize that he could finally move again!
He quickly adjusted his landing position and discovered that the power of frost that froze his body was gone. His inner qi was no longer moving slowly, and even his thoughts were a lot sharper than before.
He quickly turned his attention to the Crimson Soul Tablet, and it was precisely the strange treasure that absorbed the power of frost completely, allowing him to recover.
His inner qi quickly circulated around his body and his formless domain reemerged. He managed to find his footing and land properly on the surface of the world.
It was then that Shang Xia finally realized that the power of frost that existed everywhere in the world was constantly absorbed by the Crimson Soul Tablet.
The moment he landed, he didn’t use his inner qi to support himself and he sank more than a foot into the ground. With the sudden change, he had no choice but to deploy his domain once again to keep the power of frost away from him while giving him the ability to move about in the strange new world.
However, with the activation of his domain, the consumption of inner qi would place a huge burden on him.
Shang Xia couldn’t think of a better plan for the time being. Fortunately, with the Crimson Soul Tablet absorbing the power of frost, Shang Xia no longer experienced any part of himself freezing up.
Taking out several high-grade essence crystals from his sleeves to replenish his energy, Shang Xia could finally calm himself down enough to inspect the foreign world he was in.
Without a doubt, he was standing in a world that had frozen over.
Everything in front of him was a desert with nothing but ice. With the exception of several hills made of snow, it was basically a wasteland that stretched out to infinity.
The only issue was that when he tried to fly to look further into the horizon to see if there was anything different, he discovered a layer of strange mirage hovering above the frozen land that was created by strange light rays the earth emitted. It was as though they were twisting and turning across the endless ice.
That wasn’t all. When Shang Xia’s divine soul came into contact with the brilliant rays that came from the ice below, a sense of familiarity assaulted him. It also re-ignited the Crimson Soul Tablet’s desire to devour energy.
“Is this… Is this the power of the stars?!”
No, it’s something different!
Shang Xia even wondered if it was the power of Starfire Refinement like what Tong Yutang managed to achieve back then. However, after closer inspection, he discovered that that wasn’t the case either.
However, be it the power of the stars or Starfire Refinement, they seemed to originate from the same source as the pretty lights that formed the mirage that hovered above the land.