"Master, in the passage to your right, 23 kilometers away, there's a ninth-level Domain Lord warrior!" Rimuru's voice echoed in Han Jue's mind.
"Understood." Han Jue crouched slightly and pushed off with explosive force.
Whoosh!
Twenty-three kilometers vanished in the blink of an eye, his figure cutting through the frigid passage like a blade through silk.
Han Jue had cultivated the secret technique Myriad Avatars to its highest level, allowing him to create countless incarnations. The next tier beyond this was true teleportation, a power that required comprehension of spatial laws equivalent to the eighteenth level of Tongtian Bridge, still far beyond his current abilities.
"Ninth-level Domain Lord?"
Within moments, Han Jue's target came into view: a burly man with twin black horns jutting from his forehead. The native warrior was wrapped tightly in insulated gear, revealing only his eyes. A long-handled war hammer hung across his back as he advanced cautiously through the passage, clearly wary of straying into the extreme cold zones.
"No horns on your head, you're one of those 'Highnesses' from the Virtual Universe Company?!" The burly man froze when he spotted Han Jue, but his surprise quickly morphed into savage joy.
The rules were simple: kill these "Highnesses," and he could become a member of the Virtual Universe Company himself! No more struggling to survive in this frozen hell!
"Your Highness, go to hell!" The man grinned viciously and yanked the war hammer from his back. Complex secret patterns adorned both the hammer's head and handle, glowing faintly as he swung it toward Han Jue with devastating force.
Bang!
The massive hammer slammed into the ice with a thunderous impact, creating a crater, but it hadn't even grazed the edge of Han Jue's clothing.
"Such speed?" The burly man whirled around, startled, only to find Han Jue had already repositioned to the opposite side.
"That's it?" Han Jue chuckled, deliberately provoking him.
"Ahh!"
The warrior roared and swung his hammer again, this time unleashing his domain. Secret patterns of law blazed to life along the weapon's surface as his domain expanded outward, attempting to trap Han Jue in place and slow his movements.
Han Jue shook his head slightly. His figure flickered and vanished.
When he reappeared, tens of thousands of perfect replicas surrounded the burly man, each one indistinguishable from the real Han Jue. The warrior's eyes darted frantically between the countless identical figures, unable to determine which was genuine.
"I never had the chance to use this technique in the Seven Flames Palace," Han Jue said softly, his voice emanating from every avatar simultaneously. "Consider yourself fortunate to witness it."
In the Seven Flames Palace, most of the enemies he'd faced had been World Masters.
Against such powerful foes, Han Jue could only rely on his Unlimited technique and Star-Eating Grass for defense. Later, after obtaining the Water-Sky Holy Flame, he'd used its overwhelming power to kill Dulan Lian in a direct confrontation.
Against World Masters, thousands of avatars meant nothing, a single casual strike from such a powerful cultivator could annihilate them all.
These avatars were created based on Han Jue's own physical capabilities, meaning they shared his vulnerabilities. But against opponents at or below his level, the technique was devastating.
Swish!
Tens of thousands of avatars attacked simultaneously, each one capable of dealing real damage. The burly man could only rage helplessly, swinging his hammer wildly at the surrounding figures. Each swing destroyed dozens, even hundreds of avatars, but they multiplied faster than he could eliminate them, leaving countless shallow cuts across his body.
Blood began to seep through his protective gear as the accumulated wounds took their toll.
"Roar!"
The burly man gathered all his remaining strength and brought his hammer crashing down onto the ice with a desperate, final strike.
Crack!
The frozen ground shook violently, a massive fissure tearing open and stretching tens of kilometers in length. Invisible waves of extreme cold erupted from the crack, and the avatars touching this frigid air vanished instantly, unable to withstand the sub-zero temperatures.
The cold penetrated the warrior's own defenses as well, frost immediately forming a thick layer across his skin. The temperature plunged so deep it froze his flesh at the cellular level, damage that couldn't heal naturally, even with a Domain Lord's regenerative abilities.
The burly man gasped for breath, watching the surrounding avatars disappear. Just as relief began to show in his eyes, he felt a sharp pain pierce through his chest.
Looking down, he could only see the tip of the sword that had penetrated from behind. Then darkness claimed him.
The extreme cold from the crack he'd created flooded through the wound, freezing his internal organs solid.
Han Jue casually shattered the man's life core and searched the body, recovering a total of twenty-one black tokens.
It seemed this rough warrior had killed quite a few other natives during his time here. His ability to forcibly shatter the ice and unleash the extreme cold made him particularly dangerous to unsuspecting victims. Even the burly man himself could barely withstand the chill he'd unleashed, typical ninth-level Domain Lords would likely succumb to such temperatures.
After collecting the tokens, Han Jue now possessed a staggering 2,522 in total.
This impressive count resulted primarily from choosing Ice Mountain over Demon Sound Mountain, far more participants had selected this location, making encounters with natives more frequent. It also helped that Han Jue actively sought out and eliminated natives rather than trying to disguise himself or avoid confrontation.
A frigid wind howled through the vast ice passage, creating constant resistance against Han Jue's advance. He pushed forward relentlessly through what felt like an endless corridor stretching hundreds of thousands of kilometers.
Time became difficult to measure in this monotonous environment.
Eventually, after what might have been hours or days, the passage finally opened into something different.
Han Jue emerged into a crystal-clear world of ice.
Extreme cold had formed vast, beautiful caverns throughout this space. Various ice formations naturally decorated the exterior of these caves, some resembling frozen waterfalls, others like crystalline chandeliers. The scene was both breathtakingly beautiful and lethally dangerous.
The chill emanating from this area was strong enough to freeze many Domain Lords to death within minutes.
Surrounding this frozen realm were 887 distinct ice crystal caves, each corresponding to a different passageway.
Suddenly, a slightly octagonal ice crystal cave in the distance caught Han Jue's attention. He felt an inexplicable pull toward it, a faint sense of something significant waiting within.
"Could this be it?"
His eyes lit up with recognition and excitement as he immediately entered the octagonal cavern.
The ice crystal caverns varied in width, averaging approximately fifteen kilometers across, with heights that fluctuated dramatically. Massive ice formations hung like frozen spears from the ceiling in some sections, while strange carvings adorned the walls in others, natural art created by eons of ice formation.
The passages twisted and turned unpredictably, sometimes curving sharply, other times straightening into long corridors.
Han Jue maintained his speed throughout, bursting forward in rapid succession without concern for energy depletion.
The Water-Sky Holy Flame could replenish his exhausted reserves, an ability he'd discovered only after extensive research.
According to his calculations, once he achieved Immortality, this ability would evolve further. The flame should be capable of repairing his divine body and replenishing divine power directly. Before reaching Immortality, however, he could essentially treat it as infinite energy, allowing him to unleash his secret techniques without restraint.
After what felt like less than an hour of travel, a glimmer of light finally appeared at the tunnel's end.
"Roar!"
A foolish mystical beast lunged at Han Jue the moment he emerged from the tunnel, only to be dispatched with a single casual strike.
"Hmph!" Seeing the horde of mystical beasts surrounding him, none stronger than the third level of World Master, Han Jue snorted coldly. His Star-Eating Grass materialized, instantly engulfing and devouring the nearby creatures in a devastating wave of emerald tendrils.
Looking up, Han Jue saw a vast, seemingly boundless ice field stretching before him. An enormous expanse of mystical beasts, ranging in size from massive to minuscule, had naturally formed their own territories according to their strength, creating an instinctive hierarchy across the frozen landscape.
Many of these beasts had reached the World Master level, with three particularly powerful presences dominating three corners of the ice field. All three were ninth-level World Masters, and they'd been drawn by the commotion Han Jue had created.
"Trouble!"
Han Jue's expression changed abruptly. He quickly recalled his Star-Eating Grass, retreated back into the passage, and fled at maximum speed.
There was no point tangling with these immortal-level beasts. Fighting them would be suicidal.
I remembered it wrong!
This place wasn't what he'd been searching for at all, it was merely a mystical beast lair, nothing more.
In the original Swallowed Star storyline, how had Luo Feng found the Demon Sound God General's inheritance?
Han Jue searched his memories carefully. It seemed that Luo Feng had been pushed into an abyss by Moro, betrayed during the trial.
So that's how it happened...
Understanding dawned on him as the pieces fell into place. This wasn't the right location at all. He needed to find the actual abyss area where the inheritance was hidden, not some random beast territory within Demon Mountain's frozen passages.
Han Jue adjusted his course, plotting a new route based on his corrected understanding of Demon Mountain's geography. The real opportunity still awaited, hidden somewhere within this massive frozen structure, he just needed to find the right path.