The Northern Frost Palace floated above the Eternal Glacier like a city of swords inverted against the sky.
Nine jagged peaks pierced the clouds, each an independent immortal mountain linked by chains of primordial ice. At the very center, the highest and coldest peak loomed: the Heavenly Sword Platform, where Luo Wuxie had once endured his final tribulation—and where Bai Qingyao had buried her blade in his heart.
Luo Xinghan stood at the foot of the first mountain gate. No one stopped him.
The outer defenses had already become a gallery of black ice statues: disciples, elders, spirit beasts—even guardian arrays frozen mid-activation, runes twisted into screaming faces.
He looked up. Above the ninth peak, the grand sect-protecting array, Ten Directions Eternal Frost Domain, shimmered pale blue, still believing itself impregnable.
Luo Xinghan lifted a hand.
Inside his dantian, two cores revolved in perfect opposition.
The first: a perfect sphere of black ice, within it nine frost lotuses slowly blooming and wilting.
The second: a miniature Asura Dragon coiled around a drop of golden-black dragon blood, exhaling frostflame colder than absolute zero and hotter than the sun's core.
This was the foundation of the Eternal Frost Demonic Scripture, nine great realms, each divided into nine minor layers:
Frost Soul Condensation
Myriad Corpse Refinement
Nine Nether Frostflame
Asura Dragon Bone
Heavenly Demon True Body
Blood Sea Styx Domain
Eternal Winter Tribulation
Abyss Sovereign Crown
Frost Demon Dao Emperor
Ordinary cultivators followed the standard nine realms: Qi Condensation → Foundation → Core Formation → Nascent Soul → Soul Transformation → Void Shattering → Dao Seeking → Immortal Ascension → True Immortal.
The demonic path counted differently. Power came from devouring, from taboo, from turning pain into law.
Luo Xinghan currently stood at the peak of the second realm, Myriad Corpse Refinement, yet the quality of his frost qi had already surpassed ordinary Soul Transformation ancestors. Every wisp of his qi contained a thread of Asura Dragon Emperor blood and ten thousand years of abyssal resentment.
He stepped onto the mountain path.
The first true trial of the Northern Frost Palace activated. Nine hundred and ninety-nine frost steps, each an illusory formation that tested the soul.
Ordinary disciples knelt after thirty steps.
Inner disciples collapsed at two hundred.
Only core disciples and elders could ascend all the way with their minds intact.
Luo Xinghan walked upward as if strolling through a frozen garden.
At the hundredth step, ghostly voices whispered:
"Wuxie… why did you fail your tribulation? You were meant to be the pride of the North…"
He did not stop.
At the three hundredth step, illusions appeared: his younger self in pure white, laughing with Bai Qingyao beneath snow-laden plum trees. She rested her head on his shoulder, fingers laced with his.
"Come back," the phantom whispered. "Give up revenge. Ascend properly this time. She still waits for you."
Luo Xinghan walked straight through the illusion. It shattered into black snow.
At the six hundredth step, the illusions turned crueler. Bai Qingyao stood in her white holy maiden robes, sword dripping with his old blood. Tears glimmered on her cheeks.
"I had no choice," she pleaded. "If I didn't kill you, the Heavenly Dao would have erased the Northern Domain. I saved billions by sacrificing you."
Luo Xinghan paused. For the first time since rebirth, emotion flickered across his face. Then he laughed—a low, soft sound, like glaciers cracking.
He reached out, frost forming on his fingers, and cupped the illusion's cheek. Her hopeful smile shone briefly. His thumb brushed her lips… then pushed straight through her face.
The illusion exploded into crimson ice crystals.
"Billions?" His voice was gentle. "Then I will freeze billions."
He continued upward.
At the nine hundred and ninetieth step, the formation finally admitted defeat. The mountain path shattered, revealing the true gate.
Two elders at the Soul Transformation stage waited, faces pale. One held the sect's guardian treasure, the Nine Profound Frost Mirror. The other clutched a transmission jade.
"Demon!" the mirror-wielding elder bellowed. "You have slaughtered your way here, but the ancestor is in seclusion. Surrender now and—"
Luo Xinghan raised his hand.
For the first time, he circulated the third realm technique he had just touched after devouring the resentful souls of Frostgate City:
Nine Nether Frostflame, First Form — Silent Lotus Funeral.
No light. No sound. No warning.
A single black lotus bloomed between his fingers. Its petals were frostflame, balanced between absolute cold and sun-core heat. It drifted forward like a feather.
The two elders activated all their defenses: jade shields, frost armor, soul-protecting talismans passed down for ten thousand years.
The black lotus touched the first shield. Everything it touched ceased to exist—not destroyed, simply erased from reality, as if it had never been.
It passed through ten layers of defense without slowing. Gently, it landed on the mirror-wielding elder's chest. One heartbeat of terror. Then his body, soul, Dao—everything—turned to black snow, drifting on a wind that did not exist.
The second elder turned to flee. The lotus duplicated—two, four, eight—until eighty-one black lotuses floated like a funeral procession. They buried him alive. When the last petal closed, nothing remained. Not even dust.
Luo Xinghan stepped over where two Soul Transformation cultivators had stood moments ago. He looked up at the higher peaks.
Mo Cangqiong's draconic laughter shook the void:
"Beautiful. That technique kills True Immortals. In your hands, it erases Soul Transformation like ants. When you reach the seventh realm… the heavens themselves will burn beneath your frost."
Luo Xinghan's answer was calm.
"I don't need the heavens to burn. I only need one person to kneel."
He kept climbing. Behind him, the first mountain gate collapsed silently, becoming a mountain-sized black lotus that sank into the glacier.
Higher up, more bells began to ring. The sect awakened.
On Holy Maiden Peak, Bai Qingyao stood before her mirror, face pale as snow. The jade pendant on her chest burned cold. A strand of her hair had turned black at the root without her noticing.
She stared at her reflection. Real fear appeared for the first time in ten years.
The drop of blood sealed inside the pendant—taken when she stabbed Luo Wuxie—was beating. A second heart. Beating in perfect rhythm with footsteps climbing toward her peak.
She clutched the pendant, whispering a name unspoken for ten thousand days:
"Wuxie…"
Far below, Luo Xinghan heard it, softer than snow. He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, black frostflame danced in his pupils.
He spoke to the sky, voice soft, almost tender:
"Soon."
Then he took the final step onto the second immortal mountain.
The war for the Northern Frost Palace had only just begun.