At this point, the first layer of the Nine Nether Cold Prison Art was complete!

  The nether aperture in Yun Che’s dantian—opened for the first time!

  His mind sank inward as he mobilized one-third of the Nine Nether cold force surrounding the aperture and initiated the second breakthrough—aperture shattering.

  This time, the cold force did not enter the aperture.

  Instead, it surged outward like a tide, encircling the entire aperture and launching wave after wave of violent assaults from the outside in!

  Each impact consumed cold force, yet fresh streams followed relentlessly, the onslaught growing fiercer with every moment. After a long while, the aperture could no longer endure—cracks began to spread across its barrier.

  Without hesitation, Yun Che drew upon another third of his cold force and poured it into the torrent—

  Boom!

  The nether aperture shattered!

  Agony like a primordial beast lunged at him! The newly formed Nine Nether cold force within the aperture scattered, dispersing into his blood, flesh, and meridians.

  He did not pause for even a breath.

  Immediately, Yun Che mobilized all remaining cold force and began the third breakthrough—reopening the aperture and condensing the Cold Core!

  This time, the process took far longer than before.

  Night fell. His cold force showed signs of exhaustion. Yun Che decisively absorbed the surrounding cold-vein energy to replenish himself. The vortex reformed, its rotation accelerating until it became impossible to discern with the naked eye!

  At midnight, the yin-cold energy of heaven and earth reached its peak.

  Yun Che’s body seemed to transform into a black hole. Cold mist within ten zhang surged violently toward him, sucked straight into the dantian vortex!

  The vortex expanded rapidly—its pull intensifying, its reach growing wider—

  Twenty zhang.

  Fifty zhang.

  One hundred zhang…

  A vicious cycle formed!

  The larger the vortex grew, the stronger its suction.

  The stronger the suction, the wider its devouring range!

  Yun Che’s heart jolted—this mutation had exceeded everything recorded in the cultivation manual!

  He tried to stop it, only to discover that the vortex was completely out of control.

  This was precisely why the Nine Nether Cold Prison Art was known as the “Netherworld Devious Path.” During cultivation, unpredictable and bizarre transformations often occurred—fortune or calamity impossible to foresee.

  And at this critical moment, Li Han was still dormant.

  Everything depended on Yun Che alone.

  The devouring radius expanded to three hundred zhang!

  Within a thousand zhang, the cold mist boiled and churned violently, as if stirred by an invisible colossal hand!

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  Then—

  A violent tremor erupted from Yun Che’s dantian!

  The second nether aperture opened!

  Devouring transformed into whale-swallowing!

  All cold mist within three hundred zhang was instantly drained away! A vacuum zone spread rapidly—five hundred zhang, eight hundred zhang… finally surpassing one thousand zhang!

  Seen from above, within a thousand-zhang ice ruin, all gray-blue cold mist collapsed inward like countless frost dragons returning to their lair, converging madly toward a single point!

  The blue-skinned creature was tearing into the corpse of an icefield wolf when it suddenly froze. It snapped its head toward Yun Che’s direction, horror flashing in its eyes!

  Abandoning its meal, it leapt forward at full speed.

  After running several li, its pace slowed—the surrounding cold mist was flowing like a massive torrent toward the same destination.

  After a moment’s hesitation, it continued.

  At three thousand zhang, it finally stopped.

  Staring at the center ahead—where cold mist was being devoured like an abyss swallowing the world—its expression froze in shock.

  At the moment the nether aperture reopened, Yun Che relied on his faint resonance with the newly formed Nine Nether cold force to regain a sliver of control.

  But stopping the catastrophic devouring was still impossible.

  Gritting his teeth, he made a ruthless decision—

  Instead of suppressing it, he guided this terrifying, overwhelming cold force straight into the fourth layer of the technique—

  Opening the second yin aperture: the Qi Sea!

  The torrent of cold force surged upward from the dantian, crashing violently into his chest!

  The Qi Sea aperture was solid as bedrock. Time and again, the cold force slammed into it—only to scatter and collapse.

  Dawn gradually approached.

  By then, all cold mist within a thousand zhang had been completely devoured.

  The Qi Sea aperture remained unopened.

  Yet within Yun Che’s body, the Nine Nether cold force—having undergone an entire night of whale-swallowing and total fusion with spiritual energy—had become vast and surging like an ocean!

  In quantity, it had more than doubled, reaching the peak of early Foundation Establishment.

  In quality, all spiritual energy had been fully transformed into purer, colder, more sinister Nine Nether cold force!

  Yun Che opened his eyes. His gaze was deep as an abyss.

  Recalling last night’s peril, fear lingered—but what followed was deeper understanding.

  “This kind of ‘whale-swallowing’ cultivation is extremely dangerous… yet it is also a shortcut for rapidly accumulating cold force,” he murmured.

  “If the opportunity arises again, I should be able to control it more calmly.”

  He turned his gaze toward the crystalline tower deep within the ruins.

  “The quality of the cold veins here is no longer sufficient for further breakthroughs,” he said quietly.

  “It’s time to go there.”

  Beyond the ice ruins, the sky suddenly darkened!

  A black-robed old man appeared soundlessly in midair. His face was sinister, and the aura radiating from him caused wind and snow within ten li to reverse, heaven and earth changing color!

  He stared down at the ice ruins, killing intent nearly solidifying in his eyes.

  “Li’er… your great-grandfather has come to avenge you.”

  It was Teng Huayuan, the ancestor of the Teng family!

  Along the way, he had relied on the Bloodline Soul-Tracing Curse, sensing the enemy only vaguely—always as if separated by mist, unable to pinpoint an exact location.

  But one thing was certain.

  The murderer was here.

  Looking down at this place known as a ‘Northern Domain Forbidden Land,’ Teng Huayuan’s expression darkened. With his Core Formation divine sense, he could clearly perceive—

  Deep within the ruins lurked a terrifying presence that made even his heart tighten.

  If not for the blood feud of a slain grandson, he would never willingly step into this place.

  “I seek only vengeance,” he growled.

  “I will not disturb a single blade of grass here. Surely that existence… will not trouble me too much.”

  With that, his figure transformed into a streak of black light and plunged into the ice ruins!

  Within a colossal ancient coffin sealed in ten thousand zhang of profound ice—

  The lid slid open by a narrow slit.

  A withered, desiccated hand wrapped in crackling purple-black lightning slowly extended outward.

  The five fingers closed gently.

  Crackle—!

  A fist-sized sphere of annihilating power—a Violet Heavens Yin Thunder—condensed in its palm.

  A hoarse voice, like metal grinding against stone, echoed faintly from within the coffin:

  “The hundred-year cycle has arrived once more… my master.”

  “Last time, you abandoned your flesh and fled with your soul.”

  “This time…”

  “You have nowhere left to run.”

  thousand-zhang whale-swallowing phenomenon will trigger in the Northern Domain?

  ?? Or awaken the ancient beings slumbering deep within the ice ruins?

  And the existence within the ancient coffin—

  who is it truly waiting for? Yun Che… or the Teng ancestor himself?