Three days later.

The ice mountain still stood — but a full tenth of it was gone, swallowed by the Black Void Seal, leaving its face ragged and gaping like the mouth of some primordial beast. Yueyang had opened a crystal tunnel ten thousand meters long into its heart, and from inside the Black Void he could see the changes Vivienne was making: blocks of ten-thousand-year black ice drifting suspended throughout the space, slowly dissolving — or rather, slowly being kept from dissolving. Without her will holding them, ice of that density and age would vanish in under a minute. Under her deliberate guidance, even a thumbnail-sized fragment took several minutes to fully absorb, while the larger masses — hundred-meter peaks of compressed primordial cold — lasted far longer.

Transforming the Black Void into her personal ice world. That had been her oath.

With Yueyang feeding energy in from outside, she had the time and the raw material to do what she’d promised. Each piece of ten-thousand-year black ice that entered, stripped free of the ancient rune formation’s control, could be claimed by her will and remade into cold energy she governed directly.

The more the Black Void consumed, the more she could assimilate. It had once devoured everything she had. Now it was giving back.

“A divine Martial Soul that’s lost its consciousness?” Vivienne turned the idea over with visible puzzlement when Yueyang described what Pandora had sensed. “Outside the Ruins of the Gods, I’ve never heard of a divine entity being interred anywhere else. And even when a divine nature fades, the divine consciousness doesn’t simply vanish — that’s not how it works. For it to be the other way around, consciousness gone but divine nature remaining…” She shook her head. “I’m at a loss.”

“Pandora seems certain about it.”

“Then be careful. Watch for a consciousness in hiding that might strike back.”

“If that’s what’s in there,” Yueyang said, “it’s a good chance to test the swords.”

He had broken through to the Sovereign threshold. Black Returning Burial, White Frost Bloom, Scarlet Heaven Tempering — all three had gained significantly in power. With the Eternal Wheel and Wheel of Apocalypse behind them, and Nirvana Flames as a last resort, he had no particular fear of a concealed divine consciousness looking for an opening. A god without a divine body was a fraction of what it had been.

“You sound considerably more confident than you used to,” Vivienne observed, and the small approval in her voice was genuine.

Two methods had emerged from the work so far.

The first: with Wuxia and Qianqian providing lovers’ dual cultivation support, Yueyang used his Sovereign will and the Creation Domain to guide the Black Void’s consumption deliberately. This approach was precise and controlled, but physically costly — each session covered roughly a kilometer of ice wall before he reached his limit.

The second: with Xiao Nu providing spousal dual cultivation support, Pandora’s purified divine consciousness and calamity-force could expand Yueyang’s control manifold. In this mode, he used the method Wuxia had proposed — deliberately allowing the Black Void to exceed the Domain’s boundaries and run free.

The results of that approach, tested in an open expanse away from the mountain, had been extraordinary. The Black Void, given its head, devoured cold energy across a range of several dozen kilometers in an instant, and tore the spatial fabric of the area in the process — a wound that took a very long time to heal.

The drawback was that the void, moving that fast, couldn’t fully consume the mountain’s deeply compressed ice. For sheer volume removal, controlled guidance worked better.

For raw area clearing, nothing touched the uncontrolled method.

Ten days passed without incident.

On this particular day, Yueyang had just finished a session and was returning with Xiao Nu from a distant test site when he saw it: Storm Valkyrie locked in combat with something at the foot of the mountain, Qianqian’s voice sharp with fury as she drove the Prison Emperor’s divine sword skyward, sword-qi raking the heavens.

He crossed the distance in a step.

Wuxia was down.

She lay on the snow with blood at her lips — vivid red against her paleness, already starting to seep into the white. He closed the remaining distance at a dead run and pulled her into his arms, and the moment he held her he felt it: her whole body was cold as ten-thousand-year ice, not her own energy running out of control but something invading from outside, something foreign and penetrating.

Someone had managed to strike Wuxia — Wuxia, who had a divine consciousness domain.

He raised his head, already furious, and saw it through the chaos of the ongoing battle: a golden shadow, sealed somewhere deep in the mountain’s interior, sending its will outward through the ice itself — launching frozen chains in every direction, targeting Qianqian, working to bind Storm Valkyrie—

And the mountain had changed. Sometime in the last ten days, without any of them noticing, a strange law-force had arisen around it — something that hadn’t been there before, something that felt like protection, like intention.

There was someone sealed in the mountain. Had been the whole time.

But how? He had swept this place with his Heavenly Eye of Wisdom. Wuxia had her Book of Truth. Qianqian’s sixth sense hadn’t caught it. Even Pandora, who could sense the approach of death, had missed it until now. What was capable of hiding from all four of those simultaneously?

The questions crashed through his mind and were immediately irrelevant.

Wuxia was bleeding. That was all that mattered.

“Kill.“

All three swords came out at once — Black Returning Burial, White Frost Bloom, Scarlet Heaven Tempering.

The rage took him completely.

He launched himself upward, past Qianqian’s furious assault, past Storm Valkyrie fighting to protect her charge, directly into the storm of black-ice chains screaming toward him from every angle — and swung Scarlet Heaven Tempering in a single motion that sheared through all of it, ten thousand chains and more, cut the flow apart and ripped a gap in it.

From the other side of ice walls of unknown thickness, eyes red, Yueyang let out a sound that wasn’t quite a shout and brought Black Returning Burial through.

The Sovereign intent riding the blade hit the ice wall.

The ice wall broke.

Qianqian stared. She had spent considerable time driving the Prison Emperor’s divine sword against this mountain and had produced a scratch finer than a hair. Yueyang, enraged, had just destroyed close to a thousand meters of it in a single blow, with cracks and ruptures radiating outward for dozens of meters beyond.

He didn’t stop. There was no rationality in him right now — nothing calculating, nothing patient. He didn’t know how thick the remaining ice was or how deep the golden shadow lay. He only knew that he was going to reach it.

White Frost Bloom.

Against someone gentle and innocent — against Willow Leaf, Yue Yu, Fourth Mother — White Frost Bloom had no offensive power at all, and might instead bring healing. Against something corrupt, something that belonged to darkness — it was among the most destructive things in the world. Nothing comparable existed.

He drove his right hand into the cracked ice wall.

The blade went through without sound, without deflection, ignoring the angle of the ice crystals, passing through the emergent law-force as though it weren’t there — and struck the golden shadow square.

The shadow lurched.

Then it vanished, cleanly, as though it had never existed.

Wuxia was unconscious, and the enemy was gone. Yueyang stayed in the rage for another few moments, Black Returning Burial and Scarlet Heaven Tempering tearing into the remaining ice walls with everything in him — before finally the energy ran out and he came back to himself, still carrying Wuxia, the fury draining away into exhaustion.

He almost sat down in the snow.

“Something strange,” Qianqian said, holding Wuxia now, running a careful check. “She’s not — the wounds aren’t — there’s some kind of energy merging with her. It’s not doing harm.”

Yueyang forced himself steady and took Wuxia back, channeling pure Innate Sword Qi into her — and found that she was already healing, the damage already reversed. If not for the blood still on her lips, it would have seemed like nothing had happened. And more than that: something was integrating into her body. An energy that matched her own fundamental cold-attribute force, note for note, resonance for resonance.

“Pandora.” He couldn’t make his Heavenly Eye of Wisdom find the answer this time. “Can you see what’s happening?”

From within Xiao Nu, Pandora considered it for a long moment. “I may have been wrong earlier. There might not be one divine entity sealed in the mountain. There might be two. One may have been struck by the other until its consciousness scattered — but its divine nature and final intent are still present, still holding the other in check.”

“How do we deal with the one that’s left?”

Whoever it was, whatever it was — it had hurt Wuxia. That was sufficient.

Pandora hesitated, which was not something she usually did. She shook her head slowly. “I can’t see through it clearly. But I have a strong sense that this is… not bad. I know that sounds wrong. But I’m a former goddess of misfortune — I have an instinct that runs the opposite direction from good luck, and right now that instinct isn’t firing.”

Yueyang nearly put his head in his hands. Wuxia had been struck down and was bleeding, and this was good?

If anyone other than a former goddess had said that, he would have dismissed it outright.

The enemy had vanished. There was no one left to fight.

He carried Wuxia back toward the Grimoire World — then stopped. Qianqian had noticed it too: the energy merging with her seemed to respond to proximity to the mountain. Taking her inside the Grimoire World would sever it. They looked at each other and, reluctantly, settled on staying outside — just significantly further from the mountain, far enough that the golden shadow couldn’t reach them.

Through an entire day and night, they kept watch.

Near the end of it, Wuxia’s eyelashes trembled.

She came back.

Before she had even fully opened her eyes: “Don’t attack, don’t attack, don’t move—”

“It’s all right.” Yueyang pulled her in close, one hand at the back of her head. “I’m here. No one’s going to touch you. Don’t be afraid.”

When she had her bearings fully — when she looked up and confirmed who was holding her — she smiled.

Yueyang and Qianqian both stared.

She’d just been ambushed. She was smiling about it. Qianqian began entertaining quiet concerns about head injuries.

“I’m perfectly fine,” Wuxia said, reading their faces. “Nothing’s broken. I promise.” She settled her arms around Yueyang’s neck and tried to compose herself, not quite succeeding: “There was no ambush. I saw the golden shadow — recognized it as a threat — but before I could react, I sensed something else entirely. Another divine law-force, a guiding resonance, a revelation — and I pulled my attack back. What hurt me was my own technique rebounding when I checked it at the last moment. Whatever you do, don’t attack what’s in there. If you strike at it, it will use the opening to escape.”

Yueyang went very still.

He looked at the section of ice mountain he had just demolished.

“…You could have mentioned this sooner.”