Chapter 204: The Ice of the Exhausted God

I recalled the ghost mother mural I had seen at the Great Phoenix Temple; at that time, listening to the Iron Staff Lama, the mural was already damaged, its original appearance should have been mainly blue and white, symbolizing that the ghost mother possessed two evil powers capable of shattering ordinary souls: "Boundless Karma Fire" and "Ice of the Exhausted God." In ancient Tibetan verses, there was no term "demon realm"; instead, it was called the northern demon. Only in the verses of the World-Subduing Treasure Pearl Great King is it referred to as the "demon realm."

Suddenly, ice worms drilled out from the "glacial crystal corpse"—that was probably the so-called "Ice of the Exhausted God." I saw Peter Huang's corpse, frozen by the "Ice of the Exhausted God," shatter into countless ice dust. Before the dust settled, an ice-crystal-like ladybug flew out, circled halfway in the air, and flapped its wings toward the nearest Pangzi.

Due to the violent shaking of the avalanche, everyone fell to the ground, unable to stand. Pangzi lay on the ground, staring at Peter Huang's miserable death, knowing these ice worms were lethal—touch meant death, contact meant demise. He dared not delay; as the ice worm moved toward him, Pangzi had already raised his MI911, skipping aiming altogether, and fired.

At that moment, the rumbling avalanche on Longding Glacier grew louder and louder, drowning out all sounds in the world. I wanted to shout to stop Pangzi from firing, but neither the gunshot nor my cry could be heard over the mountain's fury.

In the dim wooden tower, the gunfire flashed briefly, and a bullet shot from the barrel shattered the ice worm in midair, then grazed Ming Shu's climbing helmet on the opposite side, embedding into the black wood of the demon tower. Ming Shu stared wide-eyed, then fainted to the ground—whether dead or alive, I did not know.

The ice worm was hit by an aCP round, shattering in midair into over a dozen small ice crystals, which fell to the ground before me. They writhed a few times, then sprouted wings, seemingly about to fly up and attack the living inside the tower. Earlier, just one ice worm had nearly wiped us out; if there were over a dozen, in this low, narrow wooden tower, we could not possibly resist—everyone would die with no place to bury.

In desperation, I grabbed the wine flask beside the backpack on the ground, filled with strong liquor prepared for high-altitude cold, took a big gulp, lit a lighter in one hand, and sprayed the liquor from my mouth onto the dozen or so ice worms on the ground. A flash of fire swept over—I thought I could burn them to nothing—but then the most unexpected thing happened.

The bodies of the ice worms on the ground suddenly shifted from flashing silver-white to a gloomy blue—becoming the kind of fire worm I had encountered twice before. Their internal "Boundless Karma Fire" canceled the external flames, leaving them unscathed. I, Shirley Yang, and Pangzi all felt our hair stand on end, veins bulging on our foreheads. What kind of energy could instantly achieve this ice-to-fire transformation? Could the power of that evil god truly exist in this tower?

The aura of "Boundless Karma Fire" instantly spread to every corner of the tower. Though all I smelled was the scorching air of fire, my body felt bone-chillingly cold. We nearly stopped breathing. The dozen or so Dapu ghost worms on the ground had already begun to hover and fly upward in the dark space, dragging trails of gloomy blue light, about to scatter and lunge at the five of us.

At that very moment, a large amount of icy snow poured straight down from the hole at the tower's top, following the passage we had dug. Layer after layer, it crashed into the nine levels of the demon tower below. Possibly the tower's top was covered by large snow slabs, halting the avalanche's inflow. In that short instant, the upper levels might have been completely filled with snow. The snow that fell into the eighth level pressed the airborne "Dapu" inside.

Seeing no time to lose, I quickly signaled Shirley Yang to bring Ah Xiang down to the lowest level—this eighth level was no longer safe. Those worms kept shifting between ice and fire, not ordinary ice and fire, but seemingly energy brought back by the souls of the dead from the underworld—impossible to counter. We could only look for weaknesses during a full retreat, though I knew there would be no escape route below. All I could do was buy time, moving step by step.

Watching them descend, I dragged Ming Shu and all the backpacks with Pangzi, crawling down to the lowest level. The ground tremors and noise gradually subsided, indicating the large-scale avalanche had ended. Longding Glacier had been completely buried under snow rolling down from the four snow peaks. But the urgent task was not figuring out how to escape—it was to quickly find something to seal the gap between this level and the upper demon tower, blocking the worms' passage downward.

Pangzi wanted to move the ground stone platform, but I grabbed him: "You want to learn Dong Cunduan, holding up a stone platform to plug the hole above? Hurry and find some wooden planks." Whether "Boundless Karma Fire" or "Ice of the Exhausted God," these energies only affect living things. As long as no gaps remain, they should be temporarily blocked.

Pangzi and I fumbled, grabbing some dark wooden planks from the tower to seal the passage tightly. Shirley Yang applied the Northern Mystic Pearl to Ming Shu's nostrils; he sneezed, woke up, touched his head to confirm he was unharmed, then sighed, looking utterly exhausted. I knew Ming Shu and Ah Xiang were terrified this time, so I comforted them: "We should be safe here. Though those Dapu ghost worms are fierce, if they don't touch a human body, they're just ordinary little bugs—no threat. With their strength, they couldn't possibly push apart the wooden blockade." Pangzi agreed: "Like a dragonfly trying to shake a pillar—futile. We'll wear them down; we've long prepared for a protracted battle."

Before his words faded, a loud crash came from above—countless broken wood and snow fell down. Pangzi and I happened to be standing below; thanks to our helmets, though we were dazed, we quickly dodged backward, wondering if our rushed construction had poor quality—had the seal just collapsed? Or had the snow above loosened, triggering a small avalanche inside the tower?

Looking at what fell: black was wood, white was snow, and the shimmering light in between was the "glacial crystal corpse," still unexamined. Then, a booming sound came from above again. Everyone looked up—a pale white humanoid figure was forcefully crawling down from above. We then remembered: outside the demon tower was a "Snow Maitreya," which we had nearly forgotten amid the avalanche chaos.

I grabbed a scattergun, placed it on the "Snow Maitreya's" head, and fired—but the creature felt nothing; the bullets had no effect. Its big head kept lunging downward, but its body was too fat, getting stuck in the opening above. Still, its strength was immense—it could not be contained by the earth-and-wood structure of the demon tower; breaking free was only a matter of time.

This time, the "Snow Maitreya" was extremely close—I finally saw its face, but it had no face at all, just a slab of white human-shaped skin, covered in dense, writhing white rings, leaving me clueless where to begin.

Suddenly I recalled what Yiyi said before her death: this creature fears large salt. Our salt rake is with Ming Shu—I rushed to ask him. Ming Shu said: "It's over—we're truly doomed this time. The salt is left at the tower's top, not brought down."

Pangzi stomped his feet in anxiety: "Ming Shu, what can I even say about you? You… you… you're just our side's Italian." That phrase originated when we were in Xinjiang—Shirley Yang used it to describe me, saying I was practically our side's Italian. Now Pangzi finally found the chance to pin that label on Ming Shu. (During WWII, Germany and Italy were allies; in North Africa, Italian forces achieved little and lost much, becoming a laughingstock for Germans. Later, when the US just joined the North African campaign, they also suffered many defeats, prompting the British to mock American troops as "our side's Italians." This saying later spread in the West.)

I was about to stop Pangzi, still not thinking clearly—at this critical juncture, still joking? Don't tell me we'll wrestle the "Snow Maitreya" when it crawls down? But before I could speak, Shirley Yang said: "You guys look up—it's not that it can't come down… it's frozen." We looked up and saw frost forming on the "Snow Maitreya's" skin. Though cold-resistant, it was frozen yet still struggling to break free. Suddenly, its thick white skin split open like a great white bird spreading its wings, as if about to dive down and strike us. We braced to dodge—but the expanded skin suddenly solidified. Beneath the white flesh lay a bloody human skeleton. Seeing the skull, I knew it was Han Shuna. Before I could get a second look, it was already covered in frost. The "Snow Maitreya," trying to scatter and escape, was frozen midair by the "Ice of the Exhausted God"—neither fully up nor down. Touch it slightly, and it would shatter into icy mist like Peter Huang.

But if no external force disturbs it, it might remain like this forever beneath the glacier. Though the "Snow Maitreya" had shattered the wooden planks connecting the upper tower levels, its freezing by the "Ice of the Exhausted God" also sealed the passage between the two tower levels tightly.

After recovering from that heart-stopping scene, we realized we must urgently dig a side passage to connect to the abyss the "Snow Maitreya" crawled in from; otherwise, in this narrow, sealed space, how much air could five people breathe? I dared not delay—I immediately prepared to check the abyss's direction. Just then, a wing-flapping sound came from the tower base. We had already been terrified by this noise; hearing it again, every hair on our bodies felt frosted. We turned toward the sound—and in the pile of black wood planks, the head of the "glacial crystal corpse" emerged, its mouth full of Dapu ghost worms—not one, but a swarm.