Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: Heading to the Ice Prison**

The entrance to the Ice Prison is a giant mouth.

Jagged ice spikes interlock like teeth, and viscous dark blue mist surges in the throat and tongue area. Whenever the Temple bell rings, the mist congeals into the shape of translucent infant corpses, clawing at the ice walls and emitting shrill wails. The star robes of the guiding divine servants are corroded by the mist, revealing ice-crystal blood vessels writhing beneath their skin—these cultivators, known as "Soul Ferry Envoys," have long since assimilated with the Ice Prison during their millennium of ferrying souls.

"Swallow it."

The Soul Ferry Envoy throws over an eyeball-shaped ice bead, inside which a struggling soul is sealed. "This is a 'False Life,' it can deceive the Soul-Devouring Miasma of the first level of the Ice Prison."

Lin Jin obediently holds the ice bead under his tongue, but the ice patterns in his right eye suddenly burn hot. He sees the truth: this is no protective talisman, it is clearly a "Replacement Life Gu" wrapped in soul-clothing, which will prioritize devouring the host's soul to save itself if danger is encountered. The ice scales behind the Soul Ferry Envoy's neck slightly flare and close; this is a hunting excitement unique to Temple cultivators.

**Click. **

The giant mouth of the Ice Prison closes, and Lin Jin hears the sound of chains in his fall. Not physical chains, but the trembling sound of countless causal lines pulling taut. The bone ring polished from an ice coffin fragment in his bosom begins to burn hot, carving a line of tiny ice-crystal characters in the absolute darkness:

**"On the 76,422nd fall, the left arm will hit a three-sided ice spike."**

His body instinctively leans left, following the instinct of the language, and the sharp ice spike grazes his ear. In the flash of a spark, Lin Jin reaches out toward the void, his fingertips feeling leather—it is the hem of the Soul Ferry Envoy's star robe. The opponent clearly didn't expect the prey to counterattack, and the angry roar is choked into a whimper by the Ice Prison miasma pouring into his throat.

"Thank you, Senior, for the gift of the robe."

Lin Jin wraps himself tightly in the stolen star robe, and the starlight remaining on the cuffs automatically gathers into a lamp. The moment the ghostly light illuminates the surroundings, even though he was well-prepared, his breath still hitches for half a beat.

Frozen within the ice walls are layers upon layers of "Prisoners."

There are giant demons with bone wings on their backs maintaining the posture of tearing open their own chests, their organs covered in ice flowers; there are cultivators turned into ice sculptures, their fingertips still pinching unactivated talismans; most eerie are the inverted ice coffins, all with their lids open, as if something had collectively escaped at some moment. The ice patterns in Lin Jin's right eye suddenly sting; he sees that the bottoms of all the ice coffins are engraved with the same mark—exactly the same as the chain scar on his palm.

"You have the scent of the feeder on you."

A hoarse voice comes from beneath his feet. Lin Jin looks down abruptly, discovering that the ground illuminated by the starlight is actually a distorted human face. Tens of thousands of faces are frozen beneath the ice layer, now whispering in unison: "That woman who gnaws on stars... she planted teeth in your soul..."

Lin Jin flicks his finger against the ice surface, and the bone ring in his bosom erupts with ghostly light. The voices beneath the ice layer immediately turn into screams, and the human faces melt like wax in boiling water. But with just this moment of fluctuation, the entire Ice Prison suddenly trembles.

Countless ice spikes fall from the dome, each tip carrying a bronze lamp. Lin Jin's pupils contract—the style of these lamps is exactly the same as the soul-suppressing lamps on the Burial Coffin Clan's altar in the Northern Wasteland. Where the lamplight converges, the ice walls begin to seep black blood, congealing into three-zhang-tall faceless Ice Puppets. They have star charts floating in their chests, and embedded in their throats are the very "Replacement Life Gu"!

"Master's deep love."

Lin Jin chuckles, his hand beneath the star robe crushing the Replacement Life Gu. The Gu's dying wail turns into a shriek, and all the Ice Puppets turn toward him simultaneously, the star charts in their chests spinning frantically. He was waiting for this moment—when the causal lines of the Ice Puppets pulled taut due to locking onto a target, the ice patterns in his right eye finally captured the one line that was different from the rest:

A wisp of causal line wrapped in ice coffin cold air, leading to the deepest part of the Ice Prison.

The bone ring suddenly flies up on its own, carving a blood mark on Lin Jin's brow. The instant the blood drips, the phantom of the woman in the ice coffin appears behind him, and with a light wave of her slender hand, the star charts in the chests of all the Ice Puppets explode in unison. Amidst the flying star dust, Lin Jin gallops over the remains of the Ice Puppets, the star robe in his hand wrapping around a bronze lamp—the life soul of the Soul Ferry Envoy is curled up inside the wick!

"Found you."

He crushes the wick, and the Soul Ferry Envoy's screams come from every corner of the Ice Prison. The ice spikes that were falling in disorder suddenly arrange themselves in an orderly fashion, paving a staircase straight to the abyss. From the end of the staircase comes the roar of chains, a sound that makes all the ice patterns on Lin Jin's body tremble—it is the aura of the woman in the ice coffin herself.

When the last ice step collapses beneath his feet, Lin Jin sees the true Ice Prison.

Standing in the ten-thousand-zhang abyss are nine hundred sky-piercing ice pillars, each one piercing through the remains of a god or demon. These existences that should have been immortal are now wrapped into cocoons by thick chains, the other ends of which all sink into the altar in the center. What is placed on the altar is not a coffin, but a beating heart, its surface covered in tiny tooth marks.

**Thump! **

The beating of the heart resonates with the scar on Lin Jin's palm, and the chain scar suddenly splits open, sprouting countless ice-crystal threads. The threads automatically weave into a bridge, carrying him flying toward the altar. As the distance closes, he sees the details of those tooth marks—deep within every tooth mark, miniature runes of the *All Heavens Burial Divine Scripture* are engraved.

"So this is the secret of the Ice Prison..."

Lin Jin holds his frantically jumping right eye, the ice patterns having already spread to his right chest. "The Temple feeds all the cultivators who failed to cultivate the Burial Scripture to this 'Burial Heaven Heart'."

The altar suddenly vibrates, and the heart splits open a gap. The rich aura of the ice coffin sprays out, congealing into the phantom of a woman in front of Lin Jin. Unlike before, her eyes are open this time, with a shattered galaxy settling at the bottom of them.

"Eat it."

The phantom of the woman holds up the heart, her voice carrying a seductive tremor. "This is the key to the seventy-two star-remnant ice coffins."

Yet Lin Jin retreats three steps, his star robe exploding into fragments. A shackle totem appears behind him at some point, now frantically extracting his life force: "Master is indeed watching."

An ice-crystal giant eye opens in the void, the Great Elder's face appearing in the pupil: "To be able to walk here, you've saved this seat a hundred years of planning."

The entire Ice Prison begins to collapse, all the ice pillars squeezing toward the altar. In his desperation, Lin Jin does a crazy thing—he stabs the bone ring into his right eye, gouging out that eyeball covered in ice patterns!

"She doesn't want a key,"

The blood-stained eyeball is pressed into the Burial Heaven Heart, and Lin Jin's left eye sheds black-as-ink blood tears. "She wants the ants that bore through the chains."

**Crack! **

The chuckle of the woman in the ice coffin shatters space-time.

When the Great Elder's ice-crystal giant eye shatters, Lin Jin sees a scene that shocks his soul: that Burial Heaven Heart, implanted with the eyeball, expands frantically, the projections of the seventy-two star-remnant ice coffins appearing on its surface. The degree of opening of each coffin lid corresponds precisely to the suffering he has endured over the past ten years.

The Ice Prison disintegrates in a roar, and Lin Jin falls toward nothingness. In the darkness of his empty eye socket, cold fingers brush past:

"Now, you have truly become my coffin..."

Three months later, a roar comes from the Temple's Soul Lamp Hall.

Lin Jin's ice-blue life lamp suddenly surges, the phantom of the Ice Prison altar appearing in the lamp flame. The elders who attempt to investigate find in horror that their own life-bound magic artifacts are covered in ice patterns at some point—exactly the same as the patterns on the Burial Coffin youth's face.

And deep beneath the Northern Wasteland abyss, a new ice coffin is taking shape. The woman in the coffin has starlight on her eyelashes, and a scarlet epitaph is engraved on the coffin lid:

**"Here sleeps Lin Jin's pain, fear, and mercy."**