Chapter 717: Heavenly God Points the Way (2)

An old man clad in white wolf fur, over three meters tall yet with a frame as thin as a washbowl, his gaunt bones indescribable, brandished a staff and leapt out, dancing wildly.

Cold Qi surged through the passage broken open in the ice sculpture, swiftly extending forward, soon forming a road ten li wide and stretching hundreds of li long.

The old man heavily knelt on the ground, devoutly bowing before the ice sculpture: "Supreme, great Glacier God… Your devout devotee offers you the utmost devotion in the world. Continue to protect your people; all our harvest shall belong to you."

The old man let out a hoarse, long howl.

Behind, hundreds of frost patterns converged inward, forming a huge frost circle. A new spatial gate opened, and throngs of burly men escorted out hundreds of pale-faced girls.

Tens of thousands of the men dragging the ice sculpture halted, kneeling on the ground just like the old man, bowing before the ice sculpture.

The newly arrived burly men gathered the girls and came before the ice sculpture; the old man with the staff lifted his head and emitted a sharp whistle. Before Wu Tie and the others could react, the men swung their blades and slaughtered the girls on the spot.

Hot blood sprayed, splashing onto the base of the ice sculpture's throne.

Cold Qi rose; the hot blood turned into crimson mist that seeped into the ice sculpture's throne, deepening its hue somewhat.

Countless souls drifted up into the sky; ice crystals appeared in the air, quickly forming a vortex about a chi in diameter. The souls of the hundreds of girls were swallowed by the ice crystal vortex, unknown where they were taken.

"Human sacrifice…" Wu Tie's face darkened slightly.

Wu Tie drew a deep breath, stepped forward, and flashed onto the ice crystal road, standing directly before the tens of thousands of men dragging the ice sculpture.

A burly man holding a sharp blade, just then licking blood from its edge, happened to face Wu Tie; spotting the sudden figure amid the cold wind, he rubbed his eyes, stared intently at Wu Tie twice, then hysterically pointed at him and shouted.

The old man with the staff swiftly turned, his eyes flashing blue‑white cold light, fixedly staring at Wu Tie.

The tens of thousands of men hauling the ice sculpture also leapt up, simultaneously turning to look at Wu Tie; they instinctively reached for the weapons at their waists, their chests heaving rapidly as their breathing grew coarse and heavy.

"Ha, ha, ha…" the thin old man with the staff swayed his slender frame, stepping slowly toward Wu Tie.

This old man clearly held great authority; wherever he passed, the burly men parted to left and right, bowing deeply in reverence.

"What splendid attire… such fine material… you must be from the south, right? Tsk, such delicate skin and tender flesh, a pale little face—descendants of the mighty snow plains would never be as frail as you." The old man's gaze was utterly greedy, sweeping from Wu Tie's gold‑crowned head down his robe and boots.

"Me? Frail?" Wu Tie widened his eyes.

Having cultivated the supreme law body, Wu Tie's stature was fixed at sixteen chi. Those snow‑plain descendants before him stood over three meters tall—just a bit over one zhang—so Wu Tie was actually a head taller than they.

And yet they claimed Wu Tie was frail?

Wu Tie thrust out his chest, forcefully patting it, emitting a booming "bang bang": "Old coot, are you blind?"

The old man snorted with a strange laugh: "Southerners, whether burly or frail, it's not about appearance but inner nature… Our snow‑plain descendants are wolves, bears, eagles, dragons. Whereas you southerners are merely frail brats."

Quite abruptly, even Wu Tie failed to notice any murderous aura or killing intent on the old man; his pupils suddenly turned a deep blue. He flicked his staff, and the ice crystal road beneath Wu Tie's feet sang "whoosh whoosh whoosh," suddenly sprouting dozens of thumb‑thick, two‑to‑three‑zhang‑long icy spikes.

The ice spears thrust upward, aiming straight at Wu Tie's vital points.

Wu Tie stood unmoving; the ice spears emitted a piercing crack and shattered against his body.

The old man gasped, eyes wide, and pointed his staff fiercely at Wu Tie: "Tear him apart… mind his robe, tear him apart, but do not damage his robe… that is, my robe!"

The turn of face came in an instant.

The old man didn't even bother to ask Wu Tie's surname, name, origin, or business; in just a few words he issued a killing order—when his own strike failed, he immediately commanded the nearby burly men to attack.

Dozens of the men who had been hauling the ice sculpture roared in unison, spewing streams of viscous cold mist; their bodies, wrapped in the mist, rapidly swelled to five or six zhang tall in an instant.

Trampling clumps of splashing frost, dozens of burly men strode toward Wu Tie, wielding heavy greataxes whose blades were threaded with ice crystals, kicking up fierce cold winds that slashed at Wu Tie.

Wu Tie stood unmoving, letting each axe strike his body in turn.

Crash after crash, the heavy greataxes shattered on Wu Tie's body; dozens of men were knocked back by the tremendous recoil, their tiger mouths crushed, arm bones broken to fragments, each stumbling backward with grimaces.

With a series of "thud, thud" sounds, the attackers collapsed, hands dangling, bodies twitching like caterpillars on the ground.

Wu Tie leisurely brushed off the ice crystals that had fallen on him, then glanced at the fragments of the greataxes.

"All good stuff… all good stuff…" Wu Tie clicked his tongue in amazement.

Indeed they were fine things; the raw material of those greataxes consisted of rare, supreme substances seldom seen in the south for a thousand years, and of extreme‑cold, profound‑yin exotic refining ingredients.

Placed in the hands of the Mohists or the Ou clan, these materials could certainly be refined into Divine Manifestation battle puppets, or swords comparable to innate spirit weapons.

And what about the gear these men used?

Heh, heh, at best they were decent rune weapons—not even ordinary spirit artifacts.

Sikong Yan said, the tribal civilizations on these snow plains are extremely backward; his words proved true.

Wu Tie swept his wide sleeve, and the fragments of the shattered greataxes on the ground fluttered into his sleeve. Seeing this, the old man with the staff changed expression: "You are in league with those southerners of years past… you share the same greed!"

The old man stomped his feet and cursed: "You lot, you won't even spare the tribe's meat‑cooking pot… you, you, are uniformly greedy!"

"Shameless!" the old man hoarsely yelled: "Your greed has reached shamelessness—you even loot the rice bowls from women's dowries."

Wu Tie stared, speechless.

Soup pot?

Rice bowl?

Damn it, what exactly did those old fogeys of Sikong Yan and his Seven Scattered People Clan do back then on the snow plains?

"Chop him to pieces! I don't even want his clothes—chop him to pieces!" the old man bellowed hysterically, then raised his staff high and slammed it down onto the ground.

"Supreme, infinitely noble Glacier God, descend your divine might and punish these sinners who insult and slaughter your devout people!" the old man shrieked hoarsely: "His blood, his soul—all belong to you, to you!"

Thousands of burly men scattered with a clamor, forming a huge arc that closed in on Wu Tie.

Accompanying the old man's sharp howl, the trident entwined on the ice sculpture's tail burst with blue divine light, then thousands of blue beams rained down from the trident, enveloping the thousands of men charging at Wu Tie.

The men's skin, muscles, and bones instantly turned semi‑transparent like dark ice; they let out low howls, continuously spewing clumps of viscous freezing vapor from within, their bodies rapidly swelling to five or six zhang tall, encased in heavy blue‑ice armor, with cold vapors swirling upward to envelop their weapons.

The greataxes, originally merely standard rune‑weapon grade, now emanated an aura not inferior to six‑times‑refined immortal arms.

The trident's blessing on these men was astonishingly strong.

Wu Tie still stood unmoving, squinting as he watched the surging horde; he gave a faint smile. When they closed to within a dozen zhang, white divine light shot up behind him and came crashing down.

The men's weapons were all forged from various rare metals, each belonging to the Five Elements.

A thousand weapons were swept away by the Geng‑metal radiance within the Five Elements Divine Light, vanishing without a trace. The thousand men lunging forward skidded to a halt, each dazed, staring at their empty hands.

"Elder?" the thousands of burly men turned in unison, blankly staring at the old man with the staff.

The old man with the staff stared dumbfounded, then shouted in fury: "You bunch of idiots, without weapons, use your hands, your teeth—tear him apart… have you all forgotten how to fight?"

The burly men's pupils flashing with a dark blue cold light began to redden; they let out low growls and stepped toward Wu Tie one step at a time.

Just now they had been dazed by Wu Tie's Five Elements Divine Light; in past battles on the Snow Plains, whether fighting hostile tribes or wild beasts and birds of prey, they had never experienced their weapons suddenly disappearing.

This trick of Wu Tie's truly overturned their worldview, which is why they were each stunned with fear.

But the old man let out a loud roar, and their inner ferocity burst forth; they strode forward in big steps toward Wu Tie, surrounded him completely, and then the four or five men in the innermost circle swung their heavy fists and slammed them hard at Wu Tie.

Wu Tie's body flickered, turning into a flowing breeze, and he easily slipped out of the encirclement of thousands of burly men.

The old man holding a staff had dark blue divine light flickering in his eyes, and he shouted hoarsely: "Wind Escape? Mere trickery—this is the domain of the Ice River God!"

The old man raised his staff and began chanting an obscure, complicated incantation.

But his spellcasting was too slow, and Wu Tie arrived too fast.

Wu Tie appeared like a phantom behind the old man and struck him in the back of the head with a backhand punch. The old man grunted, was blown dozens of li away by the blow, and was knocked unconscious.

In the cold wind, several dim silhouettes flashed by; a few elite disciples of the Bandit Clan produced their secret binding ropes, trussed the old man up like a zongzi in a couple of moves, then swiftly vanished into the cold wind.

Tens of thousands of burly men hauling ice sculptures from all directions shouted in unison and simultaneously drew their waist weapons.

Behind Wu Tie, the Five Elements Divine Light blazed, five-colored radiance scattering like an aurora, and with a 'swish' it swept over the crowd. Tens of thousands of burly men felt their weapons lighten in hand, and all manner of strange talismans, shields, javelins, and other odd items made from various materials on their persons vanished without a trace.

Tens of thousands of bare-handed burly men stared blankly, then all stepped back three paces.

Such supernatural abilities are something their clan's elders could never achieve; this is an enemy far stronger and more terrifying than the elders they revere as gods.

"Southerners, warriors of the Snow Plains, will never submit. Your demonic sorcery can't frighten the heroes of the Snow Plains." After a brief hesitation, the most burly men lunged forward, arms wide, roaring loudly as they charged at Wu Tie.

Wu Tie did not dodge; instead, rings of cold qi appeared around him, deep blue and even purplish, almost tangible, spinning rapidly around him. The few burly men who lunged at him were caught by the cold qi, howling as they were flung back.

A cold qi a hundred times more terrifying than what lay within them ravaged their bodies; in the snap of a finger, several burly men were frozen into ice sculptures and crashed heavily to the ground.

Wu Tie lifted his gaze to the towering ice sculpture ten thousand zhang high, then drew a deep breath, bent at the waist, his hands like iron hooks, and fiercely grabbed at the ice-crystal-formed chariot road.

Amid a piercing screech, Wu Tie's ten fingers, exhaling cold light, bit into the chariot road little by little, driving in gradually.

Finally, Wu Tie's forearm and below sank entirely into the ice crystal chariot road; he inhaled deeply, his body suddenly swelling, he unleashed the Heaven-Earth Law Divine Ability, his body swelling directly to ten thousand zhang tall, then he violently heaved and flung his arms upward.

With a tremendous boom, the ice crystal chariot road shuddered violently.

On the mirror-smooth ice crystal surface of the chariot road, countless hexagonal frost patterns flickered in unison, blazing with a light almost blinding to the eye.

The chariot road, of unknown length, trembled violently; Wu Tie felt a massive jolt through his body, sensing that what he clung to was not a 'dead' road but a living, frenziedly struggling and roaring giant dragon.

The dragon shuddered, cold light spurting from the chariot road's surface; Wu Tie's entire skeleton emitted sharp 'crack' sounds, and the tremendous recoil force was almost too much for him to bear.

Suddenly, the gigantic ice sculpture's eyes shot out blinding divine light, and a blue cold ray surged from the trident coiled in its long tail, crashing heavily onto the ice crystal chariot road.

Already near the limit of what Wu Tie could endure, the ice crystal chariot road was struck by a swelling force that howled down from the north, raced along the road, and slammed hard into his arms.

With a tremendous crash, the bones in Wu Tie's arms shattered piece by piece; his five viscera and six bowels screamed in agony, a dreadful cold arose within him out of nowhere, then flooded his system, and a thick layer of ice quickly formed on his skin.

Wu Tie was blown backward dozens of li by the impact, then slid another hundred or so li along the smooth chariot road before he could finally steady himself.

Before the gigantic ice sculpture, a spatial gate condensed of ice crystal flickered into existence, and hundreds of odd-looking, cold-qi-filled old men wielding staffs emerged from it.

"The Heavenly God has shown us the way……No one can stop the Snow Plains people from conquering the south."

"Southerners, your time of death has come!"