Chapter 950: with translation of chapter title

Yan Buji's boot crushed the last ice crystal, the Abni Sword in his hand emitted a low hum, and the gray mist coiled around the blade ebbed and flowed like a living thing.

The sound of ice layers breaking in the depths of the subsidiary hall grew louder, the entire fortress began to tremble slightly, icicles on the dome rustled down and shattered at his feet into countless sharp fragments.

"Playing tricks." Yan Buji snorted coldly, flicked the sword tip, and a wisp of gray mist shot toward the sound source like a poisonous snake.

The gray mist suddenly straightened in the darkness, a metallic clang rang out, and something had seized it!

Boom—

The ice wall thirty zhang ahead exploded, and twelve black shadows shot out amidst the flying ice shards.

These monsters resembled the Refining Void-stage creatures encountered in the spatial rift, but were larger, each standing three zhang tall, their bodies covered in black bone armor, with sharp ice-crystal barbs growing at the joints.

Most horrifying were their heads, seven-tenths human, three-tenths beast, with twisted faces inlaid with three pairs of eerie blue eyes.

"Unity Stage?" Yan Buji's pupils narrowed slightly; the aura these monsters emitted was actually several times stronger than before.

The leading monster suddenly opened its blood-filled maw, spewing a breath blue to black; wherever it passed, even space condensed into fine ice cracks!

The Abni Sword instantly swept sideways, the gray mist condensed into a shield. At the instant the ice flame struck the gray shield, the ground beneath Yan Buji's feet collapsed; he used the momentum to sink downward, and the pursuing breath froze the entire passage into a glacier.

As he flipped and landed, six claws tore open the ceiling above, and three monsters dove down in a triangular formation.

"Good timing!" Yan Buji shifted the sword to his left hand, his right hand pinched an odd seal; his pores suddenly oozed fresh blood, which instantly vaporized into a scarlet mist in the air.

When the monster's claws were less than three feet from his head, the red mist exploded!

"Blood Slaughter Blast!"

In the roar, the three monsters were blown backward, their bone armor covered in spiderweb-like cracks.

Yet more monsters surged from all directions. Yan Buji swept his sword in a circle, condensing the gray mist into hundreds of poison needles as fine as cow hair; with a flick of his sword finger, they rained down like a storm onto the gaps in the monsters' armor.

Roar!

One monster howled in pain and suddenly pounded its own chest.

Its bone armor actually writhed like a living thing, squeezing out all the gray-mist poison needles; the other monsters followed suit, their bone-armor surfaces displaying vein-like azure patterns.

Yan Buji's eye twitched; these monsters were actually evolving in battle!

Before he could think further, a bone-chilling cold struck from behind; he instinctively ducked, a crystal ice spear whizzed past his cheek, shattering the stone wall into countless ice spikes. Turning his head, he saw five monsters standing in the distance, their arms transformed into cannon-like structures, gathering a second volley of ice spears.

Facing wolves ahead and tigers behind, Yan Buji suddenly let out a long laugh, the Abni Sword flew from his hand and split into seventy-two sword shadows in the air; at the same time, he formed seals with both hands and chanted an ancient incantation.

The floor of the subsidiary hall suddenly cracked into intersecting gullies, viscous gray mist welled up from the fissures, and in the blink of an eye it submerged his knees.

"Abni Hell!" Yan Buji's expression changed, he waved the Abni Sword to unleash its true power; through the actuation of the Essential Law, even though he did not understand the Netherworld principles, he could still command it!

This was after Yan Buji had previously combined the Abni Sword with the Soul-Burying and Seven Slaughters, then added his own blood-forged components to activate it.

Perhaps this is also a strength of the Essential Law: even if one knows nothing, one can still leverage one's understanding of the Great Dao to manipulate other laws.

From the gray mist suddenly stretched countless white bone arms, seizing the monsters' legs and dragging them downward.

Two smaller monsters were instantly dragged into the mist sea, leaving only their shrill screams echoing in the fog; the remaining monsters struggled wildly, where bone armor met the gray mist, pungent green smoke rose.

Yan Buji's face turned as pale as paper; this move consumed thirty percent of his essence blood.

As he prepared to press the attack, his heart suddenly seized with pain; the leading Union-stage monster he had first repelled had somehow circled behind him, and a giant ice-crystal sword pierced his chest!

"Cough..."

Yan Buji coughed up blood mixed with ice shards, yet revealed a ferocious grin.

The monster leader suddenly realized something was wrong, tried to withdraw the sword, but found the ice blade frozen fast inside his body—Yan Buji had used his own blood to perform the secret art of congealing blood into ice!

"Got you."

Yan Buji reversed his grip to seize the monster's wrist, and his body suddenly blazed with piercing blood-light.

One after another, ancient runes surfaced from beneath his skin, flowing along the point of contact toward the monster.

"Taste this!"

Yan Buji drew the desire from the Swallow Desire Pot and injected it into the monster leader's body!

The monster leader unleashed a heaven-shaking howl; its prized bone armor, before the blood runes, was as fragile as rice paper. Where the runes passed, flesh melted like wax.

At the critical moment, the beast actually severed its own arm and retreated dozens of zhang.

The severed arm exploded in Yan Buji's hand into a shower of ice crystals, carving dozens of blood streaks across his face.

The battle fell into a stalemate!

Frost congealed over Yan Buji's piercing chest wound, each breath bringing excruciating pain.

The remaining nine monsters surrounded him, their eerie blue eyes glinting with cunning.

They seemed to have learned caution, no longer rashly attacking but continually exhaling ice mist to compress his space.

"Interesting."

Yan Buji wiped the blood from his face, then suddenly planted the Abni Sword upside-down into the ground; the blade sank three-tenths into the stone, a halo of gray light spread outward. The monsters warily stepped back half a pace, only to see him pull a black gourd from his bosom.

The moment the stopper was pulled, the temperature of the entire subsidiary hall plummeted!

What gushed from the gourd's mouth was not the expected poison mist or treasure, but... silence.

Absolute silence!

Even the monsters' ice-mist sounds vanished; Yan Buji's lips moved, yet no sound emerged.

The monsters blinked in confusion, utterly unaware that their movements were growing slower and slower, for the ice crystals at their joints were growing uncontrollably.

"Silence triumphs over sound—this is the 'Silence Extinction Ice Soul'." Though he could not hear his own voice, Yan Buji still muttered to himself out of habit.

This gourd held a strange relic he had found in some ancient ruin, capable of releasing an ultimate chill that could freeze sound itself; originally prepared as a trump card against the Heavenly Cold Palace, he never expected to use it here.

By the time the monsters noticed the anomaly, it was already too late.

Their joints were locked by the ice crystals they themselves secreted, making their movements stiff as puppets. Yan Buji pulled up the Abni Sword; the gray mist on its blade had now solidified, as if adding a serrated gray ice edge to the sword.

"Time to end this." He stepped forward, sword light like a rainbow.

The first sword severed the heads of the nearest monster, three heads falling; at the severance no blood spurted, only ice crystals glittered in the cut. The second sword bisected two monsters at the waist, their upper halves still struggling and crawling on the ice. The third sword...

When the seventh monster collapsed, a sudden change occurred!