Trials of the Abyss-Chapter 982: Ultimate Freeze

Lightning writhed like serpentine dragons, their thunderclaps shaking the starry region. The Divine Court of Thunder, entangled in the World Tree's sprawling branches, drifted through the bizarre mist, unleashing searing radiance against the gloomy gray.

The Duke of Thunder had been freed from the corruption of the will of the starry skies after his cultivation realm plummeted, resulting in him regaining his clarity. Reshaping his stance, he assumed his role as the soul of the Divine Court of Thunder and fused with its foundation.

Under Pang Ling's guidance, the World Tree's colossal branches speared toward Bai Zi. An onslaught of divine power battered Bai Zi like a storm. Pang Lin, perched on the shoulder of Pang Jian's Immortal Divine Soul, wore a bright smile, delight shimmering in her eyes.

"You think I can't force you out?" Pang Lin laughed mockingly, casting a sidelong glance at the four Fey Gods she had given rise to.

They held fast under Pang Jian's aid, their spirits unbroken against the invading will.

The tide was turning. The supreme will of the starry skies would be bereft of pawns.

Fu Ya was dead, Tian Yu had fallen, and Yi Hao was occupied with Luo Hongyan.

Without vessels to wield as blades, even that supreme will would be left helpless, forced into passivity as the battle raged on.

"The Duke of Thunder and Xing Huan have both been dealt with. Only Bai Zi is left. As for Yi Hao..."

Pang Lin's sly gaze was laced with anticipatory amusement.

***

"Pang Jian," Bai Zi said in a detached voice.

Pang Jian, maneuvering the Divine Court of Thunder, faltered briefly, instinctively probing the Nether God before him.

What he found chilled him to the bone.

The confusion, frenzy, and bloodlust that had previously twisted her face were gone. In their place lay a startling stillness, eyes flat and depthless. She was no longer the Bai Zi he once knew.

Her bones shuddered, each joint bursting as though struck by a heavy hammer. The fractures spread, and her vast vitality drained in torrents, leaving her already-slender figure gaunt.

Although her condition looked dire, Pang Jian's instincts screamed otherwise. His heart clenched in alarm.

Bai Zi quietly raised her left hand. Filaments of the Heavenly Dao wove together in her palm, fusing into a searing sphere of silver radiance. That sphere was like the eye of the supreme will itself, cold, disdainful, and commanding. Its gaze promised total domination. Its allure tugged at the soul, demanding surrender and ruin.

A storm of lightning vortexes raged toward Bai Zi.

Bai Zi's lips parted, voice soft, but carrying the weight of inevitability.

"Freeze."

The omnipresent bizarre mist recoiled and dispersed, leaving a sudden vacuum around her.

A torrent of absolute cold surged from the sphere of silver radiance in her, laced with the pallid brilliance of frozen moons and stars. In the blink of an eye, it flooded the Primordial Chaos Starry Region, carrying the intent to freeze all existence.

Then, a strange world unfolded between the boundaries of reality and illusion. An icy world with towering glaciers, frozen rivers, and snowcapped mountains manifested. Complete Heavenly Daos threaded through every corner, knitting the illusion into tangible reality.

Bai Zi had birthed a world of eternal frost from nothing. The snow drifting through the air gleamed flawlessly. Cold stars and wan moons cast their ghostly light from above. Each snowflake bore the imprint of the Dao of Cold, as though countless divine beings had condensed their essence into drifting white flakes of winter.

This was not a divine technique Bai Zi was supposed to be capable of mastering.

Pang Jian's storm of lightning vortexes could shatter the frozen skies and tear through the glacial world, but could not breach the vacuum immediately surrounding Bai Zi.

The chill radiated outward across ten million li, seizing the souls of all those within the gray bizarre mist. It was as if the cold had seeped into their essence, ready to freeze them into statues of ice.

"It's here!" Pang Lin exclaimed, not in fear but in delight.

The flames that poured from the colossal God King's skull were extinguished without warning. Invisible waves of cold pierced even the boundary wall, spilling into the Ruin Realm.

"How can that Nether God be this terrifying?" Ying Yue cried, shivering violently in the Ruin Realm despite already being a high-ranking God.

Everything the creeping cold touched became glazed in ice, from stars and continents to mountains and rivers. The weak were frozen into statues, shattering with a brittle crack into dust.

The multitude of new lives Pang Jian had birthed through the Heavenly Daos and the Sanctum of Godly and Demonic Genesis in the Ruin Realm were snuffed out in droves, cut down before they had the chance to grow and mature.

"Even the God King's skull and its boundary wall can't stop that glacial tide from seeping in! What power is this?! What realm of strength can wield such force?!" He Motian exclaimed in horror. "No Sovereign can wield such might! Not even the greatest master of the Dao of Cold could break through Yan Hao's skull, nor drive cold currents through its boundary wall!" 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

The frosty cold had even swallowed the five Great Demon Gods, causing them to rapidly freeze over. Only Han Yi, as a high-ranking God of the Dao of Cold, could hold firm amidst the encroaching chill.

"I don't know any divine being—even among the Sovereigns—with such power in the Dao of Cold!" Parsing the Dao laced within the cold, Han Yi cried out in alarm. "This isn't mere cold! Hidden within are other Daos! Pang Jian, Bai Zi is no longer herself! She isn't just corrupted. There's likely nothing left of Bai Zi at all!"

***

Outside the Ruin Realm, Pang Jian heard Han Yi's cry and sensed the upheaval within the God King's skull.

Even beset on all sides by the engulfing tide of cold, he remained composed. He did not waver at the death of the myriad lives he had birthed. His gaze stayed firmly fixed on Bai Zi.

Mid-incantation, her forehead split open, and fresh blood seeped down her face. Then, the cracks spread to the corners of her eyes, across her cheeks, and down her neck, until her entire body ran with blood.

Though she had ascended as a Sovereign, unleashing this frostbound world had left her grievously wounded. Her elegant face was a mask of blood, grotesque and terrible to behold.

She had clearly struck far beyond her limits. Recklessly burning through both her divine soul and divine power had left her body on the verge of collapse under the strain of those foreign Daos. Even a newly risen Sovereign would not normally be brought to such ruin with a mere secret technique.

"Pang Jian!" cried the Duke of Thunder. His body had already withered to a sixth of its former size, and his tail was plunged into the Thunder Pool, drawing upon the lightning within to temper himself once more. "It's not limited to descending upon God Kings! It can also descend upon Sovereigns such as myself and Bai Zi!

"The difference is that we cannot withstand its power! If we, as its vessels, draw upon its divine techniques, we'll swiftly collapse into death and decay! Pang Jian, be careful!"

The Duke of Thunder had regained his clarity after falling from Sovereignhood. Once the supreme will of the starry skies abandoned him, slipping instead into Bai Zi, it was as though he had awakened from a suffocating nightmare.

When he had first ascended into Sovereignhood, he had felt that supreme will twisting his mind. However, that was mere corruption of his spirit, and not a true descent.

Bai Zi's situation was different. The supreme will of the starry skies no longer held back, instead opting to possess her outright. It had descended into her as it would into a God King.

Still, a Sovereign lacked the strength to receive its descent, meaning the host would inevitably collapse and die under the weight of borrowed power.

Bai Zi, having become its true vessel, was set on that exact path.

Rather, she was no longer even herself. She was the incarnation of that supreme will itself!

The vast bizarre mist, as if sensing its presence, had scattered in disbelief in the face of its absolute cold. The vacuum left behind by the receding bizarre mist became filled with glacial stillness, turning every emptied stretch into a region of drifting snow and icy silence.

Pang Jian had never once seen the bizarre mist yield in such a way. In his eyes, the bizarre mist was the foremost mystery of creation, a miraculous existence exalted above all living things—divine or otherwise.

Now, that same bizarre mist was being driven back, pushed aside by the frigid cold flowing from Bai Zi.

If Bai Zi were truly still herself, this feat would have been impossible. Even Fu Ya, Tian Yu, and Luo Hongyan could not achieve such a thing. They had reigned supreme in the starry skies for hundreds of thousands of years, yet none of them had ever forced the bizarre mist to recoil.

Bai Zi is that supreme will!

Pang Jian braced himself.

Even as a newly ascended Sovereign, Bai Zi was not his equal, causing Pang Jian to dismiss her as a lesser threat compared to the Duke of Thunder. As a vessel of the supreme will, however, that no longer rang true.

Pang Jian dared not underestimate her again.

Mist. The gray mist.

Frowning, he weighed his next move.

Snow drifted across the battlefield, freezing even lightning in its place. The vast lightning vortexes stiffened with frost.

The sprawling Divine Court of Thunder, the azure Thunder Dragon within, the Rank Thirteen World Tree, and even Pang Ling's physical body had all fallen under the suffocating grip of that uncanny cold.

None could move at all.

In the depths of that frigid tide, Pang Jian sensed not only the aura of the star, sun, and moon but also the temporal seal Yi Hao had once laid. There were also Heavenly Daos unfamiliar to him, ones he had never come into contact with before.