A giant white claw descended from up top. Its swipe caused a massive blizzard and sharp ice fragments to fly in all directions. The aim of this massive sharp appendage was a sphere of golden light in front of it. Yet when it collided with this radiant orb of golden energy instead of cutting through it the claws broke into many smaller pieces.

The creature that the large claw belonged to revealed itself to be an ice dragon. While the pain from losing its claws was excruciating it didn’t stop with its attack. Its large toothy mouth opened up wide to produce a dragon breath attack which these types of creatures were known for. It flew forward and produced even more cold energy that this place was already filled with.

Yet the man inside the ball of golden light didn’t move an inch. Instead of evading he propelled himself toward the attack. The protective barrier he was surrounding himself with pushed all the frozen flames to the sides. His entire form propelled itself into the monster’s mouth before it could even close it. Then within a matter of moments, the dragon began to inflate like a giant balloon. Soon the golden light the man was clad in burst from within and signaled the death of this creature.

“Can you just leave me alone, this is getting annoying…”

Zhang Dong looked at the pink chunks of flesh that were bursting around him turn to icicles the moment the dragon was dead. He was still stuck in the area he arrived in and ever since he attempted to check the sky of this pocket dimension the monsters were after him. Usually, these types of traps had some type of end but there was no end to it.

‘They aren’t strong but there are a lot of them… Will my spiritual energy hold up without me being able to recover? I need to find some kind of safe haven where I can rest.’

Even though he was a master that reached a realm that was slightly above the nascent soul, he was not invincible. His spiritual energy reserves were finite and sooner or later he would also run out of pills to recover. Already half a week had passed since he arrived in this place and the beasts just continued to come at him.

First, it was the frozen versions of the undersea soldiers that he was more familiar with but then more varied ones appeared. Ice Dragons, Ice Tigers, and Ice Serpents were only some of the creatures he had to contend with. Some were weak, others were strong and even close to his level. Coupled with the harsh weather that would freeze him to the bone if he decided to drop his protective barrier, it was a troublesome trial of attrition.

He could not sleep as the monsters were somehow able to always pinpoint his location. Even when he used his new Dao of darkness to hide himself, they always found him. There was probably something guiding them to his location as he did not belong to this place. Even with the best hiding skills he was unable to keep even the smaller beasts from finding him. Thus he was forced to travel through these strange lands in hopes of finding an exit.

‘Luckily the mapping feature is still working, at least I won’t get lost like this.’

The visibility of this place was also abysmal. Even when straining his eyes he could not see more than around a hundred meters in all directions. If he was at the core formation stage he would probably not be able to see anything above ten. The blizzard was constantly blowing crystal shards in his face and the temperature was at around minus hundred degrees celsius.

‘If this is another immortal treasure, then the space inside could be huge, we never managed to fully repair the Dimensional Regalia, could this place be a finished product or maybe even multiple treasures in one?’

Considering that he could not feel any presence of his sect members even before the whole place turned into a giant ice cage, it could be possible that these pocket dimensions were separated from each other. He could be going through several Dimensional Regalia-type pocket dimensions with each being the size of the old planet he came from. Luckily he was capable of flight at high speeds.

‘Hm? What’s that?’

Only thanks to the mapping feature of his system was he able to fly in one direction. Without it around he feared that he would go around in circles until all of his Qi reserves ran out. This was probably the way this place intended to bury him by disorientation and continuous waves of beasts.

‘It looked like a tower… Can’t even see the end of it…’

Finally, he arrived at something that looked like a structure. It was a massive tower that stretched into the sky. Due to all the ice and blizzard, it looked like a giant tower made of blue crystal but when he squinted he could see the rocky outlines inside.

‘This could be the way out…’

When looking behind he saw some more strange creatures charging at his location. The tower made of ice crystals looked to be quite thick, at least a kilometer in diameter. This was the only reason that he could see it with the blizzard storm still raging around him. Without thinking too much he decided to investigate further as it was the first actual building he managed to come across.

‘I hope it won’t be a dead end like some of those caves…’

Previously he discovered a couple of large caves yet besides a mass of angry monsters inside he didn’t find anything substantial. A large structure like this had to be placed for some type of reason. It could be his way out of this frozen hell hole. Thus he sped towards it with utmost care. From his experience, he knew that a potential trap or encounter with a powerful beast was probable.

“Hm? Are you not going to follow after me?”

To his surprise it was the reverse, the moment he arrived at the bottom of the giant icicle, the monsters that were behind him started chasing him. It was as if they were being kept away by another invisible barrier that surrounded the whole palace. This was mostly confirmed by the perfect circle they made around this place without any of them being able to take even one step inside.

‘I could probably kill them all now, they are sitting ducks just standing like that… but it might not be wise to waste my energy on trash mobs like these.’

This would have been a nice place to farm for spirit points if he ever had his old system. Without it, killing the monsters was somewhat meaningless. He also considered that more and more were appearing before him. Taking the cloning technology that the Cerulean Empire was known for, there would be another swarm waiting to replace these if he killed them.

‘There is an entrance…’

Instead, he turned around to face the crystal-like ice, with a swipe of his finger he was able to cut a rectangular opening to get to the entrance gate. There was no writing to indicate that this was some type of test.

‘Hm, usually these types of places have some warning or a tip about what is inside… perhaps the person who made this didn’t expect any visitors?’

Before going in he took one last look at the monsters behind him. They were just staring at him with those lifeless eyes of theirs. Thanks to his knowledge of the soul arts he knew that these beings were nothing more than hollow husks. There was nothing in them and they were purely moving on instinct. Only a tiny fraction of what used to be a soul remained inside and it was probably left there by whoever created them.

“Sad creatures…”

For some reason, he didn’t feel any fear when looking at these beats, only sorrow and sadness. This could be his future if he ever stopped fighting and also when he decided to reach the next stage. He was still convinced that the being that set this whole thing out couldn’t be doing it out of the goodness of their hearts.

His idea of the reason didn’t surface yet but he had a few theories. The one that was winning was due to the concept of boredom. Perhaps this entity was just entertaining itself due to its immortality. An immortal lifespan might have seemed in theory but then what would happen after a million years? Everything that could have been done on this plane of existence could have been achieved. There would be nothing more than performing the same mundane tasks with no goal.

For the time being he had things that he wanted to do. But after everything was secured his long lifespan might become problematic. Even though this empire was huge, what would he do for a thousand years? Then potentially after he ascended he might become an actual immortal. Would he go crazy or would his mind be somewhat able to cope with all the time he had on his hands?

‘Why do I always ponder these existential questions when I’m out in places like this, I need to focus on the current problems, living for too long will probably be the least of my problems.’

After getting all the ice from the entrance gate he gave it a push. The thing started buckling under the pressure but needed a few well-placed kicks to actually open up. If someone of his stature had trouble opening this thing up then anyone that wasn’t a nascent soul master at the later stages would be out of luck.

The stony gate slammed open while he prepared to take on any potential hidden attacks. Yet instead of any attacks, only darkness greeted him. Thanks to his newly gained Dao he knew that he didn’t have anything to fear. No monsters of the night that would be able to previously sneak up on him could remain undetected.

‘This is not a tower of any kind… this energy… It’s a gate?’

When he began approaching the entrance he could feel something tugging at his body. At first, he planted his feet firmly in the frozen ground but soon after he began to move inside. This place would not give him any trials, it was just a passageway through which he would reach another destination. Thus he accepted the pull and quickly vanished into the darkness.

‘I hope all the others are on the other end…’

He could feel getting dragged through some kind of passageway. It was somewhat similar to going through a teleportation gate but not quite. His body was actually flying through a weird dark corridor that sometimes produced a purple haze. Without his Qi shield raised, he would have already been torn to shreds. He could only hope that this led somewhere, otherwise getting stuck in an endless tunnel might be the end of his journey.