Chapter 477 – Re-emergence of the Ice Flame
Bang!
Bang!
Dragon Fault broke into two pieces, landing heavily to the left and right of Yun Che, and no longer showed any signs of movement. The tip of the sword that was shaped like the head of a ferocious dragon, slowly lost its energy. Light faded completely from the dragon’s eyes as it became a dull grey color.
Yun Che laid on the ground, blankly staring at the scene in front of him, and did not come back to his senses for a good while. After that, he stretched out his arm, making the gesture to summon Dragon Fault… However, Dragon Fault was destroyed, and the still immature spiritual consciousness within the sword along with it. The sword showed no response to his summons.
Yun Che stood up, picked up the two pieces of Dragon Fault wordlessly, and then slumped in a corner, mutely staring at the destroyed sword in a daze.
Four years ago, he had received Dragon Fault from the trial grounds of the Dragon God. Afterwards, it received a power up from the lingering spirit of the Azure Primordial Dragon, becoming an Emperor Profound Weapon. All this time, it had accompanied Yun Che, braved innumerable obstacles with him, and fought with with him shoulder to shoulder. Dragon Fault had become akin to another limb for Yun Che, and had also become his most reliable companion, their prestige growing with each accomplishment they achieved together.
But today, it laid broken, and at his own hands no less, snapping due to his own strength.
“Your strength is now already in a different realm as compared to what it was previously. It was, after all, only an Emperor Profound Weapon. Your present state of strength is already more than what it could bear. This stone door has unparalleled hardness and practically reflected the full strength of your blow back, that Dragon Fault would break from that is completely reasonable.” Jasmine said in a flat voice. Once Yun Che had entered the state of Purgatory, she could basically predict this outcome.
“Ah…” Yun Che let out a long sigh. He picked up Dragon Fault with care, his hands slowly caressing the ice-cold body of the sword, and softly said, “My old friend, we have already fought together for so many years, little did I expect that you would end up being destroyed by my own hands … Maybe it’s better this way, it was about time for you to take a rest anyways. Once I leave this place, I will think of a way to restore you.”
After he finished talking, Yun Che kept Dragon Fault, and his heart soon recovered its equilibrium. His eyes fell upon the portion of the door which Dragon Fault had smashed.
There was no longer a white dot, but rather, in its place, appeared… a small crack!!
Yun Che’s spirit was shaken, and he swiftly moved closer to the door. His eyes did not deceive him. A small crack had appeared on the flat surface of the stone door. This gap was only as wide as the fingernail of his pinky and the depth of the crack was equivalent to the thickness of one sheet of paper. However, it could at least be counted as a crack.
But this did not make Yun Che happy in the least, because this small crack had been bought at a costly price, the destruction of Dragon Fault. Without Dragon Fault and him using his bare hands, it would be impossible to recreate such a flaw.
“Please… find her…”
This caused Yun Che, who was lost in thought as he stared at the crack, to violently snap his head up and look forward.
“What happened?” Jasmine asked.
“…I heard that voice again, the same voice I heard the day we first entered the Primordial Profound Ark.” Yun Che said while standing up. Once the dimensional turbulence began its assault, all of his energy was spent resisting it; he heard only the sounds of explosions and the tearing of space, and nothing else. Even if the voice tried speaking to him during that period, it would definitely have been engulfed by the sounds being made by the dimensional turbulence.
Now that the dimensional turbulence had subsided, that strange, ethereal voice, whose location could not be pinpointed, sounded once again.
“What exactly did you hear?” Jasmine asked as she furrowed her eyebrows.
Yun Che thought for a while and then said, “The voice before only came intermittently, with long pauses in between. It seemed to be asking me to find someone … and then save him… it also mentioned the Sky Poison Pearl. The same voice that spoke to me again just now, asking ‘please find him’, still requested that I find someone.”
“That voice mentioned the Sky Poison Pearl?” Jasmine’s eyes flashed, and after she pondered awhile, continued, “Ignore the voice for now. You are currently trapped in here and can’t even save yourself, much less going to save someone else. You should figure out a way to leave this place first.”
Yun Che nodded his head and sat down cross-legged on the floor. After racking his brains for a long time, he retrieved the Flame Dragon Heart that he was always reluctant to consume from the Sky Poison Pearl. After using Phoenix flames to cook it, he began wolfing it down. After more than a year of not eating anything, even though his body was not very affected by it, his stomach had long ago entered a state of extreme hunger. He had never gone without food this long before, even counting both his lives.
Yun Che quickly filled his stomach and followed his meal with a huge bowl of dragon’s blood. He rubbed his stomach and sighed in satisfaction, after which he asked: “Jasmine, how long have I been in here?”
“Eighteen months.”
“Eighteen months… to think that so much time has passed.” Yun Che’s face was filled with bewilderment, and he hurriedly turned his head towards Jasmine, “If I have been in here this long, then the seal that you had placed upon yourself should already be released right?”
Jasmine eyed him coolly, and said in a cold voice, “Why? Do you want to borrow my power to leave this place?”
“If you have recovered your strength, then that would of course be the best method.” Yun Che said, his face was filled with hope as he continued, “It has already been more than three years since you sealed your strength. According to what you said initially, regarding the time frame of this seal, your powers should have already recovered by now.”
“If you want to rely on my strength to leave this place, you should give up on that train of thought.” Jasmine turned her face away and huffily said, “When my strength has recovered, I will naturally inform you.”
“So that means your strength still has not recovered yet?” Despair and disappointment flashed on Yun Che’s face, but these feelings quickly subsided. He looked at Jasmine and suddenly laughed. He walked towards her and stood in front of her, and lightly hugged her as she looked on in surprise.
It was completely out of Jasmine’s expectations that he would suddenly perform such an action, and she subconsciously struggled against it, but how could her “powerless” body struggle free from Yun Che’s embrace? She shouted with fury and a hint of confusion, “You… What do you think you are doing?!”
“Of course I am hugging you.” Yun Che said with a grin. “After I sent Xue’er away, I thought that I was definitely going to die. Who would have thought that unexpectedly I managed to survive yet again… This feeling of not losing my life, not losing hope, and of course, not losing you is really great, so I suddenly had an urge to embrace you.”
“…I am your master! Did I allow you to hug me?!” Jasmine said in a furious voice as she struggled weakly.
Yun Che said innocently, “ But… what’s wrong with a hug? Back then, I even kissed you, and you weren’t as angry with me as you are now.”
The kiss he was referring to had occurred when they met the flame dragon, and Jasmine had used all her power to eliminate it, aggravating the poison in her body and nearly caused her soul to fade out of existence. In order to save her, Yun Che had fed her a large amount of his blood mouth-to-mouth…
Of course, Jasmine would definitely not forget what had happened. When Yun Che mentioned it, her body stiffened, and her shyness turned into rage. Her rage and killing intent suddenly exploded. She stopped struggling, and instead said in an extremely cold voice, “Let go!”
However, even though she spared no effort to project a frightening aura, in the end, she bore no true killing intent towards Yun Che, and even her fury arose from shame, so this didn’t even arouse any feelings of deterrence within Yun Che. The corner of Yun Che’s mouth moved and he uttered a dispirited “fine” softly as he relaxed his hold around Jasmine.
Jasmine retreated swiftly, stared at Yun Che with a face filled with anger, and said: “If you dare touch me without permission again, don’t think I won’t dare to cripple your hand once I have fully recovered!”
Yun Che pressed down on the tip of his nose and slowly nodded, “Oh… thank you for reminding me. Once you have recovered your powers, I won’t be able to hug you anymore, so… shouldn’t I hug you more now while I still have the chance?”
Having said that, Yun Che narrowed his eyes and advanced towards Jasmine, assuming a posture that indicated he would hug her once again.
“You!!” Jasmine ground her white teeth, clenched her small hands tightly, and with a cry, turned into a ray of red light which disappeared from Yun Che’s eyes, immediately returning to the Sky Poison Pearl.
“You are the kind of person who always goes around tricking and bullying girls, that my big brother said was most hateful, a lecher! Now you dare to extend your devilish hands towards the body of this princess! If not… If not for… I would definitely kill you! HMPH!”
After Jasmine finished her rant, she fell silent, and no matter what Yun Che did, she simply ignored him.
Yun Che sat in front of the stone door, his eyes staring at the tiny crack. Closing his eyes, he concentrated all his energy into thinking of a way to escape. After not moving for a few hours, he suddenly opened his eyes, and they shone with a strange light.
He raised up both his arms and rested his palms on his thighs, facing them upwards. Following this, in the same moment, his right hand began to smoulder with Phoenix flames, while in his left hand there grew a small delicate ‘Tree of Frozen End’.
Yun Che closed his eyes once more, his chest violently rising and falling. This was followed by slow and steady breathing. The atmosphere grew much heavier than normal. In this thick silence, the heat from the Phoenix flames and cold energy from the Tree of Frozen End started to pulse chaotically. The hot and cold energies offset each other at first, and this was also in accordance to one of the most basic natural laws of the world. But as time passed, the two conflicting energies which were supposed to offset each other began to separate and isolate themselves.
Two hours later, the tiny space had gradually been divided into two different realms, one half was as hot as lava, the other as cold as abyssal ice.
Two realms which should offset one another, somehow managed to coexist together in a completely open space without interfering with each other in the slightest!
At this time, Yun Che finally began to move. Slowly, he began to bring his right hand, burning with Phoenix flame, and his left hand, maintaining the Frozen End energy, together. This was done in an extremely careful manner and from his expression, it seemed that every little movement Yun Che made, required him to consume a large amount of mental energy and physical strength… A foot of distance required a full thirty breaths before his left and right hands could finally touch one another.
At the moment the Phoenix flame and Frozen End touched… there was no melting of the Frozen End or the suppression of the Phoenix flame. Instead the crimson Phoenix flames and the crystal-blue Frozen End began to blend together, Frozen End being immersed in the Phoenix flames and vice-versa. After a while, both the Phoenix flames and the Frozen End energy had completely coalesced together and formed a cluster of bizarre flames which gently swayed in the air, giving off an icy blue light.
At the same time, the space which was divided into two different realms had combined together as well. Moreover, this combination did not mean that the hot and cold energies had suppressed each other. Instead it was the feeling of bone-chilling cold and bitter heat existing simultaneously, chaotically interweaving and interlacing together.
“I succeeded …” Yun Che opened his eyes and looked at the ice flame which danced upon his palm. Initially, when he was in Frozen Cloud Asgard, his first attempt at successfully forming this heaven-defying ice flame took him an entire two days worth of time.
However, after the explosive growth of his abilities and mental strength, coupled with his newfound enlightenment regarding the energy of heaven and earth, he only needed a short two hours to succeed on his second try!
Moreover, his power up also caused the might of the Phoenix flames and the Frozen End Divine Arts to increase dramatically. This current ice flame, compared to the one formed in Frozen Cloud Asgard, was mightier by far!
Yun Che’s hands, which were controlling the ice flames, began to shake and it seemed that he might lose control of this cluster of ice flames. This kind of heaven-defying, unnatural combination, manifested as an energy which defied both the laws of nature. Even though what he produced was just a tiny cluster of flames, seventy percent of Yun Che’s profound energy and fifty percent of his mental strength had been consumed.
“Be sure… to not let me down.”
Yun Che muttered as his eyes flared, and he pushed his palms forward, striking the stone door with his cluster of ice flames.
alyschu note: In the Chinese language, the it/she/he pronouns all sound the same. The voice is saying her, but Yun Che thought that he had to find a “him”. This is not incorrect, thanks!