With a quiet splash, Li Xun popped his head out of the water. He pressed a hand against a chunk of floating ice and caught his breath in its shadow.

Beside him, Yin Wanderer appeared soundlessly, giving no sign of emotion.

A few li off, a bunch of rogue cultivators were duking it out, sword qi clashing and wind whipping around. Li Xun ignored it all, squinting up at the sun.

Li Xun had been hanging around the North Sea for two days now. To avoid any unnecessary surprises, he waited until the last group, led by Mistress Tianzhi, had pulled out of Nightless City before diving in deep.

At this moment, the vast area stretching for thousands of li around Nightless City was shrouded in a hazy glow, as if a colorful rain was gently falling from the sky.

Even so, not even the grandmasters like the Seven Great Demons would dare to step into that glow just to “get rained on.” The “Eternal Night Aurora” wasn’t messing around. It could melt true breath and scatter spiritual energy in an instant.

Because of that, Li Xun had no choice but to skirt around the Sleepless City, making a wide detour before slipping in from the northwest.

With Nightless City out of the picture, countless rogue cultivators and demons of the polar lands broke into open celebration. Hundreds, even thousands, of streaks of sword light shot through the sky with total abandon.

Barely an hour after the entire city’s withdrawal, more than ten thousand rogues and demons had already doubled their original territories. At the same time, the chaos was spreading just as fast.

None of this had much to do with Li Xun anymore.

He first tilted his head to take in the light in the sky, then looked at Yemo Heaven just a few dozen li away. The stark contrast between the brightness and the shadows made his eyes spin a little.

Shaking his head, Li Xun took a deep breath and dove back down.

Compared to the uproar on the surface, the world beneath the sea was completely different. Schools of fish and all kinds of strange sea creatures drifted gracefully among the coral and rocks, completely untouched by the chaos above.

Even so, Li Xun didn’t dare let his guard down. He knew perfectly well why no one came to disturb these waters.

Ever since the Rogue Cultivators' Alliance was formed, the depths of the North Sea had become the palace of the ancient Kunpeng demon. From time to time, the old monster would revert to his true form. Stretching for a thousand li, he'd stir up storms and waves just to loosen his joints.

Seriously, who'd be crazy enough to pick a fight with that ancient demon in his own turf

Li Xun was counting on exactly that. He knew the Kunpeng preferred the cold, and the eastern sea had several natural ice vents he favored. That made the west side far less frequented. If Li Xun wanted to slip in unnoticed, that was the only way in.

Even deep beneath the waves, Li Xun could feel the sky darkening at an alarming rate. After advancing just a few li, the water at this depth had become impossibly dark, not a sliver of light remaining. The only thing that stood out like a beacon in the gloom was the star-like gleam in Yin Wanderer’s eyes beside him.

Following the current, the two slipped past several small restrictions near the shore. Once they were sure no one was around, they prepared to climb ashore.

Li Xun braced himself on the icy edge of the bank and had just managed to lift half his body when a gust of freezing wind swept by, pelting his face with shards of ice.

Li Xun spat out a chunk of ice and squinted into the distance.

All around him, the wind howled through a world of snow and ice. Countless shards of frost whirled through the air, flickering in and out of sight in the vast darkness. Far ahead, against the dim, gray-black backdrop, there shimmered a deep, soul-piercing blue. A color born from cold pushed to its very limit.

Just looking at it made him feel as if his organs had frozen solid, every breath turning to mist. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen this; this was already his fourth time setting foot on the ice plains. But this time, he had come uninvited.

“We’re not too far from Frostwind Valley,” he muttered, “but how much farther is it to Heart Garden?”

Frostwind Valley was where Li Xun had stayed on his previous trips to Yemo Heaven. And Heart Garden was the main stronghold of the Miaohua Sect.

He remembered Lin Wuyou telling him that to reach Heart Garden, you had to pass through Frostwind Valley. But he’d never managed to make it that far.

He rubbed his chin and turned. “You ever been here before?”

A subtle smile tugged at the corner of Yin Wanderer’s lips. In a sense, she was the main character of this mission.

Of course she knew exactly what Li Xun was really asking. She gave a slight nod and explained quietly, “If you want to get to Heart Garden, the best route is through Frostwind Valley. That’s the only way to avoid the freezing poison up in the air. Otherwise, even if you manage to withstand it, fighting it off over thousands of li would leave you completely drained by the time you arrive.”

Li Xun nodded, not looking particularly surprised.

After all, Yemo Heaven was one of the Three Heavenly Grottos of the Tongxuan Realm. Its pure primordial qi, countless rare treasures and heavenly herbs, and the natural restrictions protecting it made it a paradise every cultivator dreamed of. If Heart Garden -- the very core of this Heavenly Grotto -- were really open and easy to reach, that would have been suspiciously bizarre.

In any case, Li Xun decided they should first head for Frostwind Valley and see what awaited them there.

For safety’s sake, neither of them took to the skies and instead used a ground-shrinking technique to move swiftly across the frozen plains. Even so, the vastness of the polar icefield was no exaggeration. After traveling for an hour, all they could see was endless white. No sign of Frostwind Valley, not even another living soul.

Li Xun started to feel that something was off. “Don’t you think it’s too quiet? Outside, there’s all that fighting and chaos, but in here… it’s like a dead zone…”

“A dead zone? That’s a good way to put it.” Yin Wanderer brushed aside a strand of hair the cold wind had blown loose, her eyes fixed in one spot, unmoving. “Not sure what happened here… but someone’s definitely died.”

Li Xun blinked, then followed her line of sight. Sure enough, about a hundred feet away, the ground bulged slightly upward.

He frowned and slowly started toward it. Without needing any reminder, Yin Wanderer had already sent out his divine sense, scanning over ten li in every direction to make sure there was no threats.

Brushing away the layer of snow, they found a corpse beneath. The body was stiff and frozen solid, the muscles locked tight by the cold. But the face, twisted in sheer terror, had been preserved perfectly. The hollow eyes alone were enough to send a chill down your spine.

Li Xun’s gaze flicked over the man’s clothing, and he paused again in surprise.

The man wore a fitted purple robe trimmed with silver, topped with a snow-white cloak. Clearly the standard uniform of a member of the Rogue Cultivators’ Alliance Guard Division.

The Guard Division were under the joint authority of the Fourfold Envoys but answered directly to the Ten Ruling Councilors. Every one of them was an elite cultivator personally trained by the Ten over the past sixty years. Their sole duty was to defend Yemo Heaven; they never took part in the Alliance’s internal feuds. No one with any sense would ever dare to provoke them.

So what was going on here?

Li Xun reached out and lightly pressed his hand to the side of the corpse’s neck. A thread of qi flowed from his palm, and in an instant he had scanned the entire body. What he found made his frown deepen. A faint sound came from behind him. Yin Wanderer had stepped up, eyes sharp and glinting as he looked over the scene.

“The heart meridian is shattered, the primordial spirit’s gone. Clean and precise work. But… was this guy an idiot? There’s not a trace of resistance anywhere.”

What Li Xun meant was that the man’s organs and meridians showed no signs of true breath surging in defense.

When two cultivators fight, there’s always some true breath shock or impact that ripples through them. That ripple travels through the body, creating all kinds of effects, which can vary depending on the specific techniques or methods of the sect.

Even a dead cultivator should show some damage to the meridians, bones, or organs, marks that reveal how the opponent’s energy entered and flowed through the body.

But aside from the fatal wound, there was nothing. No trace at all. Li Xun almost thought the man’s heart had just burst on its own.

“Weird… really weird!”

No matter how he turned it over in his mind, Li Xun couldn’t figure out which sect in the Tongxuan Realm used such a bizarre method. Instinctively, he looked back.

Yin Wanderer didn’t answer right away. She crouched down beside the body, resting her hand lightly on its chest. After a long moment of silence under Li Xun’s gaze, she finally said, “This… is Aurora Primordial Magnetism.”

“Aurora Primordial Magnetism?” For a moment, Li Xun didn't quite process it. But once he realized what she meant, his eyes went wide. “Wait... which Aurora Primordial Magnetism?”

Seeing the hint of mockery in Yin Wanderer’s eyes, Li Xun pressed his lips together and shook his head. “I’ve seen Aurora Primordial Magnetism before. It can disrupt true breath, sure, but even if a thousand bursts went off on the Ten-Thousand Li wide Aurora Barrier, it still couldn’t do something like this.”

“How could a lifeless object ever compare to human skill?” Yin Wanderer smiled slightly and tore open the fabric over the corpse’s chest. “Look at the muscle texture here. Do you see how it differs from the rest?”

Li Xun glanced over, letting out “hmm.” The muscle fibers here were clearly looser, less refined than those nearby. So that was it…

“If Aurora Primordial Magnetism were nothing more than a blunt instrument,” Yin Wanderer said, “the patriarchs of Nightless City might as well have thrown themselves into the sea long ago. Since it’s magnetic force we’re talking about, it naturally has all kinds of subtle ways to manipulate true breath. Take this case, the killer used magnetic polarity to dissolve and tear through the victim’s protective qi, then scattered the true breath within his body, pulled out a single thread of it, and drove it straight into his heart meridian…”

Yin Wanderer clapped her hands and stood up. “So from beginning to end, no foreign true breath ever entered the dead’s body. You could say this guy blew up his own heart; the killer just gave him a little push from the outside, nothing more.

“But,” she added, “the attacker’s cultivation hasn’t yet reached the ‘One in Ten Thousand’ mastery. Even though the manipulation of the qi flow left almost no trace, the force was slightly off, which is why a few marks were left behind.”

Li Xun nodded slowly to himself. By now, everything was clear enough. The image of that person flashed through his mind, and his brow almost twisted into a knot.

Mistress Tianzhi?

He couldn’t help but think of how, just before their withdrawal, Tianzhi had returned from Yemo Heaven. The more he thought about it, the more he felt there was some deep, hidden secret he just couldn’t figure out. But even more important was…

“How long has he been dead?”

Yin Wanderer’s eyes flickered. “No more than an hour,” she answered simply.

“How’s that possible? She only left two hours ago…”