Chapter 861: The Abnormality of Ice Mist

A vast shadow in the sky, resembling translucent clouds, drifted rapidly toward them.
Were those magical beasts?
“Be careful everyone! This is the Ice Poison Mist—make sure not to get frozen by it,” Manzi transmitted through telepathy. “Once frozen, even if you don’t die, you’ll be unable to move for a long time and will have to rely on your teammates to carry you away.”
“Ice Poison Mist?” Su Che asked. “It doesn’t seem to be moving very fast. Can’t we just avoid it?”
“We can’t dodge it,” Manzi shook her head. “There are many threats on Mo Li Island, and the Ice Poison Mist is the least dangerous. We still need to use it to conceal ourselves and delay being discovered by the magical beasts, so we can get closer to that Innate Divine Tree.”
“Understood,” Su Che nodded.
The group kept moving forward in their original direction. Just a short while later, they collided head-on with the mass of Ice Poison Mist in the sky.
The mist seemed to possess intelligence, or perhaps some force was controlling it. It descended from the sky in an instant and split into three large clusters, enveloping Su Che, Zhuo Li, and Hao Si’s groups completely, leaving none uncovered.
As the mist covered them, Su Che immediately felt a chill invade him, as if countless ice needles were trying to penetrate his body through his sweat pores.
It had been a very long time since he had felt such cold since he began his cultivation journey. It was as if an ordinary person who had never cultivated suddenly fell into an ice river—severe cold instantly swept through his body.
Su Che silently activated the chaotic energy within him to repel the cold at the surface of his body, but he could still sense countless tiny ice insects slowly invading his body.
Moreover, thanks to the protective barrier, the mist was kept outside the defensive barrier and did not actually touch his body. Otherwise, with his own ability to resist cold, he would have frozen solid in an instant, turning into a human-shaped ice statue.
Tian Yin walked alongside Su Che, also inside the defensive barrier. Relying solely on invisible sound waves, she managed to keep the cold air at bay. After all, as a Celestial Lord, it was easier for her to handle this than for Su Che.
Xiao Hei was even more at ease. Being composed entirely of chaotic energy, he had no physical body, so he didn’t feel cold or heat at all. The Ice Poison Mist seemed unable to freeze the chaotic energy within him.
As for Lao Hei, he was even more extreme—unprotected, he endured the attack of the Ice Poison Mist without any need for protection.

Click, click, click…
At every moment, a thick layer of ice covered Lao Hei’s body, as if he were already frozen solid. Yet this degree of freezing couldn’t stop him at all—he simply used the strength of his flesh to tear apart the ice layer, with cracks and pops as large pieces of diamond-like transparent ice shards fell from his body.
“This guy is too fierce,” Su Che once again marveled inwardly at the extremely powerful physical defense of the tiger-patterned creature.
“This feeling… it’s amazing,” Lao Hei could sense Su Che’s thoughts and immediately replied, “Master, I’m truly satisfied with this puppet body.”
“Alright, don’t get too complacent. Be careful,” Su Che reminded him like a parent.
For now, this ice poison mist didn’t seem too terrifying and shouldn’t pose a threat to any Chaos Traveler.
But Su Che knew this was just the beginning—the real cold had yet to arrive.
Everyone continued onward along the original route, with the ice poison mist following closely behind them.
This was exactly what Manzi had meant earlier: under the cover of the ice poison mist, although their progress would slow down and they’d suffer from the cold, they could use the mist as cover to move stealthily, passing unnoticed by the magical beasts and getting as close as possible to that Innate Divine Tree.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh…
After walking for a while, the ice poison mist surrounding them became dozens of times thicker, seemingly changing suddenly from a gaseous state to a liquid one, giving off a very viscous feeling.
The bone-chilling cold also increased by nearly a hundred times. Su Che, who already possessed the cultivation level of a First Heaven Immortal Emperor with a thousand-fold strength enhancement, still felt his body stiffen and almost couldn’t resist shivering.
In fact, everyone knew this wasn’t the true cold caused by ultra-low temperatures, but rather a special energy with highly toxic properties. Feeling cold meant they had been poisoned.
However, at this point, the toxicity was still tolerable. They could neutralize and dispel it with the energy within their bodies.
At that moment, they heard Manzi’s mental message: “It’s a bit strange. This time, the ice poison mist is changing rapidly and violently—different from the previous two times.”
“Is something wrong?” Su Che asked urgently.
“Hard to say.”

Manzi shook his head. “After all, I’ve only been in here a few times, and I’ve only experienced the Ice Poison Mist twice before. I really can’t claim to understand its characteristics and patterns thoroughly. Besides, those other Chaos Travelers are all selfish. Without any benefit, no one would share their experiences and insights about Devil Island. Even if they do speak, it might not be true.”

In other words, he wasn’t sure whether the changes in the Ice Poison Mist at this moment were normal.

Meanwhile, Zhuo Li’s group was also communicating silently. Someone said, “Captain Zhuo Li, do you feel that something’s wrong with the Ice Poison Mist? It’s different from previous times.”

“There is indeed a difference.”

Zhuo Li frowned slightly and said to her companions, “But none of us can claim to fully understand this Ice Poison Mist, let alone be sure that it’s in an abnormal state right now, right?”

“Although that’s the case…” someone replied, “I can’t explain exactly why, but I suddenly have a bad feeling…”

“Me too,” another person nodded in agreement. “It feels wrong.”

After all, they were all Chaos-level strongmen who had experienced countless dangers and hardships throughout their lives. It wasn’t surprising that they each had an intuitive sense of danger.

Zhuo Li remained silent for a moment, admitting to herself that she too felt uneasy. She then said to them, “Let’s stay a little longer. If things get too bad, we’ll withdraw promptly. It’s better to be cautious.”

“Okay!”

All her companions agreed. They trusted their instincts deeply. If they had a badinstincts and insisted on pushing forward recklessly, it would be the stupidest thing to do.

Su Che and the others didn’t have such a clear sense of danger, as it was their first time on the island. No matter what happened, they would assume it was normal—after all, that was probably the nature of Devil Island.

After walking forward for just a few dozen breaths, Manzi suddenly stopped and said through telepathy, “Something’s wrong. I have a bad feeling. I want to take you all back. I hope you won’t mind.”

Retreating so soon after arriving on the island seemed like a hasty decision, which made Manzi feel somewhat ashamed. But he didn’t want to force himself forward or deceive himself. If something felt off, they should withdraw promptly—that was the primary principle of Devil Island’s “Survival Manual.”

“It’s okay. If we need to retreat, we will. There will be plenty of opportunities in the future,” Su Che replied calmly, unbothered.

Tianyin always obeyed her man’s decisions and showed no reaction at all. Xiaohei even added an extra “even more” to emphasize it. Only Laohei curled his lips and thought to himself, “Coming in just to leave right away—how pathetic.” Of course, this was just a minor complaint; he wouldn’t actually express opposition. The teams led by Zhuoli and Haousi saw that Su Che’s group had turned around, clearly intending to retreat the same way, so without hesitation, both teams also changed direction… But at that moment, the three patches of icy poison mist surrounding them suddenly changed again. Whoosh whoosh whoosh… What had initially been mist turned into a viscous liquid, and in an instant, it completely froze, turning into three huge ice blocks that trapped all three teams inside. As a result, all eighteen explorers were unable to move, frozen inside the ice. It seemed that the ice block sealing Su Che’s group was the smallest, as the five of them were very close to each other, no more than ten feet apart. The ice block covering them was only a few dozen feet in radius. As for Zhuoli and Haousi’s teams, with each person spaced over a thousand feet apart—even though they weren’t in a straight line—the ice blocks trapping them had terrifying radii of several thousand feet. Before the frozen explorers could react, the three huge ice blocks soared into the sky, flying rapidly toward the depths of Mo Li Island. “What’s going on?” “What happened?” The eighteen people inside the ice were shocked, but at that moment, each was trapped by the incredibly hard ice, with hardly any chance to struggle. Su Che and Tianyin were the same way. Although their powerful defensive barriers still existed, the most bizarre thing was that these barriers didn’t stop the freezing effect at all. The extremely hard ice formed instantly inside the barriers, locking Su Che and Tianyin firmly in place. Moreover, this ice could block spiritual communication—though they could see Manzhi just a few feet away through the completely transparent ice, they couldn’t communicate mentally, as the waves of telepathy were completely sealed inside their bodies and couldn’t spread outward. Fortunately, at the moment of the sudden change, Su Che, acting on his instinct as a man, pulled Tianyin into his arms without thinking about the fact that he was weaker than her and should be the one protected by her.

At this moment, Su Che and Tian Yin were tightly huddled together, with no gap between them and not separated by ice layers, so they could definitely communicate normally. Moreover, Lao Hei’s main body was still inside the Immortal Prison, and it could still hear this guy’s loud roars. “Master, the connection between me and my split soul has been cut off by the ice layers; I can no longer control that puppet body,” Lao Hei’s main body shouted from inside the Immortal Prison. “I know,” Su Che replied softly. If the connection between Lao Hei’s main soul and its split soul could be forcibly severed, then it was not surprising that the mental link between him and Xiao Hei had also been cut off.