Chapter 38: Flying Ice Bees

Each Flying Ice Bee was two meters in size, entirely white in color, with only two wings made of transparent ice crystals.
These Flying Ice Bees lived year-round in the underground ice layers of the Ice Continent, where there existed a vast underground ice cave world. They had almost taken over all the underground ice layers in the Gale Region.
With the emergence of the Eight Directions Sword, strange phenomena in heaven and earth, and chaotic energy flows, these Flying Ice Bees sensed the anomaly and naturally sent forces to investigate.
Thus, the twelve people from Cangyang Valley encountered these terrifying beasts.
“Gather together and fight as one,” Li Zhen shouted urgently.
If the twelve split up, with tens of thousands of Flying Ice Bees attacking in twelve groups, everyone in Cangyang Valley would be slowly exhausted to death. The only option was to unite their strength and break through.
If not for the dense gales surrounding them, it would have been easy for the twelve people from Cangyang Valley to avoid the Flying Ice Bees—just teleporting away would suffice. But now, with gales everywhere, they had no other way but to fight back against the Flying Ice Bees to escape.
Soon, the twelve gathered together.
The Flying Ice Bees spotted them and immediately began buzzing loudly. The sky was filled with these white creatures, forming a moving iceberg that shocked the twelve people from Cangyang Valley greatly.
Whoosh!
Hundreds of gales suddenly appeared around them, striking the gathered Flying Ice Bees.
Boom!
To their surprise, these gales, which were highly lethal to human cultivators, were effortlessly deflected by the ice crystal wings of the Flying Ice Bees, shattering completely.
The ice crystal wings possessed the hardness of late-stage Divine Absorption, completely ignoring the fury of the gales. It seemed these Flying Ice Bees had evolved extremely strong physical defenses over time while living on the Ice Continent, with their wings reaching an astonishing defensive hardness.
Undoubtedly, this effortless ability of the Flying Ice Bees to deflect the gales shocked the twelve people from Cangyang Valley once again. Now, they not only had to be wary of their magical attacks but also their wing attacks.
However, a faint smile appeared on the faces of the twelve people from Cangyang Valley. Since the wings of these Flying Ice Bees could block gales, killing a few of them and obtaining their wings would mean they could enter a zone free from gales—just keeping the wings in front of them and flying southward.

“Everyone, kill the Flying Ice Bees and take their wings,” Li Zhen shouted excitedly.
“Understood,” the eleven replied happily as well.
With that, the twelve took out their magical artifacts and cast a spell together. Some used swords to unleash a thousand earth thorns, each of which flew toward the bodies of the Flying Ice Bees. Others used knives to generate a hundred blades of true energy, striking at the dense swarm of Flying Ice Bees. Still others used staffs to create countless stone projectiles in midair, attacking the Flying Ice Bees as well.
Yang Di took out a golden long spear named the Star-Shattering Spear, a mid-grade spiritual weapon. When his true energy was channeled through it, it emitted a thousand earth needles. Though thin, each needle carried the strength of a mid-stage Divine Soul level.
In front of Li Zhen, four swords—gold, red, green, and blue—flew in the air. The four swords moved together to form a “mouth” shape, after which a massive wall of earth rushed forward. The swords then arranged themselves in a straight line, and a thousand streams of sword energy shot out simultaneously.
In an instant, the twelve members of Cangyang Valley cast over a dozen powerful spells, attacking the Flying Ice Bees in front of them.
It seemed the Flying Ice Bees only knew one spell: spewing cold air. With a hum, a white mist-like cold aura appeared in front of them. The cold air from tens of thousands of Flying Ice Bees quickly condensed, countering the dozen earth-based spells.
The earth thorns flew into the cold air and were instantly enveloped and frozen. The blades of true energy formed an ice layer as they approached the cold air before shattering on their own.
All of Yang Di’s thousand earth needles struck the cold air, and as they passed through it, they were gradually worn away.
Li Zhen’s four swords moved together, pushing forward with a fierce force that shook and cracked the cold air layer, but it was still blocked by more cold air spat out by the Flying Ice Bees. However, the thousand streams of sword energy that followed finally had an effect. The cold air emitted by the Flying Ice Bees blocked the earth wall but couldn’t stop the sword energy.
A hundred Flying Ice Bees were struck by the sword energy, their entire white bodies splitting and shattering instantly. It seemed their bodies were made of ice—any damage would cause the whole body to break apart, yet their wings remained intact.
Seeing hundreds of Flying Ice Bees dead, Li Heng wanted to fly over immediately to snatch a dozen wings. But before he could move, the Flying Ice Bees continued to spew cold air, making Li Heng feel as though his entire spirit was about to freeze. He quickly retreated.

“Senior Li Zhen, it seems we can’t get too close to the Flying Ice Bees—the cold aura can freeze one’s vital spirit,” Li Heng said gloomily.
The twelve members of Cangyang Valley fell into silence. It seemed they had to kill all the Flying Ice Bees to obtain those wings.
Li Zhen thought for a moment, then a voice in his mind said, “Should I use the trump card given to me by our sect?”
Soon, he shook his head. This was still the Gale Region; there was still the Space Rift Area ahead before reaching the South Pole. Using his trump card now meant he wouldn’t have anything left to compete with the other nine sects for the Eight Directions Sword.
“Everyone, let’s gather our vital energy into one line and turn it into a sword of vital energy to break through. We must seize the opportunity to quickly grab the corpses of the Flying Ice Bees while killing them up close,” Li Zhen said calmly after thinking it through.
The eleven agreed, nodding immediately.
Thus, the twelve powerful cultivators from the same sect retracted their magical treasures and placed their palms together. Their vital energy circulated simultaneously, forming a single entity. In an instant, all twelve were enveloped in Earthly Vital Energy, appearing like a giant yellow sword from the outside.
“The Sword of Cangyang!”
As the sword’s tip, Li Zhen shouted loudly, then led the eleven others, wielding the sword made of vital energy, toward the buzzing swarm of Flying Ice Bees.
Wherever the sword went, the cold aura that was about to turn into snow dispersed instantly, driven away by the fluctuations of vital energy, unable to touch the sword at all. After breaking through the cold layer, the sword made a sharp turn and headed toward the dense swarm of Flying Ice Bees nearby.
With a thunderous swing, a thousand-meter-long blade appeared, splitting hundreds of Flying Ice Bees in two. Some bees shattered completely upon splitting, leaving only a pair of wings, while others only had their wings cut off but still survived.
The sword then flew forward, with human-shaped protrusions appearing on its body, grabbing the wings and pulling them inside the sword.
In an instant, the sword shook off the swarm of Flying Ice Bees and flew away. Even the numerous gusts of wind that rushed toward it were shattered by the sword, unable to cause any damage or obstruction.
When the Flying Ice Bees realized the sword was killing their kind, they fled, quickly taking off in an attempt to chase after it. But after all, this sword was formed by twelve cultivators in the Early Consolidation stage, possessing speeds already at the beginning of the Tribulation stage—how could those in the Early Division stage Flying Ice Bees catch up?
Buzz!

The Flying Ice Bee flew back in great displeasure, then crawled back underground through various ice caves on the surface and disappeared swiftly.
The giant sword flew for tens of thousands of miles before finally stopping in one place, and then the twelve members of Cangyang Valley reappeared.
“How many wings have we captured?” Li Zhen asked immediately after regaining his vital energy.
As the one controlling the sword’s direction and energy release, Li Zhen didn’t have time to grab the wings of the Flying Ice Bee and had to rely on others to do so. Since the wings were crucial for crossing the Gale Region successfully, Li Zhen attached great importance to them and asked urgently.
Upon hearing this, the eleven others immediately took out the wings they had captured from their storage bracelets or space rings and placed them together.
Some cultivators at the Fusion stage already possessed space rings with greater capacity. Especially those from a major cultivation sect like Cangyang Valley, almost everyone of status would replace their storage bracelets with space rings.
After taking a close look, Li Zhen quickly concluded that there were thirty pairs of wings in total, and a smile appeared on his face instantly.
However, before he could smile much longer, he and the other eleven people’s expressions darkened.
The vital energy fluctuations within the wings of the Flying Ice Bee were slowly disappearing, and everyone could also sense that the hardness of the wings was rapidly weakening. Clearly, once separated from the bee’s body, the wings would gradually lose their effectiveness and become useless.
“Those damned Flying Ice Bees! I must exterminate them someday for making us expend so much vital energy,” Li Zhen shouted, his eyes filled with murderous intent and his face twisted in anger.
The eleven others were also extremely frustrated.
“Alright, there’s no need to worry anymore. Everyone, swallow a He’e Dan to restore your vital energy,” Li Zhen said after venting his anger and quickly calming down.
The twelve people immediately took out He’e Dans from their space rings and swallowed them.
The effect of the He’e Dan was very noticeable. As soon as they swallowed it, the energy inside rapidly dispersed and flowed through their meridians, fully replenishing the vital energy consumed by their Yuan Ying. All of them instantly regained their full cultivation levels.
Seeing everyone’s complexion restored, Li Zhen was happy on the surface, but still worried inside. They had only reached the edge of the Gale Region and already had to take He’e Dans—there would surely be many more times they would need to use it, and the supply of these pills might not be enough.
The gale winds whipped wildly, striking at everyone.

The cruel reality made the twelve people in Cangyang Valley immediately calm down, take off again, and head toward the South Pole.