Chapter 324: The Ice Field Crisis

Crises often lurk beneath the most peaceful appearances—barking dogs don’t bite, and dogs that bark don’t bite. This old saying is truly true. At this moment, both Rod and Lucy sensed something was wrong.

The two had ventured a thousand meters deep into the Sacred Land of Sorrow. Throughout that distance, they hadn’t noticed anything amiss; everything was quiet, with not even a trace of any living creatures in sight. All there was was vast snowfields and trees covered in snow, a monochrome expanse with no variations in color.

Their expressions grew grave. How much danger lay hidden beneath this silence? They didn’t know, but one thing was certain—there must be a problem. The current calm was merely the silence before a storm.

The Netherhell Fire surrounded Lucy, protecting her, while Rod summoned Furnace Sky to protect himself. Lucy also created a magical barrier around them to guard against potential threats.

The Sacred Land of Sorrow was enormous, likely no smaller than the Source of Darkness. Finding the Rainbow Ice Spirit here was like searching for a needle in a haystack! The only clue was to venture deep into the heart of the land, to the coldest and darkest places, where there might be a chance of discovering this rare treasure.

After traveling a thousand meters, they could clearly feel the temperature dropping sharply. It was already well below minus thirty-five degrees. Every step required a tremendous amount of internal heat and combat energy.

After covering such a distance, they were out of breath and struggling. Looking around, Rod and Lucy found a giant ice tree and decided to rest beneath it for a while.

Upon arriving at the tree, they took out items they had prepared earlier, laid them on the ground, and sat down, panting heavily.

“Damn it!” It started snowing heavily again. Rod couldn’t help but complain. The weather was terrible—violent winds made it impossible to keep one’s eyes open, and the biting cold came with the wind.

With such harsh conditions, it wasn’t surprising that no one had ever entered the Sacred Land of Sorrow. Not to mention the dangerous magical beasts inside, even just the weather deterred most people. It was simply not a place where humans could survive.

Boom! While they were resting, Rod and Lucy heard a loud roar! Hearing this sound, they jumped up instinctively, as if faced with some disaster, and looked around warily.

Boom… This time the sound was clear. The two exchanged a glance, realizing trouble might be approaching. The ground began to tremble slightly! A crack started spreading from beneath their feet! A sense of danger came from behind them.

“Argh…” Fen Tian was the first to notice the problem. With a loud howl, he cast a massive magic fireball. Where the fire passed, the temperature soared instantly. Yet what they saw next made their hearts sink. It wasn’t anything else but a tree—the very large tree where they had rested before—now trembling violently. The snow piled on it began to slide off under the tremors, falling like heavy hail.

Rod and Lucy hurriedly retreated backward and soon saw the true nature of the tree beneath the snow! It couldn’t possibly be called a tree—it was actually a magical beast, a giant ice bear! The tree they had seen before was an ice bear, one of divine-tier advanced strength! It just appeared like a thick tree because it was covered in ice and snow.

Seeing this, the two grew serious. A divine-tier advanced magical beast wouldn’t pose much of a threat to them, but its appearance was worrying. If it was covered in ice and snow, could it be that all those tree-like structures they had seen along the way were actually ice bears? If so, that would be troublesome—there could be hundreds of them. With such a large number attacking at once, it would be difficult for the two to escape unscathed.

“Argh…” The ice bear, still asleep, was awakened by the external noise. After shaking off the ice and snow from its body, it revealed its ferocious appearance. Seeing the two people and the fiery-red magical beast in front of it, it roared angrily at the sky! It hated red things the most, especially those that emitted high heat.

After its roar, its long fangs became visible, looking terrifying and grotesque!

“Argh…” As if in response to its roar, similar roars came from all directions at once, spreading out across the vast snowy landscape, sounding especially formidable.

Soon, the ground began to tremble again. Everywhere, one could clearly see the snow-covered protrusions revealing their white forms—all white bears!

“Damn it! Hurry up!” Seeing this, Rod and Lucy both jumped in shock. Rod quickly spoke to Lucy, and in the blink of an eye, dozens of ice bears appeared—some buried under snowdrifts, others emerging from what Rod and Lucy had mistaken for trees. In any case, the number kept increasing as the ground trembled nonstop!
They couldn’t stay here—this was Rod’s first thought. Although a single ice bear was only at the late divine level and not a threat to Rod and Lucy at the moment, a large number made all the difference. Many ants can kill an elephant. In the wild, the greatest fear isn’t encountering a powerful magical beast but rather a large pack of them, as the threat from a pack far outweighs that of any single powerful beast.
No matter how strong a person is, they would wisely avoid a pack. No one would recklessly challenge them when they have nothing better to do. So Rod and Lucy chose to flee immediately.
“Argh…” Seeing the humans who woke them up start running, the ice bears grew enraged. With a roar, they began chasing after them at incredible speed, their mountain-like bodies moving fast as lightning. In the blink of an eye, they closed the distance between them.
At the same time, ice bears from all directions started chasing as well, encircling Rod and Lucy.
“Fire Dragon Thrust!” Lucy shouted angrily while fleeing, casting an ultimate fire magic spell forward!
Rod also drew his long sword and rushed forward, while Fen Tian unleashed spells without restraint.
A fierce battle erupted on the snowy tundra. Yet Rod and Lucy, who could be considered strong in any place, were now desperately fleeing, becoming the ones being hunted.
“Hurry! We can’t let them surround us!” Rod shouted anxiously as the number of ice bears kept increasing. Then he picked up Lucy and charged forward! After all, Lucy was a mage, far less agile than a warrior, so Rod had no choice but to take this drastic measure. In such a critical situation, neither of them cared about anything else—survival was the top priority.
At full speed, the two of them turned into a white streak and rushed forward, disappearing from the ice bears’ sight in an instant. At the most critical moment, Rod led Lucy out of the encirclement.
Without looking back, they continued to run until they were exhausted and had to stop to catch their breath.

Nervously looking around, Rod was relieved to see that the ice bears had been shaken off. Everything remained quiet, and only then did he breathe a sigh of relief. Faint roars could still be heard in the distance! It was easy to imagine that, having lost their enemy and target, those ice bears must be furious! “Thank goodness… thank goodness!” Rod patted his chest with a wry smile. He hadn’t expected to be on the verge of failure on his first encounter with trouble! In the end, he could only flee—thinking of this, Rod didn’t know what to say. Looking at the plain around them, there were still some ice and snow-covered formations that resembled trees. But this time, both of them were deeply frightened. They slowed down and subdued their presence, not wanting to disturb any more magical beasts—having suffered one loss was enough. On the other hand, they once again witnessed the danger of the Divine Weeping Forbidden Land. The power of the magical beasts there might be comparable to that of the Source of Darkness, or even inferior, but their ability to hide and their tendency to live in groups was enough to make them invincible. No wonder no one dared to venture deep in—it was already this dangerous from the start. What about further in? Logically, the deeper you go, the stronger the magical beasts become. If there were already groups of divine-tier beasts here, what about those in the Yin Yellow realm? A loud roar echoed through the air, and their expressions changed drastically. In the distance, snow billowed like dust, shaking the entire ground. The ground behind them also trembled, along with more roars—as the magical beasts sleeping in the ice and snow began to emerge. “Damn it, they’re chasing us!” Rod cursed bitterly. These creatures really wouldn’t give up and had followed them this far. Moreover, more magical beasts seemed to have been awakened and were appearing—more ice bears, attacking from both sides. Panic flashed in their eyes as they hurriedly fled eastward. “Roar… roar…” The screams continued, shaking the entire ice and snow plain. The ice bears, sensing footsteps behind them, must number in the hundreds now. If they were caught, it would be the end. “Brother, what do we do?” Lucy panicked and quickly asked Rod. “Flee! What else can we do? These damned beasts can chase us this far!” With a fierce look in his eyes, Rod said helplessly. He thought they had shaken them off, but who would have thought these creatures could still follow them this far?

“The ice bears have an excellent sense of smell; they can detect scents from hundreds of miles away. It’s very difficult for us to get away from them. If they keep chasing us and their numbers keep increasing, then we…” Lucy said in a worried tone.
The ice bears’ sense of smell was notoriously strong. Among magical beasts, they considered themselves second to none—probably no other creature dared claim to be first.
“A sense of smell?” Rod was shocked to hear this for the first time. Hundreds of miles? Damn, that’s insane. Things really are going to get tricky. In such a situation, could they really escape the ice bears’ pursuit? Would it come to the point where all the ice bears in the God’s Lament Forbidden Land gather here? If that happened, not just Rod and Lucy, but even two gods standing here would be doomed!