Chapter 17: Frostblood and Scales

“You plan to enter the mist and take out the Black Sky Buddha Mother?”

After hearing their statements, Ling Tianfeng felt his head ache.

If Long Yutian had proposed this, he would have rejected it without hesitation and sought other, safer alternatives.

But since Mo Di proposed it, he had to seriously consider its feasibility.

“Senior, besides Li Lejia, that fanatic, no one has successfully emerged from the mist. Perhaps you two should reconsider?” he cautiously suggested.

“There isn’t much time left. The Black Sky Buddha Mother is about to break free. Even before the mist engulfs Greenlawn City, the surging curse alone will be enough to send us to an early grave.”

It was an unassailable reason, and Ling Tianfeng truly didn't know how to refute it.

He opened his mouth, revolved the words in his mind, and finally swallowed his objections, saying helplessly, “Then, Senior, how do you plan to proceed?”

“Give me the Claws Squad,” Mo Di immediately requested to deploy this elite unit. “I need to give them emergency training to assist me in making some preparations inside.”

“Alright, but do we not need to deploy more people inside?”

“No need. The curse inside is too strong. If we go in without first preparing a stand-in ritual, no matter how many go, it will just be a sacrifice. And I can’t perform the ritual for too many people, so this is the only way.”

“I understand. Is there anything else you need? Like artillery support?” Ling Tianfeng asked again.

“Those can be prepared, but I don’t think they’ll be very useful,” Mo Di wasn’t hopeful about this.

“Shells disappear when they enter the fog, and precise electronic instruments malfunction for unknown reasons as soon as they enter the mist.”

Because of the mist, the Ling Family couldn't unleash their full power; otherwise, it would have been a missile bombardment.

Why would they need to send people in?

After explaining what he needed, he rushed with Long Yutian to the training ground.

Once the eight members of the Claws Squad had assembled, he immediately began to teach “Ritual Studies” on the spot.

Of course, he only taught the most basic ritual arrangements; he didn't have time to teach other more profound content.

“This is Death Grass, a necessary material for performing the Summoning Death Ritual.”

Mo Di showed everyone a purplish-black seedling, letting them smell it one by one, all of them turning pale.

Due to their previous training, they still maintained upright stances, each standing tall, though their eyes were slightly bulging, as if enduring something.

“It smells terrible, like a corpse that’s been rotting for days, right?”

Putting the Death Grass into a jar, he quietly added, “Don’t worry, you’ll have to carry it close to you later.”

The Summoning Death Ritual required many materials, and Death Grass was an indispensable one.

This plant, which flourished in underground tombs, symbolized “death” in the ritual and was a specialty of Mo Di's lair.

“Besides Death Grass, I have more materials for you to familiarize yourselves with. This is corpse maggots, this is grave soil, this is...”

After sampling the materials needed for the ritual, the nine individuals, including Long Yutian, felt as if they had spent a night lying in a pile of corpses.

Their nostrils were filled with the smell of decaying flesh.

Having recognized the various materials, they then learned the method of arranging the ritual from Mo Di. Fortunately, they were all elites, and their learning speed was not slow, finishing in less than two hours.

Just as he dismissed them, Mo Di was about to go for his daily cultivation when Ling Tianfeng rushed into the training ground, bringing him bad news.

“Red Cedar City is gone.”

“Oh, it’s gone… Red Cedar City, which is only one city away from us?” Mo Di was stunned for a moment, then quickly asked, “How did it disappear?”

“It was destroyed by a giant beast,” Ling Tianfeng said bitterly. “The entire city has turned into ice and snow. There should be no survivors.”

“Giant beast? How big?”

“You’ll know if you look at the last data transmitted from Red Cedar City.”

On the screen, a gigantic spider, crystal clear and resembling an iceberg, rampaged through the city.

Its thick, pillar-like legs sank into the ground, and its oral tentacles waved unconsciously, occasionally scooping up people frozen into ice sculptures by the cold air and bringing them to its mouth.

Such a terrifying giant beast stirred Mo Di’s deep memories.

‘Frost噬 Giant Spider?’

He had encountered this creature before, but it was in the Eternal Realm, not reality.

The Frost噬 Giant Spider, a legendary life form, possessed power comparable to an Eternal upon reaching adulthood, a veritable mobile natural disaster.

They typically congregated in extremely cold worlds completely transformed into ice and snow, rarely leaving.

Once they left, it was an entire ethnic group's migration; they would bring silence and extreme cold to a new world, transforming it into their new nest.

The Frost噬 Giant Spider currently occupying Red Cedar City was very unusual because it had no kin around it, merely wandering aimlessly over the city ruins.

“Where did it come from?” Mo Di stared at the giant spider on the screen, his expression solemn.

He only hoped that this giant spider had not come as part of a migration, otherwise he would have to consider digging a hole to spend the rest of his time.

Fortunately, Ling Tianfeng's next words dispelled this thought.

“It came from the mist outside Red Cedar City. After it left the mist, the mist surrounding Red Cedar City disappeared.”

Lowering his head, Mo Di pondered, and a conjecture emerged.

“The mist, perhaps, connects to multiple other worlds.”

He had this idea when he observed that village earlier.

That curse-ridden village didn't seem like a product of this side; instead, it resembled something from a feudal dynasty era, perhaps another world.

Perhaps this Frost噬 Giant Spider also accidentally entered the mist on its side, only to unexpectedly arrive in this world connected by the mist.

If it was just like this, there would be no need to worry about this world entering the Ice Age.

“What did you say?” Ling Tianfeng looked incredulous. “So, this giant spider actually came from another world?”

“It’s just a guess. If the guess holds true, then we’ll have to reconsider the danger level and value of the mist.”

Mo Di was quite open-minded about these things; after all, he had less than seven months left to stay in this world.

The only one he couldn't let go of was his half-apprentice, Long Yutian.

Silence enveloped the room as both men pondered their respective concerns.

“Senior Mo, if that giant spider comes to us, can our firepower handle it?”

Mo Di expressed pessimism, “I don’t think it’s very likely.”

That titan-beast-like Frost噬 Giant Spider clearly looked like an adult, terrifyingly powerful; ten Black Sky Buddha Mothers wouldn't be enough to fight it.

“Then, Senior Mo, are the rituals you master useful against it?” Ling Tianfeng turned his attention to rituals.

“Rituals aren’t omnipotent,” he spread his hands. “Even if there are rituals that can do it, it depends on whether the entities those rituals are directed towards are willing to help.

Those existences are far more dangerous than the giant spider.”

Such rituals often pointed to demon gods, and as beings transcending worlds, some demon gods' intentions were hard to fathom, while others had clear preferences.

Just like the Summoning Death Ritual he intended to use against the Black Sky Buddha Mother, the demon god it pointed to, Corvus, was an entity who loved death.

As long as there was a large amount of life dying during the Summoning Death Ritual, it was highly probable that Corvus's attention would be drawn.

Depending on the number of lives that died, Corvus would temporarily grant the ritual's conductor varying degrees of power.

The highest was close to the level of an Eternal; to go further, one must first become a Summoning Death Priest serving Corvus.

These were all experiences Mo Di had summarized in the Eternal Realm, including the rituals, all of which belonged to forbidden knowledge long lost on the Eternity continent.

As a veteran player, his mind was full of such things.

Receiving his negative answer, Ling Tianfeng was slightly disappointed but quickly cheered up.

The giant spider was still far away; he had to prioritize the immediate enemy, the Black Sky Buddha Mother.

“At least, Greenlawn City was the first to research the mist, and the threat we face is far less than that giant spider. We can still give it a shot,” he consoled himself.

Seven days passed in a flash. During these seven days, Long Yutian and the Claws Squad became completely familiar with the ritual arrangement methods.

Mo Di also used this time to study the composition of the mist and was surprised to discover—

There was Aether in the mist, and the concentration was not low, enough to support him in condensing a Transcendent Seed.

Unlike the Aether outside, the Aether in the mist existed entirely dependent on the mist. Therefore, he collected a large amount of mist, continuously concentrating it, and obtained jars of concentrated Aether.

Just one breath of it would cause his magic power to skyrocket.

With a sufficient supply of Aether, he only took three days to condense a Transcendent Seed.

Unlike De Wei An, he specifically guided the Transcendent Seed to combine with the Qi Seed, forming a special organ that could convert Cold Blood True Qi and magic power into each other.

“Frost and Blood. My aspects indeed include these two, but what’s the deal with ‘Scales’?”

The addition of a ‘Scales’ aspect, instead of the ‘Time’ and ‘Space’ he had envisioned, truly surprised him.

After a moment of thought, he came up with a relatively reasonable conjecture.

“My Ancient Blood was activated by dragon scales, and dragon scales carry the ‘Scales’ aspect, causing me to also possess this aspect.”

With a thought, a layer of fine, blood-red scales appeared on his body.

He tried to forcefully slash it with a knife. The sharp blade failed to cut through the scales, only leaving a shallow white mark on them. In a breath, even this white mark disappeared.

“The defense is pretty good, but why am I even tankier now? Does this conform to the path of a Mage?”

After a moment of internal conflict, he dismissed it.

Worst case, once he became a legendary Blood Mage, he would decree that all future Blood Mages of the Greta School must stack defense.

That way, he wouldn't be a heretic among Mages.

After officially stepping into the ranks of Transcendent, to carry more concentrated Aether, he specifically crafted a set of equipment: a storage tank and a matching respirator.

Wearing this equipment, combined with his usual clothes and accessories, a terrifying war machine appeared before everyone.

He wore a Wendigo skull on his head to enhance his spellcasting ability, and a gas mask on his face, connected by a tube to a large storage tank on his back.

A cape made of Wendigo fur was draped over his shoulders, and beneath the cape was a black robe covering most of his body.

His face was obscured, but just by his tall stature and the oppressive cold emanating from him, one could tell he was a boss-like existence.

Two points of red light faintly shone from behind the gas mask. Long Yutian, targeted by his gaze, was startled, his mind blank, only hearing a hoarse voice emerge from behind the mask:

“Are you all ready? Let’s go hunt those who have fallen into darkness.”