While the powerful Rulers who had fought Kyle either fled or schemed to gather more forces to kill him before he could return for revenge, the man stumbled out of a crack at the far end of the Celestial Realm. The tiny golden symbols crackling around the crack faded, and the crack sealed itself.
His face was ashen, the left side of his body badly ravaged, with nothing intact.
The exposed white bones and red veins even revealed his slowly beating heart.
Each step sent searing pain through him, and he clenched his jaw to stifle a scream as shards of crystallized ice gnawed at his wounds, for this time his ’Encasing Ice’ skill wasn’t trying to heal them; rather, the skill was further destroying his damaged body.
Kyle had realized too late that something was very wrong after activating the skill to save his body, and now he couldn’t stop it.
His breathing was ragged, his glowing green eyes muddled and unfocused.
Only he knew how he had survived.
He had come dangerously close to being completely obliterated, and perhaps even his soul would have been badly damaged under the relentless assault of countless natural laws and the overwhelming power hurled at him while standing at the center of the slowly crystallizing ice and raging flames, aimed to annihilate him entirely.
But he survived... Not by sheer luck.
He survived thanks to a very simple, most basic array that allowed him to teleport far away—a formidable art he owed to his first master, Elder Han. Luckily, he never stopped perfecting it, unlike the Celestials here, who seemed to have forgotten everything else in their pursuit of power. Many powerful arts, like arrays, seemed to be lost in this Realm, even though the knowledge here was far greater than that of his small universe.
Thanks to his practice, his mind was now capable of creating arrays instantly with a thought, as long as he knew the symbols—even if they were extremely complex ones.
Lastly, the chaos around him—the flames, the ice blanket, and the restless onslaught of attacks—provided just enough cover for him to slip away unnoticed by the Rulers.
This time, if he had hesitated even for a single moment, and if his survival instinct hadn’t kicked in—and he hadn’t stopped his bloodline and created an array at precisely the right instant to escape the battlefield—death would have undoubtedly found him. Yet, against all odds, he got away alive.
As for the intense pain ravaging his body, as his own healing skill destroyed it, Kyle had endured far worse before in his life.
This was truly nothing.
The corners of his eyes crinkled slightly with laughter as he glanced at the intact golden crystal lying beside him, inwardly wondering how the twenty or so Rulers might be throwing up blood and silently cursing him to die a thousand deaths.
This crystal had clearly endured the same relentless onslaught as he had, yet... not a single crack marred its smooth surface, as if the power within exceeded that of many Celestials combined! It still shimmered brilliantly, a silent testament to its might.
Kyle had made sure to drag it with him when he entered the array—after all, how could he give it up, especially after nearly dying from its sudden appearance, which had driven the Rulers to full madness?
His lips parted as he gave in to the urge to laugh, but the laugh twisted into a grimace as he sank to his knees, gasping for breath.
"Hah... ha..."
He sneered at the faint blue glow clinging stubbornly to his body, tearing at it before rushing to envelop his soul in a cocoon. It was clear—it intended to force his soul into a slumber and devour the power within the crystal to form a new body for him. A sigh escaped his lips as he smiled indifferently.
"Th-this... time, believe me, if I failed to tame you, I’ll seal you. Remember that."
The icy glow trembled but did not halt its course. Instead, it accelerated, as if afraid that Kyle might regain his power and resist it. The glow even surged toward the golden crystal, hurriedly seeping into it to devour the power of the hourglass frozen within.
Kyle’s gaze swept the surroundings, uncertain of exactly where he was.
The space around him was carpeted with grass that shimmered, speckled with tiny fireflies and scattered rocks, enclosed by numerous cliffs that curved haphazardly.
Directly above, a vast, dark, star-filled sky stretched out. It seemed he had fallen into a narrow gap among countless mountains, a place no one would probably find or visit.
Well, he had ended up in such a secluded spot despite randomly inputting the array’s coordinates—truly the result of his luck.
Heaving a sigh, he finally closed his eyes and slowly let his kneeling body collapse.
His right shoulder struck the earth with a soft thud, and the constant tension coiling around every nerve—wound tight from being pursued by so many Celestials—gradually faded as he felt his soul begin to freeze.
Yet, he couldn’t help but feel disgruntled.
’Heh... my physique was at the peak of the 6th stage, on the verge of stepping into the 7th, so I tried so hard to save my body. Who would’ve thought I’d still lose it in the end?’
His final thought before completely losing consciousness was filled with grievance.
’Could’ve warned me earlier so I wouldn’t have tried so damn hard to stay intact...’
Just as he drifted into unconsciousness, the space around him trembled violently, the icy aura surging outward like a living thing, encasing both him and the golden crystal beside him in a cocoon of frost.
At first, the land around the cocoon was unaffected—after all, the icy essence had exhausted its power from using so much energy against so many Rulers. But after a day, the ice began to surge in all directions, with the cocoon at the center, swallowing every peak of the surrounding mountains and turning them into glistening crystals.
It wouldn’t have drawn much attention if there had been only a few mountains. But there were a thousand—and now, they had all turned to ice in a single fleeting day.
Shockingly, every valuable treasure within those thousand mountains was devoured—every herb, every mineral, even the natural energy itself—leaving nothing behind.