Aurora Town.
The man called Cucumber, the blond-haired thug who had once tormented Qu He, was now pale with fear after being lectured by Onion, nodding repeatedly as he accepted the orders Onion relayed.
Cucumber's real name was Kakumber. Because his martial soul excelled in concealment and rapid movement, he served as the leader of an assassination squad within the Laibing gang.
When he heard that members of his squad had been killed, he was genuinely shocked.
Others might not know, but he was well aware of his subordinates' strength. Even setting skill aside, those two had used the advantages of the Extreme North's terrain to defeat Soul Sect–level opponents before.
For even them to fail—Kaku was stunned. But beyond that shock, there was something that truly scared him:
Those two idiots had, for some reason, mentioned the name of their gang boss.
That was taboo.
Their boss hated people speaking his name.
Even within the organization, everyone referred to him only by a codename.
And so, the situation had completely changed.
Originally, their boss had only casually ordered that anyone investigating the gang—or the Extreme North's ice-phosphor powder base—be eliminated.
He wouldn't have paid much attention to the matter, because they had never failed before.
But now, not only had his squad failed, they had also mentioned the boss's name. That made it serious.
Once Kaku confirmed the boss was paying attention to this case, he had no choice but to take action personally.
If he didn't get rid of that group, his boss would get rid of him.
The gang had no use for useless trash.
"Onion, go back and tell the boss—this time, I'll handle it myself," Kaku said confidently, his eyes glinting with cruelty.
He was no pushover like those two useless subordinates; he was a genuine Soul King–level powerhouse, wasted in a backwater like Aurora Town.
Onion simply gave a cold nod at Kaku's promise.
"I won't say much more—if you leak the boss's secrets too, your death will be no prettier than your men's," Onion said, and vanished in the blink of an eye.
Kaku was left standing there, biting his lip and clenching his fists.
"Snake, we're moving out," Kaku said coldly in the dim underground chamber.
A dozen days later.
In the mixed zone of the Extreme North.
After killing the pair who had been chasing them, Xiao Lin and the others had used the time gap before the Laibing gang learned the details to reach the area where the Profound Nether Snake-Turtle had once appeared.
They had arrived at the Profound Nether Ice Lake.
What stretched before them now was an endless sheet of ice.
"We finally made it!"
The Shi brothers' faces lit up with excitement when they saw their destination.
They were about to get their spirit rings—of course they were happy.
Ye Lingling was less concerned about the type of spirit beast. Her spirit ring would always be for group healing anyway.
Still, quite a few spirit beasts made their homes around the lake, many with year counts that fit well with her fourth spirit ring limit.
Meanwhile, Xiao Lin was quietly surveying the Profound Nether Ice Lake, helping Ye Lingling and the Shi brothers pick suitable spirit beasts.
The Extreme North wasn't entirely ice, but being at the farthest northern reaches, the climate was brutally cold—colder still the closer one went to the core region.
Here in the mixed zone, most spirit beasts lived around water sources like the Profound Nether Ice Lake.
That meant there weren't many fights here; the beasts simply came to drink and left without conflict.
After a brief look, Xiao Lin had already ruled out a few unsuitable beasts.
For Ye Lingling, the ideal choice would be one with spiritual or life-force attributes. If that wasn't possible, a healing-type beast would do; failing that, one with special abilities. He hoped her martial soul could make a breakthrough.
The Shi brothers' choices were similar—if the Snake-Turtle couldn't be found, he'd choose beasts with strong defensive abilities for them.
Generally, carnivorous beasts yielded attack-type soul skills more easily. But here in the Extreme North, herbivores were rare, making his selection tricky.
"Huh? Xiao Lin, what's that spirit beast?"
Like Xiao Lin, the rest of the team was searching for suitable beasts for themselves or each other.
Ye Lingling had just spotted an unusually shaped beast out on the lake and didn't recognize it, so she asked Xiao Lin—the grandson of Grandmaster Xiao Yan.
Floating over the vast ice lake in the direction she pointed was a strange beast, drifting like a whirlwind and leaving ripples across the frozen water.
"What is that?"
Xiao Lin's sharp eyesight made out its true form.
The beast's body was almost transparent, with only three ice-like cores; the rest of it was made up of swirling wind.
Only one of the three cores was real—hitting it would wound the creature—while the other two were decoys.
It moved entirely on the natural wind it generated, and in this frozen land, it had almost no natural enemies. No other beasts cared to hunt it.
It was a creature born of heaven and earth, a snow spirit, an elemental-type beast.
Without at least ten thousand years of cultivation, it had virtually no intelligence, acting purely on instinct.
Even so, it was powerful—at five thousand years it could match ten-thousand-year beasts, a rare find indeed.
"That's a Frozen Windstorm," Xiao Lin explained. "It was actually one of my choices for a speed-type beast.
"But judging by the number of cores, its cultivation is over six thousand years. For this species, each extra core means an extra thousand years—one core is over one thousand years, two is over three thousand, three is over six thousand."
Hearing this, the others now understood what they were looking at.
Unfortunately, it was too old for Xiao Lin's needs.
Reluctantly, he asked Ye Lingling if she wanted it.
"I don't really mind… but it won't be easy to beat, will it?" she said.
She was leaning toward declining—after all, the Frozen Windstorm was now at the center of the ice lake, drawing in water with its winds to restore itself.
They couldn't exactly cross the whole lake just to kill it, could they?
"No problem. Leave it to me."
Xiao Lin smiled confidently. Frozen Windstorms—and other ice-attribute beasts—were particularly easy for him to lure.
In his spiritual space, he asked the Ice Dragon King to help create an ultimate-ice decoy to attract it.
"Ye Lingling, if you take this beast's ring, I hope you'll gain either speed or an attack like the freezing wind," he said as he carefully chipped a chunk of ice from a glacier, infusing it with ultimate-ice soul power before casually making his suggestion.
(End of chapter)