The Purgatory Calamity
Chapter 159 - 144 The Ice-rock City before Collapse_1

Chapter 159: Chapter 144 The Ice-rock City before Collapse_1

Great Stone Hall.

Deep underground.

A giant altar made of many fragmented rocks filled the spacious underground stone hall.

The circular shape of the altar somewhat resembled a copper coin, but on the edges stood six thick stone pillars.

Enigmatic runes were engraved on the pillars, along with murals of Cyclops performing celestial rites.

The corpses of Wang Yisen from the Hollow Profound Realm and the headless body of Individual Cultivator Cloud Ascetics lay beside the stone pillars near the altar.

Pang Jian, standing outside the altar, felt a chilling cold that seemed to pierce the soul, forcing him to resist the intense cold of the stone hall by combining the Flame Force and Power of the Sun within his Spiritual Sea.

He observed carefully.

He quickly noticed that the altar, hidden deep underground, appeared to have been destroyed and then reconstructed from its fragments.

Both the altar and the thick stone pillars showed clear cracks and gaps.

Some of the gaps were quite large.

"Hoo!"

A figure with a feathered crown and an immortal’s bearing drifted quietly out from the shadows.

"Ling Yun!"

Pang Jian’s expression changed, and he soon realized that this was a Spirit Evil refined by Luo Hongyan.

"The soul of the person from Yin Spirit Temple was stronger, but it’s a pity that it couldn’t be refined into a Spirit Evil."

Luo Hongyan sighed slightly with regret.

By the time she arrived, Wang Yisen was already dead.

Knowing the enigma of the Individual Cultivator from Yin Spirit Temple, when she killed Wang Yisen, she also harnessed the power of the altar to scatter his soul instantly.

She couldn’t sense any remnants of Wang Yisen’s lingering soul within.

"Pang Jian, your guess is correct. The city built by Cyclops above us is actually named the same as Ice Rock Island. They refer to it as Ice-rock City."

Luo Hongyan, who had acquired part of Ling Yun’s memories, explained, "Ling Yun didn’t know why Ice-rock City was there, or how it was destroyed."

"When he first took over this place, there was nothing peculiar about this Fragment Land. Only after he discovered this palace hidden underground and started reassembling the shattered rocks, did a sudden burst of cold air overflow from the ground."

"Right, the underground palace we’re in is called the Great Stone Hall."

Seeing Pang Jian listening intently, she continued to relay the information she had gathered, revealing the mysteries of Ice-rock City, the Great Stone Hall, and the altar one by one.

Thus, Pang Jian learned that this Great Stone Hall, hidden underground, and the reconstructed but incomplete altar, was a place used by Cyclops to connect with the Ice Demon.

Since the resurgence of the fragmented altar, the Great Stone Hall became chill to the bone, with cold air seeping out through the altar.

Fragment Land Rock Island was also renamed by Ling Yun to Ice Rock Island.

Ling Yun used the frigid altar and its remaining power to successfully kill Wang Yisen.

"Did he manage to connect with this so-called Ice Demon?"

Pang Jian wondered.

Luo Hongyan shook her head and said, "The altar had been destroyed. Even after being patched up, it remains incomplete, possessing only a fraction of its mysteries. Ling Yun has tried countless times in secret, but never managed to connect with any Ice Demon."

"However..."

Luo Hongyan paused, then said, "You can go in and feel it for yourself."

"Me?"

Pang Jian was surprised.

"Yes, don’t worry. Since Ling Yun is dead, he won’t be able to trigger the mysteries of the altar. If you sit inside the altar, you’ll experience something marvelous..."

Luo Hongyan suggested with a smile playing at her lips.

Pang Jian frowned, walked up the stone steps towards the altar, and sat down on it.

Looking around, he touched the cold rock, traced his fingers along the cracks and gaps, but detected nothing unusual.

"Try closing your eyes and feeling it."

Luo Hongyan pursed her lips with a mysterious smile.

Pang Jian closed his eyes as told.

In an instant, he was enveloped by an endless solitude, feeling as if he were in a dark and void realm.

Around him, there was no sign of life, just an eternal stillness.

A frighteningly cold presence slowly enveloped him like chains, its power seeming to freeze his body and soul.

He shivered in horror.

Apart from the extreme cold engulfing him, he felt as if he were not wearing the bronze tag, lying inside the Copper Box.

In that box, too, he was in a dark world, unable to touch anything, accompanied only by everlasting void and stillness.

Now on the altar, his hands could touch the freezing stone; his buttocks could feel the rock.

However.

His other sensations were almost identical to when he was inside the Copper Box without the bronze tag.

"You feel it, don’t you?"

Luo Hongyan, with mysterious gleam in her eyes, whispered, "The situation inside the altar is similar to that box in Bagua City."

When she fell into the altar, it also startled her.

Pang Jian moved by the thought, exclaimed in surprise, "Could it be that the Ice Demon the Cyclops wish to connect with lives in such a world?"

"The Cyclops are now in the Fifth Realm, so the Ice Demon they want to connect with must be somewhere in the Fifth Realm," Luo Hongyan speculated.

Pang Jian shook his head, "No, it’s not like that; the Fifth Realm doesn’t feel this way."

Luo Hongyan was startled for a moment before remembering that in Bagua City, Pang Jian had spent most of his time in a world filled with Filth Alien Power and darkness.

Pang Jian was evidently familiar with the aura of the Fifth Realm.

"Cyclops, Ice-rock City, Sky-Splitting City..."

Pang Jian murmured to himself.

At this moment, he wanted to peer through the Dark Giant Python once more, to see the current state of Sky-Splitting City in the Fifth Realm.

Sky-Splitting City was also a stronghold of the Cyclops, and the Goddess who had descended was possibly still there, discussing important matters of ascension with the Cyclops.

With a thought, he prepared to connect his perception with the Dark Giant Python, channeling his focus calmly in the manner of the "Pot Heaven Nourishing Qi Spell."

"Whoosh! Whoosh whoosh!"

As soon as he entered the state of the "Pot Heaven Nourishing Qi Spell," the brutally cold aura within the altar surged towards his Spiritual Sea.

In the blink of an eye, Pang Jian’s eyebrows and hair were already coated with frost.

"Get down quickly!"

Luo Hongyan exclaimed in alarm.

She had an ominous feeling and hurriedly said, "It’s only because Ling Yun activated the power of the altar that this place has become so extremely cold. This is exactly how he killed Wang Yisen!"

She feared Pang Jian would freeze to death instantaneously within the altar, his body and soul both shattering from the cold.

"I’m fine."

Pang Jian, with his eyebrows and hair frosting over, quietly felt the chill and said, "I need to cultivate using this altar. I can... absorb the Extreme Cold Power within it, and my body and soul can withstand these cold forces."

Luo Hongyan was astonished, her eyebrows moved slightly, and she asked in surprise, "Are you saying?"

"The cold power is beneficial and harmless to me!"

Pang Jian declared.

Luo Hongyan showed a look of amazement and gently nodded her head.

"You don’t need to stay here. I will be okay."

Pang Jian said once more.

"No."

Luo Hongyan shook her head; she insisted on staying.

Thus, Pang Jian said no more and did not attempt to communicate with the Dark Giant Python any longer, releasing his grip and absorbing the Extreme Cold Power from within the altar using the "Pot Heaven Nourishing Qi Spell."

In just a short time, he turned into an ice sculpture covered in cold ice, his limbs emitting a crystalline luster.

Luo Hongyan, watching from nearby, clearly saw many streaks of cold light, like ice lightning, burst forth from various parts of the altar, immediately entering the ice-sculpted body of Pang Jian.

Gradually, more frosty white cold air rose from the cracks beneath the altar, encircling the ice sculpture that was Pang Jian.

The Great Stone Hall no longer felt unbearably cold; the temperature was slowly rising.

Due to the breaking of the altar, the Extreme Cold Power that had previously dispersed outward was now all refocusing back onto the altar.

On the ground.

"Strange..."

Gao Yuan, after pulling a storage bag from the corpse of an Individual Cultivator, looked at his feet with an unusual expression.

The icy stone beneath his feet no longer felt so cold, no longer seemed to let the chill penetrate into one’s body.

The climate of Ice Rock Island seemed to be subtly changing.

Deep underground.

With eyes closed and in deep concentration, Pang Jian had become an ice sculpture, seated at the altar used by the Cyclops to communicate with the Ice Demon.

He felt as though he was in a desolate and frigid void, not in the Great Stone Hall beneath Ice-rock City.

As streams of Extreme Cold Power converged, a small ice pool slowly formed within his Spiritual Sea, which was brimming with Spiritual Power.

The ice pool and the Flame Pool were not far from each other, embedded like islands in his Spiritual Sea, slowly gathering strands of crystalline power.

Inside the ice pool, Extreme Cold Power was rapidly condensing into sparkling blocks of ice.

At the same time, many fragmented images naturally seeped into Pang Jian’s mind.

In a trance, Pang Jian saw a scene that had once happened.

The sun was suspended high above, with numerous complete lands filling his view, overhead as if he leaned against the heavens, looking down upon a vast piece of Fragment Land, seeing an intact Ice-rock City before it had shattered and collapsed.

Within the majestic city, many Cyclops went about their business, using rough stone tools to light fires and cook.

Cyclops towering dozens of meters tall, the strong males wearing only beast skins around their waists, carrying high-level Ferocious Beasts, let out hearty laughter as they strode out from a shimmering mountain range.

Among them, one giant stood out particularly.

He loomed above all others, his presence as expansive as mountains and seas, with a pale green strange snake coiled around his waist, holding an ax that seemed capable of splitting the heavens.

Leading the hunters back to Ice-rock City, he laughed heartily as he entered, receiving the reverence and cheers of his tribe people along the way.

"Splash!"

The scene shifted.

The mightiest Cyclops chieftain kneeled on one knee, his broad left hand cradling a tiny Cyclops infant.

His lone eye turned red, as if a pool of water was slowly solidifying.

He saw in his child’s chest a shriveled heart, the size of a walnut, its life force slowly seeping away.

"Aman!"

The old chieftain lowered his head, sobbing profusely, unable to accept the cruel reality that his bloodline’s offspring was born with a life that would soon fade away.

In the following days, the Cyclops chieftain became ever more despondent.

In a bid to sustain his child named Aman’s life, he took out the tribe’s ancient stone tools, opened up the Great Stone Hall underground, set up a huge incense burner, and organized an altar that could communicate with the Ice Demon.

His grandfather had strictly warned him not to use forbidden techniques or the altar, nor to communicate with the Ice Demon.

But he did not heed his ancestor’s warnings.

Following the rise of black smoke in the huge incense burner, he managed to establish a connection with the Ice Demon, who was located who knows where, through the altar.

Following the Ice Demon’s instruction, he used the Soaring Snake, Spirit Turtle, large vermilion fruits, and other such offerings for the sacrifice, exchanging them with the Ice Demon for a green life-sustaining liquid.

Aman’s withered heart stopped losing its vitality thanks to those strange green liquids.

Thus, his son Aman was able to survive.

...