Chapter 322 - 204: Time Ice River_2

Words : 1116 Updated : Oct 9th, 2025

Chapter 322: Chapter 204: Time Ice River_2When the sensation of stagnation lifted, the painter’s attention was drawn to the suspended Time Ice River. The allure of the Time Law was immense for him, as he had already grasped a fragment of it himself. He understood the power of "time." Now, the source of this power lay just ten steps away from him—how could he suppress the surging excitement in his heart? He didn’t dare hope to master more of the Time Law; merely touching it with his own hands, experiencing the essence of "time," would bring him immense satisfaction. He was like a gambler stepping toward the gaming table, entirely forgetting his own existence, his eyes fixed solely on the fiery game at hand. With just a few steps forward, the suspended ice river and its swirling currents exuded an aura filled with an aggressive desire to attack, like the crimson tongue of a venomous snake, warning the painter— —if you dare take another step forward, death will descend upon you. The painter stopped. Having experienced the power of "time," he knew that such a feeling of danger was not an empty, baseless threat. He cast a beseeching glance toward Zhou Xuan, clasped his fists in deference, and bowed his head humbly, saying, "Young Master, may I touch it?" Zhou Xuan first raised two fingers, then extended three. The meaning in his gesture was clear: the painter had agreed to have Zhou Xuan intervene three times; by using one now, he would have only two remaining. If he wished to touch the ice river, the deal would reset to three interventions. Without much thought, the painter nodded resolutely and agreed to the price. After receiving Zhou Xuan’s approval, he cautiously approached the ice river, step by reverent step, like a devout pilgrim on a sacred journey. Though this "sacredness" was far from what he truly worshipped. The short distance of ten steps took him a full minute to traverse. Finally, he knelt on one knee, stretched out a finger, and gently extended it into the Time Ice River. The finger that entered the river seemed no longer a part of his body—his life force and blood ceased to flow. "Time has stopped; the world within the ice river has become a still-life painting." "So time doesn’t just have four domains; there’s a fifth—stillness." Past, present, future, chaos, stillness. "A thousand years of time, compressed to the extreme, until it is condensed into a single moment." The painter lifted his arm and slowly pulled his finger out of the ice river. He hadn’t gained any greater mastery over the Time Law, but merely achieving a deeper understanding of the time domains filled him with utter joy. This comprehension would lay a solid foundation for future insights into "time." The painter wasn’t greedy; perhaps this lack of greed was why he had managed to hold the foremost Divine Office position for decades and still survived. "Knowing when to stop—such a simple concept, yet why can’t you grasp it?" The painter gazed at the Suffering Scholar with a mix of pity, disappointment for the scholar’s foolishness, and a heightened vigilance toward himself. Now, the Suffering Scholar was imprisoned within the Time Ice River, Old Dao Bazi had been rendered useless, and the only remaining threat was the Hall Master. The Hall Master hadn’t revealed himself during the earlier battle, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t in this very room. He had been here all along, concealed beneath the underground "Daoist Temple." Using runes inscribed on the temple walls, he masked his aura while striving within the temple to complete the Seven Incenses ascension ritual—the White Bone Taoist Palace. This ritual required the Hall Master to construct a palace in the Divine Revelation Secret Realm, using white bones as beams and human skulls as tiles. The City God’s former glory was built on "Demon Extermination and Tao Protection," capturing Evil Ghosts and Lao Jiang across the land. They used Evil Ghost Spirits and old corpse bones as materials for the ascension ritual within the Secret Realm. Now, with the kidnapper, the Hall Master had found a shortcut. While Zhou Xuan and the painter spearheaded the "hunting operation," the Hall Master piled up the white bone walls inside the Secret Realm. When Zhou Xuan incapacitated Old Dao Bazi, the Hall Master sensed the battle and wanted to interrupt the ascension and join forces with the Suffering Scholar for a desperate fight against the painter, but at that moment, Li Chengfeng and Gu Ling arrived, leaving him no choice but to sigh, lamenting that the tide had turned against him. "Father, I wanted to procure goods from the kidnapper Hall Master to reach the seventh incense point. You said our luck had run out and told me to keep a low profile—but in doing so, we provoked someone we never should have." As an "outsider," the Hall Master saw the truth clearly: the root cause of his and the Suffering Scholar’s exposure wasn’t that the painter had discovered their weakness... but that they had crossed Zhou Xuan. After the battle on East Market Street, Zhou Xuan entered the focus of the Suffering Scholar and the Hall Master. Yet both father and son had committed the sin of arrogance, believing Zhou Xuan to be merely a lucky mortal favored by the Zhou Family’s Nuo God. Lucky individuals have their fortune, but precisely because of that luck, the absence of hardship often renders them unrefined and ineffectual. He had never expected Zhou Xuan to prove so formidable. How long had it been since Zhou Xuan arrived in Mingjiang Prefecture? And yet he had already infiltrated the Bone Elder Association, orchestrated a "Divine Communication" and "Si Chen" alliance with the "Heavenly God Scholar," and launched a swift, unrelenting retaliation over the death of the Liao Ghost. "I underestimated him, but there’s no longer an opportunity to be cautious. Perhaps, as my father said, our luck has indeed run out." The Hall Master sighed once more within the "Daoist Temple." ... In the earlier battle, the Suffering Scholar was besieged but never called upon the Hall Master to summon their adopted son to fight alongside him. The reason was his wish to leave the Hall Master a sliver of hope for survival. Perhaps he would be captured or killed, but the Bone Elders might never discover the Hall Master. But he seemed to forget—the City God had been "birthed" by the Bone Elders. The City God, concealing his aura, might have fooled Zhou Xuan, whose perception was exceptional, but he could never escape the scrutiny of the three Divine Offices within the Bone Elder Association.

Chapter 322 - 204: Time Ice River_2

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