Inside the elders' chamber, silence lingered for a brief moment before it was broken.
The elder of Fengyue let out a low chuckle and glanced toward the elder of the Twin Soul Sect.
"Your Shen Yuan," he said slowly, "is still as crazy as he was three hundred years ago. No—perhaps even more so."
The Twin Soul Sect elder shook his head faintly.
"I don't know whether to take that as praise… or condemnation."
Inside the pocket world.
The giant yin palm imprint descending from behind Shen Yuan and the massive ice spear charging from the front abruptly halted midair
Their momentum froze.
Then something far more unsettling happened.
The overwhelming yin energy within both attacks began to thin, as if draining away.
No.
It wasn't leaking.
It was being forcibly absorbed by Shen Yuan.
Ruo Xiulan froze, her pupils contracting violently.
Absorbing another cultivator's attack—especially one formed entirely of foreign qi—was bordering on insanity. Without immediate refinement, the foreign energy would clash violently with one's own meridians and Qi. And refinement itself was agony incarnate. Reshaping another's qi, erasing its will, and forcing it to integrate.
Failure meant only one thing.
Death.
Everyone, be it those inside the pocket world or outside, almost everyone was in shock.
Ruo Xiulan's lips parted slightly as she stared at Shen Yuan, disbelief written plainly across her face.
"Doesn't… the refining process hurt?" she asked, her voice tight. "Then why choose such a suicidal move?"
Shen Yuan smirked faintly.
"It does hurt," he replied calmly. "Like madness. Imagine a mortal undergoing an organ transplant while fully conscious, that's what this feels like."
His body suddenly trembled.
Freezing burn tore through his meridians as foreign yin qi collided violently with his own Extreme Cold State. Cold beyond cold ravaged him, a torturous resonance that shattered equilibrium of his own yin qi. Blood slipped from the corner of his mouth and dripped down his chin.
Yet his eyes remained clear.
Unwavering.
"Why do I endure such a risk?" he murmured through clenched teeth, breath steady despite the torment. "The reason is simple."
His gaze sharpened.
"I saw an opportunity to temper my Extreme Cold State furthur—to forge it into something even stronger." He exhaled slowly, frost blooming faintly on his lips. "Any chance to grow stronger… I seize it. Even if my life hangs by a thread."
His voice dropped.
"This pain is only a transition. I've endured worse."
Silence descended.
Ruo Xiulan couldn't speak.
Liang Mang stood stunned.
Even Zhou Xiaosi, Yan Bao, Yi An, and Bai Chen—watching from afar—fell quiet, unable to reconcile the calmness in Shen Yuan's words with the agony he was enduring.
Outside the pocket world, murmurs rippled through the audience. Cultivators and mortals alike stared with fear, instinctively recoiling from the image of a man who treated such suffering as trivial.
First, the Nirvana and lower cultivators among the audience spoke.
"Senior... Senior Shen is just standing there while his meridians are being torn apart? That pain would have shattered my dantian in seconds... How is he not screaming?!"
"Look at his eyes—calm as still water. If that were me absorbing such a ferocious attack, I'd have already fallen into qi deviation."
"I felt chills just watching. That level of torment... even a Nirvana realm cultivator would grit their teeth. Yet he calls it 'trivial'? What kind of dao heart is that?"
"We complain about a little bottleneck pain, and here he is forging his extreme cold state in literal agony. No wonder he's so far ahead of us... We're like ants staring at a dragon."
Then came the mortals' voices.
"Ancestors preserve us... That man's body is breaking from the inside, blood coming out, yet his face doesn't even twist! Is he a demon? Or a god punishing himself?"
"I can't watch anymore—my heart hurts just from seeing this. How can someone suffer like that and still breathe steady? He's not afraid of death…"
"He treats suffering like we treat a cold wind—barely worth mentioning. If that's what it takes to become an immortal... I'd rather stay mortal and live quietly."
Within the elders' chamber, several elders gulped, cold sweat soaking their robes.
Some whispered that Shen Yuan would one day kill himself with this madness.
Others murmured that such resolve could only lead to greatness.
Back inside the pocket world.
Ruo Xiulan clenched her teeth and flung multiple swords of yin toward Shen Yuan.
All of them stopped halfway.
Then dissolved, drawn forcibly into Shen Yuan's body.
He frowned slightly and turned his head.
"Brother Tang," he said calmly. "Your help would be appreciated."
Nearly a thousand feet away, Tang Jiyan's expression sharpened.
In the very next second, he appeared beside Shen Yuan.
"Focus on absorbing," Tang Jiyan said quickly. "I can buy you two minutes at most."
Shen Yuan smirked.
"That's more than enough."
Tang Jiyan vanished.
He reappeared before Ruo Xiulan, fist already descending.
She dodged at the last instant—but the force of the strike tore open a spatial rift behind her, shocking her slightly.
They clashed instantly.
Fists collided. Spatial power erupted. Space twisted and cracked around them repeatedly.
Ruo Xiulan suddenly formed seals.
A yin palm imprint shot forth.
Tang Jiyan had no time to fully evade.
The palm slammed into him, blasting him from the sky and driving him deep into the earth.
A moment later, lightning flared.
Tang Jiyan shot back up, dashing forward as his hands formed seals. Multiple balls of lightning condensed rapidly, crackling violently.
With another seal, they shot toward Ruo Xiulan.
She reacted instantly, tearing open a spatial rift and swallowing the lightning balls whole.
Elsewhere, Liang Mang prepared to strike the restrained Shen Yuan with a lance of condensed light—
When a lightning ball suddenly appeared before him.
It exploded.
Liang Mang was blasted backward several steps, blood spraying from his mouth.
He turned sharply—
Tang Jiyan stood there, lightning still crackling faintly around his fingers.
"I made an extra one," Tang Jiyan said calmly.
Liang Mang snarled and charged.
Ruo Xiulan moved with him.
Their fists met Tang Jiyan's.
Boom!
A shockwave erupted, shaking both earth and sky.
Tang Jiyan rapidly formed seals.
A giant array appeared beneath them.
Thunder erupted from all directions, surging toward Liang Mang and Ruo Xiulan.
Ruo Xiulan smirked.
"You're powerful," she said coldly. "But your array control is weak."
She stomped the air and formed seals.
A yin array manifested above her.
Cold wind howled as yin energy surged outward, clashing with the thunder. Within seconds, the thunder froze solid, suppressed completely before vanishing.
Tang Jiyan smiled.
That smile made both of them uneasy.
"Did you really think," he asked, "that I created an array to defeat you?"
Their eyes widened.
They realized it at the same time.
He was stalling!
Then—
A pulse of yin qi rippled across the pocket world.
Everyone felt it.
Liang Mang and Ruo Xiulan turned sharply.
Shen Yuan stood there.
The absorption was complete.
Bright blue light enveloped his body, his aura colder—far colder—than before. Colder than even Ruo Xiulan's aura. The ice chains binding him cracked, then shattered into countless fragments.
His presence alone seemed to freeze space and dim the sky.
Slowly, Shen Yuan opened his eyes.
They glowed with a chilling radiance.
Behind him, yin aura condensed into the shape of an illusory blue moon.
Ruo Xiulan's jaw dropped.
"…Stage Five," she whispered in disbelief. "The Extreme Cold State… Stage Five."
Outside the pocket world, elders erupted into murmurs.
"I watched with my own eyes. He was at stage two, teetering on collapse from the pain... and now the yin qi around him is dense enough to freeze a peak 9th layer Nirvana cultivator solid. Three stages in one breath? This defies logic!"
"Hah... hahaha... ridiculous. Three stages at once? From the brink of death? Even that Sword God Sect's Ruo Xiulan is only at stage four. If word spreads, every old monster in seclusion will come crawling out to verify this with their own eyes."
"Heh. From Stage Two to Stage Five by courting death. Bold. Foolish. And yet... successful. If every junior could advance like this, our ancient sects would have crumbled long ago from sheer excess of monsters."
"Hehe... leaping three stages while half-dead? Bold words for a junior who hasn't even tasted true heavenly wrath. My Extreme Cold State reached Stage Seven after nine hundred years of glacial seclusion—yet this brat dares call three stages 'tempering'? Laughable. He may shine brightly now, but fire burns out quickest. When the time comes, I shall personally remind him, shortcuts end in graves."
On the energy platform, the Spirit Ice Pavilion's sect leader spoke first, brows raised.
"What he did isn't impossible," she said slowly. "But it is exceedingly rare."
Beast Chief Wen Tu snorted softly.
"A rare genius indeed. But geniuses invite danger."
The Sword God Sect leader nodded toward Xue Linghun.
"Your Twin Soul Sect has produced a remarkable disciple."
Xue Linghun remained silent, eyes fixed on the scene happening inside of the pocket world.
Within the pocket world, the blue moon behind Shen Yuan slowly dissolved into yin qi and flowed into his body.
He inhaled.
Then exhaled deeply
His gaze settled on Ruo Xiulan.
"We should end this quickly," Shen Yuan said calmly.
His voice was steady, chilling.
"Snow Fairy Sword."