"Ice Deer Demon."
Gu Junshi's fog was shrouded in cold, and even her eyebrows were tinged with frost, giving her eyes a majestic white snow color.
The Ice Deer Demon, a spiritual beast born from the cold tides of the ice plains, was entirely white, covered with blue patterns. Its antlers were particularly stout, pointing upwards like branched tips.
This "Dragon Island Secret Realm" was indeed a place of hidden talents, with Ice Deer Demons, such Earth-tier spiritual beasts, appearing in droves. They raised their front hooves, their blue light patterns flowing like water, clear and luminous, surging up to their branched antlers.
This was a convergence of energy. They opened their mouths and, without a word, sprayed a cold, pure white beam of light towards Gu Junshi's direction.
The beams of light dispersed the misty frost, creating a vacuum of clear air, and then shot straight into the ground, freezing everything in their path.
Gu Junshi recognized the Ice Deer Demons and naturally understood their signature move, "Cold Cicada Ice Storm." She moved with lightning speed, and the beams of light shifted from left to right, sweeping across a long distance but failing to get close to her.
As she moved, she clenched two compressed, extremely dark "black spheres" in her hands. The surface of the "black spheres" was coated with a layer of dark blue flame. She dodged the intersecting white beams of light and instantly approached them, appearing around their bodies.
With a sweep of her palm, the "black spheres" touched the Ice Deer Demons, and they reacted as if hard ice had met a scorching fire, emitting hissing steam. They let out a mournful cry and curled into a ball, falling down and instantly disappearing into the cold, misty fog.
In the air, there was still no wind. The stagnant cold mist was milky white. She glanced around and saw more than a dozen beams of light shooting towards her from behind. They almost tore through the cold mist around her, exposing her to the air without any cover.
Front, back, left, and right, the inexhaustible Ice Deer Demons flickered in the white mist, making it difficult to discern their exact numbers.
They were the first line of defense for White Tower City, and if Gu Junshi encroached upon their aerial territory, they would expel and eliminate her at all costs.
As the fine icy light beams, denser than a net, swept towards her, she no longer had enough space to dodge. In the sky, completely surrounded by Ice Deer Demons, she decided to stop dodging. She swung her arm forward to block, and the beam, filled with ice spirit energy, violently struck her arm.
For an ordinary person, the entire arm would likely have been frozen into an ice block. However, Gu Junshi's flesh and bones had been refined. Thus, the ice layer that spread from her elbow only reached her forearm before she shattered it with a roar. Fine ice crystals rained down, appearing so fragile and powerless.
...just like these Ice Deer Demons were to Gu Junshi.
Once her eyes lost their calm, lake-like demeanor, they became treacherous cliffs, high banks like abysses, deep and dark.
"Don't block my way—"
The black aura rising from her body swirled and floated behind her like phantoms in the wind. The edges of the wildly dancing black mist were tinged with faint white light, as if ink had been refined into the purest beauty, or like a pair of supporting butterfly wings.
Her two "wings" suddenly spread out, extending for miles. The magnificent, outstretched black "wings" enveloped all the Ice Deer Demons. They looked up with widened deer eyes. Some sensed danger and tried to flee in panic, but they couldn't match the speed of the "wings" extending.
They crashed hard against the barrier, violently impacting and destroying it, unleashing their signature move, "Cold Cicada Ice Storm." But it was useless. The light grew dimmer, and their escape routes narrowed, like throwing stones into the sea, only to be swallowed up in an instant.
With a closing "swallowing" motion, the "wings" shrunk smaller and smaller. The Ice Deer Demons inside were "chewed and swallowed" before they could even let out a sound. Finally, they returned to their initial size, safely and harmlessly, back behind Gu Junshi. The surrounding threats and disturbances were cleared away in an instant.
At this moment, Gu Junshi truly revealed just a corner of her strength.
Her hood had slipped back a bit due to her previous movements. The black color symbolized solemnity, nobility, and grandeur, much like her exposed face. Her pupils were darker than those of ordinary people, possessing the pure blackness of a baby. Therefore, when she looked at someone, her gaze deepened, appearing particularly upright and serious.
Sometimes, she relied on such honest and sincere eyes to captivate others. Anyone who wasn't careful could easily be hooked.
She turned around and continued forward. White Tower City was now very close. She had a premonition that what she sought was within this White Tower City.
Her hand gently caressed her slightly protruding abdomen.
After some time, her abdomen had only slightly swollen. Thanks to the Golden Cicada Pills given to her by Cheng Huang, the child in her womb was developing well. However, as the child continued to grow steadily, these Golden Cicada Pills were no longer sufficient to balance the hidden dangers caused by their mutually exclusive constitutions.
Even occasionally, she felt a faint discomfort and pain in her palm. She had gone from one Golden Cicada Pill to three, and there were only a few pills left, which wouldn't last much longer.
From the moment she understood why she was often unusually weak and how difficult it was for the child to survive in the narrow space within her body, she had been planning how to proceed.
The first step was to obtain a treasure of Saint-tier or higher to temporarily suppress her body's extremely Yin nature. Even Immortal-tier items wouldn't suffice.
Legend had it that after the True Dragon fell, its celestial power dispersed, nourishing this island and causing many heavenly treasures, demonic plants, and spiritual beasts to grow freely and exuberantly. Its dragon blood transformed into that lake of molten red lava, nurturing high-tier spiritual beasts like the Fire Kirin. Its bones became mountains, and its breath turned into white mist and cold tides...
Almost every part of the True Dragon was a treasure, but the most important and valuable were its eyes, dragon core, and dragon marrow. However, these three most crucial items had remained unfound for many years.
Gu Junshi's target was the "True Dragon's Eye" and the "Dragon Marrow."
Gu Junshi wasn't greedy enough to covet two such important parts of the True Dragon's remains. What she truly wanted was only the "Dragon Marrow." However, the problem was that the "Dragon Marrow" was something that could not be found by human effort alone, so she had to obtain the "True Dragon's Eye" first.
Therefore, the purpose of finding the "True Dragon's Eye" first was to locate the "Dragon Marrow."
She had some clues as to the whereabouts of the "True Dragon's Eye"—within White Tower City.
Having lived for many years across various eras, even if she was solely immersed in the pursuit of cultivation and not privy to the mundane affairs of the cultivation world, the benefit of living a long life was that even by casually overhearing things and collecting bits and pieces here and there, over the years, it would amass into a sort of encyclopedia.
However, whether she could truly find the "True Dragon's Eye," and whether she could find the "Dragon Marrow" after obtaining it, there were too many uncertainties.
But since she had come this far, there was no need to overthink the consequences.
The outermost areas of White Tower City were guarded by Earth-tier spiritual beasts. It was expected that the closer one got to White Tower City, the more difficult it would become, let alone the dangers within White Tower City itself.
However, perhaps because the Dragon Island was protected by the soul of the Dragon God, this "Dragon Island Secret Realm" did not allow cultivators above the Nascent Soul stage to enter. If one wished to enter, they had to suppress their cultivation to below the Nascent Soul stage. But doing so would render it largely meaningless.
High-level cultivators lacked nothing in terms of peripheral spiritual treasures and herbs. While the central areas contained what they craved, suppressing their cultivation meant they couldn't withstand the major Earth and Heaven-tier spiritual beasts guarding White Tower City. Therefore, doing so was largely pointless.
But Gu Junshi was different. Firstly, her cultivation method was unlike that of ordinary people. Secondly, her cultivation techniques did not follow the human method of absorbing heavenly spiritual energy through spiritual roots.
Therefore, if she wished, she could disguise her cultivation as "none."
The only impediment was that her power was somewhat suppressed within this "Dragon Island Secret Realm." The spiritual power of the True Dragon God, or rather pure divine power, while her techniques feared no light, were fundamentally opposed to light. Unable to borrow the vastness of light, she could only temporarily evade its edge.
It was precisely because the True Dragon was such a being of light that Gu Junshi had followed its remains, intending to borrow its "Dragon Marrow."
"Sister, where are you? I want to come out and stretch my limbs."
Gu Er, having just emerged from a period of intense cultivation, got up from the ground.
As he moved, he clearly felt that his stiff limbs were more flexible than before. His arms and legs could bend. He tried to bend at the waist; although it was as difficult as it would be for an elderly person, he could at least manage it.
Gu Junshi said nonchalantly, "Dragon Island Secret Realm."
"Huh? Sister, you've entered the Dragon Island Secret Realm?" Gu Er exclaimed, sitting up.
"Mmm."
"Then Sister, is Brother-in-law also by your side?"
"No."
Gu Er noticed that his sister's patience with him had improved considerably since the last time he confronted Yuan Dao. So, he now dared to shamelessly and boldly chat with her about inconsequential matters.
"Are you here in the Dragon Island Secret Realm to find Brother-in-law?"
"No."
"Then are you here to search for treasures?"
Gu Junshi's patience ended there.
"Gu Chuhao."
She suddenly called him by his full name with great seriousness.
Gu Er froze.
"Sis, Sis, what's wrong?"
He was a little nervous when she suddenly called him by his full name so formally.
Within Gu Junshi's eyes, which were capable of hiding secrets and withstanding storms, there were finally a few cracks. Perhaps not now, but ever since Cheng Huang had informed her of that matter, this invisible crack had always existed, only now did it finally split open and reveal itself.
She was silent for a moment. Her expression, calm as the cold moonlight, then changed. The corners of her lips curved into a smile that was neither a smile nor a frown, and she said with a near-absurd, mocking tone, "I just don't understand. Can this unprincipled Heavenly Dao destiny truly cause me to become pregnant and have a child?"
Logically speaking, she was now approaching a chaotic body, and once her cultivation increased further, she would become a quasi-immortal body. Let alone a mortal cultivator, even gods and immortals would find it difficult to create life. Could it be that the existence of a "Dragon Proud Heavenly" could break all conventional facts, even creating miracles with an ex-wife of a villain?
Or was the problem with her Gu family bloodline?
Gu Junshi felt the need to vent this time. She had held back and planned to digest it herself when facing the righteous lights like Cheng Huang, but she had no such reservations about her relatives whom she classified as being in the same faction.
But unexpectedly, compared to Gu Junshi, who was a slow curve, Gu Er awoke quickly. His five senses were splitting, and his worldview was shattered. To be honest, his head was buzzing.
"What? I'm going to be an uncle?!"
Gu Junshi rubbed her temples and said in a low voice, "...Not necessarily yet."
"Sister, what exactly is going on? What do you mean 'not necessarily,' you're not pregnant, are you? Is the child Brother-in-law's?!" He was clearly flustered and speaking incoherently, blurting out whatever came to his mind.
Gu Junshi replied, "I need to find the True Dragon's Eye. If I can't find the Holy Dragon Pill, then there will be no child."
"Sister, Brother-in-law, does he know?"
Gu Junshi said, "He doesn't know."
Suddenly, Gu Er felt a bit sorry for his nominal brother-in-law.
"By the way, Sister, that skull seems to have grown flesh."
This was referring to the Human Emperor.
"It seems he will be able to reshape his body soon."
"He's dreaming and keeps calling out for someone named A Miao. Who is it?"
Didn't he like his sister?
Who was that A Miao?
This person was so scummy; why was his sister still keeping him?
"The person in his dreams."
The person who only appeared in dreams.
—
"You—you stinking dog, didn't I tell you not to follow me?"
"Am I following you?"
Lu Ziyin said irritably.
Wasn't he trapped here?
They had parted ways, but this forest was like a maze. They met again unexpectedly. They hadn't noticed a spider crawling on a web on a tree.
"You're not following me, so why is it that others can't touch it, but you always encounter it?" Ru Lan didn't believe him.
"You—"
As soon as he said a word, *poof*—a projectile attacked from behind. Lu Ziyin grabbed Ru Lan and dodged. He saw a sticky white web fall onto the spot where he had been standing.
He looked up and saw countless red eyes appearing in the forest.
"Six-Eyed Blood Spot Spiders..."
"There must be hundreds of them—"
"How could so many be attracted?"
Zhuang Lan was startled and looked at Lu Ziyin: "What did you do?"
She was sure she had been on her way without doing anything. Lu Ziyin was about to say that he hadn't either, but then he suddenly remembered that on the way, he had heard a yellowish-brown crystal-like object inside a beast carcass.
He took it out: "Is it this?"
Ru Lan looked at it carefully and then, recalling the collective attack of the Six-Eyed Blood Spot Spiders, said, "You... extracted the gland of their mother spider..."
She was sure she had been on her way without doing anything. Lu Ziyin was about to say that he hadn't either, but then he suddenly remembered that on the way, he had heard a yellowish-brown crystal-like object inside a beast carcass.
He took it out: "Is it this?"
Ru Lan looked at it carefully and then, recalling the collective attack of the Six-Eyed Blood Spot Spiders, said, "You extracted the gland of their mother spider..."