Modlein, the Frostbone Demon King, was much calmer. His ice-blue eyes swept over Jiang Lin, and he gave a slight nod.
Zepher, the Shadow Demon King, stood the furthest away, his form almost blending into the shadows of the ice floe.
A long silence followed.
Ultimately, it was the Molten Demon King who couldn't hold it in any longer. He grumbled, “I say, can we go back to my Molten City and talk there? This sea breeze is freezing.”
Jiang Lin instantly became vigilant, but the four Demon Kings showed no intention of attacking.
Though their auras were powerful, there was no killing intent. Instead, there was a subtle, almost fawning quality to their behavior.
They were all being incredibly careful not to appear too aggressive.
This was truly bizarre!
“I can go with you. But my friends must not come to any harm.”
“Of course, of course. You have our word,” the Molten Demon King hurriedly nodded.
The Frostbone Demon King gave a slight bow of his head.
The Shadow Demon King didn't speak but also nodded slightly.
Karna raised his right hand and made a gentle swipe through the air.
A dark red spatial rift appeared above the sea. Blood-colored flames flickered at the edges of the rift, yet the space within was surprisingly stable.
“Mr. Matthew, please.”
The four 9th-rank powerhouses stepped aside, making a collective “after you” gesture.
Their respectful posture was as if they were welcoming a guest of the highest nobility.
Fenrir was completely petrified.
His mouth hung open as he watched four 9th-rank powerhouses respectfully make way for their Professor Matthew like waiters. His mind was a total blank; he didn't know what to say or do.
He could only follow Jiang Lin mechanically, stepping into the dark red spatial rift. He lost his balance for a moment and tumbled into the unknown space on the other side.
When his vision cleared, Jiang Lin found himself standing in a massive palace.
The entire palace was constructed of obsidian, with a ceiling a hundred meters high. The walls were inlaid with countless dark red crystals that refracted a hallucinatory glow under the light of torches.
The floor was made of solid black stone slabs, polished to a mirror-like finish that clearly reflected the patterns of the vaulted ceiling above.
A wide corridor ran through the center of the palace, with a heavily armored demon guard standing every ten steps on either side.
Seeing the four Demon Kings leading Jiang Lin inside, the guards all dropped to one knee and lowered their heads.
The scale of the reception was as if they were welcoming some legendary figure.
Jiang Lin took a seat in the place of honor, while his three elven companions stood behind him.
Their expressions were all very strange, clearly still reeling from the shock of what had just happened.
Fenrir stood ramrod straight, but the hand gripping his sword was trembling slightly.
This was a physiological reaction—the body's failure to fully recover from extreme shock.
Karna sat in the main seat, and the other three Demon Kings took their places as well.
Then, there was a deathly silence.
The four 9th-rank Demon Kings looked at each other, none of them willing to speak first.
The silence lasted for a full fifteen minutes.
Finally, Karna spoke up.
He cleared his throat, his tone as polite as possible. “Um... Mr. Matthew, are you hungry? Would you like to dine first?”
“No need.” Jiang Lin’s gaze swept over their faces, his golden eyes filled with scrutiny. “Did you go to all the trouble of finding me just to invite me to dinner?”
Another silence followed.
The Molten Demon King’s face flushed red. He spoke up gruffly, sounding like a man who had reached the end of his rope. “It’s your master! Lord Loren the Sword Saint! He’s the one who told us to find you!”
Jiang Lin was stunned. “My master? He was looking for you?”
The Molten Demon King said aggrievedly, “He didn't just look for us—he beat us up! For the past few months, he’s been coming by every few days to ‘spar’! He beat us over and over again! No matter how we fought back, we couldn't win!”
Karna took over, his tone softening a bit. “The Sword Saint’s exact words were: Find my disciple, provide him with the best food and drink, and wait for me to come get him.”
He glanced at Jiang Lin and added, “We’ve had people searching for a whole month. We scoured every inch of the demon territory. We even searched many places in the human kingdoms, but we couldn't find you. It wasn't until today, when we sensed spatial fluctuations at the edge of the Endless Sea, that we finally found you.”
Jiang Lin fell into a silence of his own.
He had been away from the East Continent for nearly two months.
During these two months, his master had been searching for him, even going as far as teaching the four Demon Kings a lesson to force them to help. No wonder they were so polite when they invited him back and brought him all the way to the demon palace.
They didn't dare seek revenge; they didn't even dare let him suffer the slightest grievance.
“My master... is he well?”
“Better than well,” Gromheart said resentfully.
Karna stood up, took an ice-blue rune from his robes, and handed it to Jiang Lin with both hands. “This is the communication rune the Sword Saint left with us. Activate it, and he will know your location.”
Jiang Lin took the rune. The moment his fingertips touched the ice-blue surface, a familiar aura surged from within.
It was his master’s sword intent.
Cold, pure, and sharp as a crack in a polar glacier, yet carrying a hint of warmth that only those closest to him could detect.
He gripped the rune tight and looked up at the four Demon Kings. “My thanks to all of you for taking care of my master during this time.”
The expressions of the four Demon Kings froze simultaneously.
“Taking care of him?”
The corners of their mouths twitched violently.
The Molten Demon King opened his mouth but eventually closed it again.
Karna sighed. “Forget it, as long as you understand. Someone, take Mr. Matthew and his friends to the guest lounge.”
He turned to Jiang Lin. “Mr. Matthew, please rest. I have already sent word to the Sword Saint. He should arrive shortly.”
Jiang Lin nodded and stood up.
Fenrir, Alicia, and Elune followed behind him, each with a different expression.
Fenrir’s face was already numb, as if he had experienced too much shock to process anymore.
Alicia whispered, “Professor Matthew, your master... who exactly is he? To be able to beat four 9th-rank powerhouses like this, he must be at least 9th-rank himself, right?”
Jiang Lin nodded. “Naturally. And he is far from weak, even among those of the 9th-rank.”
Before long, an ice-blue rift tore open in the sky above Molten City.
An extreme chill surged from the rift, causing the temperature of the entire palace to drop several degrees instantly.
The burning torches in the hall flickered wildly, and fine ice crystals condensed within the flames, making a crisp crackling sound.
A figure stepped out from the rift.
He was still clad in ice-blue robes, his long hair flowing like a waterfall and his purple eyes calm. That androgynous, peerless face looked like a statue carved from ice and snow under the dark red firelight.
The sheathed longsword hung at his waist, the frost patterns on the scabbard glinting coldly in the light.
He hovered in mid-air, looking down at the obsidian palace below. His gaze immediately locked onto the golden-eyed figure standing in the center of the hall.
Then, the indifference on his face melted like snow, revealing a very faint, almost imperceptible smile.
“You’re back.”
Jiang Lin looked up and saw that familiar figure descending from the sky. The ice-blue robes fluttered in the wind, and those purple eyes reflected his own image.
All his vigilance and wariness dissolved in an instant.
Standing there, his lips curled up slightly as he called out, “Master!”
Loren landed before him and looked him up and down. His gaze moved from Jiang Lin’s still-flawless face to the deep blue elven robes he wore. He glanced at the three elves behind him before finally settling on those golden eyes, which were even deeper than they had been two months ago.
“You’ve reached the 4th-rank.” He nodded slightly. “And your foundation is very stable. You broke through on your own.”
“Yes,” Jiang Lin nodded. “After completing the Demon Lord Trial, I already felt the signs of a breakthrough. It didn't take long after that to complete it.”
Loren’s gaze lingered on him for a moment before turning to the three people behind him.
Fenrir’s mouth was wide open, his jaw nearly hitting the floor, and he had forgotten to even put down his greatsword.
His eyes darted back and forth across Loren’s face, a rattling sound coming from his throat, but he couldn't manage a single word.
Alicia was slightly more composed, but her pale gold eyes were also filled with shock.
This human swordsman’s aura was like a ten-thousand-year-old glacier—calm, deep, and sharp enough to tear the sky asunder. What made her lose her composure even more was his face... that was simply not a face a human should possess.
It was a beauty that transcended racial boundaries, as if the starlight of the poles and the ice of an eon had been condensed into a single countenance. It made it impossible to look away, yet one dared not stare for too long, fearing they would be lost within it.
Elune’s reaction was the most subtle.
She gazed at Loren with her pale purple eyes, fine starlight swirling deep within her pupils.
This was the ability she had gained from the Star Core Fragment—the perception of status fluctuations.
In her perception, the status surrounding Loren was like a towering iceberg: massive, solid, and so deep it seemed bottomless. Furthermore, his status seemed to be at some sort of limit, on the verge of breaking through to an entirely new, terrifying level.
Loren’s purple eyes shifted slightly, landing on Elune.
He gave her a look—just a single glance, as if observing an interesting little trinket—then looked back at Jiang Lin, raising an eyebrow slightly as he sent a telepathic message: “Elven nobility from the Silver Moon Kingdom, and one who has awakened astral perception. You’ve had quite a haul on this trip.”
Jiang Lin nodded, replying telepathically: “I’ll tell you all about it on the way.”
Loren hummed in acknowledgment, then looked up. His gaze bypassed Jiang Lin and landed on the four 9th-rank Demon Kings standing at the edge of the hall, who were barely daring to breathe.
Noticing his gaze, the four Demon Kings stiffened simultaneously.
Gromheart instinctively took a half-step back, while Karna squeezed out a smile that looked more painful than crying.
Modlein remained expressionless but clenched his fists, while Zepher, the Shadow Demon King, merged directly into the shadows, leaving only half a shoulder visible.
Loren spoke: “You’ve worked hard this time.”
His tone was as flat as ever, but to the four 9th-rank Demon Kings, those words sounded like heavenly music.
Gromheart let out a long breath, a hint of moisture from surviving a disaster actually appearing in his crimson-gold eyes.
Karna also relaxed, his smile finally becoming a bit more natural. “Not at all, it was only right. It is our honor to have helped the Sword Saint find his beloved disciple.”
Loren nodded and said no more, turning to Jiang Lin. “Let’s go. Back to Frost-Tongue Peak.”
He raised his hand and made a gentle swipe in the air, silently opening an ice-blue rift.
Fine frost flowers condensed at the edges of the rift, and the space within was as stable as a still lake. One couldn't see the scenery on the other side, but a pure energy carrying the scent of ice and snow surged out from it.
Jiang Lin looked back at the three elves still standing there. Fenrir had recovered from his daze, but his expression remained complex.
He looked at Loren, then at Jiang Lin, and swallowed hard. “Professor Matthew... your master... does he really look... like that?”
“How else would he look?”
Fenrir was silent for a moment. “I thought your master would be a burly guy with a scruffy beard and bulging muscles. After all, your swordsmanship is so domineering...”
The corner of Loren’s mouth twitched slightly.
Jiang Lin cleared his throat, cutting off Fenrir’s nonsense. “Let’s go. Follow me back to Frost-Tongue Peak.”
He was the first to step into the ice-blue rift.
Fenrir shouldered his greatsword, took a deep breath, and was the second to enter. The moment the ice-blue light swallowed him, he felt a bone-chilling cold seep through his skin and into his body.
Alicia followed close behind. As she stepped into the rift, she felt not just the cold, but also a faint, lingering sword intent. That sword intent was extremely weak, like a candle in the wind, yet it was everywhere, tinting the space inside the rift with a very pale ice-blue hue. She realized this was the aura of that famous sword—or rather, the aura of the Sword Saint himself.
Elune was the last to enter. Standing at the edge of the rift, she looked back at the obsidian palace and the four relieved 9th-rank Demon Kings before turning and stepping inside.
She was beginning to understand why four 9th-rank Demon Kings would be so terrified of that Sword Saint.
When the ice-blue light dissipated, the four of them were standing on a mountain peak covered in ice and snow.
The sky was an eternal dark blue, with auroras hanging like frozen silk ribbons, bathing the entire ice peak in a dreamlike blue-purple glow. Beneath their feet was deep blue ice that hadn't melted for ten thousand years, polished like a mirror and reflecting the flowing auroras above.
In the distance, a pavilion constructed of ice crystals stood atop the peak, refracting a mesmerizing halo under the auroras like a palace from a myth.
“We’re here.”
Jiang Lin’s voice rang out across the empty ice field.
Fenrir stood on the ice and looked around, a rare, childlike curiosity appearing on his rugged face. He crouched down and tapped the ice with his hand, producing a dull thud, then looked up at the flowing auroras. “So beautiful...”
Alicia didn't speak, she just stood there, slowly turning her gaze. Her sword intent flowed naturally across the ice field. She could feel a sword intent within this mountain that was incredibly pure and stable. It permeated every gust of wind, every snowflake, and every inch of the ice, as if the entire mountain were a massive sword array.
...
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