GDK 473: Long-Distance Battle
One day later: The forest trolls’ village.
Han Shuo brought Elizabeth over. With his demonic blood essence implanted in Elizabeth’s body, if Elizabeth were to make any action of betrayal, he could take Elizabeth’s life with just a thought. Besides, the Church of Light had forced her to an impasse. With such a solid and dependable master to cling onto, so long as she had the slightest common sense, she should have understood that there was nothing to gain in betraying Han Shuo.
After arriving at the forest trolls’ village, Han Shuo saw dark dragon Gilbert keeping watch over the dark dragons imprisoned in the Jadefrost Cage. Right beside Gilbert, the old forest troll priest was directing some forest troll warriors to pass on huge chunks of cured meat to Gilges inside the cage.
The dark dragons, having been tormented by Ice Celestial Corey of the Shrine of Ice, ravenously devoured the chunks of meat in their hands. They must have been starving.
When Han Shuo arrived, a group of forest trolls, with the old priest taking the lead, bored down at Han Shuo, yelling the name ‘Datara’.
With regards to the race of forest trolls, although Han Shuo’s original intention was purely to exploit them, over time, he had grown somewhat sentimental toward them. Except for their innate tendency to plunder and loot, generally speaking, they mostly suited Han Shuo’s taste. No matter how cruel they treated others, because of the little skeleton, these forest trolls would treat them with incomparable dedication and good faith.
“Get up.” Han Shuo gestured with his hand. After the old priest and his party stood up, Han Shuo said smilingly, “In the future, make sure to be in frequent contact with Trunks. He shall provide you all with wise instruction.”
“Rest assured, liaison. Under Lord Trunks’ guidance, we have reaped great harvests these several years.” A gratified smile blossomed on the ugly face of the old priest.
Han Shuo nodded. Then, he shot a glance at Elizabeth, encouraging her. “Give it a try, see if you can absorb the divine energy of the Ice Goddess from the Jadefrost Cage.”
“Understood, master!” Elizabeth replied respectfully, wearing an excited look on her face.
Elizabeth, who had been on the run for countless years, deeply realized the importance of her own strength. She understood that if she wanted to better protect herself and ensure her own survival, she had to possess great power. This command of Han Shuo’s directed at her was undoubtedly beneficial to her. With her bewildering body structure, if she could absorb the divine energy in the Jadefrost Cage, her strength would definitely advance one step further.
“Be careful. Inside are all my clan members,” Gilbert, unclear of Elizabeth’s strength, warned when he saw her approaching the cage with excitement.
Elizabeth nodded. When she got beside the Jadefrost Cage, without saying a word, she stretched her hands and grasped at the fences. She closed her eyes to start sensing the energy within the Jadefrost Cage with her Body of Divine Favor.
Han Shuo squinted slightly. What seemed to be lightning flashed through his eye slits as he locked his gaze on Elizabeth.
All of a sudden, Han Shuo saw that Elizabeth turned to a look of exultation. Streams of green smoke began to drift out from her seven orifices. The green smoke,resembling seven earthworms, wrung about at her nostrils, eyes, ears, and mouth. Her already ugly old face looked even more sinister as the green smoke pulsated at her seven orifices.
“Mas…Master, can she do it?” Gilbert took a shock at those bizarre things on Elizabeth’s face. As those imprisoned in the Jadefrost Cage were his grandfather and clansmen, he was terrified that Elizabeth might accidentally injure them.
Han Shuo made a hush gesture at Gilbert, and slowly approached Elizabeth. His immaterial and formless consciousness began probing for any sign of activity in Elizabeth and the Jadefrost Cage.
Han Shuo could sense that Elizabeth’s unique Body of Divine Favor had discovered the reservoir of the Ice Goddess’ divine energy in the Jadefrost Cage. That was also why Elizabeth was suddenly so excited. As the green smoke from her seven orifices curled up, the wrinkled skin on her two hands seemed to have turned severely shrunken and dried up, like two cyan iron hooks.
Her two wizened hands, much like the hands of a thousand year old mummy, glowed with faint green nefarious light. Strands of frigid energy like fine thread flowed gracefully along her two bony hands and into her body. The unique structure of her Body of Divine Favor allowed her to digest the divine energy.
The sinister looking Elizabeth displayed an excited and cheerful emotion in her eyes throughout the process. Strands of divine energy slowly flowed into her body through the conveying of her two hands. She could sense the benefits that the energy could offer her body.
Han Shuo let out a sigh of relief, assured that it was definitely the right decision to take Elizabeth as his slave. Being able to absorb this kind of divine energy, Elizabeth would definitely be of great use to him. While sensing the flowing streams of divine energy, Han Shuo mulled over if he should take away some of the energy she digested for himself after she was done absorbing it.
The frigid aura that constantly lingered around the Jadefrost Cage was disappearing bit by bit along with Elizabeth’s actions. Gilbert who had been observing from the side obviously also felt the changes to the Jadefrost Cage and was pleasantly surprised. His mood turned much better. Now when he once more look at Elizabeth, that sinister face seemed much more pleasing to the eyes.
Just as Han Shuo and Gilbert both sighed in relief, Elizabeth’s face suddenly turned frightened and her body shivered. Intense frosty aura permeated the air. Elizabeth tried to take out her two hands grabbing at Jadefrost Cage with all her strength, but, as though her hands were attached to the cage with superglue, she couldn’t part with the cage no matter how hard she tried.
At the same time, the columns of the Jadefrost Cage suddenly overflowed with bone-chilling white smoke. The temperature in the surroundings began to plummet all the way down. The originally warm village of the forest trolls had seemingly fallen into a world of ice and snow.
Starting at an unknown time, under the caress of chilly cold wind, the entire village of the forest trolls was shrouded in snowflakes. The forest trolls immediately trembled in the cold. One after another, they started to shriek and shout in fear, with absolutely no idea of what was happening.
Han Shuo was terrified. He could clearly sense that there seemed to be a few potent strands of energy being poured into the Jadefrost Cage. The energy came abruptly. Not only did they cause the entire region to all of a sudden become bone-chillingly cold, it even firmly held onto Elizabeth’s hands, not letting them budge at the slightest.
It was the dark dragons trapped in the Jadefrost Cage that suffered the most in the arctic atmosphere. Gilges’ teeth chattered, the warm air exhaled from his mouth froze instantly. As for the younger dark dragons, the looks on their faces gradually stiffened, as if in just a moment, they would be completely frozen.
“Damnit, what have you done? I will kill you!” Gilbert roared in wrath, his hand already slapping towards Elizabeth. With Gilbert’s strength, if he really proceeded, Elizabeth would be dead without a doubt.
“Stop it! It wasn’t her!” Han Shuo shouted and raised his hand to stop Gilbert.
Gilbert was jolted by that shout of Han Shuo’s. When he once more looked at Elizabeth’s face, and saw her frightened and in pain, he returned to his senses. However, as the dark dragons in the cage were gradually turning rigid, Gilbert sank into a state of irascible restlessness. He shouted anxiously, “What should we do? What should we do?”
“Get everyone to evacuate!” Han Shuo shouted at the trembling old priest, and immediately summoned fire elite zombie. After issuing a command, he arrived behind Elizabeth in a split second and pressed his hand against her back at lightning speed.
Meanwhile, far far away, in the territory of Kasi Empire, at the summit of a frozen mountain encrusted with ice and snow…
On the top of the frozen mountain sat countless palaces made of ice crystals. Among them was a conical shrine that reached through the blue dome of heaven. At the center of that structure were a few Shrine of Ice experts headed by Ice Celestial Corey. They sat cross-legged in a semi-circle at the center of a huge magical array. Their bodies were frozen in ice, causing them to look like ice sculptures with no clear sign of life.
Each of them, Ice Celestial Corey and a few others, wore a solemn, respectful expression as they sat directly facing a huge ice sculpture of their Ice Goddess. Frozen still in ice, they maintained their posture and deployed magic from great distances. Strong and intense cold air filled the entire temple.
“He stepped in!” Suddenly, a shout came from Corey, now an ice sculpture.
“Frost the air, freeze the earth…..”
Except for Corey, the other ice sculptures started to chant in a deep, synchronized chorus. Cold air radiated all around from the main hall, with a solemn aura emanating.
Thousands of miles away, Han Shuo was pressing his two hands on Elizabeth’s shoulders. Demonic yuan surged in from her shoulders to her hands, mixing together with the bone-chilling cold.
Clouds of flames blossomed from the Fire Lotus held in fire elite zombie’s hand and wafted far and near. After the blazes flew out from the Fire Lotus, the interaction between the blazing hot temperatures and the wintry cold air produced thick white vapor that suddenly covered this world of ice and snow.
After the Fire Lotus was brought out and the clouds of flames fluttered about, the temperature in the entire village finally halted its rapid fall. The forest trolls, whose movements were slowed down by the coldness, gradually grew somewhat faster in their escape.
The entire family of dark dragons, whose bodies just froze in the Jadefrost cage, with the help of the flames from fire elite zombie’s Fire Lotus, the ice rapidly melted into water. Only then, did the chattering noise of Gilges’ teeth continue to sound.
With Han Shuo’s two hands pressed on Elizabeth’s shoulders, demonic yuan rapidly surged into her palm. Han Shuo deployed the Mystical Glacial Spellfire to the fullest, producing a scorching temperature in order to help her withstand the assault of cold air coming from the columns.
Through the cold air erupting at Elizabeth’s palm, Han Shuo sensed the divine energy activated by Ice Celestial Corey. He could be absolutely certain that the sudden changes happening to the Jadefrost Cage must have had something to do with Ice Celestial Corey.
Han Shuo also understood that this Jadefrost Cage, blessed by the Ice Goddess, must have had some sort of fantastical ability that allowed direct linkage to Ice Celestial Corey and the others. It seems that this time Han Shuo had fallen into Corey’s ruse. Perhaps, the reason Corey so rapidly departed the dark dragons’ canyon, unconcerned with the disappearance of the Jadefrost Cage, was that he had planned to scheme against Han Shuo with it all along.
While he cursed at Corey’s viciousness and ruthlessness in his heart, a steady flow of demonic yuan in his body wildly transformed into scorching red hot flames by means of the Mystical Glacial Spellfire, helping Elizabeth to resist the assail of the cold air coming from the Jadefrost Cage at all costs.
It wasn’t that Han Shuo cared if Elizabeth lived or died. It’s just that even if Elizabeth died at this moment, the frigid aura in the Jadefrost Cage would not disappear. In addition, having Elizabeth standing in between was definitely safer than having Han Shuo himself be in direct contact with the cage to contain the cold air.
“Cold, so cold!” Elizabeth could finally speak despite her chattering chompers after Han Shuo poured in his demonic yuan.
“Hang in there!” Han Shuo groaned coldly. He cast away all distracting thoughts and strenuously persisted with furrowed brows.
Under the effects of the rapidly plummeting temperatures, certain older and younger forest trolls, before the flames from fire elite zombie could warm them up, froze to death in the bone-chilling cold. The entire village of forest trolls were shrouded in fear. With the old priest roaring, every forest troll still alive fled in panic towards the outside of the village.
The fire elite zombie was still tirelessly releasing blazes with the Fire Lotus in his hand, strenuously persevering just like Han Shuo was. Although Gilbert’s duty was the least tedious, he was also the most terrified and restless of them all. Standing beside the fire elite zombie, although Gilbert was shivering in the cold, he still managed to hang on.
Looking at the gloomy faces of his clansmen trapped in the Jadefrost Cage, Gilbert understood that once fire elite zombie and Han Shuo could no longer hang on, his people would face the fate of being frozen to death. This made Gilbert very anxious, but unfortunately there was nothing that he could do to help. All he could do was to firmly observe the Jadefrost Cage by the side, and hate the Shrine of Ice with a burning passion.
“Father, it won’t do if we stay like this!” Suddenly, the fire elite zombie transmitted.
The cold air coming from the Jadefrost Cage grew more and more vigorous. Han Shuo also gradually felt he was losing strength, and realized that the fire elite zombie was right. Just as Han Shuo was clueless as to what to do, the fire elite zombie continued, “Father, let’s take the battle to my birthplace, then I will have a way to deal with this!”
The place of extreme fire! Han Shuo’s eyes beamed when he heard fire elite zombie’s words.