Douluo Continent: The Ruler of Time, Reigning Supreme

Chapter 122 An Awkward Situation

"Damn it, why did it have to happen at this time..."

Zhang Lexuan cursed under her breath, her tone filled with helplessness and anxiety.

Normally, she might have been able to fight her way through with her strength, but at this moment, the chilling battle fluctuations behind her hung over her like the Sword of Damocles, and no one knew if that terrifying being would suddenly shift the battlefield to her.

Once entangled by these berserk soul beasts, the consequences would be unimaginable.

She didn't dare to force her way in, so she grabbed Yin Chen and made a quick decision: "This way, and follow carefully."

She chose a direction where the herd of animals was relatively sparse, attempting to take a detour.

His figure darted out again, but his speed had to slow down. He needed to be constantly vigilant against attacks that suddenly pounced from the horde of beasts, as well as to dodge the huge soul beasts that were rampaging in panic.

Ice shards flew everywhere, and the roars of beasts shook the heavens.

Like a nimble swallow darting through a storm, Zhang Lexuan led Yin Chen through the chaotic beast tide with great difficulty, narrowly escaping discovery by the berserk ten-thousand-year-old soul beasts several times, facing perilous situations.

Yin Chen was firmly protected behind her. Looking at her taut back and the undisguised worry in her eyes when she occasionally looked back, his sense of guilt deepened.

But his gaze remained fixed on the direction from which the storm was coming.

He was blocked by the herd of beasts and was temporarily unable to leave the far north.

And this is the future he "chose".

The causal lines of the world have already quietly deviated from the trajectory he had set.

While leading Yin Chen to avoid the tide of soul beasts, Zhang Lexuan unleashed her spiritual power to search for a way out.

Suddenly, amidst the chaotic fluctuations of soul power and the earth-shaking roars of beasts, Zhang Lexuan sensed an aura that was as vast, cold, and filled with primal oppression as if an ancient ice abyss had suddenly cracked open.

This aura did not originate from the center of the devastating battlefield in the distance, but was rapidly approaching from the icy valley to their side.

Her expression changed drastically in an instant.

"A 100,000-year-old soul beast."

This thought exploded in her mind like thunder.

Without the slightest hesitation, and without even having time to explain, she suddenly pulled Yin Chen, her figure like an arrow shot from a powerful bow, deviating from the original circuitous route and rushing straight towards a seemingly inconspicuous iceberg on the side.

As she approached the mountain, her gaze locked onto a narrow, deep natural ice crevice, half-hidden by wind and snow.

"Get in!"

She gave a low shout and almost "crashed" in with Yin Chen.

The inside of the crevasse is narrow and winding, allowing only one person to barely squeeze through sideways.

Zhang Lexuan disregarded everything else, tightly protecting Yin Chen behind her while facing the entrance herself.

She gathered soul power in her jade-like hand and slammed it onto the ice wall above the entrance without hesitation.

"Boom!"

It wasn't a loud bang, but a dull, inward-compressing cracking sound. The thick layer of ice above shattered under her soul power, and a large amount of ice fragments mixed with snow crashed down, instantly sealing off the already narrow entrance completely, leaving only a few tiny gaps for faint light and air to pass through.

Almost at the same moment the entrance was sealed off, Zhang Lexuan's aura was like a candle flame that had been extinguished, instantly shrinking to the extreme, becoming almost imperceptible, as if it had merged with the millennia-old ice.

She turned around and gestured for Yin Chen, who was standing right behind her, to be quiet, her eyes filled with an unprecedented seriousness.

Inside the ice crevice, a deathly silence fell instantly, broken only by the two people's slightly suppressed breathing due to tension, and the pounding of their hearts in their chests—in such silence and at such close range, the heartbeat sounded exceptionally clear.

The space is really too cramped.

Yin Chen was almost completely squeezed between Zhang Lexuan and the cold, hard ice wall.

His chest was pressed against Zhang Lexuan's cool and supple back, and he could clearly feel the stiffness in her back muscles due to extreme tension.

His nose was only inches away from her cascading hair, and a faint scent, like the crisp, cool fragrance of pine needles after a snowfall mixed with a unique sweetness, inevitably lingered in his breath.

Zhang Lexuan's body visibly stiffened.

She was the most admired senior sister of Shrek Academy's inner court. When had she ever had such intimate, even embarrassing, contact with any man?

Even Beibei, whom I've watched grow up, has never had such close contact with anyone.

Even in this critical situation, the near-zero-distance contact still caused a faint, almost imperceptible blush to rise from her ears to her neck. Her body instinctively wanted to create distance, but she was firmly imprisoned by the confined space and the deadly threat outside, unable to move.

She could only try her best to suppress the strange sensations in her body, focusing all her attention on perceiving the movements of the outside world, praying in her heart that the terrifying presence was just passing by.

Yin Chen also realized the awkwardness of the situation.

He could sense the stiffness and unnaturalness of the woman's body in front of him. It was not the fighting posture one should have when facing a powerful enemy, but rather a kind of shyness and nervousness that a young girl could not suppress in a specific situation.

He immediately suppressed all his aura, even adjusting his breathing to be longer and more subtle, trying to minimize any movements or sounds that might cause misunderstanding.

Sensing Yin Chen's actions, Zhang Lexuan breathed a sigh of relief; she was genuinely afraid that Yin Chen would do something irrational.

Zhang Lexuan was well aware of her own charm, and she was afraid that Yin Chen might lose control and do something embarrassing in such close proximity.

Fortunately, Yin Chen had strong self-control, and he tried his best to lean against the ice wall behind him, even if it meant getting frostbite, to leave her a safe space.

As the two remained frozen in this delicate and tense stillness inside the ice crevice, the ice valley outside seemed to fall into a silent stillness, as if time had stood still. All the noise and chaos eerily subsided in an instant.

Those thousand-year-old and ten-thousand-year-old soul beasts that were originally roaring and fleeing were frozen in place as if they had been petrified. Their huge bodies trembled with extreme fear, and they did not even dare to whimper.

Some weaker soul beasts even went limp and prostrated themselves on the ice, burying their heads deep in the snow, signifying absolute submission.

"Boom...boom...boom..."

Heavy, rhythmic footsteps approached from afar, each step seeming to tread on the heart of the icy plain, causing the earth to resonate with them, and causing shards of ice to fall from the top of the crevasses.

Through the tiny cracks in the frozen entrance, Yin Chen and Zhang Lexuan could barely make out an enormous shadow that slowly obscured the light outside.

It was a soul beast so enormous it was suffocating.

It resembles a giant crocodile, but its entire body is covered with a dark blue ice armor that is as dazzling as diamonds and as thick as armor. Every scale shimmers with a cold light that can freeze the soul.

(End of this chapter)