: The World-Walker's Gambit
The silence in the Snow Empress's palace was heavier than the ice that surrounded it. The threat of the Ice Emperor hung in the air like suspended frost, and the cold, bureaucratic pronouncement from the heavens echoed deeper still within Huo Yuhao's soul. He was no longer just a boy with a strange inheritance; he was a registered "deviation variable" with a target on his back.
"Your path forward is narrow," the Snow Empress stated, her voice the only sound in the vast chamber. "The Ice Emperor's senses blanket the Far North. Conventional travel is impossible. And the eyes from above," she glanced upward with disdain, "now have your scent."
Huo Yuhao stood amidst the serene, transformed ice of his own making, his mind racing. The human empires? They were nests of politics and, according to the chat group whispers, likely under subtle celestial influence. To walk into Shrek or the Sun Moon Empire now would be to step into a gilded cage, or worse, a prepared trap.
An instinct, born from the fully integrated Primal World-Walker Skeleton in his bones, stirred. It wasn't a memory, but a feeling—a spatial intuition. The skeleton had granted him the potential to traverse boundaries. He hadn't tried to use it actively, but now, under pressure, knowledge surfaced.
"I cannot go through," Huo Yuhao said, looking at his hands as if seeing them for the first time. "I must go between."
Elder Electrolux's misty form coalesced with interest. "You propose a spatial translocation? The energy required is monumental, and the risks of being lost in the void are absolute."
"Not a full translocation," Huo Yuhao clarified, the plan forming as he spoke. "A short-hop. Through a Space Crack. The Black Book's index mentioned the skeleton's purpose. My body was remade with it. I should be able to… feel the weaknesses in the world's fabric here, where the elemental laws of ice are so dominant and have strained reality for eons."
Brother Heavenly Dream whistled. "A shortcut through the walls of the world! Risky! I love it! What's the plan, little brother?"
"The plan is to not be where they expect me to be," Huo Yuhao replied. He bowed to the Snow Empress. "Thank you for your sanctuary and your protection. I will leave in a way that leaves no trail to follow."
The Snow Empress gave a single, regal nod. "Go. And remember the cold. In stillness, there is clarity."
Fracturing the Veil
Guided by the spatial sensitivity in his bones, Huo Yuhao retreated to the deepest, most stable part of the glacial palace, far from the Ice Emperor's last known point of focus. He sat, not in meditation to gather energy, but in a state of profound listening. He extended his spiritual sense, not outward, but sideways, feeling the texture of the space around him.
Through his Spirit Eyes, the world gained another layer. He saw the vibrant flows of ice energy, the golden lattice of his own meridians, and now, the faint, shimmering grain of reality itself. In places, especially where the extreme cold had persisted for millennia, the grain was strained, showing hairline fractures—potential Space Cracks, dormant and sealed by the world's natural healing processes.
He found one such faint, silvery scar in the air before him. It was not an open door, but the ghost of an old wound in the world.
This was where the Sun Moon Star Nine Elements Technique met its next challenge. The First Level was Reduction. The Second Level was Guidance. A Third Level instinct, unlocked by the pressure of his situation and his refined vessel, now presented itself: Transposition.
He could not create a Space Crack from nothing. That was the power of gods. But he could take a pre-existing, healed flaw and transpose its state from 'sealed' back to 'momentarily open'.
He raised a hand, the obsidian-black and starlight bones within glowing faintly. He focused on the Principle of Reduction, but applied it with surgical precision to the concept of 'sealed' along the length of the silvery scar. He willed the natural world's spiritual 'stitches' holding it closed to reduce to nothing.
A line of silver light, his own power, traced the scar. There was no sound, but a profound sense of release. The air along the line rippled like disturbed water.
Then, he applied the Principle of Guidance. He fed a thread of his spiritual power, charged with the intent of his destination—not a place, but a concept: "A neutral ground, forgotten by beasts and men, remembered by dragon dreams." He fed this intent into the destabilized scar, guiding what kind of 'other side' it should connect to.
The silvery line brightened, then peeled open like a closing eye forced awake. Beyond was not the terrifying Absolute Void the Black Book had traveled, but a turbulent, short-range Spatial Corridor, a tunnel of howling gray energy and fragmented images of landscapes. It was unstable, violent, and would last only seconds.
"Now!" Electrolux urged.
Huo Yuhao didn't hesitate. He stepped into the crack.
The Whispering Corridor and the Dragon's Dream
The experience was less like travel and more like being folded. Pressure assaulted him from all sides, and chaotic spatial forces tried to shear his body apart. His dragon-forged bones held, groaning but unbreakable. His Glacial Sovereign aura automatically encased him in a shell of perfect, preserving cold, stabilizing his immediate form against the chaos.
As he was flung through the corridor, the Multiverse Chat Group whispers became a screaming torrent, as if he was brushing against the raw infrastructure of interconnected realities. He caught shattered, deafening fragments:
"—the Heavenly Dao is cheating again, increasing tribulation pow—"
"—my System just gave me a quest to eliminate a 'dimensional anomaly,' coordinates are—"
"—found another clue about my missing brother, the trail leads to a lower plane called Doul—"
And then, one voice, familiar and cold, cutting through the storm with divine authority: "Approval granted. Containment protocol 'Gilded Cage' authorized for anomaly 'Huo Yuhao.' Dispatch a Karma Observer to the last recorded location in the Far North."
The message was immediate, a response to the earlier bulletin. The machinery of heaven was moving. A 'Karma Observer'—it sounded less like a warrior and more like an auditor of fate. They wouldn't find him in the Far North.
His guided intent wrestled with the corridor's chaos. He saw flashes: a bustling city (Shrek?), a metallic fortress (Sun Moon?), a dark forest (Star Dou?), before the tunnel ripped toward a final, quiet image—a secluded, misty valley filled with ruins of architecture that was neither human nor beast. Stone was fused with petrified wood in graceful, organic forms. It was a place of profound sadness and deeper peace.
The corridor spat him out.
He stumbled onto soft, moss-covered stone, the spatial rift snapping shut behind him with a sound like a sigh. The air here was warm, humid, and thick with the scent of ancient greenery and damp stone. The spiritual energy was rich, neutral, and… empty. There were no powerful Spirit Beast auras, no human settlements. Only the gentle buzz of insects and the trickle of water.
He was in a deep, hidden valley, surrounded by impossible, towering trees whose canopies blotted out the sky. Before him lay the ruins—collapsed arches, halls open to the sky, all covered in velvet moss. At the center of the ruins stood a single, intact structure: a small, circular temple with a domed roof.
And from that temple, and from the very stones beneath his feet, Huo Yuhao felt a gentle, sleeping resonance. Not with the seven Dragon Scions within him, but with the larger, more tragic Dragon God's soul fragment he carried in his treasury. This place mourned for the Dragon God.
"Where… is this?" Brother Heavenly Dream asked, awed.
"A sanctuary," Electrolux murmured. "A place built by beings who loved the dragons, perhaps the last of the ancient Elves or the Nature Spirits, before they faded from the world. It is outside all modern maps. A perfect place to hide."
Huo Yuhao walked toward the central temple. As he passed a fallen monolith, he placed his hand on it. The moment his skin, carrying the Dragon God's essence, touched the stone, a soft, green-gold light rippled through the moss on the ruin, as if the valley itself was greeting an old friend's child.
He had escaped. For now. He had a hiding place, a neutral ground where he could finally stop running and start truly learning the depth of his power. He needed to understand his Glacial Sovereign, master the Third Level of his technique, and explore the other treasures in the Black Book, like the mysterious Divine Golden Clock.
But as he entered the quiet temple, finding it empty save for a single, pristine pool of water at its center, the final whisper from his chaotic transit echoed. The "Containment Protocol" was authorized. A Karma Observer was coming. And Tang San had personally signed his warrant.
The peace of this hidden valley was real, but it was the peace of the eye of a hurricane. The storm of divine retribution was now turning, searching for the anomaly that had slipped its leash. His time of quiet growth would be limited.
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