The night passed without incident, but around 4 AM, a sudden gale began to howl across the ice-and-snow-covered land.
The pines and cypresses covering the mountain swayed violently in the wind. Sheets of snow blasted past Rong Taotao's eyes, and the sky, which should have been brightening with the dawn, was instead terrifyingly dark.
In the face of nature, humanity was truly insignificant.
In such treacherous weather, going out to hunt was out of the question—it was tantamount to suicide.
"We shouldn't go. It's too dangerous," Rong Taotao said, turning to look at Shi Lou.
The girl was also gazing at the terrifying sight of the blizzard raging outside. Listening to the demonic wail of the gale, she too began to hesitate.
Rong Taotao pressed on, "In a storm like this, you could walk ten meters from the cave entrance and completely lose your bearings, unable to find your way back.
Every winter, in the small villages, there are always a few people who can't find their way home and freeze to death outside.
The next day, after the storm stops, people find them—the ones who got lost—lying in the snow just a few meters from their own front doors."
Shi Lou nodded silently. Although her Martial Arts were formidable, she didn't have a Lifebound Soul Beast yet, and her Heart of the Snow Realm was low-level. It would be impossible to survive for long in a blizzard of this magnitude.
"Rong Taotao," Jiao Tengda said suddenly.
Rong Taotao: "Huh?"
Jiao Tengda sidled up to Rong Taotao and said, "There are seven students in our cave, which means there are at least seven Snowmelt Army soldiers outside. You could call them in to take shelter from the storm."
Rong Taotao paused, and as he considered Jiao Tengda's suggestion, an idea began to form in his mind.
Jiao Tengda pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and whispered, "This move could earn us extra points. Even if it doesn't, building a good relationship with the Snowmelt Army soldiers is all upside and no downside.
No matter how high-level their Heart of the Snow Realm is, nobody wants to be exposed to this kind of weather."
Rong Taotao looked at Jiao Tengda in silence for a moment before saying, "You're quite the schemer, aren't you?"
Jiao Tengda smiled. "We can't possibly go out in this weather, so we have to find some way to set our team apart from the others."
Rong Taotao nodded. "Alright, let's do it."
With that thought, Rong Taotao strode to the mouth of the cave and shouted, "Snowmelt Army!? Can you hear me, Snowmelt Army? Come on in! We'll just pretend you're not here!"
Rong Taotao's shouts were swallowed by the howling gale, and there was no response.
When Rong Taotao's team clashed with Zheng Tianpeng's, the Snowmelt Army had shown up quickly. 'Maybe the blizzard is blocking the sound?'
After a few more fruitless shouts, Rong Taotao turned to Jiao Tengda. "How about you and I 'clash' for a bit? They're bound to show up then."
Jiao Tengda subconsciously took a step back...
"Er..." Rong Taotao scratched his head. Glancing at the eager look on Shi Lou's face, he suddenly realized this might not be such a great idea.
'What if things get heated?'
Besides, his team was acting out of goodwill. Was it really appropriate to trick the Snowmelt Army into coming in like this? It seemed a bit off.
Rong Taotao said, "How about... you go find a rope? Those Warriors are probably in the Snow Forest at most, so they shouldn't be far. I'll go out and call for them. I won't go too far from the cave. Whether they come or not is up to them."
Back then, Zheng Tianpeng had tried to lure him into the dense woods, so Rong Taotao was reasonably familiar with the terrain here.
"You got it," Jiao Tengda said after a moment's thought, nodding. A hint of his local dialect slipped out as he turned and headed back into the cave.
Ten minutes later, Jiao Tengda returned with several articles of clothing tied together. But he wasn't alone; Li Ziyi was with him.
Li Ziyi had already woken up by the time Jiao Tengda went back.
He had no objections to the plan, but he insisted on coming along.
Clearly, Rong Taotao was about to step into the vast, raging blizzard, and the other end of the "rope" would be in the hands of Jiao Tengda and Shi Lou.
The reason Li Ziyi had come out was to hold the rope himself.
Jiao Tengda was extremely sharp and of course knew why Li Ziyi had followed him out, but he didn't say anything.
When Rong Taotao saw Li Ziyi, he broke into a wide grin.
'This guy's been bickering with me for three whole years, and even though he acts tough, he really does care about me when it counts...'
Rong Taotao tied the rope around himself, put on his goggles, and gripped his Heaven-piercing Halberd. He gave everyone a thumbs-up and strode out into the vast, white expanse of the blizzard.
WHOOSH—
'Damn, it's cold!'
The moment Rong Taotao stepped out of the cave, the gale slammed into him, knocking him sideways and making him stumble.
The deep snow was no longer just ankle-deep; it now came up to the middle of Rong Taotao's calves.
However, at the exact moment Rong Taotao stepped out, directly above the cave entrance, on the snow-covered roof, a deathly pale hand suddenly burst through the snow.
Directly on top of the cave, buried beneath the pristine white snow, there was actually a person lying there!?
The pale hand casually brushed aside the snow, revealing an even paler face. A pair of crimson eyes stood out, utterly menacing in the gray-white world of the blizzard.
"Snowmelt Army, can you hear me?" Rong Taotao cupped a hand over his mouth and nose, shouting through the gaps between his fingers. But the gale shrieked like a banshee, swallowing his calls in the vast, swirling snow.
And just then, behind and diagonally above Rong Taotao, the person who had been lying on the cave roof slowly rose to a kneeling position, their crimson eyes fixed eerily on the shouting boy.
The next moment, the figure suddenly dropped low, pressing down into the snow and cleverly blending in with the stormy surroundings.
In such extremely harsh conditions, a person's vision was already obstructed, to say nothing of the fact that the figure was in Rong Taotao's blind spot.
Rong Taotao continued to shout as he paced, but he received no reply.
'This isn't right...'
'Putting everything else aside, even if I wanted to withdraw from the competition, the soldiers should have appeared immediately, right?'
Of course, Rong Taotao wouldn't dare shout the two words "I withdraw," as that would be toying with his own destiny.
Rong Taotao kept walking forward, his body leaning at nearly a 45-degree angle against the wind. Behind him, Li Ziyi, gripping the rope with both hands, could only watch helplessly as Rong Taotao's figure vanished into the blizzard.
To everyone's astonishment, just ten-odd seconds later, Li Ziyi suddenly stumbled a step backward!
The makeshift rope of clothes in his hands had come undone!?
Li Ziyi's expression changed drastically. Shi Lou instinctively tightened her grip on her Great Saber, but the vast whiteout before them obscured everyone's vision.
The wind howled like a legion of wailing ghosts, and the hearts of the onlookers sank into despair.
Jiao Tengda bent down, picked up the rope of clothes from the ground, and began pulling it back in.
At the end of the rope, however, he saw an intact sleeve.
'Intact?'
'When they'd tied the clothes together into a rope, everyone had checked it repeatedly, tightening it again and again. How could a dead knot like that possibly come loose?'
"Quick! Shi Lou, go find him!" Jiao Tengda didn't have time to think. Without even waiting for Shi Lou's consent, he started tying the rope around her waist.
Clearly, in Jiao Tengda's mind, Shi Lou was stronger than Li Ziyi.
Shi Lou frowned slightly and hesitated for a moment, but she didn't refuse.
Meanwhile, out in the blizzard, Rong Taotao, still leaning at a 45-degree angle as he moved forward, clearly felt the tension on the rope behind him suddenly go slack.
Rong Taotao's brow furrowed. He quickly turned his head and grabbed the rope of clothes still tied around him, giving it a slight tug backward.
From the other side, he felt a pull.
"Dammit, Li Ziyi! What kind of time is this to be playing jokes on me!?" Rong Taotao was on the verge of cursing. He tugged the clothes-rope again and found that, somewhere in the storm, the pull from the other end was strong. It seemed like the whole thing had just been Li Ziyi's mistake.
"Snowmelt Army! I can't go far! I'm telling you from here, we're not going out today, so you should come into the cave! It's big enough, we won't get in each other's way," Rong Taotao said, tugging the rope and following its pull to head back.
Layers of snow were nearly obscuring his goggles. As he returned, he couldn't see a single trace of the path he had made on his way out.
You have to understand, Rong Taotao's footprints had been extremely deep, sinking halfway up his calves. But in the blink of an eye, he could only see the prints from his last few steps. Further back, there was nothing.
Rong Taotao gripped the clothes-rope tightly and forged ahead, following the pull and the direction it guided him, step by step, back through the biting wind.
As Rong Taotao continued to pull on the rope and move forward, he faintly saw a figure's back about five meters away.
Rong Taotao: !!!
In that instant, Rong Taotao felt the hairs on his body stand on end!
'A figure!?'
'Holding the other end of the rope!?'
'In a blizzard of this magnitude, no one can tell which way is which. Where is this person leading me?'
Rong Taotao hastily looked down, but he couldn't find a single footprint.
The blizzard could indeed swallow a person's footprints in a short time, making them unable to find their way back, but the flickering figure was only five meters away!
No matter how heavy the snow, it couldn't possibly bury their footprints in an instant.
'This means they aren't leaving any footprints at all!'
'Walking on Snow!?'
'A Soul Skill... Snow Step?'
Rong Taotao came to a sudden halt. The figure ahead, which had been pulling him forward, also stopped under the force.
WHOOSH...
The cold wind howled, and the sheets of snow felt like tiny knives scraping painfully against Rong Taotao's face.
Ahead, the figure slowly turned. Even though its form was indistinct, the eerie light from its crimson eyes fell squarely on Rong Taotao's face.
Xu! Tai! Ping!
"I told you to be careful," a clear voice imprinted itself on Rong Taotao's mind amid the howling wind.
Rong Taotao finally understood why no one had appeared when he'd called for the Snowmelt Army. It turned out... a Hunter had been lying in ambush around the cave, perhaps even right behind him!
The soldiers weren't allowed to interfere with the assessment process. They would likely only appear if Rong Taotao shouted "I withdraw."
"My Soul Power, my Soul Techniques, my Soul Skills—they are all stronger than yours!"
Xu Taiping spoke in a sinister voice, the red glow in his eyes intensifying. He suddenly drew a longsword and charged at Rong Taotao. "This is my true home turf. You're already dead!"
Rong Taotao gripped his Heaven-piercing Halberd. Watching the ghostly figure rapidly grow larger in the snow, he dropped directly into a bow stance, without a trace of retreat, and without the slightest hint of panic!
Ready for battle, ready to face the enemy!
The halberd shot out like a dragon, the wisps of Soul Power wrapped around its Ironspear Point piercing through the layers of snow, forging relentlessly forward!
Man forges the weapon, and the weapon forges the man!
'I, Rong Taotao, wield the Heaven-piercing Halberd!'
Win,
I'll win on my feet!
Lose...
'How could I possibly lose!?'