Chapter 490: The Last Resort
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! RUMBLE!
Numerous cracks appeared in the glaciers of the Extreme Cold Abyss as the super-glacier, hundreds of thousands of meters thick, began to break apart.
A tremendous Power emanated from within the glacier, destroying its previously stable form.
Some fragments of the shattered glacier sank, forming deep valleys.
Other parts rose, transforming into new, cloud-piercing snow-capped peaks.
The changes unfolding in the Extreme Cold Abyss were comparable to the environmental impact of shifting continental plates from hundreds of millions of years ago. However, the driving force this time was not plate tectonics, and the affected area was nowhere near as vast.
The topographical changes were confined to the thousand-mile glacier within the Extreme Cold Abyss.
RUMBLE! RUMBLE! RUMBLE!
The center of the glacier swelled continuously upward, forming an immense mound.
The mound continued to rise until the glacier finally fractured, shattered, and collapsed.
From within the shattered glacier rose a behemoth whose terrifying and utterly colossal form made every creature in the world tremble.
The Ice Emperor had awakened from within the glacier, hundreds of thousands of meters deep.
After breaking through the glacier—as thick as the earth itself—the Ice Emperor appeared in the sky.
CRASH! CLATTER! CRACKLE!
Countless chunks of ice, large and small, slid off the Ice Emperor’s body and plummeted to the ground.
The largest pieces were comparable to small mountains.
Standing on the Ice Emperor’s back, which was as wide as a plain, were several completely inconspicuous dark figures.
These were the same people who had awakened the Ice Emperor from beneath hundreds of thousands of meters of ice, the ones who had fought Li Wei and Gu Sewei.
The Ice Emperor let out a low roar like muffled thunder, a sound that traveled for a thousand miles, making it impossible to distinguish from the real thing.
It turned its massive body and began to fly slowly in one direction.
Relative to the Ice Emperor’s colossal frame, its movements were indeed slow.
But even at its slowest, its Flying speed was far faster than any bird’s.
A single shift of its body covered a hundred miles.
After the Ice Emperor broke free and left the glacier of the Extreme Cold Abyss, it left behind a massive, bottomless pit in the ice.
It was another Extreme Cold Abyss.
On the way back to the Ice and Snow City, Gu Sewei asked worriedly, "The Ice Emperor has awakened. What are we going to do?"
"Li Wei, you saw it yourself. The Ice Emperor is simply not something humans can fight. With a body that size, I doubt even a Forbidden Curse could pose a threat to it."
Li Wei nodded. "Yeah, that’s true. Let’s see if the Ice Queen has a plan."
The Ice Emperor’s size was just too immense.
Its length was beyond Li Wei’s ability to estimate.
What they could see within the ten-kilometer-wide ice cavern was just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.
When Li Wei had first laid eyes on the Ice Emperor, he’d momentarily thought the entire glacier was resting on its back.
It was like one of the divine turtles from mythology, carrying a continent on its back as it walked through the Endless Sea.
’Could the Ice Emperor also be carrying an Extreme Cold Abyss on its back?’
’It’s truly hard to imagine what kind of methods humanity could possibly use to control such a behemoth.’
Li Wei had no good ideas for dealing with the Ice Emperor either.
Li Wei and Gu Sewei returned to the Ice and Snow City two days later.
Their Power had grown significantly, so their travel speed had increased as well.
But the vast distance still made the journey feel long.
Li Wei, Gu Sewei, and Saint Xi met with the Ice Queen, and Gu Sewei recounted the full details of what had happened.
After listening to the tale, the Ice Queen sighed.
"This isn’t your fault. I’m the one who failed to figure out what method they were using to awaken the Ice Emperor. If I had known sooner, you might have had a chance to stop them.
Li Wei stepped forward. "We’ve seen the Ice Emperor. In my opinion, there’s no way Fred City can withstand it."
The Ice Emperor could destroy the entire city just by landing on it. It wouldn’t even need to attack.
The two sides aren’t even in the same league.
The Ice Queen sighed in resignation. "That is true. Now that we’ve failed to stop the Ice Emperor’s revival, our only option is to flee."
Li Wei frowned. "Flee where? As far as I know, Fred City is the only city in the entire Extreme North Icefield."
"Are you willing to just watch the Ice Emperor destroy Fred City?"
"If the Ice Emperor can destroy one Fred City, it can destroy a second, and a third... If no one stops it, everyone will lose their home."
The Ice Queen closed her eyes. After a moment of deep thought, she opened them again, looked at Li Wei, and said, "There is one other way to stop the Ice Emperor."
Gu Sewei looked astonished, and Li Wei quickly asked, "What is it?"
He didn’t ask the Ice Queen why she hadn’t mentioned it sooner.
The Ice Queen had been willing to abandon Fred City rather than reveal this method.
Clearly, in her eyes, the cost of this solution was even greater than that of abandoning Fred City.
The Ice Queen said, "To worship the God of Frost and Warhammer."
"Before the Ice Emperor reaches Fred City, we must hold a Divine Worship Ceremony to summon the God of Frost and Warhammer to descend."
"Once the Divine Spirit’s radiance envelops Fred City, the Ice Emperor will no longer attack it."
Hearing this, Li Wei frowned slightly. He felt that something about this was a little off.
"Rely on the Power of a Divine Spirit? I suppose at this point, it’s our only option," Li Wei said.
He gave the Ice Queen a curious look and asked, "I am a bit confused. Why were you so unwilling to use this method?"
The Ice Queen glanced at Li Wei, then gazed out at Fred City below. "Since you’ve been in Fred City, have you seen a Divine Hall?"
Li Wei thought for a moment, then shook his head. "I don’t believe I have."
The Ice Queen said, "Fred City is a city without faith. It belongs to no Divine Spirit."
Li Wei asked, "Is there a problem with worshipping a Divine Spirit?"
The Ice Queen replied, "For ordinary citizens, worshipping a Divine Spirit is a good thing. But for me... it means I will lose Fred."
Li Wei looked at her and blinked. An image of the Flower God suddenly surfaced in his mind.
He suddenly felt that the Ice Queen was somewhat similar to the Flower God.
But the Ice Queen wasn’t a ’Divine Spirit,’ and no one worshipped her as such.
’No, that’s not quite right,’ he thought. ’Although no one considers the Ice Queen a Divine Spirit, the attitude of the natives in Fred City—and even across the entire Extreme North Icefield—is very similar to how the residents of Flying Flower City feel about the Flower God.’
’The only difference is that the residents of Flying Flower City believe the Flower God *is* a ’Divine Spirit.’’
’The natives of the Extreme North Icefield, on the other hand, believe the Ice Queen is the King of Ice Elves.’
Now, in Li Wei’s eyes, a question mark hung over that title: "King of Ice Elves."
To this day, the Ice Queen had never once admitted to Li Wei that she was an Ice Elf.