The Ice Soul Giant Bear began to playfully interact with Ling Tian after its appearance. Ling Tian helplessly patted the bear, reminding it that they had important matters to attend to.
"Brother Ling Tian, our immediate priority is to cross the river. What did you summon this for?"
"Heh heh, Master Cheng'e, we're relying entirely on it this time!"
"You don't mean you want to ride the bear and have it swim across the river upstream?" Master Cheng'e's imagination ran wild. In his impression, bears were capable swimmers.
"Heh heh, there's no need for such effort. We'll just walk upstream. Master, please follow me closely!"
As Ling Tian spoke, he walked directly towards the riverbank. The same bear happily followed behind Ling Tian, much like a puppy going out to play with its owner.
They soon reached the riverbank. Ling Tian didn't move, but pointed into the river. The Ice Soul Giant Bear cheerfully stepped into the water.
The next moment, Master Cheng'e, who was standing beside him, was stunned. The river water instantly froze upon contact with the Ice Soul Giant Bear's claws. Centered around the bear, the water surface rapidly turned into ice, quickly freezing a water area of several dozen square meters into an ice layer.
Ling Tian smiled and walked onto it. The ice layer was thick and solid, and a person could stand on it without any problem. Master Cheng'e followed behind him, feeling very secure with his feet on the ice.
However, as he looked down, he saw that within the ice beneath his feet, fierce mutated black fish were frozen solid.
Thus, the two of them and the bear began to walk towards the cold pond upstream. With every step the white bear took, the frozen ice layer extended one meter in their direction of travel.
The swift current continuously flowed down from upstream, but the ice layer they were walking on was completely unaffected. The water flowed downstream beneath the ice layer, and they proceeded upstream step by step.
After more than ten minutes, they had crossed the river between the mountain cliffs, and the view opened up before them.
It was a small mountain valley, and within the valley, a pond covering dozens of mu appeared before them.
Despite it being winter, white mist could be seen continuously rising from the surface of the pond. However, this mist was not steam, but the cold air emanating from the water!
Both Ling Tian and the Great Monk were people with very keen senses. They felt that the spiritual energy of heaven and earth here was extremely dense, and the yin energy was also extremely strong!
Master Cheng'e frowned, "The yin energy here is so strong, it would be strange if no evil spirits appeared."
Just then, Ling Tian, through his Heavenly Eye divine ability, suddenly discovered that something was moving beneath the ice layer at their feet!
He immediately became vigilant. Seeing Ling Tian's reaction, Master Cheng'e also knew that an accident might occur. At that moment, two figures from beneath the water suddenly darted forward like fish and then violently broke through the ice layer from below!
The ice layer beneath Ling Tian's feet was only about five to six centimeters thick, enough to bear the weight of two people and a bear. However, for those two figures from underwater, the ice layer seemed to pose no obstacle!
Just as the two figures broke through the ice layer and their heads had just emerged, Ling Tian gave a command. A white light instantly enveloped the ice layer beneath the Ice Soul Giant Bear's feet.
The next moment, the two monsters that had just emerged from the ice layer were firmly frozen onto the ice, unable to move.
Ling Tian then realized that the two monsters that had drilled out from under the ice layer were actually two zombies!
Ling Tian then recalled that not long ago, Daoist Master Zhang Daoyun had mentioned that he had been attacked by zombies at the entrance of the cold pond, and the zombies that attacked him had indeed emerged from underwater!
Ling Tian had seen many zombies and heard many seniors describe their appearance. It was said that some zombies could cultivate into Han Ba and even control wind to fly.
However, this was the first time Ling Tian had heard from Daoist Master Zhang Daoyun about zombies swimming in water and attacking people from underwater.
It was also due to the ingrained thinking about zombies that Daoist Master Zhang had not been prepared, resulting in him being injured by the zombies and nearly losing his life to the corpse poison.
The two zombies in the water attempted to break through the ice layer to launch a surprise attack on Ling Tian. They had, to some extent, succeeded, but that was all.
The two zombies never expected the Ice Soul Giant Bear to suddenly release powerful cold air, freezing them directly onto the ice layer.
However, zombies were not ordinary humans. If a human were frozen in the ice layer like this, they would likely die on the spot. But zombies were different. As long as the core in their heads was not destroyed, they would not die immediately. The two zombies desperately turned their heads, trying to break free from the ice layer's restraint, but it was all in vain.
Ling Tian looked at the two of them and spread his palms.
"What did I think it was? Turns out it's just two zombies, and they look like they're only at the Iron Corpse level. Master, these two are yours!"
Master Cheng'e gladly accepted the experience that came his way. He swung his Zen staff, and like playing whack-a-mole, he directly smashed the heads of the two zombies.
The heavy Zen staff, imbued with Buddhist light, directly pulverized the heads of the two zombies into dust. Two invisible streams of energy were absorbed by Master Cheng'e's body.
Watching Master Cheng'e's look of enjoyment, Ling Tian couldn't help but marvel at the incredible talent of the monk who had developed the Vajra Subduing Demon Scripture, a special Buddhist scripture, and how he possessed such a monstrous cultivation technique.
The two of them and the bear walked to the shore, and the ice layer extended to the bank. Ling Tian and Master Cheng'e stepped onto the shore.
With a flash of thought from Ling Tian, the Ice Soul Giant Bear was recalled into the spirit realm space. At the same time, a sea eagle and an albatross hovered almost simultaneously a thousand meters above their heads.
Soon, the sea eagle detected movement. Ling Tian turned his head and saw that on a slightly elevated flat ground by the cold pond, three tents had been set up.
The tents were pitched in a very clever location, with a large amount of bushes obstructing the view. It was indeed difficult for them to spot the tents from the pond's edge.
It was the sea eagle's aerial advantage that allowed them to discover the anomaly in advance.
"Let's go and take a look!"
Ling Tian, holding the Crimson Flame Sword, led the way towards the clearing where the tents were located. Master Cheng'e, holding his Zen staff, followed closely behind Ling Tian.
However, after they had walked about ten meters in that direction, more than a dozen figures suddenly appeared from the bushes!
Ling Tian and Master Cheng'e immediately stopped in their tracks, their brows furrowed, because they discovered that all these figures were zombies!
Even more terrifying was that these zombies had all reached the Bronze Corpse level.