Ye Huohuo never expected that even after piercing the heart of the skeletal man, he could still stand and be alive.
Now she was last, farthest from the light gate, and it was too late to intervene.
A Cheng was closest to the light gate. He exerted his strength, intending to block the skeletal man, but he was also too far away. He might not even reach the light gate before the skeletal man launched his surprise attack.
This second seemed to stretch indefinitely. Ye Huohuo watched the skeletal man's movements as if in slow motion, like on television. His iron arms should have been invisible, but she could clearly see every minute detail of his actions.
This might be what her master always called the "width of time," but no matter what, they couldn't reverse their defeat in being trapped within this formation.
Ye Huohuo was filled with regret. She wished she had shattered that skeletal man into pieces. Even if he wanted to stand and fight, it would have taken him a long time. But now…
However, what happened next surprised her even more.
Previously, she thought her consciousness had stretched time, hence why she saw the skeletal man's movements in slow motion.
But A Cheng and the others were unaffected, still desperately running towards the light gate, including herself. As A Cheng ran out of the light gate and the others were nearing its edge, the skeletal man's movements became slower and slower.
Finally, he stopped moving next to the light circle, his two arms less than half a meter from the shadow's head.
What was going on?
Ye Huohuo had no time to ponder. She, running last, was also nearing the edge of the light gate.
Now, only Fang Fang and Ye Huohuo remained, running last within the formation.
After A Cheng ran out of the light gate, he dropped his sack and prepared to run up the slope to take down the skeletal man. But as soon as he reached the foot of the slope, he seemed to freeze. His body remained in the motion of running upwards, but he stopped abruptly.
Seeing A Cheng like this, the other five people dared not run up the slope anymore. They all stood at the foot, at a loss.
At this moment, Ye Huohuo and Fang Fang finally ran out of the formation. As the two of them emerged, the light gate had reached its limit. A flash of light passed, and both the gate and the protective shield disappeared simultaneously.
"What happened? What's wrong with A Cheng?" Ye Huohuo walked to the five people at the foot of the slope and asked.
Those five people looked at each other, all shaking their heads, indicating they didn't know.
Since everyone was safely out of the Big Dipper formation, Ye Huohuo was no longer anxious. She looked at the five people, saw they were all injured, and told them to rest where they were.
She, however, slowly approached A Cheng. She walked slowly and cautiously, drawing near him carefully.
When she was still some distance away, she suddenly felt an icy chill emanating from the ground upwards.
This cold air was much colder than the air emitted from a regular freezer. Ye Huohuo thought, "Isn't it minus forty or fifty degrees Celsius?"
Could it be that A Cheng was frozen?
She took two more steps forward and was already shivering from the cold air emanating from the ground. Her exhaled breath turned into white mist. Finally, she could see A Cheng's face. To her surprise, a thin layer of frost covered his face.
"A Cheng?!" Ye Huohuo no longer cared about the danger. Even setting aside his status as one of Li Mohan's most capable assistants, she had gone through life and death with A Cheng several times; they were comrades, and she couldn't just leave him to die.
She rushed over, trying to pull A Cheng up the slope. But to her surprise, A Cheng's feet seemed to be frozen to the ground. She pulled for a long time, but he didn't budge.
Moreover, she discovered that her own legs also couldn't move, as if frozen to the ground and unable to be lifted.
Ye Huohuo's heart grew anxious. She quickly shouted to Fang Fang at the foot of the slope, "There's a problem with the slope. Someone froze this area. I want to..."
Before she could even utter the word "find," her mouth was frozen shut. She felt a bone-chilling cold rapidly spread throughout her body. As the cold invaded, she couldn't even move a finger.
But strangely, although her entire body was frozen, her consciousness remained incredibly clear.
What was going on?
Fang Fang, at the foot of the slope, was leaning against a tree. She was also exhausted from the formation. If she hadn't risked the dissipation of her cultivation to unleash powerful moves multiple times, A Cheng and his five subordinates would have had a hard time escaping unscathed. Even if they didn't die in the formation, they would have been trapped inside and unable to get out.
She thought she could finally rest after escaping the formation. Before she could even warm her seat, she heard Ye Huohuo shouting at her from the slope.
The critical point was that although Ye Huohuo shouted loudly due to urgency, her speech was too fast, and Fang Fang didn't hear what she said clearly, only catching fragments about a problem with the slope and something about being frozen.
Fang Fang frowned, looking at Ye Huohuo's back. "What did you say? Speak slower and clearly!"
But after waiting for a long time, Ye Huohuo remained in the same semi-twisted posture, unmoving. A Cheng, next to her, was also the same, as if they were two statues standing on the slope.
"Holy crap, what's going on?" It was then that Fang Fang realized something was wrong. She looked at the five people beside her. "Do you know what's happening?"
Those five people were even more confused. "We don't know. Brother Cheng stopped halfway and then Miss Ye chased after him. For some reason, she also stopped! Could it be ghosts? Are there vengeful spirits on this slope?"
The five men were all firm atheists before. But after following A Cheng into the Big Dipper formation and encountering various spirits within, they were all terrified. Their previous beliefs were shattered.
Now, seeing Ye Huohuo and the others in such a strange situation, they unhesitatingly attributed it to a haunting.
The five big men huddled together, their fighting spirit completely gone.
"This is truly haunted!" Unlike the five big men, Fang Fang, the seemingly delicate woman, became interested.
"In my thousand-plus years, I've seen everything. But this is something I've never encountered!" she said, walking towards Ye Huohuo.
Although Ye Huohuo couldn't move, she was fully aware of everything, including the words Fang Fang and the five people had spoken earlier.
But she just couldn't move. She wanted to stop Fang Fang from approaching. Even though she didn't know exactly what had happened, it was a fact that anyone who went up this slope would be frozen.
Although Fang Fang was a spirit with a thousand years of cultivation, she was still within a person's body. It was hard to say whether she would be frozen if she came up.
Ye Huohuo's earlier shout was meant to tell Fang Fang not to come up so easily, but to figure things out first before rescuing them. But she was so unlucky that Fang Fang didn't hear her clearly and instead became interested, walking towards them.
Ye Huohuo listened to the approaching footsteps, her heart sinking further.
It's over. Today, they weren't trapped in the formation, but they were all going to be frozen on this slope?