Chapter 1 The Cold Ice Fortress

When the star chart card in Bai Huo's hand was lit up, the Ice Fortress hidden in the cracks of space-time revealed its true appearance to everyone. On the originally empty ice field, large swathes of ice walls that resembled knife blades suddenly appeared. Layers of ice barriers rose on both sides of the road like the fangs of wild beasts. In the dark night sky in the distance, phantoms like aurora or mirages emerged, and those translucent phantoms quickly solidified under the starlight, becoming towering city walls and pointed towers in an instant. As Hao Ren drove forward, the surrounding light and shadow were also changing rapidly, with the original Arctic ice field scene alternating with the hidden Ice Fortress, making it almost impossible to distinguish what was real and what was illusion. And when all of this finally stabilized, everyone had arrived in front of a towering giant city gate. The Demon Hunters' "Millennial Palace" welcomed visitors with its incredible magnificence.

Just like the name of this fortress, the Ice Fortress was a snow and ice fortress standing in the far north. The word "ice" not only came from the ten thousand miles of ice in the Arctic, but also from the building materials of this castle. Everyone stared dumbfounded, discovering that this was a true "ice city" in the real sense: huge ice walls, almost like cliffs, stood in front of them, completely frozen together with the ground. On the ice rock, countless narrow windows and downward-extending ice blades were built with seemingly carved techniques. Layers of battlements and arrow towers stood on the top of the fortress, like strange beasts lurking in the darkness of the polar night. And between these structures, one could see countless rugged and strangely beautiful prismatic spires, shining with magical light in the night sky like lighthouses on the fortress.

And all of this was made of ice, or at least it looked like ice. But the entire fortress did not appear crystal clear because of this, nor did it appear fragile. Obviously, other things had been added to all the ice layers. Inside those thick ice walls, there were white or black things, like smoke and clouds, tumbling and swirling, completely opaque. Hao Ren guessed that this should be the result of enchantment.

The Ice Fortress was built during the Twilight of the Gods, thousands of years ago. Its style was completely different from any human architecture on Earth, but its majestic aura could be felt without any stylistic embellishment. Hao Ren couldn't help but carefully observe this fortress, and finally saw a familiar thing from those towering towers, magical arrow towers, and complex city wall structures. He was surprised to find that this thing was somewhat similar to certain ancient buildings in the royal capital of Holleta.

The Demon Hunters were the "ultimate life forms" created by the magic emperors of Holleta using Source Blood. Although they themselves did not have time to create their own culture, they inherited the knowledge essence of the Holleta Magic Empire. Now this inheritance was finally showing its remaining traces: the city in front of them.

"How is it?" Bai Huo obviously breathed a sigh of relief after seeing her familiar home. The burden on her shoulders seemed to lighten a little. She opened her hands with pride. "Many people who see the Ice Fortress for the first time will be stunned. Its magnificence is unique in the world. It is said that even most of the temples in the mythological era cannot compare with it."

"To be honest, I've seen things on a larger scale, but this city is indeed quite spectacular," Lily flicked her tail, trying to emphasize her knowledge and experience, then looked up along the city wall. "...The entire city doesn't even have a single seam!"

"The ice rocks are all fused together, and then subjected to sixteen processes of enchantment and reinforcement, finally integrating it with the entire ice field," Bai Huo nodded. "Over the millennia, the Arctic ice field has also undergone many changes, but only this place where the castle stands is forbidden by magic. What you are stepping on is the Arctic ice layer from thousands of years ago, without even a millimeter of change."

Elizabeth sat on Izhaks' shoulders and looked up for a long time, and finally muttered with puffed cheeks: "Not as big as my house."

Bai Huo raised the burning rune card in her hand high in front of the city gate. The firelight of the rune card was just a speck of starlight in the darkness, but as the rune card flashed, a giant ice sculpture in the shape of a dragon's head inlaid on the gate of the Ice Fortress immediately lit up. Accompanied by a burst of "crackling" sounds, the giant dragon skull made of ice sculpture lowered its head and made a hoarse voice: "Open... the gate..."

"Rumble—"

A loud noise accompanied by the shaking of the earth came from behind the gate. The giant ice wall that seemed to have been frozen together with the city wall began to slowly float upwards in an incredible manner, and a low and desolate horn sound came from the high point of the fortress as the gate opened. Hao Ren looked up at the top of the city wall. In the darkness, he saw countless figures flickering on the battlements, with hundreds of thousands of gazes staring here.

Hao Ren put the car back into his personal space and walked towards the inside of the fortress under the leadership of Bai Huo. When passing through the gate, a question suddenly popped up in his mind: "Since this base camp is still here, why were you in such a mess when you broke out?"

He remembered the situation when Bai Huo suddenly teleported to the southern suburbs. At that time, the Demon Hunter girl's situation could be described as dying, completely in a state of desperately breaking out from a completely lost front. But now he saw that the Ice Fortress, as the gate of Corpus, still stood in this place, so how did Bai Huo break out in that state at that time?

"Do you know where I broke out from?" Bai Huo smiled.

Hao Ren was stunned: "Where?"

"The deepest part of Corpus, a place that was almost completely lost," Bai Huo sighed. "The gate in front of you is indeed still in our hands, but the Corpus on the other side of the gate is almost entirely the territory of the Elder Council. I was trapped in their encirclement at the time, and even the retreat to the Star Tower was cut off. Originally, I wanted to retreat back to the Ice Fortress for a short rest, and then find you through the breath guidance of that blood crystal stone, but I found that there was no way to go at all, so I directly opened the space gate from the depths of the Corpus secret realm. So the injuries on my body were not caused by fighting, but were the result of being crushed by space turbulence—any secret realm has space blockade. I was almost crushed into pieces at the time, but fortunately a protective charm given by my mentor helped resist it at the last moment."

Hao Ren looked at the Demon Hunter girl in astonishment: "Random teleportation across a space blockade? You really dared to jump!"

He didn't know much about Bai Huo. After the limited number of contacts, his impression of her was that she was a young hunter with great talent but lacking experience. Because she was overprotected by her mentor and other elders, she had a strong fighting power but was not as experienced as Nangong Sanba. However, this naive image shattered in an instant—she was more decisive and courageous than he imagined, jumping in against the turbulence of space dislocation. The courage required was no different from leaping through spinning meat grinder blades!

Lily listened to Bai Huo talking to Hao Ren, but pricked up her ears with a question mark on her face: "Is this very dangerous? I think I should dare to jump too."

Oh, besides brave people like Bai Huo, there is another type of person who dares to do this, and that is a scatterbrain of Lily's model...

With a strange sense of anticipation and excitement, everyone became the first batch of "aliens" to step into the Demon Hunters' holy land. After passing through the castle gate, Hao Ren saw that what was in front of him was completely a fortress built of ice. Countless magic lights made the fortress brightly lit in the polar night, and fully armed Demon Hunters could be seen everywhere in the fortress. However, despite the large number of onlookers, there was no noise at all. The hunters in black just stood quietly at their respective posts, looking at the visitors with curiosity and vigilance, and a little expectation.

Hao Ren had expected the vigilance in those gazes: today was bound to be an unprecedented day for the Ice Fortress and the entire Demon Hunter group. Since the mythological era, the Demon Hunter Order, which had always stood at the top of supernatural creatures, not only asked for help from the outside world, but the reinforcements they asked for were still a group of aliens. Now these "demons" who were listed as "heretics" in the canon were standing in the fortress of the holy land in such a grand manner, and were even being received as guests. Who would have dared to imagine such an unprecedented thing in the past?

If the phenomenon of innate hostility had not completely subsided, if the current situation was not pressing, and if the most stubborn Demon Hunters were not in the Elder Council and had already become enemies, today's events would never have happened.

An old hunter in a cloak emerged silently as if from the darkness and walked quickly towards Bai Huo: "Are these them?"

"Master Kszczot," Bai Huo bowed slightly, and then explained simply, "These are the leaders of the reinforcements. The main force is behind, and will arrive at the fortress interface in an hour. Someone needs to go over and help them open the star chart enchantment. Also, regarding this army I invited... I hope to remind everyone that they look a little strange, and are probably somewhat similar to those from the mythological era... but they are indeed on our side."

The old hunter, called Master Kszczot, nodded: "Don't worry, everyone is prepared. The situation is like this, and old guys like me should adapt. And I heard that this matter was an instruction from Saint Bedolis before losing control?"

Although Bai Huo did not pass through the Ice Fortress when she broke out, she had contacted the fortress through secret techniques when Hao Ren and his party set foot on the Arctic, informing them of everything she knew, so the garrison in the fortress could make corresponding preparations and let aliens like Hao Ren in.

"It is indeed an instruction from Saint Bedolis, and it is also the meaning of Elder Hasu and Master Tutanin," Bai Huo emphasized the latter two people, then turned slightly to the side, pointing to Vivian, "Countess Ansesztra is highly respected, and even many Demon Hunters are in awe of her. She took the initiative to offer help."

"Thank you for the Countess's help, despite past grievances," Master Kszczot's tone sounded very strange, but he still endured the weird atmosphere and paid his respects to Vivian. "The situation is so embarrassing, it's really..."

"Forget it, forget it, don't be polite with me, I'm as uncomfortable as you are," Vivian waved her hand with great momentum. "We've all beaten each other's brains out, it seems fake to be polite with each other, let's talk about the situation on the front line."

Lily muttered softly beside her with a grievance: "Just say it, can you stop mentioning beating each other's brains out every now and then... What did the dog do to offend you..."