Chapter 407 The Excessively Popular Su Zhou (9600, First Update)

Qingqiu Four has no snow, no strong winds, only a deathly silence and cold.

The ice fox's dwelling cave is winding and complex, but the surface of the tunnel is smooth and flat. It is nearly two meters wide and tall, enough for several people to enter and exit side by side.

As Liu Wuxin said, foxes cannot create such things. It's not that they can't, but that there's no need. Given their small size, a doorway the size of a human head would already meet their maximum needs.

Following the lively little fox, Su Zhou entered along the tunnel.

Then he noticed that in this tunnel, there were actually steps, one after another… and the size of the steps exactly matched the human body.

Foxes don't make such things.

"As expected…"

In this cold alien world where there is no wind, there are still traces of human activity. Su Zhou had already heard the exclamations of Liu Wuxin and Tang Yuan behind him. They were surprised that there were stairs suitable for humans to walk on in the tunnel where the foxes lived, but the youth, who had already guessed, remained unmoved.

"Incredible, could it be that there are still humans here?!"

Liu Wuxin used his feet to sense the hardness of the steps, and then had to admit that in the freezing cold of over one hundred degrees below zero, the tunnel built on the ice sheet was incredibly strong. Even he needed to use some force to crush it. This was something those little foxes could not have done before. It required humans, and they had to be humans who had cultivated, to process this kind of hard ice.

"Strange…"

Tang Yuan, on the other hand, looked around with some doubts. He muttered, "There are traces of human souls dissipating here recently…"

Filled with doubts, the two men following behind Su Zhou saw the back of the youth who had stopped moving at the L-shaped corner of the cave tunnel.

"What's wrong?"

Liu Wuxin asked, stepping past Su Zhou to look ahead: "What happened…"

Then, he opened his mouth and stopped speaking.

Because what appeared in front of the three people was a large expanse of exquisite reliefs and murals.

Intertwined cloud patterns and freehand bold carvings, as well as various classical murals that could be called works of art, filled the entire corridor.

Although the light here was dim, and ordinary people could not see the contents of these murals and reliefs clearly, who present could not see in the dark? Su Zhou's gaze swept across the entire corridor. These ancient artifacts, at least a thousand years old, still exuded their charm. Whether it was the mystical and magnificent heavenly palace scenery above, or the celestial foxes running between the clouds and mountains, it was impossible to look away.

In addition, there was a large amount of writing on them, but it was too twisted and abstract. It seemed to have evolved from some ancient hieroglyphs, and was the ancestor of today's Zheng Nation script.

"This is at least something that creatures with thumbs can make…"

Inside the tunnel, Liu Wuxin's eyes lit up as he watched. He looked around at everything and couldn't help but mutter to himself, "There are indeed humans here…"

The little fox leading the way was still waiting at the end of the tunnel. Su Zhou breathed out a mouthful of air. He did not continue to look at these murals, but walked forward. Liu Wuxin and Tang Yuan filmed everything with their personal proxy terminals while following behind Su Zhou.

Finally, Su Zhou came to the end of this corridor.

And here, he saw a human corpse that had completely turned into a mummy and petrified.

The corpse leaned against the end of the murals and reliefs, merging with the entire wall. He was wearing some kind of ancient Chinese clothing, and all the colors had faded in the long passage of time. If one did not observe carefully, one might regard it as part of the mural, or an unusual bulge in the wall and ignore it.

But Su Zhou did not. He saw this skeleton, and the carving knife that was held in this skeleton's hand, already decayed and broken for many years.

"…Died at least a thousand years ago…"

Because he had the talent of spiritualization, Tang Yuan had taken courses in the Netherworld system, and he could easily judge the year of death of a corpse, even down to the minute.

But facing this ancient corpse located on an alien planet, he hesitated: "The strength before death, perhaps around the Extraordinary stage… A person from the era when spiritual energy was gradually cut off, who died after finishing the last relief."

"Why…"

No one answered this question.

At the same time, a wave of spiritual energy came from the end of the tunnel ahead, which immediately made the three people lift their eyes from the corpse and look toward the other end.

…

The elder was leading the foxes in a sacrificial dance in front of the sacred lake.

Although it was called a dance, it was actually a special kind of footwork that could mobilize the power within all the ice foxes to resist the cold and control the hard ice. Under the guidance of an elder, this power could be gathered into one body for sacrifice.

The foxes danced very smoothly. Even the young foxes who were participating in the sacrifice for the first time quickly learned under the guidance of their elders, as if they had such inherited memories in their blood. They shook their tails, stepped accurately, formed a neat circle, and then sang and danced in the face of the several ice fox corpses in the circle.

Death, death, death means new life. Only when the old foxes die can new foxes be allowed to be born.

The number of seaweed and fish in the sacred lake is limited. They can only supply the diet of eighty foxes at most. This is still because everyone eats as little as possible. When an old fox dies, the new little foxes can have more food.

What's more, this is also a contract… a contract with the sacred lake.

Because, a devil is suppressed in the sacred lake.

Only by holding this ritual from time to time and offering sacrifices to the sacred lake can the ice foxes live safely in the cave.

There was a generation of foxes that was not prepared to continue to carry out this sacrificial ceremony, which they considered meaningless, and the result was that a strange devilish sound killed most of the foxes. It was the elder of that generation who exhausted his life to barely suppress the devil back into the sacred lake, which also caused the ice foxes to lose a large number of foxes and wisdom.

The ritual was nearing its end. As a large number of ice-blue light spots flew out of each fox, and then condensed on the ice fox corpses in the center of the circle, forming a light cluster almost like a cocoon, the elder's eyes lit up with a ghostly blue light.

Then, an invisible force lifted these corpses and sent them into the sacred lake next to them, which emitted a light golden light.

For a time, it could be seen that the ice-blue luster began to spread in the lake water, and a large number of strangely shaped white fish came forward to tear and devour these fox corpses, and the fragmented flesh and blood sank into the seaweed and became their nutrients.

But what was strange was that both the fish and the seaweed were acting and arranging themselves in a very regular manner… The light cocoons on the fox corpses shattered, and then connected with all the seaweed and fish in the sacred lake, vaguely transforming into a formation that was not very clear, but surprisingly huge.

It did seem to be suppressing something, and the foxes, seaweed, and fish were all part of this seal. The cycle of life and death predation between them constituted a conceptual ring. If the Nordic sealing envoy Raphael saw this ingenious design, he would definitely exclaim, "Amazing!"

But the foxes didn't know about this.

They did not know that their daily sacrifices were actually part of a huge seal.

They also did not know what their mission was, or why they had to maintain this seal.

They just felt very tired, very exhausted—this was the case every time they sacrificed. The more powerful the fox was on weekdays, the more tired it would be after the sacrifice.

And the old foxes, the elders, were especially so.

--That day is coming soon.

It thought so.

Moving stars have already appeared in the sky, confirming the predictions of the ancestors, so the following beautiful things should also come true one by one.

A warm residence, a place to run happily, fish to eat as much as you want… and more and more prophecies will be realized.

The elder was a little tired. This sacrifice consumed too much of what the ancestral souls called 'spiritual energy,' which was no longer a simple force, but the pillar that supported its old fox life—and each sacrifice meant that all the foxes had to contribute almost all of their spiritual energy, so the stronger the spiritual energy, the greater the damage they would suffer.

Its eyes were about to close… The old fox really wanted to fall asleep like this. Too many elders fell asleep like this and never woke up. It seemed that it could not be an exception, but anyway, it had already taught the elder's skills to its fourth grandson, so falling asleep like this did not seem unacceptable…

But just when the old fox's tired eyelids could not be lifted, heavy footsteps that were different from the ice fox's came.

The elder warily raised its head and looked at the entrance of the cavity, and all the foxes also looked over there.

Then, they saw three foxes, leading three tall and upright creatures with sparse fur, strange and weird, entering the cave.

Originally, they should have been on guard. This was the instinct of the body. They should have been afraid of such creatures, and then launched an attack.

It was just that for some reason, the elder's heart was filled with a strange peace.

Strange.

Was that face… really unfamiliar?

Why… did it feel so familiar?

…

When Su Zhou and the other two entered the huge semi-circular underground cavity, the first thing that caught their eyes was dozens of ice foxes who were turning their heads to look at them.

More than a hundred eyes like blue gemstones, watched them with emotions of curiosity, vigilance, doubt and confusion.

Then, immediately afterwards, there was a sound of tails patting the ground that sounded like cheers.

Click, click. Immediately, all the foxes rushed towards Su Zhou and the others. Liu Wuxin even subconsciously prepared for battle, but soon, he realized that he had overreacted.

Because not only did these foxes have no malice, but they were all rushing towards Su Zhou.

For a moment, Su Zhou, who hadn't reacted, was surrounded by large groups of fluff. Ice foxes were either rubbing against Su Zhou's trouser legs, or biting his shoelaces, or even jumping onto his body and biting his buttons, swinging back and forth.

"Okay, be good, don't pounce…"

Su Zhou originally wanted to reach out and comfort a few obviously excited foxes, but he didn't expect that as soon as he reached out, at least seven or eight heads would lean towards his palm, rubbing warmly, making the situation even more chaotic.

"…Am I too popular?"

For a moment, he couldn't figure out what was going on at all, and could only deal with the many enthusiastic furry creatures with a smile: "I know I'm handsome, but I didn't expect that I would be so handsome in the eyes of foxes."

Of course, not all foxes were close to Su Zhou. In the midst of the noise, there were also a few obviously older foxes who came to Tang Yuan's side. They sat quietly next to the young man's feet, seemingly enjoying some kind of feeling from him.

Only with Liu Wuxin as the center, could a blank circle without foxes be seen—excessive exercise, it seemed, not only didn't attract the opposite sex, but even foxes wouldn't like it.

This immediately made the Spiritual Martial arts practitioner a little frustrated: "What, why are foxes like this too?!"

"Could it be that this is the life sign I detected before…"

Tang Yuan looked around and couldn't help but be confused: "But putting aside why they are foxes, how do these foxes survive?"

At this time, Su Zhou raised his head from the encirclement of foxes, and looked at the underground lake on the other side of the cavity, which was emitting a light golden light.

"There is a very strong spiritual energy radiation there, and there are a large number of special spirit fish and algae living in it."

Saying so, Su Zhou's expression was serious: "It is that radiation that melts the hard ice, brings warmth to this underground cave, and nourishes those fish and algae, supplying these foxes with survival."

"And isn't the fluctuation of that spiritual energy radiation familiar to you? That is the fluctuation of the spiritual energy engine—just a very old model."

Liu Wuxin also looked in the direction of the underground lake. He closed his eyes and sensed it with his spiritual energy, then opened his eyes and nodded slowly: "Indeed, no wonder you guessed that there was a broken Void Breaking Shuttle buried here. The energy core of that magic treasure and the energy fluctuations at the bottom of the lake are very similar."

"It's just…"

Then, he lowered his head and looked around at this group of furry big foxes, and couldn't help but hesitate and mutter to himself: "Could it be that these foxes are the pets left behind by the owners of the shuttle that crashed here?"

This was a good guess, and it could also explain why these foxes were not afraid of people at all, but were very close to them.

But Su Zhou simply denied this guess.

"No."

Stroking the ear of a small fox in his hand, and watching the other party shake its body comfortably, Su Zhou looked around the entire underground cavity, and muttered: "They are humans."

"What?!"

For a moment, both Liu Wuxin and Tang Yuan turned their heads in surprise and looked at Su Zhou, seemingly wanting to know why he said that.

But at this time, Su Zhou did not answer. His gaze was locked on an old fox on the other side of the cavity, which looked very weak.

And the old fox's gaze was also locked on Su Zhou.

Slowly getting up, Su Zhou warmly picked off the silver furs that were too enthusiastic from his body, and then walked towards the old fox with patchy fur.

"Goo, goo ooh…"

Facing the upright creature that was constantly approaching him, the elder also barely supported his four legs, but soon, his too weak limbs could not support the weight of his body.

The six tails that it was originally proud of had become a burden to the body. They were so heavy that it could not lift them up even with all its strength.

--Am I going to die?

Just as such a thought flashed through its mind, before it could think about it carefully, the elder saw the upright creature bend down and warmly hug itself in its arms.

"Is it you who wants to see me?"

Using the Mind of No Thought, and clearly distinguishing the innermost thoughts of each fox, Su Zhou naturally noticed that this old fox had a more active mind than other ice foxes, and it seemed that because of the authority of this old fox, the ordinary ice foxes who were too affectionate before did not come forward, but stayed in place.

"Goo…"

Su Zhou could see that the old fox in his arms opened its eyes, then slowly moved its head and pointed to the nearest cave next to the light golden lake.

Su Zhou understood what the other party meant—it wanted him to go over.

Then go over.

"You guys wait here, I'll go see what's going on."

Instructing Liu Wuxin and Tang Yuan, and hugging the old fox, Su Zhou walked towards the cave, and the two people who were left behind looked at each other, and then shrugged, expressing helplessness.

But no matter what, the discovery of such a group of special ice foxes on Qingqiu Four, where no life was originally expected, was also a great harvest for the Earth side—not to mention anything else, this kind of fox that can adapt to more than one hundred degrees below zero and can tolerate plateau reactions is a good research subject in itself.

At this time, Su Zhou had entered the elder's exclusive stone cave.

Although it was called a stone cave, he clearly felt that something was wrong after he went deeper for a while.

"This is, metal?"

He noticed that the walls of the tunnel were not rock, but a gray-silver metal. In response, Su Zhou tried to press it slightly, and only left a small hole on it, without completely piercing through it: "It's still a high-performance alloy, with a very high degree of completion."

And when Su Zhou really came to the cave where the elder usually lived, it became even more obvious.

Because it was not a 'cave' in the traditional sense, but a very obvious, damaged metal cabin.

"As expected."

The square metal cabin instantly made Su Zhou think he had returned to Earth, but it was obvious that this was just an illusion. Su Zhou sighed. Everything was exactly the same as the spiritual energy he had detected on the surface before: "Not only this stone cave… the entire underground cavity, and even the entire underground lake, are located above the wreckage of a huge Void Breaking Shuttle, which is a spacecraft from the Immortal God era."

"It's just that, thousands of years ago, the humans who were still alive at that time covered the spacecraft with ice and rock in order to cover up the fact that the spacecraft had crashed here, and buried it deep underground."

"Why cover it up?"

He asked himself full of doubts.

But there was another voice that answered.

"—Because, we want to avoid the pursuers that those evil people may send from 'Qingqiu Country'."

As the voice sounded, the totem poles composed of the skulls of ice foxes rose with blue light spots.

Immediately afterwards, the many light spots gathered together like fireflies, forming a small ice fox phantom composed of blue flames.

It had nine tails, and a vertical black mark on its forehead. Its body was like an unstable projection, flickering from time to time.

"Dragon King… Dragon King…"

This phantom-like figure slowly approached Su Zhou. Its tone was either respectful, or the joy of finally realizing its wish. Its heart was so complicated that even Su Zhou could not hear it clearly: "You… have finally come… Is the Central Divine Court still well? Since the spiritual energy weakened, the immortals of the Immortal World have not come for a long time…"

"You need to be careful, Your Majesty the Dragon King. A huge flaw has appeared in the seal on Qingqiu Country. The king was assassinated by a traitor. We, we don't know…"

"Is the Immortal World's migration plan still being implemented? Can we still catch up with the last batch of migration?!"

"Qingqiu Country is very dangerous now… Please report this news to the Divine Court…"

"A mistake has occurred in the seal, it must be corrected…"

With its limbs bent and lying prone in front of Su Zhou, what the ice fox phantom said was indeed Chinese, but both the pronunciation and the tone were very different from the current Mandarin.

But Su Zhou didn't care about this. He could understand what the other party was saying, and listened attentively.

And the voice of the ice fox phantom seemed to want to pour out the emotions that had accumulated over a long time all at once. It was heavily layered, as if it was a sound made by many voices at the same time. There were even many inconsistent and fragmented sentences.

Even at the end, the totem poles composed of many fox bones began to vibrate, and the existence of the blue fire fox itself began to become fragmented. A large number of souls that were originally fused together and maintained stability began to disintegrate and self-annihilate.

Until a hand stretched out and used a powerful, but extremely stable force, to gently smooth out the fragmented thoughts of the ice fox phantom because many souls were mixed together.

"It's okay, I'm here, there's no need to be afraid."

The youth said so, his tone gentle: "If you have any worries or unease, just tell me."

"Let's do it little by little, starting from the beginning—don't worry, I'll listen carefully."

Being stroked by Su Zhou, the ice fox phantom gradually stabilized, and the many totem poles gradually returned to normal.

And after everything returned to peace, the phantom stared at Su Zhou.

Having regained its sanity, it stared at the youth for a long time, and then sighed a long breath.

"You… are not the immortals of the Central Divine Court?" Although it was an interrogative tone, the meaning was affirmative.

"Yeah." Sitting on the ground, Su Zhou put the old fox that had slowly fallen asleep on his lap. He calmly replied, "The last immortal left our world a thousand years ago. They will never come back, and we are the remnants of them left in the Immortal World, and the new civilization that has developed."

"Yeah, as expected. I said, the Dragon King of the Divine Court can't be so kind."

Muttering so, the ice fox phantom looked at the old fox on Su Zhou's lap, who was sleeping very peacefully.

It slept soundly, very peacefully.

Seeing this scene, the phantom seemed to have made up its mind, and then raised its head and looked at Su Zhou: "Then, I'll say it."

"Yeah."

Su Zhou calmly responded: "I'm listening."

"—We Qingqiu people are actually just the Emperor's jailers."

Then, just like that, accompanied by the ice fox phantom's narration, a story that had been maintained for a thousand years and insisted on was slowly told.

Since the Central Divine Court during the Pioneering Period discovered this time-space realm more than 200,000 years ago, and established the state of Qingqiu here, this country belonging to the Central Divine Court has prospered and developed on that verdant planet. Races such as the Human Race, the Qingqiu Fox, and the Scarlet Carp lived here.

The Nine-Tailed Fox is the totem god of Qingqiu Country. The so-called Nine-Tailed Fox 'appears with a book in its mouth' means that the Qingqiu Fox with nine tails is a symbol of auspiciousness and morality, representing the national leader and bearing the responsibility of cultural inheritance. It was very popular with that First Emperor at the time.

Therefore, the Nine-Tailed Fox, who was deeply favored by the Emperor and even later obtained the position of guarding the other party's mausoleum, began to build a huge seal in Qingqiu Country under the guidance of the other party to suppress an ancient fierce god.

The seal lasted for a very, very long time, and was very stable for hundreds of thousands of years. After all, the Emperors of all ages had the status of Heavenly Venerate, and the one who sealed the fierce god was the very first Emperor. The seal he established was so stable that no one worried about the safety of the seal at all.

However, starting thousands of years ago, the seal would occasionally send out abnormal movements. In addition, since then, the ups and downs of spiritual energy began to become extreme, which made the seal even more unstable.

And among the Qingqiu people who served as jailers, there also began to be other thoughts.

"…A thousand years ago, the king was assassinated, and the seal located in Jiyi Marsh was also attacked by evil people—in order to prevent the fierce god from waking up and causing harm to the world, we had no choice but to take away the container with a part of the true soul of the fierce god during the chaos, and take the Imperial Void Shuttle to the Central Divine Court to apply for support…"

"The shuttle was partially destroyed by evil people while escaping, and we also underestimated the extent of the decline in spiritual energy. The already damaged shuttle could not fly to the Celestial Bridge leading to the Divine Court at all. We had no choice but to make a forced landing in this barbaric realm that had not yet reopened."

Narrating so faintly, the ice fox phantom shook its tail, its tone without the slightest emotion: "Then, it was a struggle to survive."

"At the beginning, we were still daydreaming, waiting for the spiritual energy to recover to a certain level, and then repairing the shuttle, and then going to the Celestial Bridge (time-space gate), after all, if the fierce god was unsealed, even the Divine Court, the Heavenly Venerates, and the current Emperor would definitely have a headache… But who knew that the spiritual energy would be gone forever, and even completely cut off, until it gradually recovered a thousand years later."

"The human body, even if it has cultivation, is difficult to survive in this extremely cold barbaric realm, not to mention the human body after the spiritual energy is cut off. If you want to survive, you must transform into the Qingqiu Fox body, and also transform into the Ice Fox branch bloodline."

Speaking of this, the ice fox phantom looked at the old fox lying on Su Zhou's lap, and lowered its eyes: "Then… because it was really difficult to survive, we could only maintain the ice fox form and live until now."

Su Zhou listened quietly to all of this, and he had already guessed most of the information about the ice fox.

--Yes, how normal.

How could humans who had lost their spiritual energy survive on this cold planet where the average temperature was more than 110 degrees below zero? Only by transforming into the Ice Fox bloodline with some divinity could they adapt to the local environment.

"But their wisdom…"

Su Zhou stroked the old fox that had already fallen asleep, and he said in a heavy tone: "Although they are a little smarter than ordinary foxes, they are far less intelligent than normal humans."

"Because the spiritual energy is thin. If the spiritual energy is thin, it means that it is difficult to cultivate. If it is difficult to cultivate, it means that it is difficult to transform between the dual bodies of the Dao."

The phantom ice fox sighed softly: "In order to continue the bloodline and maintain the seal on the fragments of the true soul of the fierce god, we cannot waste our strength to transform into a human form… and that would be too much of a waste of time."

In response, Su Zhou could only remain silent, because what the other party said was indeed correct.

The human form is afraid of the cold, and the body is too large, consuming extremely high, in terms of endurance is far less than the small ice fox.

However, it is difficult for the fox form to strengthen the soul and cultivate wisdom in the case of spiritual energy cut off… Between survival and wisdom, the humans who crashed on Qingqiu Four at that time chose survival.

Because, only by surviving can they complete their mission.

So, degenerating generation after generation, this group of people who landed on Qingqiu Four to seek help almost really turned into pure foxes.

Su Zhou turned his head, and he looked at the entrance of the cave. His spirit eyes flashed, and he could see the many ice foxes outside the cave who were protecting Liu Wuxin and Tang Yuan—most of them had two or three tails, which meant that their intelligence was about the same as human children.

If they wanted to reach the wisdom comparable to humans, the Qingqiu Fox had to reach at least the six-tailed realm.

And the only six-tailed fox in the entire ice fox group was the old fox sleeping on Su Zhou's lap.

Death after death, the foxes were replaced generation after generation, and their survival structure became similar to foxes. In addition, because the souls could not be strengthened due to the spiritual energy cut off, they had almost turned into real beasts… Even more, because of the concern about the pursuers who might be chasing from Qingqiu Country, they had to hide their existence, and had to observe the meteors in the starry sky every day.

"The seal you mentioned…"

Sighing, Su Zhou turned his head and looked at the ice fox phantom. He could see that this phantom was the wisdom of a stitched spirit body formed by the souls of the Qingqiu foxes of all ages as materials, just to be responsible for passing down this information, so as not to let the ice fox clan forget their origin and think that they were really foxes.

He asked softly, "What exactly is going on?"

And the flame-like blue eyes of the phantom ice fox flashed, and it slowly replied: "In order to prevent the evil people from really releasing the fierce god, the original Qingqiu people took away the soul fragment that served as the core in the chaos… In this way, even if the evil people really unlocked part of the power of the fierce god, it would take a long time to recover."

Speaking of this, the phantom turned its gaze to the sacred lake: "And the last generation of Qingqiu people with cultivation used all their spiritual power to create the seal in the sacred lake before the spiritual energy was cut off, and taught the later generations of ice foxes to perform rituals, so that the cycle of their existence would become part of the seal, so that this fragment of the soul could not cause trouble."

"Is that so… You've really worked hard all these years."

Su Zhou nodded seriously. This gratitude came from the bottom of his heart. After all, according to what they said, the Emperors of all ages, whether it was the Five Emperors of the Five Directions, or the Ancestral Emperors Yan and Huang, or the subsequent Emperors, their strength could not be weak, and that fierce god sealed by the 'Emperor' should also have the strength of the Heavenly Venerate level…

So, he opened his mouth and prepared to ask some follow-up questions.

But, suddenly, the old fox on Su Zhou's lap suddenly coughed violently, and then struggled violently.

"What's going on?"

Frowning, Su Zhou stretched out his hand and pressed on the old fox—during the conversation just now, he also knew that this six-tailed ice fox was the elder of this generation of ice foxes.

"Your Majesty the Dragon King… He, is too old, the spiritual energy is exhausted, and he is about to die…"

In response, the phantom ice fox was also helpless: "Unless there is a skilled alchemist who can refine a pill that can restore the essence of spirituality, then no one can do anything…"

"There's no reason to die before you're about to be saved."

Muttering, Su Zhou casually bit his finger, and then dripped a drop of cyan-purple blood, like a gemstone, into the old fox's mouth—then, the youth input a little spiritual energy into him: "Don't casually say die in front of me, it will only make me want to argue."

In just an instant, in the shocked gaze of the phantom ice fox, the small amount of Candle Dragon True Blood guided by Su Zhou's spiritual energy ignited the life force of the elder fox, and a huge amount of spiritual energy surged in his body, even causing him to wake up instantly, and then made a sound that was not known whether it was pain or pleasure.

"Ah ah ah--"

At first, it was still the voice of a fox, but soon, the surging spiritual energy didn't know what switch it triggered, and this voice gradually turned into a clear human boy's voice.

Immediately, in Su Zhou's somewhat stunned gaze, the old ice fox whose fur was already patchy and the hair on its tail was beginning to fall out transformed into a white-haired fox-eared boy with a delicate appearance who looked only a little over ten years old.

After waking up, 'Elder' was now extremely at a loss. He looked around, but found that he couldn't control his body at all—then, he shivered and could only instinctively hug his tail to keep warm.

Although he had fox ears and a tail, the human body could not endure the cold—even the underground cave was only hovering around ten degrees below zero, and it could only be warm next to the sacred lake.

"This, how…"

In the first moment, Su Zhou hadn't understood why an old fox would become so young after turning into a human form, but soon, he understood.

The natural lifespan of foxes is only 12~14 years at most. The so-called Elder, who has the highest seniority among foxes, is only a teenager who has just started puberty, or even hasn't started, when converted into human years.

The fox's body is old because it has not cultivated and is often used, while the human body has no spiritual power and has never grown, so it is impossible to appear before obtaining a large amount of spiritual power… If this continues, even humans with a Dao bloodline will gradually degenerate the 'human body' and become a real beast…

But now it seems that after more than a thousand years, the human bloodline in the ice fox's body has not been completely eliminated. As long as there is enough spiritual power, they can still restore the human form, just like the current elder. Even if the fox body is old and unbearable, the human body is still only thirteen or fourteen years old.

"However, in this way, it is even more sad…"

Slowly getting up, Su Zhou stretched out his hand and pressed it on the head of the fox-eared boy, who was the 'Elder'.

He turned his head and looked at the ice foxes in the cave outside, with a trace of entanglement and intolerance in his eyes: "Because in this way, if those ice foxes outside really turn into humans, most of them will be seven or eight years old, or even just a few years old…"

Such young children have to turn into foxes and maintain the seal for the responsibilities left by their ancestors a thousand years ago, living in this narrow, cold, and humid underground cavity like real beasts, living ignorantly…

But even so, they still stick to their responsibilities.

Activating his spiritual power and using the 'Elder's' spiritual power operation secret method to make him return to the 'true body' of a fox—although old and with hair loss, at least he would not be frozen to death.

And after such a big ups and downs, although the elder's life was saved, the entire fox fainted.

Holding the fainted old fox in his arms, Su Zhou turned to look at the phantom ice fox.

He asked the questions he had wanted to ask before.

"Since you said that the Qingqiu people are actually jailers."

"Then, who exactly is that 'fierce god' sealed in Qingqiu?"

Su Zhou could roughly understand why the ice fox always didn't mention the name of that fierce god. After all, for the Qingqiu people from the Immortal God era, it should be a habit not to say the names of those powerful immortal gods, but since he already knew the source of the possible disaster on Qingqiu Star, then he had to ask.

"Who is it?"

In response, the ice fox phantom looked at Su Zhou a little strangely, and it said in a tone with a trace of incredibility: "Your Majesty the Dragon King, aren't you a descendant of Yinglong? You should know the identity of that fierce god best!"

"The fierce god who competed with the First Emperor and was eventually killed by your ancestor, there has only been one from ancient times to the present."

"That is the Lord of Jiuli, one of the Eight Gods, 'Lord of War' Venerable!"

=Free=

Although it involves spoilers, I must say one thing, no historical immortals and characters will appear in this book. The Lord of War is just a background and will not appear. (I don't even dare to use his real name, forgive me 8, or have you forgotten those Heavenly Court trends that were harmonized at the beginning…)

First update, there will be more at night