Vessel of Worlds

Andy fixed his gaze upon the pool. The water was emerald green, clear and pure, betraying nothing amiss.

He slowly sank his spiritual sense into the water—and suddenly felt a stab of piercing pain in his mind. His face went ashen, and he hastily halted the probing and withdrew his spiritual sense.

There was no telling what strange thing this pool water was, that it could freeze even Andy's substanceless, formless spiritual sense until it ached, and seemingly cost him no small part of it besides.

At this Andy grew several degrees more wary of the pool water, and instinctively withdrew several dozen zhang from its edge.

Suddenly, in the air several zhang above the surface of the cold pool, a ripple of space twisted and distorted, and a gray-robed middle-aged man wrapped in golden spirit-light appeared above the pool.

The middle-aged man had plainly just been teleported into this sealed space from the Sea of Stars. Still somewhat dizzy and blurred of vision, he had not for the moment made out his situation, feeling only an unnatural cold.

Andy gave a great shout of "Careful!"—but it was too late. The middle-aged man drifted lightly down into the cold pool. The instant he touched the water, his body-protecting spirit-light vanished in a flash, and he had only time to let out a single scream before he sank into the pool.

A moment later, Andy saw a human skeleton floating on the surface of the cold pool. Judging by its shape and size, it was in all likelihood the corpse of the middle-aged man just now. In that brief instant, nothing but a skeleton remained, all flesh and blood gone!

This cold pool's water was far too overbearing. Andy was greatly alarmed, and secretly counted himself fortunate for his caution in not rashly entering the pool to seek treasure.

After another short while, the skeleton too, corroded by the pool water, slowly cracked and crumbled apart, until at last it dissolved into nothing.

As though he had never appeared at all, the late-Foundation-Establishment middle-aged man had vanished just like that.

Water so formidable must be of no small origin, and instead Andy began to scheme after the pool water itself.

He took out an emerald jade vial and tossed it into the cold pool.

With a crack, the green vial, the moment it touched the cold pool water, shattered apart into countless fine grains of powder.

Still unwilling to give up, Andy fished out a gourd-shaped peak-grade artifact—found in the storage pouch of some luckless cultivator who had died at his hands, he could no longer remember which—and sent it lightly floating toward the cold pool.

To Andy's delight, the gourd did indeed take in no small amount of the cold pool water, and did not at once give way. But just as Andy was about to retrieve it, he heard a crisp bursting sound: even this peak-grade artifact could not withstand the utterly overbearing pool water.

Andy tried one vessel after another, several in all, and every one, without exception, was destroyed in the pool water.

Apart from the mysterious Heaven-and-Earth Bowl, Andy had no other suitable vessel to try. But he would never risk the little bowl in such a danger. Though he believed that, with the bowl's heaven-defying powers, it surely feared not this cold pool water, one careless slip that let the bowl fall into the pool would leave him worse off than before.

As for his spirit beast, the Ice-Wind Python, he dared not risk it either. Though he was certain this cold pool water was most extraordinary, he could only leave the place, helpless.

Andy went on riding the Ice-Wind Python, flying off to investigate places where the cold energy ran heavier.

Along the way he occasionally encountered a few Foundation Establishment cultivators in differing garb, but after eyeing one another warily for a moment, each paid the others no further heed and went on seeking treasure of his own. Once a cultivator obtained treasure enough, he would naturally leave this place; to waste time here dueling cultivators of comparable strength would be foolish in the extreme.

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And so, unlike in the Dragon-Subduing Valley, the cultivators who had entered this sealed space were each exceedingly restrained. Even when cultivators of the righteous and demonic paths met, they merely passed one another by in silence, and fights were exceedingly rare.

Two hours later, Andy came upon a vast, mirror-smooth ice field stretching without end.

All around was an expanse of white; save for the biting howl of the wind, there was no other stir.

Andy stroked the smooth ice surface and sent his spiritual sense down beneath it.

This time his spiritual sense pierced the thick ice layer without much difficulty, sensing that the ice was four or five zhang thick, and that beneath it dark currents surged.

It seemed this place had originally been a great, still lake, its waters frozen at the surface into thick, cold ice by the extreme cold.

There was no telling how long the lake water beneath the ice had been sealed. Were the time long enough, then by some fortunate chance the Nine-Cold Dark-Nether Water might come into being.

So Andy loosed two peak-grade artifacts shaped like small silver swords, commanding them to cut open the ice.

Though the ice was very thick, frozen in storage for who knew how many years and hard beyond compare, it was still only ordinary cold water turned to ice, and under the assault of a cultivator's peak-grade artifacts it could not withstand a single blow.

Soon the two small silver swords had cut, across the ice surface, four crevices—two lengthwise, two crosswise—each a zhang or so long and several zhang deep, forming a square block of ice about a zhang wide.

"Rise!" Andy stood upon this severed block of ice, gave a light shout, and then leapt upward. The great block of ice, as though sucked fast to his two feet, was drawn bodily up out of the ice sheet and flew into the air, leaving a hole about a zhang wide in the surface.

Andy tossed the square block of ice aside and peered carefully down through the hole at the flowing water beneath the ice.

Half an incense stick later, Andy had found nothing of note; the water here was only ordinary lake water, cold at most somewhat beyond the usual.

He would not, of course, give up and leave at that. Instead he draped over himself several protective domes of various spiritual-root elements, preparing to enter the water himself and search carefully.

At his command, the Ice-Wind Python, as if long unable to wait, leapt into the water beneath the ice. Andy's form swayed lightly and followed close behind.

In this bone-chilling lake water, Andy's spiritual sense still could not spread out to the ten-odd kilometers around him as it did on land; for now he could grasp only vaguely the situation within several kilometers.

Before long, Andy—searching about in the depths of the lake—suddenly knit his brows and murmured, "Ice-Blade Fish. Seems there's no small number of them, either."

Sure enough, a moment later a school of sharp-mouthed fish appeared before Andy's eyes—bodies slender as blades, jade-white all over, about three cun long—fully several hundred of them.

These were Ice-Blade Fish, a first-tier low-stage demon beast of the ice attribute. The strength of a single one was all but negligible, but they were a pack-dwelling demon beast, skilled at fighting as a body, and when their numbers grew too great they were not something an ordinary Foundation Establishment cultivator could deal with.

Before Andy could even act, the Ice-Wind Python had already conceived a keen interest in this school of Ice-Blade Fish, ceaselessly urging Andy on. A greedy look shone in the great python's eyes, as though it beheld a delectable feast.

Andy smiled slightly. The Ice-Wind Python's forebears had originally lived at the beds of bone-chilling cold pools and lakes, and it stood to reason it would relish this sort of ice-attribute low-stage demon beast. But this school of Ice-Blade Fish was no small number, and whether the Ice-Wind Python could handle them alone was uncertain.

"Better let the Ice-Wind Python try—I'd also like to see whether it's a good deal fiercer in the water. If it can't manage, I'll simply lend a hand myself. In any case, with these fish's attack power, they'd find it hard to harm the Ice-Wind Python's tough scales and armor." So Andy thought, and through his spiritual sense he passed a command to the Ice-Wind Python.

The Ice-Wind Python at once, in high excitement, hurtled toward the school of fish—at a speed no less than its flight through the air!

The Ice-Wind Python and the school of Ice-Blade Fish had originally been a hundred zhang apart, but at a single dart of the python it reached the school's edge in an instant.

The great python opened its huge, blood-basin mouth wide and gave a violent inhalation, sucking the nearby lake water and fish into its maw, so that in a moment several dozen Ice-Blade Fish were swallowed into its belly.

The school of Ice-Blade Fish reacted with the utmost speed. Several hundred of them turned at once, and in perfect order shot off at an angle about a zhang away, evading the great python's edge.

The great python opened its huge mouth and lunged at the school again. In perfect unison, the several hundred Ice-Blade Fish spat out ice spikes about a cun in size, meeting the great python head-on and striking against its head and body.

Though the might of these ice spikes could not harm the Ice-Wind Python's hard scales in the slightest, several hundred small ice spikes raining down did check the python's movements. The school shot off to the right in perfect order once more, and the Ice-Wind Python lunged into empty space.

The school of Ice-Blade Fish swam and fled at great speed, but the Ice-Wind Python was a shade faster in the water. Only, each time the python was about to catch up, the school would use its small ice-spike attacks to win itself a little opening and veer off to flee elsewhere.

The school of fish was as if commanded by a single brain, its attacks and its flight all utterly of one accord, offering no flaw whatsoever to be seized.