The Seventh Level
The ice door had indeed been shattered.
That saved time.
At the entrance stood a hollow humanoid ice sculpture.
Presumably, once the Light's avatar opened the door, its time expired. The projection had dispersed, leaving behind nothing but frozen form.
The seventh level itself was not large.
Just a hall.
In the center stood a constantly shifting formation array, its patterns morphing endlessly, radiating waves of bone-piercing cold.
Around it stood over a dozen neatly arranged ice sculptures.
Each one contained a cultivator frozen within.
Some refused to accept death.
Some sought rebirth.
Some tried to pause their time and wait for a miracle.
They chose this method—sealing themselves in ice, gambling everything on a chance that might never come.
A chance so slim it bordered on delusion.
Edmund placed the item Drake had given him at the center of the formation array.
The moment it settled into place, the formation began to hum.
He didn’t wait to watch.
He turned and left immediately.
Back on the sixth level, a long-legged little red flower came sprinting toward him, petals fluttering wildly.
“God Venerable—God Venerable! Please take me with you! I can’t endure this damned cold any longer!”
Edmund didn’t slow down.
He headed straight for the entrance to the fifth level.
The little red flower’s legs blurred into afterimages as it chased him desperately.
“To be honest, God Venerable,” it babbled breathlessly, “I’ve been hiding here all these years to heal my injuries. At first, it wasn’t so bad. There were always a few fools wandering in to become my fertilizer. But later? They all grew cautious. Either they stopped coming altogether, or the ones who came weren’t stupid enough to fall for my illusions anymore.”
Its petals drooped.
“This wretched place is killing me. My injuries haven’t improved—they’ve gotten worse. If I stay any longer, I’ll be forced into hibernation.”
And in this environment, hibernation meant only one thing.
It would never wake up again.
It would simply… freeze, slowly and permanently.
This was a golden opportunity to return to the Divine Realm. It refused to rot here.
“Don’t worry, God Venerable!” it continued frantically. “I’ve reformed! I won’t feed indiscriminately anymore. Even if you water me with manure, I’ll accept it!”
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Edmund finally stopped.
“No regrets?” he asked calmly.
The petal twitched.
He wouldn’t actually water it with manure… right?
But if the alternative was freezing to death—
“No regrets,” it said firmly.
“In that case,” Edmund replied, “hand over your roots.”
Briar glanced back at the creeping frost advancing from deeper within the sixth level.
Then, gritting its nonexistent teeth, it tore its roots free and offered them up.
“From this day on,” it said solemnly, “Briar belongs to God Venerable.”
Edmund swallowed the roots whole.
“Let’s go.”
Briar hesitated.
“I… I can’t go down to the fifth level. It’s too cold there. I only survive here because there’s subterranean fire beneath the sixth level. Without it, I’d already be dead.”
“Then wait here,” Edmund said flatly.
“Yes, yes! Please come back quickly! You’ve taken all my roots—I’m terrified!”
Edmund didn’t respond.
He vanished toward the fifth level.
He found Lauren quickly.
She rushed forward. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine. Come in with me.”
Lauren blinked. “What? Didn’t you say I couldn’t enter the sixth level? I’ve been hiding like hell out here for days.”
“You can enter now. Hurry.”
Seeing the certainty in his expression, she followed him.
She had expected the sixth level to be colder than the fifth.
Instead, the entrance felt almost like spring.
Warm.
Too warm.
And there was no sea of crimson flowers.
No suffocating vines.
No Dream of Rebirth devouring intruders.
The entire level was barren.
Completely empty.
Except for one timid little red flower standing awkwardly in the distance, rubbing its two leaves together like a nervous child.
Briar nearly fainted from anxiety.
God Venerable brought a little fairy back with him.
Had he told her about its past?
If she knew… would she despise it?
Lauren stared at the strange plant.
“What happened to the man-eating flower you mentioned? Don’t tell me it’s this one.”
“It is,” Edmund replied. “Its name is Briar. It lures living beings into beautiful dreams and turns them into nourishment.”
Briar wanted to dig a three-bedroom house into the ground and bury itself alive.
Please don’t hate me, please don’t hate me—
Lauren took a slow breath.
This timid, quivering little thing… ruled the sixth level?
“Little fairy,” Briar said softly, forcing courage into its voice, “I am God Venerable’s flower. Please guide me.”
Lauren’s eyes widened.
“It talks?”
“Yes. Put it into your inner spatial storage. We need to leave immediately.”
Edmund’s tone sharpened.
“The formation on the seventh level has activated. The extreme cold is spreading outward. It will escalate rapidly. Soon, the entire secret realm will freeze. Pills won’t help. If you’re too slow, you’ll turn into an ice sculpture.”
And frozen cultivators didn’t wake up.
They died.
Lauren could already feel a creeping chill bleeding from the direction of the seventh level.
No time to hesitate.
She swept both Edmund and the little red flower into her inner space and fled.
......
Inside Lauren’s Inner Space
Edmund replanted Briar’s roots into the spiritual soil.
Briar blinked in shock.
“God Venerable… what does this mean?”
First shock: the little female cultivator possessed an inner world.
Second shock: God Venerable had planted its roots inside it.
“I’ve anchored your roots here,” Edmund said calmly. “From now on, you are a being of this space. You will follow her.”
“Huh?”
“What? You’re unwilling?”
Unwilling?
At this point, what choice did it have?
Briar let out a long, dramatic sigh.
“A dragon stranded in shallow waters is mocked by shrimp. A phoenix fallen into a river is no better than a chicken. In my current state, I’m lucky just to be alive. What right do I have to be picky?”
Besides…
If God Venerable chose it, there had to be a reason.
If she was weak now, she wouldn’t remain weak forever.
It wouldn’t suffer in the long run.
“God Venerable,” Briar asked tentatively, “how did you end up like this? Did something happen to you?”
Edmund ignored the question.
Instead, he pointed toward several unprocessed corpses stored in the corner of the inner space.
“Go dispose of those. Bring me the inner cores.”
Briar’s leaves perked up instantly.
“God Venerable… may I use the useless flesh and blood as fertilizer?”
“Sure.”
Briar immediately got to work.
Its vines extended eagerly.
Even if it had sworn reform, fertilizer was fertilizer.
......
The moment Lauren reached the fifth floor, she immediately contacted her fellow disciples.
“The cold is spreading inward from the sixth level. Leave now. Immediately.”
At first, no one took her seriously.
Until they felt it.
The cold rolled in like a living thing—sharp, invasive, bone-deep. Even Fire Spirit Pills failed to hold it back.
That was when panic set in.
Shouting broke out across the fifth level as cultivators scrambled toward the exits.
Even the strange beasts sensed the danger. Though lacking intelligence, their instinct for survival was razor sharp. They stopped attacking and began fleeing with the crowd, stampeding toward the outer levels—even in the dead of night.
But the secret realm had its rules.
Beasts of the fifth floor could not descend to the fourth. Those of the fourth could not reach the third.
They piled up at the boundaries.
And froze.
