Red-Eyed Skeletal Ghouls – extremely durable skeleton warriors that wander the Blacksnow Tundra in groups, hunting down any signs of life that were unlucky enough to cross their paths.


    Disregarding anything more than twenty years ago for the sake of temporal relevance, Zhao Yunxiao noted only eight recorded encounters with these Red-Eyed Skeletal Ghouls, of which only two encounters had resulted in victory over them.


    Seventeen years ago, the then-prime disciple of the Azure Dragon Sect had forcibly suppressed the skeletons by summoning a giant spiritual tree. Not only did he succeed in sealing them away, but his actions also resulted in a small change in the terrain of the Blacksnow Tundra.


    For the years following that, everyone avoided the spiritual tree whenever they wandered into the Blacksnow Tundra, wary of accidentally releasing the skeletons within. It was not until ten years later that the spiritual tree stopped being spotted by participants, assumed to have finally fallen to the annual terrain change of the Four Symbols Mystic Realm.


    Then three years ago, a participant from the Vermilion Bird Sect used a sound-element technique to boost the strength of his party members when facing this same type of skeleton.


    Back then, it had been said that the moment this technique started, the Red-Eyed Skeletal Ghouls immediately descended into a state of chaos, as though they had come face to face with the bane of their existence.


    Their seemingly invincible aura crumbled in an instant, allowing the participants to slay the skeletons that had been suppressing them until then.


    Even Zhao Yunxiao had only noted it down without much expectation, treating it as just another interesting titbit that only had a small possibility of coming in handy in the future.


    And now, three years later, this small bit of knowledge had finally found its use.


    But with nothing else to fall back on, this was already the most viable option that he could give to the Wei Group!


    Under the onslaught of the heavy snowstorm, Zhuang Chan revealed a look of hesitation as her party formed a defensive perimeter around her.


    “


    “


    If they wanted to increase their movement speed in battle, there were plenty of other techniques that would be much more useful than this!


    To top it off, it was not like the sect administrators had never given the wrong instructions.


    “


    But it is not a suitable combat technique!” Zhuang Chan retorted. “If I really go ahead with this, it will only end up draining my energy reserves for no reason. At that point, I would no longer be able to even retreat from these skeletons!”


    As the party leader, she naturally knew of Zhuang Chan’s Spiralhorn War Tune since the latter had used it plenty of times to aid the party in the past. Because of that, she had also been feeling a little confused about the instructions from the sect administrators, though she eventually chose to brush it off by telling herself that perhaps she did not fully understand the technique.


    “


    “


    Tch!” Nuo Qianling glanced at the wooden sword in the distance and furrowed her brows. “Just follow the instructions! We’ll do that while waiting for further instructions to come in. I’m sure they will tell us what to do next!”


    But if they could not even get any benefit after getting exposed, then they would really end up being a laughingstock!


    But... fine! Let’s gamble on this then!” Zhuang Chan still had her doubts, but decided to trust in her party leader’s intuition this time.Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.


    But right now, the psychological impact was minimal on the Wei Group.


    To most people, witnessing the skeleton’s sudden increase in aggression would have brought them instant regret, thinking that their actions had only made their situation worse.


    However, Nuo Qianling did not share that sentiment.


    Now, it was just a matter of determining if this change was truly a good thing for them or not. That was something that they would have to find out for themselves!


    “


    As she spoke, a thick layer of ice formed around her right arm, turning into a long spike, which she immediately used to strike at the nearest Red-Eyed Skeletal Ghoul.


    Prior to this, these skeletons seemed nigh indestructible.


    While the Wei Group members were able to send them back with each strike, these attacks absolutely left no traces on the skeletons’ bodies.


    “


    “


    Now, they had suddenly taken on a much more aggressive posture but were starting to show weaknesses, which meant that the battle was now headed towards a much earlier yet unpredictable conclusion.


    The only question now was whether the Wei Group would end up victorious at the end of this quick battle, or if they would fall to the sheer aggression of the Red-Eyed Skeletal Ghouls.


    Zhao Yunxiao saw the jade tablets vibrating a lot faster than before, and understood that the Wei Group had taken it up a notch in terms of the pace of the battle.


    It would appear that the Spiralhorn War Tune had indeed forced the Red-Eyed Skeletal Ghouls’ violent nature to surface.


    Now, he could only hope that Wei Group would be able to withstand the onslaught that followed.


    After all, there were two main issues here that had to be addressed.


    And then there was the second issue – the black ice pyramid that was supposedly holding the corpse of an old comrade.


    In fact, there had been several such encounters reported in the past, where participants came across treasures encased in black ice but were unable to extract them.


    There had only been one success story – also accomplished seventeen years ago by the then-prime disciple of the Azure Dragon Sect.


    After he had successfully suppressed the Red-Eyed Skeletal Ghouls with the spiritual tree, he similarly came across a black ice pyramid that held an undisclosed treasure within.


    Despite his initial confidence, the repeated failures still made him feel like giving up. In fact, he was just about to leave when he accidentally discovered a strange way to slowly melt away the black ice.


    When the black ice started melting, it released a huge amount of energy that drew in monsters and spiritual beasts from all over the Blacksnow Tundra.


    Zhao Yunxiao felt a headache coming on as he was suddenly faced with a tough decision.