The Ice Phoenix or Winter Phoenix that appeared in front of Bai Zemin and the others after emerging from the huge magic circle in the sky was beautiful beyond all sense. The Ice Phoenix was not only beautiful but also exuded a kind of aura of noble power that did not allow profanity or impurity near it.
It was approximately 15 meters tall and its wingspan was about 20-25 meters from tip to tip. All its feathers were light blue, but instead of feathers they looked like small delicate crystals that glittered in the glare of the sun's rays in the distance. The feathers of its wings were particularly large, as each one of them was at least 1 meter long and were slightly spaced apart from each other as if forming a kind of wind cutter used to increase its flight speed.
The deep blue eyes of the Ice Phoenix sparkled with almost human intelligence as it slowly emerged from the magic circle. Its beak that curved slightly downward to make swooping attacks easier looked almost as dangerous as its grasping claws; claws that seemed to be made of some kind of extremely dangerous icy iron.
When the Ice Phoenix appeared, the bone dragon immediately seemed to become angry for some reason as it began to roar. Even so, the bone dragon did not attack either out of fear to the phoenix or by order of the Lich King.
Due to the darkness-like attribute and the corroding of its body, the bone dragon and the Ice Phoenix, which was an extremely pure creature that hated impurities, naturally repelled each other.
The Ice Phoenix also looked coldly at the bone dragon but immediately ignored it and set its eyes on Shangguan Bing Xue after a brief glance at the others.
Bai Zemin felt a kind of invisible ripple spreading out as if something or someone was trying to communicate with him. However, he did not hear or understand anything.
"We should go now." Shangguan Bing Xue looked at her mother and said affectionately, "Don't do crazy things... It wasn't easy for us mother and daughter to get back together after great difficulties."
"Don't worry about me and go." Shangguan Xinyue nodded but her eyes stayed fixed on the enemy in front of her. These two were beings she could not ignore let alone overlook, a single mistake was enough to send her to King Yama, and there were many things she wanted to do in this life first.
Bai Zemin followed Shangguan Bing Xue and with a nimble leap landed as soft as a feather on the back of the phoenix. What surprised him a little was that although the Ice Phoenix's surroundings were ringed by a kind of freezing fog that froze the air, its back was warm enough such that an ordinary human didn't have to worry about freezing to death.
Of course, Bai Zemin didn't know that the only reason he felt that way was explicitly because the Ice Phoenix allowed him to and agreed to let him climb on its back. If any other living being tried to touch even a feather of the Ice Phoenix's body they would definitely end up suffering an extremely pitiful fate.
As the Ice Phoenix spread its wings wide open in preparation to start moving, Lich King who had remained silent while activating multiple skills as stealthily as possible finally made its move.
"Do you want to leave? I'm afraid that's not possible." Its raspy, hoarse voice was extremely unpleasant to listen to but its power undeniable. With a wave of the black branch in his right hand, a beam of black light shot out towards Bai Zemin and the others.
This attack was the same attack that the Lich King had used when it tried to kill Shangguan Xinyue using a sneak attack earlier. The speed of the black lightning was really fast, almost comparable to an instantaneous blink, which made it an incredibly difficult magic attack to dodge or defend against.
Bai Zemin was prepared to block the attack when Shangguan Bing Xue stopped him gently, "You don't need to."
Before he could say anything, Bai Zemin was slightly surprised when he felt the Ice Phoenix's body move slightly. The beautiful legendary beast's eyes shone like two small blue suns and the fog around it suddenly expanded as it grew stronger.
Even the air froze to the point where breathing could kill a Second Order soul evolver in a matter of seconds!
When the black beam entered the white mist, the Lich King was dumbfounded as its attack turned into a frozen beam, and in less than 2 seconds, it simply exploded. Fragments of frozen ice slowly rained down from the heights, giving birth to an extremely beautiful sight around the phoenix.
"How can this be possible..." Lich King was a level 210 undead soul evolver, so it knew how powerful its attacks were better than anyone else. Even if its enemies could resist it, Lich King believed that no one except IT would be able to take its attack so naturally!
Suddenly, a cry similar to the sound of nature rang out in the middle of the mutant forest.
The Ice Phoenix spread its beautiful wings wide, and without worrying about anything or anyone it dashed forward. Its speed was so fast that it surprisingly forced Little Snow to give all of herself to barely match it, and in an instant, the two mutant beasts disappeared into the distance like two blurs, one pure white and the other light blue.
Lich King looked in the direction that the humans and their beasts had disappeared. After muttering something, it looked at the human female and the dragon that had been left behind.
"Even though your friends will still die, I have to admit I don't like what just happened."
"Oh~ little baby don't tell me you're going to cry~?" Shangguan Xinyue had a rather sadistic smile on her face as she pointed her index finger at the Lich King in a gesture of invitation to come over, "Before I turn you into dust, I'd like to clear up a misunderstanding, All Bones."
Lich King was an undead, so things like fear or provocation were difficult things to experience. Besides, Lich King had recently been born, so it had yet to experience many things.
"Misunderstanding?"
"A big misunderstanding, yes." Shangguan Xinyue nodded with a serious expression on her face and said gravely as if she was offended by this misunderstanding. "Among the three humans who left, one of them is my daughter and the other is my future hubby. Do you think that mistaking them for my friends is not a great misunderstanding worthy of being punished by death?"
If King Lich was still a normal living being with blood in its body, it would probably have coughed up ten liters of old blood and died right there after hearing what Shangguan Xinyue said with an extremely serious face. Fortunately, however, the Lich King had lost many records when it came back from the dead in exchange for power; among these records were most of its memories and emotions.
"I don't understand what you're saying, but if you want to buy time it won't do you any good." From the body of the Lich King, a kind of purple cloud with black flashes began to grow larger and larger. Two green flames burned in the empty sockets of its skull as it said in a hoarse voice: "Every time I use my strength I need to kill at least one living being, or else I will return to dust as punishment."
"Hahahaha! Is that so? In that case, it's a great relief!" Shangguan Xinyue suddenly burst out laughing after hearing the words of the Lich King. It was as if a great weight had been lifted from her little but beautiful shoulders.
Just when Lich King was confused, thinking that the enemy naively believed that she could survive if she endured long enough after hearing that its body would turn to dust if it did not kill a living being after using its strength, Shangguan Xinyue went through a change that left it in silent stare.
Her beautiful blue eyes, which had been inherited by her daughter, suddenly began to turn blood red. Her already snow-white and porcelain-smooth skin became whiter and softer to the point of shimmering slightly as if thousands of tiny diamonds were embedded in her body. Her fingernails grew to become something similar to claws of approximately twenty centimeters slightly curved inward at the end, and a thin layer of crimson light surrounded her silhouette.
Shangguan Xinyue smiled brightly and a flash of viciousness shone in her eyes. If Shangguan Bing Xue or Bai Zemin were still present they would definitely have jumped in fright at the sight of those four long, shiny fangs that looked out of place with the rest of her small teeth.
"Now I don't have to worry about you wagging your tongue and saying things too much... Oh, that's right, you don't have a tongue! Hahahahahaha! Do you get it?" Shangguan Xinyue burst out laughing. Her laughter echoed everywhere as she said very proud of herself, "I'm really cool no?!"
"... For some reason I'm having a very strange kind of feeling." The green flames in the Lich King's sockets burned brighter as it stared at the human woman in front of it. "It's as if I want to shatter you into a thousand pieces... Feeling like if I don't do something about this feeling I might soon die of suffocation."
"Hahahaha! I didn't know you loved jokes too, All Bones!" Shangguan Xinyue continued to laugh. Her body turned into a blur as she appeared right in front of the bone dragon, and while slashing downwards with her right hand she continued to laugh, "You're already dead and don't take a breath after all!"
There was a piercing screeching sound so unpleasant that those hands extending from the bone dragon's armor shrieked and hid in the darkness of the armor. At the same time, five deep marks appeared on the unprotected head of the bone dragon.
When Shangguan Xinyue retreated, she looked at the marks running from the forehead to the left eye socket of the bone dragon and nodded: "It seems I can still do something after all... Sorry, my friend Bones, but I have to kill you quickly before things get out of hand. Without bitterness."
In the sky, one of the faction Leaders of Higher Existences observed the changes the human female fighting the Lich had just undergone and a peculiar glint shone in his eyes.
"Is this a vampire...? No, it isn't. That's impossible, to begin with."
After taking a better look, this Leader concluded while licking his lips, "A human variant? Although I don't know how such a thing could happen, this female is really interesting."
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