Chapter 6：The Sanctum of Frozen Bones

The biting wind, laden with sulfur and the ghostly wail of blood, shrieked through the narrow ice chute. Lu Chen clung desperately to Tang Xiao's arm, cold and rigid as stone. They plummeted like rocks down the mirror-slick, azure-ice-coated slide. The Abyss-Devouring Flame flickered weakly in his palm, its faint glow illuminating only a few feet—jagged ice walls streaked with eternal azure frost flashed by, reflecting a cold, eerie sheen. Above, the Abyss-Devourer's roar—a blend of fury and annihilation—rumbled like subterranean thunder, shaking loose ice dust, but the distance was growing, the threat muffled by thick rock and ice.

The slide seemed endless, plunging them towards the heart of the Perpetual Frost Wastes. The Source-current's ancient, sorrowful lament pierced the dense strata, echoing faintly from the depths. This time, the hum carried an unmistakable thread of *guidance*, like invisible filaments pulling at the Abyss-Devouring Flame within Lu Chen and his fractured awareness.

Time lost meaning. Then, abruptly, the slide's incline gentled, smoothing into a relatively level expanse of ice.

*THUD! THUD!*

They crashed onto the hard ice. Lu Chen grunted; the violent impact sent the three warring forces within him surging anew. Agony blurred his vision. He pushed himself up, his gaze snapping instantly to Tang Xiao.

The Keeper lay on the cold azure ice, his aura faint as a guttering candle flame. The writhing azure ice now consumed almost his entire right cheek like a frigid death mask. Only the pure obsidian Abyssal Taint on his left face remained, reflecting the abyssal stillness under the frost-flame's weak light. The edges of the Taint seemed sharper now, faint threads of dark crimson pulsing within. The creeping corruption down his neck was stark, a cold shackle. His ice-blue right eye was half-open, pupil dilated, reflecting only the churning darkness of the chute entrance above—utterly vacant.

"Hck..." A barely audible rattle, laced with ice crystals, escaped Tang Xiao's throat. Then, nothing.

Lu Chen's heart sank. Tang Xiao had burned his last echo, become a shield of flesh, hurling him into this chasm's depths for the sake of broken words: *"Source-current's lament... deep... core... find... it... truth."* This cold jailer, this enemy who sought to consume his power, had, in his final moments, pointed the way to survival through his own destruction? A heavy, icy knot of complex emotion lodged in Lu Chen's chest.

He forced his gaze away, scanning the surroundings with heightened vigilance.

Here, the Abyss-Devouring Flame burned brighter. They stood within a cavernous space of staggering immensity! A vaulted ceiling vanished into thick darkness overhead. Monstrous, twisted pillars of azure ice rose like the ribs of a titanic beast, supporting this realm frozen in time immemorial. The pillars weren't smooth; they were layered with wave-like patterns of frozen motion, radiating a deeper, more profound azure luminescence than the rift above, bathing the entire space in an eerie, deep-sea glow.

The air was knife-edge cold, imbued with an ancient aura as if time itself had been frozen solid. The floor was ice-smooth, mirroring the azure glow above and the distorted pillars, inducing vertigo like walking between reality and reflection.

Silence. Absolute silence. Even the Source-current's lament seemed muffled by the thick ice, reduced to a distant, low-pitched background hum.

Yet, the Abyss-Devouring Flame in Lu Chen's palm was unnervingly active. It burned steadily, its azure icy core fathomless, the pale flame cold and vibrant. The etched runes of dark crimson and pitch black pulsed slowly like living things. It leaned, trembling faintly, pointing deeper into the colossal ice cavern, drawn by something kindred.

Lu Chen drew in a lungful of frigid air, suppressing his inner pain and churning emotions. He crouched, heaving Tang Xiao's heavy, stone-cold body onto his back. The Keeper felt weightless, like a bundle of frozen rags over bedrock. He *had* to go forward. For the chance Tang Xiao bought with his death. For the power within him—wild, strange, uncontrollable. For the possible... *truth*.

Following the flame's subtle pull, he walked across the smooth, glacial mirror, step by echoing step, into the heart of the ice cavern. Each footfall resonated in the vast silence, starkly solitary.

Deeper in, the pillars grew thicker, more contorted. The azure light on the ice intensified. The air felt like solidified crystals, each breath a stab of cold. The Source-current's lament seemed closer, its low hum no longer pure pain, but a profound sigh reverberating within this sanctum built of frozen bones.

Finally, the space opened before them.

At the cavern's deepest heart lay not a magma fissure or the Source-core, but a... *sanctum* sculpted from ice!

Dozens of colossal, pillar-like azure ice formations guarded a vast circular platform. The platform wasn't mere ice; it was made of a translucent, obsidian-black mystical ice, radiating a deeper, heavier cold than its surroundings. At the platform's center rose a dais.

Upon the dais, seated upon an icy throne, was not a statue of a god, but... a *skeleton*!

The bones possessed a jade-like, luminous sheen, as if tempered by millennia of frost, yet radiated an indescribable hardness and cold. It sat upright, head bowed slightly, empty sockets "gazing" downward. The skeleton was clad in ancient, shattered armor formed of the same mystical ice, etched with long-forgotten runes symbolizing frost and guardianship. Before it, plunged point-first into the black ice floor, stood a massive crystalline greatsword, its blade webbed with hairline fractures—its tombstone, its final boundary marker.

The skeleton itself, the throne it sat upon, the embedded greatsword, the entire black ice platform—all exuded an overwhelming aura of *stasis*! Not Tang Xiao's aggressive, freezing cold, but a pure, absolute *stillness*! Time seemed meaningless here; space was eternally anchored to the moment the bones were entombed! Even the finest motes of icy dust in the air hung motionless within a certain radius of the dais, like insects trapped in amber!

On Lu Chen's back, the writhing azure ice on Tang Xiao's face surged violently as they neared the skeletal sanctum! The ice spread faster, emitting faint *cracks*, even attempting to encroach on his last slivers of uncovered skin! Conversely, the Abyssal Taint on his left face reacted like prey sensing a predator—the dark crimson veins beneath the obsidian surface flashed and writhed frantically, yet were utterly suppressed, unable to spread further, by the absolute "stasis" field!

The Source-current's lament crescendoed here! Its low hum pounded like a heavy drum against the soul. It didn't emanate from the skeleton, but... from *beneath* the throne! Deep within the black ice platform, there seemed an invisible, colossal "wound," and the lament was its agonized groan!

The hum resonated with boundless sorrow, the tenacity of guardianship, and... a thread of scrutiny and warning for those who came after!

Lu Chen halted, still dozens of paces from the black ice platform. The Abyss-Devouring Flame in his palm flared wildly! It hungered ravenously for the lament's source at the platform's heart—the fount of chaos, its sustenance! But the skeleton's absolute "stasis" field stood like an invisible Wall of Sighs, repelling anything marked by "chaos" and "life"! The dark crimson and black runes on the flame's surface grew agitated; the pale flame churned violently.

As Lu Chen focused, trying to comprehend this unimaginable scene—

*CRACK!*

A sound, impossibly faint yet shattering the profound silence—the fracturing of ice—came from the dais!

Lu Chen's pupils constricted to pinpoints!

Within the empty sockets of the jade-like skeleton seated upon the icy throne, its head bowed low, two points of azure flame ignited without warning!

In the next instant, the skeleton's bowed head began to rise. It moved with glacial slowness, yet carried the weight of mountains and eons.

Two azure flames, like eyes rekindled across untold millennia, pierced the congealed air, locking with cold, emotionless precision onto Lu Chen—standing at the platform's edge, bearing Tang Xiao's frozen form.

An annihilating will—purer, older, more absolute than the Abyss-Devourer's—descended like an invisible glacier, crushing down!