Chapter 360: The Exquisite Maiden
The Roaring Void—Howling Abyss
This is a land of roaring and screaming storms.
It is a dark and dangerous realm, enveloped in mad winds everywhere.
Ubiquitous, the relentless fierce winds carve the world within the Howling Abyss into countless tunnels, creating a plane that resembles a vast cheese riddled with holes—windy, chaotic, and dark, with artificial sources of light that swiftly extinguish ordinary flames, endlessly stealing away warmth and light.
Travelers who inadvertently wander into the Howling Abyss had better pray they are not caught in the storm's epicenter.
The first layer of the Howling Abyss, the Gravel Cavern.
This layer hosts countless massive caverns, most of which are as large as an entire primary material world. Because the caverns are innumerable, the space here seems infinitely vast.
However, compared to the primary material world, ninety-nine percent of the caverns in the Gravel Cavern are uninhabited, filled only with the roaring cold winds—a realm devoid of life.
Only in a few caverns, with enough shelter to block the hurricane's erosion, does some life persist.
For example, in the Gravel Cavern, a cavern known as the Hall of Winter.
Woosh woosh woosh.
Massive icicles crisscross the ground, reaching up to the cavern's ceiling, shimmering with dangerously cold light. Endless storms carrying blizzards sweep through, filling every corner of the Hall of Winter, covering every inch of ground.
Its permanent residents include beings of wind and ice elements, winter wolves, white dragons, frost giants, and ice liches, among others.
In the unceasing blizzard, three adult frost giants, each around seven meters tall, clad in armor, wielding long spears, and accompanied by six adult winter wolves, race through the blinding snow.
Their eyes, piercing through the blizzard, lock onto a mature male white dragon flying unsteadily in mid-air.
The dragon, about sixteen meters from head to tail, is in poor condition. Its abdomen is pierced by a sharp and massive giant spear, and one of its wings is torn, leaking copious amounts of dragon blood. Its flight is erratic, clearly unable to sustain itself much longer.
White dragons, who prefer solitude, often become prey when encountering clan-based frost giants.
Hiss!
Several nearly ten-meter-long ice spears are hurled from the hands of the frost giants.
The severely injured white dragon desperately dodges; although it narrowly evades death, the intense effort further drains its already waning strength.
Both dragons and giants have substantial endurance.
This chase has lasted three days and three nights.
With the keen-smelling winter wolves in tow, the frost giants relentlessly pursue the white dragon, like a haunting presence.
As time passes, the white dragon's movements grow increasingly sluggish.
Hiss!
An ice spear rips through dragon scales, embedding deeply into the dragon's flesh.
Struck as if by lightning, the white dragon can no longer maintain flight and crashes to the ground, creating a deep hole in the snow.
Due to significant blood loss and falling body temperature, the white dragon feels the chilling cold of the Howling Abyss's blizzard for the first time.
Hearing the deep breathing of the winter wolves and seeing the frost giants closing in, the dragon's helmet shows a look of despair, but its eyes still flicker with a last spark of hope.
It struggles to rise, its head bowed, beginning to pray to the deity it worships.
"Great Eternal Dragon of Time, supreme Time Dragon God above,"
"Your faithful servant, the white dragon Eli, begs for your protection, to grant divine grace and help me escape this peril."
"Great Eternal Dragon of Time, I beseech your response."
The white dragon murmurs softly.
The Eternal Dragon of Time, who ascended to godhood during the War of Glory, had his deeds spread even into the Howling Abyss. It is said that this dragon god possesses a trace of white dragon lineage, which is why many white dragons proudly become his followers, including this white dragon Eli.
However, Eli is merely a casual believer, turning to prayer only out of desperation.
As the frost giants draw closer, the light in Eli's eyes dims and extinguishes. The god's gaze spans countless worlds and planes, hearing all followers' prayers, but few receive a response.
Eli, not considering itself a noteworthy true dragon, nor its faith particularly strong, finds it only natural that the Great Eternal Dragon of Time does not respond. Its body, already faintly glowing, thinks this way.
At the same time, the white dragon pauses.
It raises its head to find that the relentless blizzard of the Hall of Winter has inexplicably stilled. The frost giants and winter wolves, dozens of meters away with fierce expressions, also freeze in place.
In this stilled world,
A pair of platinum dragon eyes slowly appears, gazing down
at the scarred white dragon.
"I have heard your plea."
"My follower, fear not, resist not, for my divine power shall protect you."
Within the indifferent divine voice,
Vast and holy power descends, the will of the dragon god forcefully entering the white dragon's body.
The white dragon's body shudders violently, its vacant gaze flickering with divine light, eventually transforming into deep, starry platinum eyes.
As time resumes its flow,
The white dragon Eli, now, the incarnation of divine Garon, remains calm and stands from the snowy pit.
With a gentle wave of its claw,
In an instant and without sound, divine time power sweeps forward, decaying the bodies of the frost giants and winter wolves, who still perceive the white dragon as their prey, scattering them into dust and ashes in the raging storm.
Garon possesses the abilities of the time series, and divine Garon has them too.
However, these are driven by extraordinary divine power. While not as potent as time power itself in equivalent circumstances, they are still easily sufficient to deal with a few adult giants.
Similarly, divine Garon has imparted the time series abilities to Garon's original body.
Surveying his surroundings, divine Garon observes the environment.
This place reminds him of the far northern ice fields, though the storms here are far more ferocious and brutal, the knife-like winds howling incessantly, with a seemingly eternal blizzard.
After resolving the white dragon's pursuers,
The will of divine Garon does not leave this body.
Having a physical body as an incarnation is more convenient than manifesting an extraordinary divine incarnation directly. At this time, the original Garon is still conversing with the Metal Dragon God and has not invested much effort into this avatar.
Suppressing the white dragon's consciousness, causing it to temporarily fall into a slumber within this body, divine Garon looks down at his current form.
Invoking the original body's extraordinary divine power,
Under the enveloping divine radiance, the white dragon's form begins to transform.
In an instant, the obscure white dragon of the Howling Abyss morphs into the widely renowned Eternal Dragon of Time, albeit smaller in size, measuring only about thirty meters in length.
This avatar is not particularly strong, barely demi-god level.
However, divine Garon, though here to confront and accuse, is not here to fight, so an avatar of high legendary strength is sufficient.
If it really came to fighting the Cold Goddess,
Either a way must be found to lure her out of the Winter Realm, or it would require an assault on the divine realm with near-mid divine power strength.
Within a divine realm, a god's combat power generally increases significantly; a lesser god's power can exhibit the level of a typical mid-level god.
Divine Garon does not rush to the Winter Realm.
The silver dragon spreads its wings and takes to the sky, flying high, while taking an interested look at the surroundings.
Everything in sight is engulfed in blizzard. The creatures that can live here all possess extremely high resistance to cold. Ordinary creatures from the far northern ice fields, if brought here, would likely struggle to survive.
Entering a new plane, divine Garon's silver wings brush against the cavern's ceiling, touring the white, snowy landscape.
The environment of the Hall of Winter is so harsh and cruel, yet it still hosts nations belonging to sentient beings, roughly on par with human kingdoms, with the strongest beings being legendary creatures.
Divine Garon sees a kingdom of frost giants and a city of wind elemental beings led by a wind giant.
The white dragon being hunted in the Hall of Winter is not without reason.
Here, dragonkind is scarce, and those present are mostly the weakest of their race, the white dragons, who live independently, making it natural for them to fall to the organized frost giants.
"Dragon Court's reach should not be limited to the primary material world."
After understanding the situation here, divine Garon thinks to himself.
Dragon Court's influence currently centers on the primary material world, centered around a few ancient dragons, with some presence in the star realm, the fire element realm, and the earth element realm, but not as pronounced as in the primary material world.
Other outer planes are even less mentioned.
Like the Howling Abyss here.
If the Hall of Winter had the protection of Dragon Court's legendary dragons, the situation wouldn't be as it is now.
"Primordial white dragons should like this environment."
"It's time to expand Dragon Court's influence in the outer planes."
Divine Garon's form vanishes into the high clouds, looking down indifferently at the frost giant city below.
In the center of the frost giant city, five towering temples stand erect amid the storm, encased in ice.
Four of these temples are engraved with crisscrossing fierce ice spike patterns.
This is the holy emblem of the Frost Giant God Solem.
The last temple bears a holy emblem that resembles a gray diamond wrapped in snowflakes
, indicating the deity worshiped there is the Cold Goddess Olur.
"A frost giant city that worships both Solem and Olur."
"Their relationship is obviously not simple."
Divine Garon thinks to himself.
The Cold Goddess Olur is not a giant and does not belong to the giant god system, but she gains the worship of the frost giants mainly due to her alliance with Solem.
"Let me think, should I destroy this city for some fun?"
Divine Garon murmurs softly, seemingly considering using his divine power to condescend and destroy an ordinary frost giant city for amusement.
Meanwhile,
A surge of extraordinary divine power stirs up, the sharp cold wind suddenly condenses, mixed with the blizzard, forming a slender and well-proportioned ice beauty.
Hearing divine Garon's murmur, the Cold Goddess Olur, who has been quietly observing this incarnation of the Eternal Dragon of Time, finally could not sit still.
Her followers are already few, and her strength is among the weakest of the lesser gods.
Her frost giant followers here are quite important to her, not to be lost.
The Hall of Winter is technically the Cold Goddess's territory, though not a divine realm. As soon as divine Garon manifested here, this goddess noticed his arrival, and Garon likewise did not hide his divine power fluctuations.
As for why divine Garon is here?
Olur is very clear about the reason.
Her covert recruitment of Bai Xian has been discovered.
Besides, she can't think of any other reason for divine Garon's presence here.
"Mighty Time Dragon God, please don't be impulsive."
"Mere mortals are not worth your condescension."
Olur's eyes focus on the silver dragon, speaking softly.
Divine Garon's expression is calm as he turns his head to look at the Cold Goddess.
To be honest, the appearance of the Cold Goddess is quite stunning to divine Garon.
She wears a long dress of snow white and ice blue, her black hair adorned with a crown of ice, small snowflake-shaped ornaments dangling from her translucent earlobes.
Olur's visage resembles that of a sixteen- or seventeen-year-old human maiden, naïve and pure like a pristine crystal of ice, her ice-blue eyes reflecting the endless snowstorm, looking pitiful and quite deceptive.
This goddess is also known as the Ice Maiden, not without reason.
She gives divine Garon the impression of a frost-bound rose with thorns.
Beautiful, but beneath the lovely exterior lies danger.
Divine Garon looks into the Ice Maiden's eyes, seeing her pitiful yet naively charming gaze, and speaks in a deep voice, "Cold Goddess, you should know why I am here."
The Cold Goddess blinks, assuming a fragile demeanor, and speaks softly, "Please calm your anger, I did not mean to offend."
Pausing, she uses a doe-eyed look to gaze at divine Garon, her voice earnest yet seductive, "I meant no harm. Recruiting that white dragon was because I admire your power and reputation, but had no way to approach you, so I resorted to this expedient."
As she speaks, this deceitfully charming evil goddess moves closer to divine Garon.
After reaching a certain distance, she shows a hesitant, somewhat fearful posture, as if she wants to approach but hesitates.
Divine Garon looks at the Cold Goddess, pondering the truth of her words.
From the records of the dragon lineage and the Metal Dragon God's description, he knows this goddess is inherently fickle, evil, and very vain.
Having once been married to the Frost Giant God does not imply she had any true affection for Solem.
According to the Metal Dragon God,
The Frost Giant God Solem was once utterly charmed by the Cold Goddess, who was deeply pampered by him.
He even granted her a part of the giant and cold godly powers, elevating the Cold Goddess to mid-level divine power.
But later, Solem realized that his partner did not love him as deeply as it seemed.
The complete breakdown of the relationship between Solem and the Cold Goddess started when the green-crowned giant god discovered the Cold Goddess secretly liaising with the Storm Overlord Talos.
Of course, this is known only to the gods.
Not wanting to tarnish his own divine authority, Solem did not pursue the matter further, merely retracted the bestowed divine powers and ended their partnership.
Additionally, the Frost Giant God still harbored feelings for Olur, which is why he allowed the frost giants to continue worshipping this goddess.
What's more interesting,
After hooking up with the powerful God of Storm and Destruction, the Cold Goddess was overjoyed, thinking she had found a stronger backer.
Unfortunately, the God of Storm and Destruction is not as easy to fool as the Frost Giant God. While outwardly showing affection for the Cold Goddess, he was quietly plundering her worship.
By the time the Cold Goddess realized the truth
, she had already fallen to the bottom tier of lesser divine power.
Now, she couldn't even leave the Gods of Fury if she wanted to; without their backing, she might not even maintain her lesser god status.
Additionally, if not for some wariness of the giant god system, the Cold Goddess's divine powers might have been completely devoured by the Storm Overlord.
"I swear by my divine essence and authority, I mean you no harm."
Under divine Garon's scrutiny, the Cold Goddess speaks again weakly.
"I truly admire your power."
"If you don't mind, I would be happy to become your partner, to follow you."
"Even if it means becoming your subordinate god, I am willing."
Listening to the Cold Goddess's words, divine Garon strokes his chin, observing the goddess.
Swearing by her own divine essence confirms the truthfulness of her words.
Divine essence is the source of a deity's power, the core of their being. Breaking a vow made on one's divine essence results in a significant drop in divine rank; in the celestial pantheon, this is also referred to as the "heart of the path."
"So you're saying."
"This was your own initiative, without Solem's or Talos's instruction?"
Divine Garon's tone is calm as he inquires.
In the blizzard, the Cold Goddess adopts a weak appearance and nods lightly.
She speaks the truth.
When the Eternal Dragon of Time replaced the gods of destiny and history, ascending to godhood, this news spread instantly across the endless planes, and the Cold Goddess Olur in the Howling Abyss also heard of the Time Dragon's fame.
This newly risen dragon god undoubtedly has the potential to become a peak being in the multiverse.
At least, his future will not be weaker than the Storm Overlord Talos.
Olur wants to break free from the control of the God of Storm and Destruction, and after much thought, she targets the giant god system's archenemy, the newly risen Eternal Dragon of Time in the dragon god system.
Through the snowstorms of the far northern ice fields, Olur learns of the Time Dragon's past.
She realizes that the Time Dragon is not an evil god but a neutral dragon god who clearly distinguishes love from hate. If she can attach herself to the dragon god system, which is currently flourishing, it would be far better than staying in the Gods of Fury.
Thus, this scheming goddess orchestrates the events leading to divine Garon's descent into the Howling Abyss.
"To be my partner, you are not yet qualified."
Divine Garon says bluntly.
Hearing divine Garon's words, Olur does not react angrily but maintains a pitiful, weak demeanor, apologizing in a regretful tone, "I am sorry for disturbing you with my admiration."
"I know I am not qualified."
"But I hope you remember, whenever you are in the Howling Abyss, there is a goddess who listens to your deeds and admires your radiance."
Seeing the Cold Goddess's demeanor, divine Garon somewhat understands why the Frost Giant God was manipulated.
Giants and dragons both have dominant personalities and are somewhat vain; they appreciate the Cold Goddess's attitude.
After careful consideration, divine Garon speaks, "Let's not mention partnership again, but if you wish to become my subordinate god, I offer you this opportunity."
At this moment, divine Garon is also a lesser god.
Having a subordinate god who is also a lesser god would be unprecedented in the multiverse, recorded in all divine scriptures.
For instance, the god Kurmak serves as a subordinate god to both the Undying Dragon Queen and the Metal Dragon God, obeying the commands of both dragon gods.
Similarly, the lesser god Azus, god of magic, serves as a subordinate to the Goddess of Magic.
Moreover, a portion of a subordinate god's worship power is transferred to the superior deity.
After hearing divine Garon's words, Olur is overjoyed. Looking up at the towering dragon above her, she speaks softly, "Thank you for your mercy. From now on, I will follow your footsteps."
"My followers will be your followers."
First becoming a subordinate god, belonging to the same faction, then slowly finding a way to capture the heart of the Time Dragon.
This is Olur's plan.
Divine Garon chuckles, saying, "I've only given you an opportunity, but whether you can seize it is up to you."
Olur looks puzzled, asking, "What do you mean?"
Divine Garon's gaze narrows slightly, he explains slowly, "Next, you must completely sever ties with Talos and leave the Gods of Fury."
"With you by my side, I will not fear Talos's fury."
The Ice Maiden looks up at divine Garon with admiring eyes, her gaze sparkling.
As for whether she is sincere, that remains uncertain.
Divine Garon shakes his head slightly, saying, "You see, the problem now is, I won
't acknowledge our relationship, and you can't proclaim yourself as my subordinate god."
Olur whispers, "In that case, Talos won't let me go."
Without strong support, Olur cannot break free from the control of the Storm Overlord.
Divine Garon grins, suggesting, "So, you should reconcile with Solem and seek the protection of the giant god system."
"Solem still harbors feelings for you; I believe you have enough ability to recapture the heart of the Frost Giant God."
No need to say more, the still-standing temples of the Cold Goddess in the frost giant city speak volumes.
Olur hesitates.
She is unsure whether Solem would be willing to oppose the Storm Overlord for her sake.
Solem is a mid-level god, inherently incomparable to the Storm Overlord.
"If Solem ignores you."
"Then, I will appeal to all gods that you have become my subordinate god, part of the dragon god system."
"I believe Talos knows better."
Divine Garon sees Olur's hesitation and assures her.
With divine Garon's promise, Olur feels reassured.
The Ice Maiden's eyes dance, and she smiles sweetly at divine Garon, like a flower blooming in a snowy day, saying, "I am willing to serve you, my lord."
This "lord" does not refer to the head of a god system but is similar to how mortals address their master.
As they speak, a gust of cold wind blows unintentionally, lifting the Cold Goddess's skirt, revealing large expanses of delicate, snowy white scenery.
Divine Garon ignores Olur's flirtatious display.
"Alright, now bring out the Extreme Cold Crystals stored in your divine realm; I have a use for them."
Olur's smile stiffens.
She hasn't received any benefits yet but is already expected to give up her divine realm's treasures.
Fortunately, her resolve is strong, and she quickly recovers, then under divine Garon's somewhat amused gaze, she says, "You've seen, I am quite attached to the Extreme Cold Crystals."
"But for you, my lord, I am willing to give you all the Extreme Cold Crystals."
To secure a powerful ally, Olur is all in.
Divine Garon nods, following up on Olur's words, "Alright, bring them all then."
It's the 25th; time to use up those monthly tickets—a gentle reminder from the author.
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