A magical journey of a sharp-tongued woman and a goofy man

The air inside the ice cave condensed into fine frost flowers.

Ye Shuli stared at the dark element pulsating in the black-robed man's palm, a needle-like stinging pain coming from the depths of the crystal core.

Her left hand, hidden behind her back, secretly formed a hand seal, and three elemental chains lurked in her sleeve like venomous snakes.

"This young master seems to have wandered onto the wrong set." Jiang Ye's voice, mixed with the sound of shattering ice, pierced through the air, his dark robe sweeping away the black crystals scattered on the ground.

He pressed down on Ye Shuli's trembling shoulder with one hand, his well-defined knuckles covered with a thin layer of frost. "If you want to steal my young lady's thunder, you'll have to ask the Three Thousand Ice Souls of Snow Soul Spring first."

Suddenly, the amethyst skull in the black-robed man's sleeve emitted a sharp shriek, and the crystal core around Ye Shuli's neck burst out with red light.

Jiang Ye spun around and pulled her into his arms. The ice-blue shield instantly condensed into a hexagonal ice flower, barely blocking the purple lightning shot from the skull's eyes.

Ye Shuli's suddenly pale face was reflected in the spiderweb-like cracks on the surface of the ice shield.

34; Thirty paces southeast. 34; She conjured the flames into a bowstring with her other hand, sparks scorching Jiang Ye's clothes, 34; the third rib of that skull. 34;

Jiang Ye kicked away the ice spikes that had solidified on the ground, and twelve ice blades were precisely embedded in the stalactites at the top of the ice cave.

When the purple lightning struck for the second time, the falling stalagmite struck the skull's gaping jaw.

Ye Shuli's flaming arrow pierced through the gap cleaved by the ice blade, exploding into a shower of golden feathers amidst the crisp sound of the amethyst ribs breaking.

The leader of the elemental controllers gripped the scepter that had been broken in two.

That rascal who always cheats during competitions is now using frost to trace the path of flames for the sharp-tongued girl.

When Ye Shuli was knocked back by the dark element for the third time, Jiang Ye used ice shards to refract seven phantoms on the stone wall, and transformed himself into ice crystals to cover her blood-stained sleeve.

"Switch places!" Jiang Ye suddenly bit his fingertip, and the blood bead drew strange runes on the ice surface.

Without hesitation, Ye Shuli poured the flames into it, and the phantoms of the crimson-gold fire phoenix and the ice-blue giant wolf appeared out of thin air. In the instant they intersected, they tore apart the spatial distortion around the black-robed man.

The leader watched as the bloodstains slowly spread across the ice.

Two hours ago, this girl was trapped in the Ice Thorn Cage, trying to solve the elemental paradox, while that boy was lying outside the barrier, munching on a candied hawthorn and pontificating.

At this moment, they stood back to back in the raging storm of dark elements, their tattered clothes adorned with matching gold thread patterns.

&34; Watch out for the left flank! &34; Ye Shuli suddenly threw out an elemental chain that bound Jiang Ye's waist.

The poisonous mist spewed by the amethyst skull grazed past his ear, carving a deep, smoking crater into the ice.

Jiang Ye then channeled the power of frost back through the chains, freezing her right wrist, which was being corroded by the dark element.

The leader's scepter suddenly glowed faintly.

When the man in black robes summoned the nine-headed shadow serpent, he finally shattered the spectator barrier he had set up with a flick of his finger.

Amidst the Fourth Elder's exclamation, an elemental resonance array, unseen for a thousand years, appeared on the floor of the ice cave—the very array that Ye Shuli had restored yesterday when she deciphered the ancient stele.

The Shadow Serpent's fangs were only half an inch away from their throats when Jiang Ye suddenly felt a burning sensation in his palm.

Ye Shuli's blood-stained fingertips touched the frost rune he had drawn, and the golden-red patterns began to merge with the silver-blue light of the elemental resonance array.

"Seize the opening!" she hissed, the flames rising against the flow of the frost rune.

Jiang Ye's pupils contracted sharply as he saw the dark elemental crystal core rotating around the black-robed man's neck in the instant ice and fire merged—its pattern was exactly the same as the fragments they had found in the ancient tomb yesterday.

The man in black robes suddenly let out a laugh like an owl, and the amethyst skull turned to dust and disappeared into the ground.

The entire ice cave began to tremble, and the roar of glacier collapse came from the direction of Snow Soul Spring.

The dark patterns on his cuffs seemed to move as if alive, and the surge of pressure directly knocked the four elders to the ground.

"The game is over." The dark element solidified into a tangible black tide, bringing an oppressive force ten times more terrifying than before.

Cracks appeared on the surface of Ye Shuli's crystal core, and the ice shield that Jiang Ye supported shattered into powder. Between their clasped hands, the light of ice and fire flickered in the black tide.

The scepter of the Elemental Master leader slammed heavily to the ground, and ancient elemental oath patterns lit up beneath his feet.

But no one noticed that the black-robed man's left hand, hidden in his sleeve, was forming a curse seal that had been lost for a thousand years, facing the direction of the Snow Soul Spring... The ice crystals shattered into blue mist in the violent energy.

Ye Shuli's knees slammed heavily onto the ice, and her palms were scorched black by the dark element.

Jiang Ye's ice shield in front of her cracked into a spiderweb pattern, and a metallic taste rose in his throat.

Remember the jade pendant with the twin fish design from the ancient tomb? She suddenly grabbed Jiang Ye's waistband, her fingertips stained with blood as she drew a talisman on his back. "Divine resonance requires a medium!"

The black tide summoned by the man in black robes transformed into a horde of skeleton soldiers, and the ancient ice on the walls of the ice cave began to peel away.

Jiang Ye wiped the bloodstains from the corner of his mouth with his other hand, and the power of frost flowed back into Ye Shuli's rune patterns.

A golden-blue halo erupted from the point of contact between the two, forming a hemispherical shield the instant the black tide pressed down.

The leader of the elemental controllers suddenly crushed the lapis lazuli at the top of his scepter.

In the instant the Fourth Elder was blasted away, he saw clearly the patterns drawn by Ye Shuli with blood—the very core array pattern that had been missing from the ancient stele yesterday.

"Yin and Yang reversed!" Jiang Ye roared, pushing his frost power to its limit, and white mist rose from the spot where his back was pressed against Ye Shuli's.

The black tide was pushed ten feet away by the suddenly expanding light shield, and the skeleton soldiers formed from dark elements crashed into the ice wall with a screeching sound.

Ye Shuli bit her tongue, spitting out a mist of blood.

Golden-red flames spiraled up along the two people's clasped wrists, twisting with the power of frost to form a blue-gold dual-colored pillar of light.

The dark patterns on the black-robed man's sleeves suddenly twitched violently, and a crack appeared in the crystal core around his neck.

The moment the beam of light pierced through the black tide, a huge gap exploded in the dome of the ice cave.

Before the man in black robes dissipated into black mist, Jiang Ye saw clearly that the missing little finger on his left hand matched perfectly with the broken finger bone they had dug out of the ancient battlefield three days earlier.

"The elemental tide is coming!" one of the four elders exclaimed.

The ancient array diagram that Ye Shuli restored yesterday appeared on the ground of the ice cave. At the original incomplete array eye position, their fused ice and fire energy clusters were now suspended.

The leader of the elemental controllers suddenly inserted his scepter into the eye of the array.

A beam of silvery light spread along the ancient patterns, forcibly suppressing the turbulent elemental currents within a five-meter radius. "The northwest Qian position, where ice and fire share the same origin," he roared hoarsely, veins bulging on his forehead.

Ye Shuli dragged Jiang Ye into the center of the array.

Their tattered clothes fluttered in the turbulent energy flow, revealing identical crescent-shaped birthmarks on their waists.

The moment the ice and fire energy cluster began to collapse, Jiang Ye suddenly pressed his forehead against her brow.

The vortex formed by the turbulent flow of elements suddenly stopped.

Ice-blue and crimson-gold light particles formed a double helix structure around them. Outside the protective shield erected by the four elders, the millennium-old ice was vaporizing at a visible speed.

"It's done!" The fire-elemental elder among the four elders suddenly shattered the jade pendant at his waist.

The energy cluster, having collapsed to its limit, burst forth with dazzling light. A beam of light in both ice and fire broke through the dome of the ice cave, dyeing the clouds a hundred miles away with a magnificent glow.

The dark elemental crystal core left behind by the man in black robes suddenly floated into the air and exploded.

When Jiang Ye reached out to catch Ye Shuli as she fell, he noticed that crystals of ice and fire had formed on the tips of her hair, and that an ice-blue mark with golden patterns had appeared on his palm.

The leader of the elemental controllers suddenly knelt on one knee.

A totem identical to Jiang Ye's palm print appeared at the top of the scepter, and the sound of the glacier refreezing came from the direction of Snow Soul Spring.

When he looked up, Ye Shuli was repairing Jiang Ye's broken breastplate with her burning fingertips.

&34; Northeast direction. &34; Jiang Ye suddenly pressed down on the humming Ice Soul Sword at his waist.

The golden bell on Ye Shuli's wrist moved automatically without wind. The two of them looked at the horizon where the afterglow of the sunset had not yet dissipated—there was a cloud of gray mist swallowing the afterglow of the sunset, and even the space itself was rippled in its path.

The mournful cry of a snow owl echoed from outside the ice cave.

The incantation used by the Fourth Elder to reinforce the protective shield suddenly failed. The leader of the elemental controllers stared at the gray spots that appeared in his palm and plunged his scepter heavily into the ice that was beginning to turn black.