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

The roar of the glacier breaking apart pierced the wind and snow, and Ye Shuli's deerskin boots crushed half of a mechanical gear in the ice.

The energy spectrum projected by the jade bracelet floated on her wrist, and in the very center of the ring formed by five red dots, a totem pole cast from black iron pierced the sky.

Jiang Ye used his sword sheath to pry open the snow wolf carcass, which was frozen into an ice sculpture. "The spines of these puppet beasts have all been replaced with drive shafts." As he bent down, the compass in his arms suddenly popped open a hidden compartment, and half of a charred gear flew automatically into the groove at the bottom of the totem pole.

The elemental turbulence cut her face painfully, and Ye Shuli suddenly pressed down on the violently trembling jade bracelet.

Twelve elemental lights illuminated the top of the totem pole, and a man in black robes and a silver crown slowly descended the steps formed of ice crystals. With each step, elemental runes shattered and reformed beneath his feet.

"Using a trap I designed to lure me into a snare?" The leader of the elemental controllers raised his hand to intercept the spinning gears, the metal instantly melting into molten iron. "For three hundred years, every spirit who dared to venture into the elemental forbidden zone has become a base for an ice sculpture."

Ye Shuli used the tip of her sword to flick a shard of ice and smash it towards the light wheel. As the ice crystal pierced the light barrier, it suddenly split into a fireball and ice blades. "An elemental closed loop formed by energy clashes—a low-end version of a modern particle collider." She took three steps forward into the blizzard, her jade bracelet suddenly emitting pale golden light. "Unfortunately, you overlooked a variable."

Seven elemental beams crashed down, and Jiang Ye's sword, which had just been drawn, was pressed back into its sheath by Ye Shuli.

The girl's left hand ignited with crimson flames, and her right hand condensed into an ice cone. The two opposing energies merged into a pale golden vortex as the jade bracelet vibrated.

The moment the twin dragons of ice and fire shattered the pillar of light, the entire snow mountain echoed with the mournful cry of metal fatigue.

"Retreat to the energy node intersection!" Ye Shuli shouted, her hairband being torn off by the hurricane, and the data stream floating in her black hair was completely synchronized with the jade bracelet diagram.

Jiang Ye flipped and leaped onto the frozen pine tree, watching her step against the current through the cracked ice. The golden light blade formed by the fusion of elements cleaved through the elemental turbulence, cutting a charred crack in the corner of the leader's robe.

The totem pole began to vibrate at a high frequency, and the leader coldly crushed the blood droplet in his palm.

The twelve beams of light suddenly twisted into an elemental storm, and magma and hail poured out from the torn spatial rifts.

Ye Shuli suddenly withdrew her sword and retreated, the protective shield formed by the fusion of elements precisely covering the three collapsing energy nodes.

“Your arrogance has ruined you.” She wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth, and the jade bracelet suddenly projected a three-dimensional model of the entire elemental magic circle. “Every attack is amplifying the energy overload in the northwest corner—” The moment the golden light blade pierced the ice, two of the five red dots in the ring suddenly went out.

The elemental storm suddenly collapsed into an energy vortex, and the leader staggered as he steadied himself against the cracked totem pole.

He stared at the jade bracelet on Ye Shuli's wrist, its data flowing, and his pupils suddenly contracted: "You can actually analyze the essence of elements..."

The hum of machinery could be heard from deep within the glacier, and the three red dots that had not yet gone out suddenly began to move toward the center.

Jiang Ye swung his sword from its sheath, shattering the falling ice spikes, but saw Ye Shuli frowning as she stared at the energy diagram—the elemental turbulence that should have dissipated was instead re-condensing in an unusual pattern.

(Continued from above)

The mechanical hum beneath the ice suddenly rose three notes, and the jade bracelet on Ye Shuli's wrist suddenly cracked with spiderweb-like patterns.

The moving red dots on the energy graph suddenly exploded into blood-red spots of light, and the hail and magma that should have dissipated condensed in mid-air into tens of thousands of elemental blades.

"He's turned himself into the core of the formation!" Jiang Ye leaped onto Ye Shuli's side, stepping on the frozen pine branches. His sword sheath precisely shattered three ice blades aimed straight at her back. "This old bastard wants to die with us!"

The Elemental Master leader's tattered robes were merging with the storm as he hovered in the center of a distorted halo of light, twelve elemental runes flowing beneath his skin.

Ye Shuli suddenly grabbed Jiang Ye's wrist, her bloodied fingertips drawing a coordinate quadrant on his palm: "Southwest 30 degrees, three energy pulses per second."

Jiang Ye's words caught in his throat—the girl's eyes shone brightly beneath her blood-stained eyelashes, just like when she first met him and deciphered the ancient tomb's mechanisms.

He held his sword horizontally in front of the two men, and the bronze compass hidden in the hilt suddenly popped out twelve pointers.

“Wandering energy counter-attack.” Ye Shuli wiped away the blood frost that had congealed on the surface of the jade bracelet, and suddenly pulled Jiang Ye to roll sideways.

The spot where they had just stood exploded into a two-meter-diameter vortex of ice and fire, and the flying ice shards cut three bloody marks on Jiang Ye's shoulder.

A hoarse laugh echoed from the elemental storm: "Even your movement trajectory is locked by the elemental tide..." Before he finished speaking, Ye Shuli suddenly stepped on the cracked ice and sprinted back.

As her gold-embroidered skirt swept past the ice spikes, it suddenly burst into crimson flames, precisely burning through three water elemental missiles that were tracking her.

"Single element attack interval 0.7 seconds." Ye Shuli spun around to dodge the rock spikes that protruded from the ground, and the light screen projected by the jade bracelet suddenly covered the entire battlefield.

Jiang Ye saw the red dot representing the leader on the energy graph flashing at a high frequency—each elemental conversion would create an energy vacuum of 0.3 seconds in the southwest direction.

A crisp metallic clanging sound suddenly rang out from the cedar forest.

Jiang Ye's sword sheath shattered seven ice blades in succession, and he hung upside down on the tree branch due to the reaction force.

The bronze compass in his arms suddenly beeped, and all twelve pointers pointed to the coordinates marked by Ye Shuli.

"Now!" Ye Shuli suddenly slammed the ice and fire elements into the ground.

The moment the two opposing energies exploded, Jiang Ye's sword, carrying a bronze compass, pierced the energy vacuum point.

The ice layer, frozen for a century, collapsed with a roar, revealing a mechanical core beneath it, riddled with gears and drive shafts.

The elemental storm suddenly appeared and then paused for a moment.

Ye Shuli's deerskin boots leaped into the air, stepping on the flying gears, and the golden light bursting from the jade bracelet wrapped up the four elements and condensed into a spiral drill.

The leader, who was about to reorganize the elements, had his pupils contract sharply—he saw a mechanical wristwatch peeking out from the girl's torn cuff, the dial numbers jumping in sync with the data stream from the jade bracelet.

"Your formation requires a twelve-element cycle," Ye Shuli's voice pierced the storm, and the drill formed from the fused elements suddenly split into eight streams of light. "But modern mathematics has proven that exceeding seven variables will create a chaotic effect!"

A piercing metallic cracking sound came from the mechanical core.

The halo beneath the leader's feet suddenly twisted into a braided shape, and the magma and hail that were about to condense exploded into elemental fireworks in mid-air.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Jiang Ye threw out three explosive talismans, shattering the last three energy nodes.

"Impossible..." The leader's silver crown shattered into pieces in the energy backlash, and his rune-covered skin began to peel away piece by piece. "I've studied the elemental essence for three hundred years..."

Ye Shuli landed atop the shattered totem pole, a blade of light formed from fused elements piercing his heart: "You forgot the law of conservation of energy." The moment the jade bracelet shattered completely, the storm suddenly collapsed into silver specks of light, much like the starry sky they had traversed that night.

When Jiang Ye caught the falling girl, he noticed that she was clutching half a gear in her palm.

The muffled thud of machinery coming to a halt came from deep within the permafrost; the drive shafts that had been running for three hundred years were turning to dust.

Just as he was about to speak, he suddenly noticed Ye Shuli's eyelashes trembling slightly—ice crystals dripped down her hair, condensing into pale golden patterns on her blood-stained clothes.

“Your jade bracelet…” Jiang Ye reached out to touch the data stream remaining on her wrist, and the light spots suddenly seeped into her skin and disappeared.

Ye Shuli stared at the elemental light spots dissipating in the wind and snow, then suddenly pressed her hand to her chest and frowned—there was an unfamiliar energy flowing through her meridians, much like a certain fluctuation that the jade bracelet had once recorded.

Three hundred miles away, atop a snow-capped mountain, a bronze mirror suddenly reflected the dissipating starlight from the elemental forbidden zone.

A hand adorned with a jade thumb ring traced a golden star trail across the mirror's surface, outlining Ye Shuli's illusory image: "Finally found you, Anomaly."