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

When Jiang Ye wrapped Ye Shuli in his cloak, he noticed that the gear fragments in her right palm were seeping into her skin.

The wind of the icy plain swept over their heads, scraping against the bare rocks with a metallic scraping sound.

"This thing is even more sinister than the Soul-Devouring Gu." He brushed his fingertips across the lingering blue light on Ye Shuli's palm, ice crystals condensing into tiny hexagonal grids on her skin. "Are you sure you want to go to the Frostlands in this state?"

Ye Shuli threw off her cloak and stood up. The rising moonlight on the icy plains flowed across the golden patterns on her collarbone. "The 'Mechanical Kingdom' that the leader spoke of before he died is seventy percent similar to the gear structure I saw when I transmigrated." She opened her palm, the phantom of gears faintly appearing and disappearing within the patterns. "The thing that can trigger the jade bracelet's resonance must be obtained before those lurking in the shadows."

Three days later, they stood on the edge of the Frosty Land.

The ice crystals suspended in the cold mist refracted a seven-colored halo, but they suddenly vaporized when they touched Ye Shuli's body by half an inch—her newly awakened energy field was resisting the elemental suppression.

Jiang Ye poked the frozen soil with his sword sheath, and a spiderweb-like blue light immediately appeared beneath the ice shell.

"The energy hub is three zhang underground." Ye Shuli's breath frosted her eyelashes, and the remaining data stream on her wrist suddenly coalesced into an arrow pointing into the depths of the mist. "According to the fluctuation frequency last recorded by the jade bracelet, the elemental core should be..."

A blizzard swept in without warning, and ice crystals condensed in the air to form a three-meter-tall giant.

The frost patterns on the Guardian's armor seemed to move as if alive, freezing Jiang Ye in place with a wave of his hand—the ice spread across the soles of his boots with a clicking sound like gears.

"Step back!" Ye Shuli swung her light blade to cleave through the ice, discovering that Jiang Ye's freezing speed was 0.3 seconds slower than expected.

She stared at the blue light flowing through the gaps in the Guardian's armor, then suddenly raised her voice: "All we need is the secondary energy generated by elemental resonance; it's beneficial and harmless in maintaining the balance of the forbidden zone."

The guardian's pupils shrank to two points of icy blue as twelve icy shards pierced from different angles.

Ye Shuli flipped and leaped onto the suspended ice rock. Sparks flew as the light blade grazed the Guardian's shoulder armor—the flow of those frost patterns was delayed by 0.5 seconds.

"He's charging with the earth's vein energy!" Jiang Ye suddenly threw his sword, the blade wedging into the gap in the guardian's right arm joint.

The ice crystal armor emitted a grinding sound like rusty gears, and the ice storm projectile, which was originally going to hit Ye Shuli, deviated by fifteen degrees.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Ye Shuli moved close to the guardian's back, and her light blade cut three inches into the armor along the patterns.

The elemental flow that should have surged forth instead reversed and rolled back into the ground, and the phantom gear on her wrist suddenly spun wildly—the roar of machinery echoed from the depths of the Frostlands.

"Something's wrong!" As she retreated, an ice spike slashed her left shoulder, and the blood droplet condensed into an eerie golden ice crystal in mid-air. "After each major attack, his energy patterns reset..."

The guardian suddenly opened its arms, and the ice within a radius of 100 meters stood upright like a mirror.

In countless mirrors, Ye Shuli saw the golden patterns on her collarbone glowing, while in the ice mirrors reflecting Jiang Ye, tiny gears were turning deep within his pupils.

The chill in the ice mirror maze stung people's faces.

Ye Shuli stepped on the inverted ice spikes and moved three meters sideways. Suddenly, the data stream on her wrist projected an energy fluctuation curve onto the ice surface.

She noticed that every time the Guardian swung the ice halberd, the frost pattern in the center of the breastplate would extinguish for two seconds.

"Jiang Ye!" She swung her light blade, shattering two ice mirrors, and used the reflected light to gesture towards the northwest corner, "Attack the southeast in three seconds!"

The ice on the sole of the boy's boots suddenly cracked, and the previously frozen sword began to hum.

When the guardian condensed the ice storm again, Ye Shuli deliberately caused the light blade to deviate from its trajectory, and her left shoulder slammed heavily against the ice wall—the golden pattern on her collarbone suddenly dimmed.

The blizzard instantly engulfed the entire space.

A ten-meter-diameter ice tornado, carrying metal fragments, crashed down, but Jiang Ye's sword pierced the ice in the southeast corner the instant the storm took shape.

A muffled thud came from underground as gears jammed, and cracks appeared on the suspended ice mirrors.

"Now!" Ye Shuli wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth, and the gear-like phantom in her palm suddenly rotated in reverse.

The spiritual power erupting from her body vaporized the ice crystals into white mist, and when the golden beam pierced through the center of the storm, it burned a round hole emitting blue smoke on the guardian's breastplate.

The frost giant staggered back two steps, and the ice layer that had frozen Jiang Ye shattered.

The boy rolled and caught the rebounding sword, its blade now covered in glowing ice threads: "His right knee joint's transmission mechanism has a 0.8-second delay!"

Ye Shuli flipped and leaped onto the Guardian's shoulder armor, the light blade piercing three inches into the frost-patterned cracks.

The ice elements that should have been gushing out suddenly flowed back into the earth's veins, and the jade bracelet on her wrist emitted a blinding blue light—the roar of machinery could be heard from the depths of the frozen soil three hundred meters away.

"Watch out!" Jiang Ye suddenly threw out his sword sheath.

The Frost Guardian abandoned its broken giant halberd and used its five fingers to form icy claws to grab at Ye Shuli's neck.

Three bloody streaks exploded on her back, and the splattered blood droplets condensed into golden ice spikes in mid-air.

Taking advantage of the momentum, Ye Shuli slid behind the giant and suddenly remembered her experience visiting the glacier research station during her university years.

She channeled her spiritual energy into the ice beneath her feet, and high-temperature steam instantly erupted from seven directions.

When the frost patterns on the Guardian's armor came into contact with the water mist, they produced a harsh, grinding sound, like rusty gears.

"Metal fatigue caused by temperature difference!" Her eyes lit up, and the light blade suddenly switched to high-frequency vibration mode.

As the guardian swung its claws again, spiderweb-like cracks appeared at the joints covered in ice crystals—the brittle fracture phenomenon I had seen in the physics lab twenty years ago was being reenacted before my eyes.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Jiang Ye inserted his sword into the crack in the ground, and the ice silk wrapped around the sword suddenly tightened.

As the sound of metal breaking came from beneath the permafrost, the Guardian suddenly collapsed to his knees.

Ye Shuli's light blade transformed into a spiral drill, cutting straight into the core along the crack in the armor.

When the icy blue elemental nuclei were exposed to the air, the entire ice field trembled.

The moment Ye Shuli reached out to touch it, the golden patterns on her collarbone suddenly spread out into a chain shape.

The data stream emanating from the jade bracelet resonated with the crystal core, projecting incomplete mechanical blueprints into the air.

"Don't touch those projections!" Jiang Ye suddenly covered his right eye, blue light seeping through his fingers.

The gear-like phantom deep in his pupils perfectly matched a component on the blueprint, as if an invisible magnetic force was pulling them together.

Ye Shuli gritted her teeth and severed the data stream, forcibly taking the frost element into the jade bracelet.

The moment she got her hands on the crystal core, ice crystal armor suddenly condensed on the wound on her left shoulder—but the golden ice spikes were still suspended in mid-air, vaguely forming some kind of unknown rune array.

The remains of the Frost Guardian began to vaporize, and a deafening roar of gears reversing echoed from the depths of the frozen earth.

Jiang Ye pulled Ye Shuli onto the nearest ice rock, and the ground beneath their feet suddenly collapsed into a deep pit with a diameter of 100 meters.

The churning metal parts gleamed coldly at the bottom of the pit, and the outline of some giant machine was faintly visible in the thick fog.

"The teleportation array of the Mechanical God Kingdom." Ye Shuli gripped the still-warm jade bracelet, noticing that the collected ice elements were repelling the previous water and fire elements. "I must get there before the spatial passage fully opens..."

Her words were interrupted by the sudden earthquake.

Twelve ice pillars rose from the edge of the pit, each with a pattern on its surface resembling the golden markings on Ye Shuli's collarbone.

The suspended golden ice cones suddenly changed direction, all pointing towards the southeastern night sky—where a star was moving at a speed that defied the laws of physics.

Jiang Ye suddenly pressed his trembling right eye, and the ice threads on the sword hilt automatically wrapped around Ye Shuli's wrist: "Those ice spikes are marking spatial coordinates!"

Is the jade bracelet getting hot?

"Something appeared on my retina..."

His words were swallowed up by the roar coming from the end of the icy plain.

The ice rock beneath their feet began to tilt, and Ye Shuli's collarbone suddenly emitted a bright light.

The newly collected ice element surged wildly within the jade bracelet, forming a dangerous triangular confrontation with the other two elements within her body.

The mechanical sounds in the crater ceased abruptly as the last fragment of the Frost Guardian vaporized.

But the suspended golden ice cones did not dissipate; instead, they pieced together the shape of half a gear in the night sky—a shape that perfectly matched the giant gear Ye Shuli had seen during her transmigration.