The Absolute North, one of the most dangerous places on the Douluo Continent. There were two reasons. The first one was because of the extreme weather conditions, it was too cold at the Absolute North as entire region was covered with blanket of frozen ice, which made it almost impossible for anyone to survive in those freezing conditions.
Humans and most of the Spirit Beasts couldn't survive in those chilly temperatures and there was no food or water due to those bitter conditions. The only living beings that survived in those inhuman conditions, was the Spirit Beasts that were naturally born in it.
The second reason was exactly those beasts. Beasts born in those bleak habitats were naturally stronger than average beasts, while there were three incredibly powerful beasts ruled over the entire Absolute North, known as Ice Emperor. These Ice emperors were one of the strongest creatures in the whole continent.
Ryusei was confident that he could take on any beast other than the three Emperors in this Absolute North. Even against Ice Emperors, he was confident that he could escape with Rongrong safely. That's why he was bold enough to venture one of the most dangerous places in the continent.
After reaching a town near Absolute North, they sold their horses and started moving towards the Absolute Domain. Ryusei covered Rongrong with a layer of Spirit Energy to protect her from the cold. Even though her clothes prevented her body from chilly winds, she still felt cold temperatures because the breathing air felt like it was coming out of a freezer.
Also, her Spirit Bones provided some protection using its Red Lightning inside the bones and destroying any foreign element that entered her body. But even it didn't make her immune to the cold as she still felt the chilly wind blasting to her face.
That's why, Ryusei was using his Spirit Energy to disperse coldness from her body while protecting her from the chill simultaneously.
Strangely though, he himself wasn't feeling any cold even in this frosty environment, in fact, he was feeling rejuvenated. It was as if like the entire region was supplying its energy to Ryusei and converting the cold energy to his Spirit Energy.
It was the one of purest energies he had ever absorbed. Most likely because this was devoid of life other than naturally born Spirit Beasts, so the energy wasn't polluted and it was present in abundance.
He knew that it was most probably because of his Azure Dragon Spirit because as far as he knew, his Purple Lightning Dragon Spirit didn't have such Ability. Only the Azure Dragon Spirit was mysterious enough to have such an ability.
After they travelled for some time, a howl reverberated near them. The howl sounded like it came from a mighty wolf. So, he deduced that it might be the Ice Wolf King and started following to the place of its origin.
'Judging by the pitch of the howl, it should be close, perhaps only a kilometre or so. From what I know about the wolves, a wolf always likes travelling and hunting in packs i.e. if it hasn't been abandoned by the packs.' Ryusei thought while moving towards it.
'And this Howl sounded more like a signal for the other wolves to ask for help. Then that means that the Wolf is fighting another Beast which is stronger than itself but it believes that they can defeat the enemy by ganging up on it. Looks like it would be a good idea to not interfere in their battle.'
"Let's go near the source of that howl and observe the situation. I wonder what is happening right now." Ryusei said to Rongrong in a hushed voice.
Rongrong nodded and replied, "Maybe we can gain some benefits and gather some Spirit Bones for the members of the Eclipse Pagoda." Ryusei was left tongue-tied after hearing her suggestion, it slipped his mind that he could gather Spirit Bones for the members of the Eclipse Pagoda.
He didn't want to massacre a Spirit Beasts but he won't interfere in their fights. It wouldn't be bad to get his hands on some benefits. He smiled and both of them started moving closer to the source of Wolf's howl.
They arrived near a valley as they were on a higher level and looked down. They saw a fatigued Silver Ice Wolf glaring at the huge Beast in front of it. It was a huge Lion, and not just any lion, a rare dual attributed Lion with Ice and Wind attributes. It was a Ice Lion. It's skin was snow white with a dense silver haired mane around its neck, while it had wings. The name of this Lion was Winged Ice Lion King.
It had the potential to become one of the strongest in the whole of the Absolute North comparable to the Ice Emperors, but it was too young right now and had recently broken through to the 1000-year-old bottleneck. Just after the breakthrough, it was attacked by this greedy wolf and after the fighting for half an hour, the Lion was winning, but the cowardly wolf howled calling out for its allies.
The Winged Ice Lion King was not an idiot, it possessed some intelligence. It knew that it won't be able to fight a pack of wolves, so it turned around to escape but the Silver Ice Wolf King's eyes glowed with a Blue Light and the Lion King's body froze for a moment.
Ryusei keenly observed this ability and noticed Lion King's state. He determined that Wolf King used its Spiritual Attribute Ability and attacked Lion King's unprotected soul. It was as if Lion King was stunned.
He sighed in relief as he knew that it was indeed worth coming here as the Silver Ice Wolf King seems to be a dual attributed itself with Ice and Spiritual Attribute. Ryusei then quickly noted down the time it took for the Lion King to recover from it's stunned state.
The Lion King remained petrified close to a 5 seconds, this shocked him to the core as he gazed intently towards the Silver Ice Wolf King. He knew that it was just a 2000-year-old Spirit Beast, but it could actually stun a Winged Ice Lion King for about a minute.
He then heard the sound of many footsteps coming from behind the Wolf King. Ryusei and Rongrong saw many wolves running towards the Lion King and the Wolf King. Ryusei counted the number of wolves, there were close to 10 wolves that had come as reinforcement for that single Silver Ice Wolf King.
The Winged Ice Lion King recovered from the soul attack by the time other wolves arrived, and tried to escape by flying in the air so that it could outrun the wolves. It flew rapidly and the wolves weren't able to follow it in the air.
But the Silver Ice Wolf King who was trying to gain its energy back till now, started gathering a large amount of ice energy in its mouth and released that a huge Ice Beam towards the Winged Ice Lion King with every ounce of its remaining Spirit Energy. The Ice Lion King sensed the oncoming attack and tried to dodge the attack by tilting itself to one side, but the Ice Beam was too fast and still grazed a wing of the Ice Lion King.
The Ice Beam froze the left wing of the Winged Ice Lion King due to which the Lion King crashed down to the ground creating a small crater. The Lion King was angered by this attack and looked furiously at Wolves while it released an extremely peculiar and formidable energy from its body.
Suddenly, a large amount of Ice Energy gathered around and covered the Lion King's body. It jumped in the air. The Wolves looked upwards and sensed danger as they jumped away trying to dodge the attack.
The Ice Lion once again crashed heavily onto the ground and created a huge explosion in the surrounding, the Ice Energy covering the Lion broke apart and turned into a sharp spiky Icicles, hitting all the 11 wolves around him.
All the wolves got hit by those Icicles, causing them heavy injuries. They started bleeding profusely from their wounds. It wasn't just the wolves that were in bad shape, even the Winged Ice Lion King was heavily injured after crashing twice to the ground.
Its Spirit Energy too was depleted and there were numerous wounds on its huge body. Even though it was on its last breath, it still looked proudly at the dying wolves with a satisfied expression. It's pride didn't allow him to die alone while it's enemies reaped benefits from his corpse. It feels felt peaceful knowing that he took the enemy with him.
Ryusei shook his head as he knew that if the Lion died like this then the chances of it leaving behind a Spirit Bone would be minimal. He turned towards Rongrong with a apologizing look and said softly in her ears, "Don't hate me for what I am about to do."
Rongrong was surprised at hearing his voice and looked with confusion at him as to what he meant by them. But he already left before she could even speak.
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