Lauren studied the wall again, frowning. The script wasn’t just faded—it was tampered with. Someone had deliberately blurred the carvings.

  “Let’s look around,” she said. “There might be something else here.”

  The others instantly understood what she meant.

  If a Mahayana cultivator had dissolved his body here, there had to be something left behind—treasures, relics, cultivation notes, something.

  They spread out and searched every inch of the cave.

  After a long while, Nash groaned. “You’ve got to be kidding me. All that’s here is that damn ass print and those half-rotted carvings?”

  “It doesn’t make sense!” He threw up his hands. “No way a Mahayana senior leaves nothing behind!”

  He turned to Dante and clapped him on the shoulder. “Dante, check those inscriptions again. Maybe he hid everything and wrote about it in code.”

  Dante shook his head. “No mention of hidden treasure. Only why he came here—and why he chose self-dissolution.”

  “Then why the hell did he choose it?” Nash demanded.

  Dante just looked at him. “….”

  Westin sighed. “Dante already said he can’t say it, Nash. Drop it. Go see what Ms. Lauren’s doing, squatting over there like that.”

  Nash turned—and finally noticed Lauren crouched in a corner, completely still, staring at something on the ground.

  He frowned. “Ms. Lauren, seriously? You’re seventeen and you’re playing with ants?”

  Lauren didn’t respond, only narrowed her eyes at the tiny creature crawling across the stone floor.

  Nash snorted, leaned down, and reached to grab it—

  “Ow! Shit!” He jerked his hand back, shaking it furiously.

  Dante stepped forward. “What happened?”

  Nash winced, rubbing his fingers. “That damn ant is made of ice!”

  Lauren stood, her voice calm. “It’s an Ice Ant. I sensed the cold around it, so I kept watching. If there’s one, there are more. I want to see where it’s going.”

  Westin knelt beside her, studying the tiny frozen creature. “A lone ant usually means it’s foraging. If you want to find the colony fast, give it something to take back.”

  Nash immediately rummaged through his pouch and pulled out a spirit fruit. “Will it eat this?”

  “Put it down and see,” Westin said.

  Nash crushed the fruit in his palm. The rich, sweet scent filled the air, spreading through the cavern.

  Almost instantly, the Ice Ant turned toward the aroma, its crystalline body glinting faintly blue in the light.

  Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

  As soon as the ant’s tiny body brushed against the crushed fruit, the temperature around it plummeted. Before their eyes, frost spread outward in a spiderweb of ice, freezing the entire fruit solid in seconds.

  “Holy shit,” Nash muttered. “That thing’s tiny but ridiculously strong. What happens if there’s a whole swarm of them?”

  As if the heavens had heard him, the ground beside Lauren’s boots shifted. The soil cracked and crumbled as another ice ant crawled out—then another, and another. Within moments, the earth broke open, and a swarm poured forth. The temperature dropped so sharply their breath turned to mist.

  The four of them exchanged wary looks.

  The ice ants were organized, methodical—dozens of them lifting the frozen fruit and hauling it toward their burrow. A biting chill radiated from the hole, the frost creeping outward, freezing the surrounding soil into solid ice.

  Then Nash leaned over the opening and shouted, “Damn, it’s hollow down there! Looks like there’s a lot of space!”

  Before he could say anything else, Dante moved. His sword flashed—a streak of golden light—and pierced the frozen fruit. The sudden motion scattered the ants in every direction, their neat ranks dissolving into chaos.

  If ants could curse, these ones would have. “We worked icy asses off, and you just skewered our dinner.”

  Dante pulled the sword free and tossed the frozen fruit aside. “There’s a big chamber down there,” he said, widening the hole with a few swift strikes until it was large enough to slip through. Without waiting, he dropped inside.

  “Hey, Dante!” Nash shouted from above. “Is that an ant nest down there?”

  “No,” Dante called back. “It’s a stone chamber. Get down here.”

  The others jumped in one after another.

  It wasn’t an ant nest at all—it was a room. A square stone chamber, simple but meticulously arranged, like a cultivator’s retreat. There was a bed, a chair, a cabinet. Bright Light Stones and split ice crystals were embedded in the walls, bathing the space in a cold, white glow. The light made everything gleam, yet the air was so cold it bit at their skin.

  Clusters of ice ants nested on the glowing crystals.

  Lauren looked around thoughtfully. “So the chamber above was just a decoy. The cultivator was actually cultivating down here.”

  Just then, Westin opened a box in the corner—and froze. “Hey, come look at this.”

  They hurried over.

  Inside the box sat a human skeleton, cross-legged in meditation. The bones gleamed faintly, translucent like carved white jade. They were too pure, too flawless—more like art than remains.

  Lauren frowned. “That’s strange. This chamber’s clearly been maintained with ice energy. It should’ve preserved the body completely. Why only bones?”

  “This,” Dante said quietly, “is the body of the senior who self-dissolved. And… she was a woman.”

  That revelation stunned everyone. None of them had expected the reclusive Mahayana cultivator to have been female.

  Dante pressed his palms together, murmured a brief incantation, and motioned for them to close the box.

  Lauren’s eyes lingered on the gleaming bones. She sent a thought through her spiritual link to Edmund. Something’s off. Those bones aren’t ordinary, are they?

  Edmund’s voice came through, faintly irritated. He was still busy digesting the scaly dragon’s gift. Destruction is the beginning of creation. Maybe she dissolved herself to escape Heaven’s will—biding her time to return and reclaim her body. Dante’s right to be cautious. Watch and learn from him.

  Lauren blinked. You’re still not done digesting that thing? It’s been a year.

  No.

  She could almost feel his annoyance.

  Lauren sighed silently. Right. Should’ve known better than to ask.

  Across the chamber, Dante was explaining softly to Nash and Westin why the remains couldn’t be touched.

  After they resealed the box, something clicked. A stone—smooth and palm-sized—popped out from the back of it.

  “Hey,” Nash said, eyes lighting up. “Looks like a mechanism.”

  “Don’t move. Let me handle it.”

  He stepped forward, turned the stone half a rotation to the left, then tugged it halfway out. He twisted it again, this time to the right, and pushed it back in.

  The ground trembled.

  With a deep, grinding rumble, the entire wall behind the box slid backward, revealing a hidden space beyond.

  They stared in stunned silence.

  So it hadn’t been a simple, single-room chamber after all—it was a full complex. Three rooms and a main hall, all carved seamlessly into the underground ice.

  The first smaller room held rows of jade slips, neatly stacked and humming faintly with spiritual energy. The second was filled with weapons and armor—each one radiating a cold, lethal aura.