“Boom~”

　　The stone giant was very proud of this magical technique of his that could blow up space. In addition, he wanted to directly kill, or severely injure, White with this move. Therefore, the amount of energy he poured inside was very high. In layman’s terms, that thing was overloaded with explosives.

　　The magical technique successfully traveled through the space passage and arrived beside the metallic ball. Then, it smoothly detonated. Its fate was pretty good, and it didn’t fail to explode just because the ruler of the Netherworld was nearby.

　　“Boom~” On that screen made of fragments of black metal, the bodies of the metallic ball and the nearby demons disappeared amidst the powerful explosions.

　　Although a spatial explosion would be unable to injure the ball of liquid metal, it could at least annoy it.

　　Song Shuhang could only think of one thing right now.

　　What a beautiful explosion!

　　My fierce elder brother, how do you feel about throwing a bomb in the face of the ruler of the Netherworld?

　　As the stone giant turned around to throw the bomb into the space passage, the strength of the spatial interference around Song Shuhang diminished.

　　Song Shuhang’s Inner World was once again able to break through the interference!

　　❄️❄️❄️

　　“Ahahaha.” After throwing the bomb into the passage, the stone giant destroyed the channel connecting the Netherworld Realm to the main world. Then, he interfered with space again so as to prevent the power of the spatial explosion from traveling to his position.

　　After he was done, he looked at Song Shuhang and grabbed him. “Now, it’s your turn.”

　　The inextinguishable heavenly fire burning on his hand wrapped around Song Shuhang, starting to burn on his body.

　　But, possibly because Song Shuhang had used the Flaming Saber Technique earlier and received the approval of the heavenly fire, the unextinguishable flames didn’t burn him to ashes after sticking to his body. They only wrapped around him without injuring him.

　　At this time, Song Shuhang said, “Wait a moment, didn’t you say that you wanted the Palace of Winter?”

　　If the stone giant paid attention, he would notice that Song Shuhang’s voice sounded somewhat weak right now.

　　“Hehehe, you have the Palace of Winter. Just now, I briefly sensed the aura of the palace from your body. As long as I kill you, I’ll be able to retrieve the Palace of Winter from your corpse,” the stone giant said.

　　“No, wait a moment. I can guarantee you that you won’t be able to get the Palace of Winter even after killing me,” Song Shuhang said.

　　“Hehe, I won’t let you stall any longer. Actually, as far as I’m concerned, the Palace of Winter is dispensable.” After saying this much, the stone giant clenched the hand holding Song Shuhang.

　　The grip of the stone giant was strong enough to kill a Seventh Stage Venerable, let alone a small cultivator of the Third Stage like Song Shuhang.

　　“Aaaaaah~” Song Shuhang called out in pain as the grip around his body tightened.

　　Then, a cracking sound echoed, and his body was crushed.

　　Red blood flowed from the gap between the fingers of the giant. Song Shuhang tilted his head to one side, and stopped breathing.

　　During the whole process, his ghost spirit—Ye Si—and the virtuous lamia didn’t come out.

　　The stone giant looked at the lifeless Song Shuhang, seemingly very satisfied.

　　Given the level of his strength, he could faintly sense things like ‘fate’.

　　As such, he could feel that the fate of this small cultivator was incredible, and at least in the near future, he would have very good luck.

　　While dealing with these cultivators with extremely good luck, one couldn’t afford to waste time with useless talk, and had to kill them as soon as possible. Otherwise, if one kept wasting time, there was a chance their luck might start taking effect, allowing them to find a way to escape even when cornered.

　　From the looks of it, the stone giant was very experienced when it came to dealing with cultivators with great luck.

　　“Even if his luck goes against the heavens, a dead man is still a dead man.” The stone giant cast Song Shuhang’s corpse aside.

　　❄️❄️❄️

　　In the Inner World.

　　Ye Si said, “Shuhang, you really looked pitiful when you got crushed to death. Hearing that cracking sound made me feel sad.”

　　Little Cai said, “Teacher, do you want me to use a soul ferrying technique on your corpse?”

　　“What ferrying technique!” Song Shuhang stretched out his finger and flicked Little Cai away.

　　Then, he kept looking at the changes happening in the outside world through his ‘corpse’.

　　Actually, the one crushed to death wasn’t Song Shuhang’s main body, but the materialized virtuous lamia.

　　Song Shuhang discovered just now that the virtuous lamia could assume his appearance! Outward appearance, aura, realm… everything was the same. He could even transmit his voice through her body at short distances.

　　Earlier, when the Inner World broke free of the spatial interference, Song Shuhang immediately moved his main body to the Inner World.

　　But just as he was teleporting, he left the virtuous lamia behind.

　　The virtuous lamia was just solidified light of virtue, and she wouldn’t die as long as Song Shuhang’s main body didn’t die. Even if she was crushed to pieces, she would again reform in Song Shuhang’s body in a short while.

　　Therefore, Song Shuhang had left the virtuous lamia behind so that she could act as his eyes. The stone giant had acted on impulse, throwing a bomb in the face of the ruler of the Netherworld Realm… and there was no way the ball of liquid metal would restrain its anger and keep silent. Therefore, the metallic ball was surely going to retaliate against the stone giant.

　　Song Shuhang’s original plan was to let the virtuous lamia hide somewhere close to his body, letting her act as a monitoring device to look at the changes happening in the glacial world.

　　But, little did he expect that she would directly assume his appearance and take his place.

　　Was it that all materialized light of virtue possessed this ability…?

　　Afterward… the virtuous lamia, who had assumed Song Shuhang’s appearance, was mercilessly crushed to death.

　　While looking at ‘himself’ getting crushed to death, Shuhang felt pain well up in his heart.

　　Even after ‘dying’, the virtuous lamia didn’t disappear, and kept lying on the ground, playing the role of a corpse.

　　However, she didn’t forget about acting as a ‘monitoring device’ and relaying everything she saw to Song Shuhang in the Inner World even while pretending to be his corpse.

　　❄️❄️❄️

　　In the glacial world, the body of the stone giant was again covered with thick rocks, just like when he had first made his appearance.

　　He gazed at that screen made of black metal on the ground and fell into deep thought. After a short moment, he stretched out his hand to pick it up.

　　But right at this time… space gates appeared one after another all around the stone giant.

　　Ten or so space gates had opened in quick succession, completely surrounding the giant.

　　Standing on the other side of the space gates were demons shrouded in the energy native to the Netherworld Realm. Each and every one of those demons was a demon of the Ninth Stage Tribulation Transcender rank.

　　In the next moment, the demons moved their arms in unison and threw out tens of black chains that tightly bound the stone giant.

　　The heart of the stone giant shook. He had a very bad feeling.

　　He shouted and got rid of the layer of stone covering his body on his own initiative. In the next moment, the inextinguishable heavenly fire traveled along the chains binding his body and headed toward the various demons of the Ninth Stage…