Chapter 8: On the Brink of Collapse
After a long flight,the land below gradually began to reveal its true face little by little.
The last traces of greenery had disappeared long ago.
And nothing remained beneath them except white.
The mountains were buried beneath the snow.
And the rivers were sealed under the ice.
Even the earth itself looked as though it had sunk into an eternal silence.
What lay beneath them was no longer ordinary land.
But an entire world of ice and snow.
A world without end.
Bleak.
And still with a stillness that resembled death.
The whiteness stretched to the edge of sight.
Snow-covered plains.
Frozen slopes.
And ancient glaciers.
And storms of icy wind sweeping across sky and earth without pause.
This was not merely cold.
It was the cold of the far north.
A cold that crawled into the flesh.
And weighed down the blood.
And slowly seeped into the bones.
Until it felt as though the soul itself had begun to freeze.
The wind howled around the soul tool.
Sharp.
Heavy.
And filled with a savage force that knew no mercy.
As though this world itself rejected every life that tried to set foot upon it.
Inside the soul tool,Ji Lin remained standing steadily.
His eyes were fixed on the frozen land below.
And the endless whiteness was reflected clearly in his eyes.
His expression did not change.
But his eyelids lowered slightly.
And his gaze settled even more.
As though his eyes were silently absorbing that whiteness.
And as though his chest was weighing this cold world without speaking.
As for Mu En,his hand moved slightly over the control point.
The movement was small.
And precise.
But it was enough.
The soul tool slowed at once.
Its hum weakened.
And its speed dropped.
Then it began to descend through the endless curtain of wind and snow.
The far north was one of the most terrifying forbidden regions in the Douluo Continent.
A land ruled by frost and snow for all eternity.
A land where the deadly cold never ceased.
A land where only the strong had the right to survive.
And with a low metallic shudder,the soul tool landed upon the frozen ground.
The gate opened.
And in the very next moment,a terrifying storm of freezing wind rushed inside.
It roared like a beast that had been waiting from the beginning with its mouth open.
Ji Lin stepped down.
And the moment his feet touched the snow,a violent chill surged upward from below.
It climbed rapidly through his legs.
As though the cold had seized his bones before his flesh.
His entire body stiffened.
His shoulders tightened unconsciously.
And his fingers curled slightly at his sides.
The line of his jaw hardened for a brief moment.
And a thin mist spilled from his lips.
The blood in his body seemed to slow.
Even the circulation of spirit power through his meridians grew heavier beneath that crushing cold.
The wind struck his face like knives.
And in that same instant,the exposed skin at the ends of his hands and at his neck felt a sharp,stinging numbness.
A numbness followed by a cold pain.
As though the skin itself were cracking beneath the cruelty of the air.
Even breathing itself became harsh.
Every breath that entered his lungs carried icy pain with it.
And every exhale that left his lips felt heavier than the one before it.
But Ji Lin did not retreat.
His spine remained straight.
And his feet stayed firmly planted on the snow.
Even though the stiffness was still lodged in his muscles.
And even though the cold was slowly pressing against his joints.
He slowly raised his eyes toward the world before him.
Endless snow.
Endless ice.
Endless wind.
A desolate white world.
A world in which no trace of warmth could be seen.
A forbidden land where even the presence of life itself seemed faint and distant.
This was the far north.
Mu En stepped down behind him.
Then stopped half a step away.
Young Master
we have arrived.
Ji Lin did not answer at once.
He only kept looking at that endless white world before him.
And his eyes remained fixed.
But the silence covering his face was not empty.
It was a heavy weight sinking into his chest.
And a cold understanding taking clear shape in his mind.
And in that moment,he understood clearly
that this place was far more terrifying than any description.
And that everything he had heard about it before had been nothing more than a faded picture.
For someone at his level, merely standing here was resistance in itself.
And merely remaining here was a kind of brutal physical training.
Ji Lin looked at Mu En,then gave a slight nod.
Mu En
I am going to search for a suitable spirit beast to become my second spirit ring.
You wait here.
I will not be long.
At the same time,you should begin preparing for the physical training.
Understood.
Mu En fixed his gaze on Ji Lin.
Understood,Young Master.
After Ji Lin heard Mu En's reply,he moved at once.
At the same time,he was speaking with Tian Meng.
Sister Tian Meng
help me find an Ice Silk Worm around three thousand years old.
One that likes to disguise itself as a wolf.
A brief silence followed.
Then Tian Meng's reply came quickly.
Leave this matter to me. Your sister will find it for you.
With Tian Meng's help,Ji Lin carved his way through the ancient layers of ice in the far north.
Until he reached the place where the Ice Silk Worm was hiding.
After a search that lasted around four hours
within that dead white expanse
as though the continent itself had frozen
and then been left there forever
the Ice Silk Worm that had lived for more than three thousand years was killed.
His second spirit ring settled into place.
And the first day ended there.
The next day
in the far north,snow was not the most dangerous thing.
The most dangerous thing was that endless white stillness.
And that cold which did not stop at stinging the skin,but slowly crept into the flesh,then into the bone,then weighed down the entire body until even standing became a burden.
The icy wind tore across the frozen plain without pause.
And its sharp whistling passed over the face,the neck,and the hands as though hidden blades were cutting across them again and again.
Ji Lin stood in the middle of that white world.
His breaths came out uneven in a pale mist.
And Mu En stood before him.
He did not explain much.
And he did not give him long to think.
He merely raised his hand.
And in the next moment,the pressure descended.
Ji Lin's entire body dropped at once.
His knees nearly gave out immediately.
And his back bent against his will.
His chest tightened violently until he felt as though even his breath had been crushed inside his lungs.
It was not merely ordinary weight.
Nor merely suppression from a powerful aura.
It was a sensation as though his whole body had been thrown beneath the depths of a vast sea.
A depth that pressed against skin,flesh, and bone from every direction at the same time.
Trying to crush him slowly.
Steadily.
And without mercy.
Ji Lin's eyes widened abruptly.
And in the first moment,he did not think about the Leakproof Golden Body.
He did not think about the training.
He did not think about anything.
All that swept through him was pain.
His skin felt as though it were being torn apart beneath that terrifying pressure.
And his muscles felt as though they were being wrung from within.
And his bones released a heavy,muffled pain,as though they were being compressed until they screamed.
Then the cruelty of the far north came down on top of all of that.
The icy wind slapped his face.
And the bitter cold bit into his limbs.
His fingers began to grow heavy.
And the feeling in them weakened little by little beneath the freezing.
So what Ji Lin was facing was not Mu En's pressure alone.
Nor the storm of the far north alone.
But both together.
A crushing pressure that wanted to shatter the body.
And a deadly cold that wanted to gnaw away whatever remained of it.
Ji Lin gasped sharply.
But even that gasp was painful.
His chest was too heavy to expand easily.
And every breath became a real struggle.
And with every passing moment,the pressure descended even more.
Steady.
Immense.
As though Mu En did not want him to endure.
But wanted to know exactly when he would break.
Ji Lin's body trembled violently.
His shoulders seized up.
And his arms grew heavy.
Even his vision itself wavered slightly.
And in the middle of that savage crushing,only one thought remained in his mind.
No.
I will not fall.
But Mu En's pressure increased.
Suddenly.
Without warning.
Ji Lin's body sank even lower.
And new cracks appeared beneath his feet across the solid ice.
He felt the air forced out of his chest.
And he felt as though his very bones were about to shatter under this oppression.
The pain had already gone beyond the point that could be endured easily.
Even his thoughts themselves began to blur.
The cold from the outside.
The pressure from every direction.
Even his consciousness itself began to shake.
At that moment,it was no longer a matter of courage or pride.
But survival.
Ji Lin clenched his teeth so hard that blood almost spilled from his mouth.
His fists closed tightly.
The veins in his neck stood out clearly.
And his whole body trembled as though he were about to collapse at any moment.
But Mu En did not lessen the pressure.
He remained standing in his place.
His gaze steady.
As though he were waiting from this body for an answer that could not be taken through words.
One moment passed.
Then another.
Every second was like a complete torment.
The wind did not calm.
The snow did not show mercy.
And the pressure did not decrease.
And just like that,Ji Lin's new life,filled with torment,began.
Five full days.
And yet…Ji Lin did not fall.
His body was still trembling.
His pain was still tearing through him.
And the cold was still creeping into his bones.
But that rapid collapse that had nearly swallowed him at the beginning…began to slow down.
Not because he suddenly understood everything.
And not because he had fully gained control of his condition.
But because his body,under this terrifying crushing force,had begun to cling to itself instinctively.
The muscles that had nearly collapsed began to contract and tighten more.
And the bones that had screamed beneath the weight began to steady themselves under the suppression instead of surrendering to it at once.
And the flesh no longer broke down at the same speed.
Even his breathing,despite its harshness,did not stop.
And here lay the essence of this training.
It was not for Ji Lin to sit and understand the theory.
Nor to calmly arrange everything within his body.
But to be driven to the brink of collapse.
And to force his body,under a pressure that nearly killed him,to draw from its depths a capacity he had never touched before.
Mu En looked at him for a long time.
Then increased the pressure once again.
This time,Ji Lin truly staggered.
His vision blackened for a moment.
His limbs lost even more feeling under the cold.
And the pain in his bones became heavier.
Deeper.
Until it felt as though his entire body had entered a state of real crushing.
He almost fell.
He almost collapsed.
But right at that edge.
At that point where he felt that his body had nothing else left to offer.
A raw surge of endurance burst out of him.
Savage.
Instinctive.
And tore his body away from the edge of falling once again.
He remained standing.
With difficulty.
With trembling.
And with shredded breaths.
But he remained standing.
And in the silence of the storm
amid the endless whiteness
and beneath Mu En's pressure,which had taken the place of the pressure of the ocean depths,
Ji Lin's body truly began to enter this kind of savage physical training.
A training that did not rely on understanding first.
But on crushing first.
On survival.
And on teaching the body,while standing on the edge of collapse,how not to collapse.