The second mountain was called Solitary Sword Peak.
Once, it had been Luo Wuxie's personal cultivation ground. The cliffside cave mansion still bore the grooves of his old sword strikes. The plum tree he had planted with Bai Qingyao on the day they became dao companions still grew at the entrance, its petals eternally frozen mid-fall.
Luo Xinghan stepped onto the peak. The moment his foot touched the snow-covered ground, the entire mountain trembled.
A grand illusion array activated: the Ninefold Heart-Freezing Tribulation Formation. Nine layers of illusion, each crafted from the victim's own memories, regrets, and deepest desires. Even Immortal Ascension experts had gone mad inside it.
The first layer opened like a white curtain.
He stood in the plum garden again. Seventeen-year-old Bai Qingyao, clad in pale blue outer-disciple robes, ran toward him, laughing. Snowflakes caught in her loose white hair. She threw her arms around his neck.
"Senior Brother Wuxie! I broke through to Foundation Establishment today! You promised to dual-cultivate the Frost Lotus Heart Sutra with me when I did!"
Young Luo Wuxie smiled—warm, gentle, the smile lost ten thousand years ago. He lifted her, spinning her once beneath the plum tree. Even the scent of her hair was perfect, just as he remembered.
A black lotus began to form between Luo Xinghan's fingers. Nine Nether Frostflame, ready to erase everything. But the lotus trembled.
For one heartbeat, his hand would not move.
The illusion's girl looked up, eyes bright.
"I will never betray you," she promised. "In this life and every life after."
The frostflame in his palm dimmed.
Then the illusion changed.
The same girl, older now, wearing the Holy Maiden crown, stood atop the Heavenly Sword Platform. Her sword pierced his heart. Tears fell onto his bleeding chest.
"I'm sorry," she cried. "The Heavenly Dao showed me the future. If you ascend, the Northern Domain will fall into the abyss. I have to kill you to save everyone."
Young Luo Wuxie looked at her with forgiveness in his dying eyes.
"I understand, Qingyao. Live well."
The illusion Bai Qingyao screamed as heavenly lightning struck her for killing her beloved. She clawed at her own face until blood ran. The scene looped. Again. Again. Again.
Each time she killed him. Each time she was punished by heaven. Each time she begged him to hate her.
Luo Xinghan's fingers bled where his nails dug into his palms.
The black lotus finally bloomed.
Second Form of the Nine Nether Frostflame — Memory Severance Burial.
The lotus exploded into countless petals. Each petal became a mirror reflecting a different memory:
The day she first called him Senior Brother.
The night of their first kiss beneath the aurora.
The morning he gave her the jade pendant, sealing a drop of his heart-blood inside.
The moment she smiled and accepted the sect's order to harvest his Supreme Frost Constitution.
Every mirror shattered at once. The first layer collapsed. Luo Xinghan did not stop.
The second layer rose. The plum garden burned with ordinary fire, impossible in a world of eternal frost. Bai Qingyao knelt amidst the flames, hair shorn, face scarred by sword strikes.
"If you had chosen the demonic path back then, none of this would have happened," she whispered. "I killed the best version of you. The righteous you. The you who could have saved the world."
She lifted a dagger, cutting her own meridians one by one. Blood painted the snow red.
"Punish me," she begged. "Hate me. Kill me the way I killed you."
The frostflame around Luo Xinghan flickered, shifting between black and pure white.
Mo Cangqiong thundered inside his soul:
"She toys with your heart, boy! Burn the illusion!"
Luo Xinghan's voice was raw.
"Not yet."
He stepped into the flames. They did not touch him. He crouched before the bleeding Bai Qingyao, lifting her chin exactly as he had in the past. Her eyes filled with desperate hope.
He spoke softly.
"Do you know the difference between then and now?"
She shook her head.
His fingers slid to her throat.
"Back then, I loved you more than heaven." His grip tightened. "Now, I will make heaven kneel so I can watch you beg."
His hand closed. The illusion's neck snapped like frozen wood.
Third Form — Heart-Freezing Execution Lotus. A single petal of black frostflame pierced the illusion's heart. The second layer shattered.
He walked on. The remaining seven layers arrived faster, crueler:
Third layer: their wedding that never happened.
Fourth layer: the child they might have had, frozen in her womb and shattered by her own sword.
Fifth layer: Bai Qingyao searching the abyss for his soul fragments, driven mad by guilt.
Each layer tried to drown him in regret, love, pity. Each time, the frostflame answered.
Fourth Form — Eternal Silence of Falling Snow: erased sound and movement.
Fifth Form — Blood Lotus Rebirth: turned his own pain into weapons, cutting the illusion from within.
Sixth Form — Asura's Remorseful Gaze: forced the illusion to feel every second of his ten-thousand-year torture.
By the eighth layer, the formation itself was screaming.
The ninth and final layer opened. Real space folded. Luo Xinghan found himself on the Heavenly Sword Platform again. The real one.
Wind howled. Across from him stood the real Bai Qingyao. White robes spotless. Hair longer than memory. The jade pendant glowed between her collarbones like a second heartbeat. Her face—exactly as he remembered, yet older, carved by ten thousand years of loneliness.
She stared at him. Tears froze on her lashes before they could fall. Her voice trembled:
"Wuxie… is it really you?"
Luo Xinghan said nothing. The distance between them was thirty feet, yet it felt like ten thousand years.
Bai Qingyao stepped forward. The entire sect array locked onto her, ready to protect the Holy Maiden. She raised a hand and dismissed every defense with a single gesture.
Another step. Her sword appeared, the same blade that had killed him. She reversed the grip and offered it to him, hilt first.
"If hatred is what you came back for," she whispered, "then take it. Kill me the way I killed you. Let it be fair."
The wind died. Snow hung motionless in the air.
Luo Xinghan looked at the sword. Then her throat. Then her eyes.
Inside his dantian, the Nine Nether Frostflame surged, reaching the critical point of the Seventh Form — Heaven-Weeping Frostflame Funeral.
If released now, the entire Northern Frost Palace would become a black lotus, sinking into the abyss.
His fingers rose. Frostflame gathered, enough to end everything.
Bai Qingyao closed her eyes. She did not resist. She waited for death.
One breath. Two.
The frostflame dimmed.
Luo Xinghan lowered his hand. His voice carried across every peak, soft, cold, final:
"Not yet."
He turned his back on her.
"Not until you understand what betrayal truly costs."
He stepped off the platform and walked into the sky. Each footstep left a black lotus burning with frostflame colder than death.
Behind him, Bai Qingyao fell to her knees in the snow. The jade pendant cracked in her hands. A single drop of long-frozen heart-blood fell onto the platform. Where it landed, a tiny black lotus bloomed, withered, and bloomed again.