Two Months Earlier...
Winter was still at its peak.
Blizzards raged across the heavens and the earth, making it nearly impossible to see even the palm of your hand if you stretched it out before your face.
Snow covered mountains, valleys, and forests alike, transforming the world into a boundless white wasteland.
And at the heart of that raging storm, a lone figure was advancing with great difficulty.
One step.
Then another.
Snow had accumulated over his body to such an extent that it was difficult to distinguish his features. His dark blue robes were hidden beneath thick layers of ice, while strands of black hair clung to his pale face.
Frost covered his eyebrows and eyelashes until his eyes seemed framed by tiny crystals of ice.
The cold was harsh enough to kill an ordinary human dozens of times over, yet the youth continued onward in silence.
He wrapped his arms around himself, trying to preserve what little warmth remained in his body as he forced his way through the violent winds.
With every step he took, the blizzard seemed to grow even fiercer.
As though the heavens themselves rejected his advance.
Yet the youth did not stop.
Nor did he hesitate.
Not a single emotion appeared on his face.
His golden eyes remained fixed straight ahead, unwavering.
Had Jian Long been present and seen that face...
His heart would have trembled with shock.
For that youth looked exactly like the first person he had ever killed in this world.
Bai Bing Yi.
The same features ,same golden eyes.
Even the cold expression on his face was identical.
It was as if the dead had returned to walk the earth once more.
But the truth was different.
That person was not Bai Bing Yi.
He was his twin brother Bai Bing Zhe.
Four months had passed since Bai Bing Zhe left his clan to hunt down Jian Long and avenge his brother.
It had been a difficult journey.
The information he possessed about Jian Long was pitifully scarce.
At most, he knew that Jian Long was likely a Rank One Gu Master and that he wielded a Metal Spear Gu.
He also knew the direction in which Jian Long had fled.
But even that information had limited value.
By the time Bai Bing Zhe began his pursuit, an entire month had already passed since Jian Long's escape.
With so few clues to follow, and with common sense suggesting that a lone Rank One Gu Master would almost certainly perish in the wilderness, most people would have abandoned the search long ago.
Yet Bai Bing Zhe had never once considered giving up.
For four months, he had continued his pursuit, crossing mountains and forests, risking his life time and time again.
The desire for vengeance burned within him like an undying flame.
Of course, Bai Bing Zhe was not completely reckless.
He was determined, not suicidal.
Even he knew that continuing to march through such a blizzard would only lead to death.
Thus, he altered his course toward what appeared to be the ruins of an ancient village.
He had briefly spotted it atop the mountainside before the storm had grown strong enough to obscure everything from view.
Now, with visibility reduced to almost nothing, it was his only hope.
Perhaps among those ruined buildings, he could find shelter from the merciless winds and survive the night.
As he approached the village, Bai Bing Zhe began to notice something strange.
Peculiar trees lined both sides of the path.
At first, he assumed the snow and ice were distorting their appearance, but the closer he got, the more he felt there was something unnatural about them.
Their trunks were pale white, rough and twisted, to the point that they looked as though they had been carved from enormous bones rather than wood.
He paused for a moment and examined one of them.
"Are these trees unique to this mountain?"
he wondered.
But the cold gnawing at his body left him neither the time nor the strength to investigate further.
So he continued onward.
As he drew nearer to the village, he noticed something else.
Human skeletons.
They were scattered across the snow and along the roadsides, some even tangled among the roots of the white trees.
Time, however, had long since taken its toll on them.
Most of the bones were cracked, broken, or crumbling apart, with some reduced to little more than fragments.
Bai Bing Zhe felt neither fear nor surprise.
Abandoned villages like this were not uncommon in the Gu World.
Wars, beast tides, natural disasters, and attacks from savage creatures could erase an entire settlement overnight.
When that happened, all that remained were ruins and bones.
In fact, the former village of the Bai Clan had now become one of those forgotten places as well.
He continued forward.
As the number of white trees increased and the ruined buildings rose around him, the winds gradually lost some of their strength.
The blizzard became less fierce.
The surroundings also became much clearer.
At last, the village revealed itself in its entirety.
It was completely destroyed.
Not a single house remained intact.
Every roof had collapsed long ago, while the surviving walls were cracked and weathered, looking as though a strong gust of wind could bring them down at any moment.
Bai Bing Zhe frowned.
Most of the buildings were unsuitable even for spending a single night, let alone taking shelter from a storm of this magnitude.
So he continued searching.
He wandered through the ruins for some time before arriving at what appeared to have once been the village's central square.
There, he suddenly stopped.
In the middle of the square lay a massive pit nearly three meters wide.
It looked as though some tremendous force had torn open the earth in the distant past, leaving behind this deep wound.
One of the giant white tree roots stretched across the pit, disappearing into the darkness below.
Bai Bing Zhe cautiously stepped closer.
Then he leaned forward and peered inside.
His eyes narrowed.
At the bottom of the pit was a natural passage leading into an unknown cavern that extended deep beneath the earth.
And perhaps...
that cave would be the best place he could find to shelter from the storm.