The Northern Ice Plain had not seen a green leaf in twelve thousand years.
Stretching across five thousand miles of jagged ice-slow crevasses and howling blizzards, the frozen wasteland had claimed the bones of three entire mortal dynasties.
Ages of nomadic ice tribes lived in animal-skin yurts, burning dried yak dung just to keep their children’s fingers from turning black and falling off from frostbite.
“The Northern Freeze is the Ancient Curse of the Frost Phoenix!” a royal envoy from the Northern Glacier tribes declared. It rose from the spectator benches of Tongtian Apex.
He was wrapped in five layers of polar bear fur, his cheeks scarred from ancient wind-burn.
“For ten thousand years,” the envoy yelled toward the card table, “our greatest Shamans and Saint-stage ice fighters have offered blood sacrifices to appease the winter! The frozen ground goes three miles deep! No mortal fire can thaw the earth! To dig into the mantle to wake up the Earth Dragon’s flame is suicide! You’ll release a fiery fire-storm that will burn up the northern cities into melted rock waste!”
Hundreds of wandering rogue fighters nodded fearfully.
Every child in Jiuzhou knew that the earth had two extremes: the freezing void above, and the boiling magma seas below.
