CLANG. CLANG. CLANG.
The three heavy knocks from Gu Changsheng’s [Iron Wok Spatula] rang out against the ten-thousand-foot Sector 6 Astral Ice-Gate.
Each strike sounded like a seasoned iron skillet slamming down on a butcher’s block. Golden kitchen sparks scattered across the ancient blue ice.
High atop the frozen battlements, thirty Heavenly Script Prison Guards froze mid-laugh. Silver wine cups slipped from their numb fingers and clattered down the black stone stairs.
Red spirit wine splashed across the frost. Not a single guard bent down to pick up his cup.
Far below the gate, past eight layers of dark void and howling blizzards, lay the ninth sub-zero level of the Frozen Astral Prison.
Thirty-six black Heavenly Script Chains rattled against the Ten-Thousand-Year Frost Pillar.
Empress Luo Qingxue hung suspended in the dark. Rime ice coated her silver eyelashes and white robes. For three thousand six hundred and fifty days, nothing had reached this depth except cold torture runes and Warden Tianfa’s mocking voice.
