"This is the core spectacle of the Warm Winter Palace, the foremost of the four great palaces of Deep Blue Hell—'Warm Winter.'"
In the pitch-black deep sea a thousand meters beneath the surface, a gentle snow was falling. The snowflakes were exquisitely beautiful six-pointed stars, drifting slowly to the ground to melt. Watching them from the side, Yaxiu felt an inexplicable sense of peace.
He reached out a finger to touch a snowflake. Even though he had prepared himself beforehand, he still spaced out for several seconds, standing dazed in place until Dead Frenzy blew a smoke ring at him, snapping him back to his senses.
"Refraction Guardian didn't even react?" Yaxiu instinctively took a step back from the gentle snowy scene before him. "And I clearly coated my finger with Sanctuary—"
"Yet you still touched Warm Winter."
With her arms crossed over her chest, Dead Frenzy said leisurely, "The snowflakes are merely a diversion; the 'mind' is Warm Winter's true medium. The moment you realize you are within Warm Winter, you will naturally feel it. This is a spectacle that expresses the mind through water arts, and the bedrock that has allowed the Warm Winter Palace to stand firm in Deep Blue Hell for thousands of years."
Yaxiu rubbed his forehead. "During those five seconds just now, I was still conscious, but... how should I put it? I felt completely warm, yet so empty, so hollow, as if nothing in the world mattered anymore..."
"That is the sense of peace."
Dead Frenzy said, "Surrounded by a snowy scene that symbolizes biting cold, your body is enveloped in warmth—carefree, fearless... It's like curling up beneath the blankets on a snowy day. That warm, secure comfort wears away all your will to resist, leaving you wanting only to keep sleeping. Back then, when we plundered the Warm Winter Palace's resources, Black Demon fled the slowest and fell into Warm Winter. She sank into a deep slumber and was captured by the Warm Winter Palace's demigods."
"The only way to break Warm Winter is to flee before coming into contact with it. Otherwise, once trapped within Warm Winter, not even a God-Leader can resist—"
"Wait!" Yaxiu interrupted. "Black Demon was captured by the Warm Winter Palace, and then what happened?"
"Why do you care about that? Hurry up and keep looting."
"You dropped such an explosive bombshell out of nowhere, how could I not care?! Did you go rescue her afterward?"
Dead Frenzy gave him an annoyed glance and said, "Truth be told, we didn't want to save her. Even raiding the Warm Winter Palace's resources required meticulous planning on our part. If we tried to rescue Black Demon, no matter what we did, it would inevitably provoke a direct conflict. The Warm Winter Palace didn't have many members, but the weakest among them had triple-layered hell wings, while we only had double hell wings. Each of us only possessed one or two spectacles; we stood no chance at all.
"Besides, back then Black Demon... already had ten sisters. She never communicated with us, remaining completely immersed in her own inner world. Although there was never any friendship between us to begin with, since she was unwilling to approach us, we certainly weren't going to suck up to her either."
Yaxiu said, "In the end, was it the Observer who persuaded you?"
"Persuaded? Ha." Dead Frenzy sneered. "He straight up spread the news across Deep Blue Hell that the Warm Winter Palace had captured Black Demon. You have to understand, Black Demon also possessed a Supreme Holy Grail. Once other factions caught wind of it, they swarmed over like locusts. Then he led us to use the opportunity to loot the Warm Winter Palace's treasury a second time."
Yaxiu was dumbfounded. "Then what about Black Demon?"
Dead Frenzy said calmly, "Even if we didn't rescue her, she wouldn't really have been in any danger. Though the Warm Winter Palace coveted the Supreme Holy Grail, back then nobody knew how to seize someone else's Supreme Holy Grail... Do you see those plinths over there?"
Yaxiu turned his head to look. Several platinum plinths stood around the plaza, appearing to be pedestals where statues were once displayed, but now they were completely bare.
"The Warm Winter Palace's two most famous spectacles are 'Warm Winter' and 'Winter Soldier.' The former can strip demigods of their ability to resist, while the latter can thoroughly brainwash demigods, turning them into war machines that defend the Warm Winter Palace," Dead Frenzy explained. "It wasn't the Warm Winter Palace's first time creating Winter Soldiers. They were definitely planning to turn Black Demon into a Winter Soldier—whether kept as an enforcer or sold as merchandise, she was a prime choice.
"However, the siege from Deep Blue Hell's various factions gave them no time to convert Black Demon at all. After the Observer led us in cleaning out the treasury, he planted one of the treasures on a demigod from another faction. Then he deliberately triggered a trap left behind in the vault, setting off the alarm. Every dormant Winter Soldier in the Warm Winter Palace awakened in an instant and attacked the demigod carrying the treasure. The other factions assumed the Warm Winter Palace had escalated straight into armed conflict without so much as a word, and the standoff instantly erupted into an all-out war."
Yaxiu asked, "And then you snuck inside to rescue Black Demon?"
"No." Dead Frenzy shook her head again. "The scene back then was utter chaos. We didn't dare enter the Warm Winter Palace, and the Observer didn't bring us inside either. Instead, we returned to our temporary stronghold to wait. I recall Mirror Demon cooked a meal—lobster chowder. Just as it was finished, Black Demon returned.
"She ate with us, and when we divided up the spoils, she took the initiative not to participate. We didn't ask how she broke free from that situation, and she didn't thank us either.
"Disappointed?" Dead Frenzy scoffed. "We were hardly some tight-knit, friendly gang of criminals."
Yaxiu thought about it, then shook his head. "No. While it's a bit surprising, thinking it through, it actually makes a lot of sense. In fact, it sounds pretty cool."
It wasn't mutual aid, but neither was it complete indifference; rather, it was "granting the fallen member a chance to struggle for themselves while securing the interests of the vast majority." The character of the Doomsday Quintet's members, the way they formed their team, and their conflicting interests all doomed them to never extending an unconditional helping hand to their companions. Refraining from kicking someone while they were down was already an immense act of mercy; every person was solely responsible for their own life.
The Observer couldn't possibly have persuaded them to rescue Black Demon, nor did he ever try. Instead, he seized the opportunity to incite a melee, leading everyone to plunder resources in the chaos. Had Black Demon failed to capitalize on the mayhem to escape, they wouldn't have lingered for a second. If she died, so be it.
They banded together merely to lessen the pressure of survival and would never take on extra burdens for someone else. It was like a pack of lone wolves huddling together for warmth to endure a blizzard; whoever froze to death would be abandoned. But when you collapsed, they still had the energy to slap you across the face to wake you up.
Yaxiu finally managed to store "Warm Winter" into his soul Kingdom of Heaven. Watching from the side, Dead Frenzy suddenly remarked, "Later, when we fought our way back to the Warm Winter Palace and defeat was certain, the Palace Master of Warm Winter preferred to destroy the spectacle rather than leave it to us. That became a regret Black Demon frequently grumbled about—for that, she tortured the Palace Master of Warm Winter for three days and three nights until the entire Deep Blue Hell could hear the fellow's wails."
"Black Demon wanted this spectacle?"
"I don't know." Dead Frenzy tapped the cigarette ash off. "She just cared quite a bit about it. After all, it's a unique spectacle that cannot be replicated."
"Eh? Why can't it be replicated?"
"Spectacle ascension." Dead Frenzy uttered a new term. "Whenever sorcery develops to a certain degree, the Void Realm begins to nurture a new secret realm. If there happens to be a public spectacle that possesses exceptional compatibility with the new secret realm at that time, the spectacle will automatically ascend toward becoming a secret realm.
"Ascension is a prolonged process, far too long even for demigods... However, before ascension is completed, the spectacle gains incredible authority. For instance, 'Warm Winter' was originally an ordinary water spectacle, yet now it can unleash mind power that not even a God-Leader can resist. It's just that once such a spectacle collapses, rebuilding it cannot trigger ascension again. That is why spectacles undergoing ascension are called unique spectacles.
"By the way, the moment you put 'Warm Winter' into your soul Kingdom of Heaven, its ascension ceased. It will never again be able to ascend into a secret realm, though it can retain the might of a unique spectacle," Dead Frenzy remarked leisurely. "The critical requirement for a spectacle to trigger ascension is that it must be an unowned spectacle placed in a public world."
Yaxiu opened his mouth, saying dejectedly, "Why do I feel like I just ruined a treasure from the heavens..."
"If you're talking about feelings, you certainly are. But if you're talking about 'Warm Winter,' hardly." Dead Frenzy shook her head. "Even if 'Warm Winter' turned into a secret realm thousands of years from now, what does that have to do with you? Would it snow over your graves?"
"Let's give 'Warm Winter' to the Witch," Yaxiu said. "There must be a reason Black Demon cared about it so much."
"Whatever you want."
Yaxiu entered the palace's interior. He didn't see any knowledge gems dropped upon a demigod's death. The inside of the palace was opulent and grand, but not a shred of cultivation resources had been left behind.
"Aside from the Bone-Chilling Wolf Palace at the very beginning, the subsequent palaces seem to have evacuated in time," Yaxiu said. "If we don't know where they evacuated to, I'm afraid we won't reap any gains beyond the spectacles—"
"They're definitely at the Sea Return Palace," Dead Frenzy stated with certainty. "The Sea Return Palace is a faction renowned throughout Deep Blue Hell for its defensive spectacle. Back then, before we headed to the third layer of Hell, we planned to ransack every faction in Deep Blue Hell, but we simply couldn't budge the Sea Return Palace. Only later did we learn that their spectacle, 'Flow Returning to the Sea,' linked the ocean and their barrier into a single entity. Unless every single drop of water in the entire sea were evaporated, breaching that barrier was utterly impossible."
Yaxiu asked, "Then we—"
"The route I planned for you is to collect spectacles along the way while heading toward the Sea Return Palace. Let's go." Dead Frenzy pushed off lightly with her feet, swimming through the deep sea like a mermaid. "Next stop is the Alchemy Bear Palace."
Yaxiu spread his wings of the void and flew ahead of her, turning upside down to face her. "You guys must have run into danger many times in Hell, right?"
"I don't recall our relationship ever being good enough for idle chatter," Dead Frenzy said coldly. "Either hold out your hands, or get out of my way."
"I'm curious, that's all." Yaxiu swam alongside her and smiled. "Could it be that you were once in dire straits and ended up being rescued by the Observer and the others?"
Sure enough, Dead Frenzy couldn't resist taking the bait. "Me, in dire straits? If I hadn't led the others there in the nick of time that time, the Observer would have died in Hell eight hundred years ago!"
Yaxiu thought to himself that she was surprisingly easy to coax information out of. He asked, "Didn't you all loathe the Observer? Why did you go save him?"
Dead Frenzy glanced at him and remained silent for a long time. Yaxiu thought she wouldn't answer, but once they arrived at the Alchemy Bear Palace, she finally spoke slowly: "Our first cooperation as a team was during the Angel Hunt.
"Back then, we were trapped in ruins, but we had no desire whatsoever to cooperate. In fact, we were on the verge of slaughtering each other right then and there until only one remained: Black Demon and Mirror Demon shared a blood feud; I detested the Observer's duplicitous hypocrisy; and Nether Demon wasn't trusted by a single soul. To win our trust, the Observer sliced open his own chest, froze his heart with ice, ripped it out, and threw it onto the ground.
"He said, 'Any of you can crush it within ten seconds. If I'm still alive after ten seconds, stop and listen to what I have to say.'
"Every time we look back on it, not one of us doesn't regret it," Dead Frenzy said with genuine lament. "Such a precious opportunity slipped right past us... If only one of us had raised a foot and stomped down, everything would have been over.
"But ten seconds passed in a flash—I suspect it was actually only five seconds. Regardless, he survived, and so we gave him a chance.
"He told us he could bring us far greater benefits."
With Dead Frenzy's description, Yaxiu seemed to envision that scene: within the dim ruins on the verge of collapsing at any moment, five figures concealed in shadows huddled together. The trench-coat-clad youth shoved his heart back into his chest, sat cross-legged, tapped his finger against the ground, and said, "I can bring you far greater benefits."
The girl with disheveled hair clutched her head and asked, "Isn't the priority right now how to survive? We're about to die! Everyone here will die! Hahaha, you're finally going to die!"
"I cannot guarantee you will survive," the youth in the trench coat said. "However, if you can seize the opportunity, you can live on through your own strength."
The gloomy-dressed elf asked, "Why should I believe you?"
"I do not need you to believe me, but I ask that you watch my actions," the youth in the trench coat said. "I will create opportunities for you."
The red-haired girl sneered, "Since when were you so kind-hearted?"
"If I don't let you survive, I won't survive either." The youth in the trench coat shook his head. "This has nothing to do with morality or goodness. I still have aspirations. I must survive."
Mirror Demon asked softly with mixed emotions, "Can we still stand shoulder to shoulder?"
"Until death."
Yaxiu snapped out of his reverie and asked, "So did the Observer do it?"
Dead Frenzy took a drag, tilted her head back, and exhaled a plume of smoke. "Why do you think we reached a unanimous agreement to go rescue him?"
Chapter 1140