Volume 1: Bo'an Awakening & The Calamity Storm
A cyan-white gale of howling snow swept violently across the granite dueling platform, like a raging blizzard tearing out from the gaping maw of a glacial abyss. Slabs of ash-gray granite, inscribed with arcane runes reinforced to withstand the brutal impacts of magical beasts, emitted horrifying, splintering cracks. Permafrost crystallized at a speed visible to the naked eye, coating the dueling stage in a milky-white glaze an inch thick, its jagged icy edges razor-sharp like thousands of shattered shards of glass.
The ambient temperature throughout the central colosseum of Bo’an City plummeted off a cliff, sinking deep below minus ten degrees Celsius.
Exhaled breaths instantly condensed into thick plumes of white vapor. More than five thousand spectators packing the tiered grandstands hunched their shoulders in unison, pulling their coat collars high, their teeth chattering uncontrollably against the bone-gnawing chill rising from the sunken arena basin.
Up on the highest VIP loge, safely sheltered behind insulated crystal glass and red-hot thermal mana pillars, the patriarch of the Ling Clan—Ling Zhuofeng—leisurely leaned back against his plush, crimson velvet armchair. Raising a cup of snow-flower tea to his lips, his long, narrow eyes squinted with the supreme satisfaction of a grandmaster who already held every piece on the chessboard. Beside him stood Ling Bai, dressed in an immaculate suit, hands thrust deep into his trouser pockets, a venomous, supercilious smirk playing at the corners of his mouth.