LONG TIAN: THE DRAGON'S SECOND CHANCE

Ch 4

The girl slowly descended.

Her eyes were cold.

Her gaze swept across the entire battlefield.

"I am not interested in the reason you came here. I do not care whether you want the manual, seek revenge, or simply want to witness someone's death. Devil Mountain is not a place I want to turn into a slaughterhouse tonight, so I will give you a chance to leave.

"Within three breaths, anyone who is still standing here will be considered to have chosen death. Do not think I am joking simply because I am a woman. If you know me, you should know that I never give a second warning."

Everyone immediately lowered their heads.

No one dared to argue.

However, the young man who had praised Long Tian earlier looked at the girl with shining eyes.

He smiled and said, "So you really are the Lord of the Ice Island, Mu Xueying? Rumor has it that your beauty is unrivaled throughout the world, but the rumors are still too simple to describe your face. Now that I have seen you in person, I even feel that the poets were too stingy when they wrote your name into their poems. If I had known that the Lord of the Ice Island possessed such beauty, perhaps I would have come here sooner."

Mu Xueying did not answer.

Only a chilling aura emerged from her body.

In an instant, a layer of ice spread from the young man's feet until it covered his entire body.

His smile froze.

His body turned into an ice statue.

Crack!

The body then shattered and fell into countless small fragments on the ground.

No one dared to breathe too loudly.

Mu Xueying did not even glance at his remains.

Seeing this, all the remaining experts immediately turned around and fled as quickly as possible.

They no longer cared about Long Tian.

They no longer cared about the manual.

All they wanted now was to get as far away from that place as possible.

Amid the silence, one of the people who remained there unconsciously said, "Madam..."

Mu Xueying raised an eyebrow.

"Madam? I am not married. Call me Miss."

Long Tian, who was still standing with his body covered in wounds, suddenly let out a soft laugh.

"Miss... you really still have the same personality as before. I am almost dead, yet you still have time to correct the way someone addresses you. But I have to thank you for coming. If you came for the Dragon God Cultivation Manual, I am afraid you are too late. The manual has already turned to ashes, and not a single page remains."

Mu Xueying looked at him.

"I did not come for the manual. I came because I heard that you were here. We belong to the same generation, Long Tian. Although the paths we have taken are different, I did not want to see someone from my generation die without anyone knowing who he truly was.

"Unfortunately, it seems I still arrived too late. Your body has already reached its limit, and even if I wanted to save you now, there is nothing I can do to stop the death standing before your eyes."

Long Tian fell silent.

For the first time that night, his expression changed.

He stared at Mu Xueying for a long time before finally smiling.

"So you did not come for the manual... but simply because we belong to the same generation?"

"Hahaha... I never expected that there would still be someone who remembered something like that."

"Thank you, Miss Xueying. If there is another life, I hope that I will not spend my entire life chasing revenge. If I have the chance to meet you again, I will repay your kindness today."

After saying those words, Long Tian slowly closed his eyes.

His breathing stopped.

Yet his body did not fall.

He remained standing.

His sword had been planted into the ground, and his body leaned against its hilt, allowing him to remain upright even though his entire body had already lost its strength.

Mu Xueying silently stared at the scene.

Suddenly, an old memory surfaced in her mind.

She remembered something her grandfather had told her when she was still young.

"A true man may lose, he may be wounded, and he may even die, but as long as he still has the chance to stand, he must never die on his knees."

Throughout her long life, Mu Xueying had seen far too many people die.

She had seen heroes cry.

She had seen kings beg for their lives.

She had seen high-level experts kneel when facing death.

Yet tonight, for the first time in a very long time, she had witnessed someone truly die while standing.

A faint smile appeared on Mu Xueying's face.

She could not even remember the last time she had smiled like that.

"So this is what they call a true man..."

She walked toward Long Tian.

Then Mu Xueying removed a necklace that had been hanging around her neck all this time. The necklace looked simple, but an ancient and extremely mysterious aura radiated from it.

She slowly placed the necklace around Long Tian's neck.

"This is the Fate Necklace of the Ice Island. People say that this treasure is capable of changing a person's fate and even giving someone who should have already died a second chance. I have never truly believed that legend myself, but today, I want to try it on you.

"Consider it the final gift from someone who still happens to remember you as an expert from the same generation."

Mu Xueying then raised one hand.

A terrifying chill filled the entire area.

Ice began forming from the ground and slowly rose, wrapping around Long Tian's body. In a short time, a perfectly transparent ice coffin formed, sealing Long Tian's body together with the sword that remained in his hand.

Mu Xueying stood before the coffin.

She stared at Long Tian for several moments.

Then she bowed deeply in respect.

After that, she turned around and left Devil Mountain without looking back.

She did not know that inside the ice coffin, the treasured necklace that had been passed down by the Ice Island for thousands of years was slowly emitting an extremely faint light.

A new destiny was being forged.

A new life was about to begin.