# Chapter 1004: Ice God Seals the Heavens, Yellow Springs Ashes
Yun Che retreated to Mu Xuanyin's side, silently watching the scene ahead, but his gaze was not fixed on Mu Hanyi—instead, it was locked onto Huo Poyun across from him.
Among the three—Yan Zhuo, Yan Mingxuan, and Huo Poyun—Huo Poyun had the lowest profound strength, and therefore seemed the least conspicuous. Most people had directed their shocked gazes toward Yan Zhuo, the one with the highest profound strength. But Yun Che had noticed Huo Poyun from the very beginning.
Yun Che was extremely sensitive to flame power. Although Huo Poyun's profound strength was the lowest, Yun Che clearly sensed that the flame aura on his body was far purer than that of Yan Zhuo and Yan Mingxuan... and not by just a small margin.
"You make the first move," Huo Poyun said.
Unlike his indifferent tone when facing Yun Che, his voice toward Mu Hanyi carried coldness and a hint of overbearing force, and the red gleam in his eyes clearly reflected a chilling intensity. Evidently, he had been somewhat provoked by Mu Hanyi's earlier words... this was indeed someone with an extremely strong sense of pride.
"No, you have come from afar as a guest, so naturally you should strike first."
Since it had been declared earlier that no fighting was allowed before the Holy Temple, even though Mu Hanyi had cut in, he still had to follow the previously established rule.
The two would exchange three attacks each... the one being attacked could only defend, not counterattack or dodge!
Under such a rule, the one who struck first naturally held a significant advantage. But both of these individuals possessed an extremely strong sense of pride. For a moment, the atmosphere grew heavy with tension. Under the weight of profound power gradually building between the two, the spectators couldn't help but take a step back.
Mu Hanyi's expression remained calm, but a hint of anger had crept into his eyes. In silence, the chill radiating from his body rapidly deepened.
The subtle shift in atmosphere caused all the resentful murmurs from the Ice Phoenix disciples to vanish instantly, as if frozen. When the cold aura reached a critical point, Mu Hanyi's pupils suddenly turned ice-blue. Following that, his hair lifted in the wind, and amidst the blue light, it rapidly transformed into a crystalline white-blue.
This scene made all the disciples and even the palace masters and elders hold their breath.
This was the state of extreme ice-cold profound force operation! With this strike, Mu Hanyi would hold absolutely nothing back!
A massive blue halo silently appeared high in the sky with Huo Poyun's body at its center. The halo was initially azure blue, but then gradually faded, becoming paler and paler, until it was almost colorless and formless.
But within the blue halo, the cold aura was increasing at a terrifyingly rapid rate.
"This is... the Ice Phoenix God-Sealing Canon's... seventh level—the Ice God Seal Heaven Array... It seems only Senior Brother Hanyi and Senior Sister Feixue have mastered it in the divine temple..."
"Hiss! Senior Brother Hanyi is truly angered this time... that person named Huo Poyun... he won't die, will he?"
"Serves him right even if he does! I've only seen the Palace Master use this before. I never expected that Senior Brother Hanyi, without any bloodline inheritance, relying only on an elder's blood essence, could actually master the seventh level... too terrifying."
Every Ice Phoenix disciple's eyes were wide open, holding their breath, afraid to miss even a single moment of this extremely exciting and thrilling scene.
But Huo Poyun still stood ramrod straight, his entire body motionless, with only a slight shift in the direction of his gaze.
"Ice—God—Seal—Heaven—Array!!"
As Mu Hanyi muttered lowly, an illusory Ice Phoenix shadow flashed on his body.
In an instant, heaven and earth fell silent. The floating blue halo suddenly contracted, and the space within the halo instantly turned into a frozen hell. Countless layers of ice and ice spikes seemed to emerge from the void, and a catastrophic ice storm, like the arrival of doomsday, mercilessly swept toward Huo Poyun at the center of the ice hell.
"Ahhh—" A continuous chorus of screams erupted from the Ice Phoenix disciples.
Huo Poyun slightly raised his head, watching the approach of the ice disaster. Then, without warning... he let out a sky-shaking roar.
"HAAAAAAHH!!"
BOOM!!!
In the blink of an eye, he had been completely still with only a faint aura of flame. But with that single roar, his body instantly erupted with flames shooting up a hundred zhang. And that burst of fire was merely the beginning.
BOOM!
BOOM!!
BOOM!!!
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM...
The explosive roars of Golden Crow Flame detonations rang out in rapid succession. Under Mu Hanyi's Ice God Seal Heaven Array, the extreme cold would normally prevent any flame user with slightly weaker profound strength from even igniting a single spark. Yet at the very center of the Ice God Seal Heaven Array, these Golden Crow Flames ignited with incredible ferocity, then exploded with even greater violence, scattering Golden Crow Divine Flames across the sky even amidst the ice storm.
Air, space, tiny particles, even the snow and cold itself—all became mediums for the Golden Crow Flame to burn and explode. In the heart of the ice hell and ice storm, crimson-gold flames burned layer upon layer, exploding layer by layer... and spreading layer by layer at an astonishing speed.
"What...?!" Mu Yunzhi cried out in shock. As an elder of the divine temple, her eyeballs were visibly bulging at this moment.
"This is..." Mu Bingyun's expression also underwent a drastic change. She looked at Mu Xuanyin and clearly caught a flash of surprise in her eyes.
"Yellow Springs Ashes!" Yun Che muttered, his gaze piercing through the layers of cold aura and flame light, firmly locked onto Huo Poyun.
The speed at which he released Yellow Springs Ashes was barely slower than Yun Che's own!
Not only was the release speed extremely fast, but even under the suppression of Mu Hanyi's preemptive strike, the moment Yellow Springs Ashes was unleashed, it met the fully powered Ice God Seal Heaven Array head-on. Then, while enduring the array's core power, Huo Poyun gradually suppressed it—and with overwhelming, violent force!
In just five breaths, the core area of the Ice God Seal Heaven Array was already filled with Golden Crow Flames, with no cold aura able to penetrate.
After ten breaths, the crimson-gold firelight had instead invaded nearly half of the ice domain!
This person named Huo Poyun...
"HA!!"
Another roar that made one's blood boil. A shadow of the Golden Crow Flame suddenly emerged on Huo Poyun's body. This Golden Crow flame shadow, covered in crimson-gold flames, soared into the sky with Huo Poyun's explosive roar. A Golden Crow's cry tore through the sky, piercing straight into the soul.
"SCREECH!!"
BOOM——
A deep explosion. The Ice God Seal Heaven Array completely collapsed under a pillar of flame that shot into the sky. The cold aura, which had exhausted Mu Hanyi's limit, was rapidly devoured by the flames. Even the ice layers and ice spikes infused with Ice Phoenix power were covered by Golden Crow Flames and melted away in an instant.
With the domain shattered, Mu Hanyi felt as if struck by a heavy blow. The massive backlash caused his entire body to stiffen. A surge of rebellious blood rushed up, filling his mouth, but he forcibly swallowed it back down. However, his face had taken on a sickly pallor.
The flames dispersed, and the cold aura had long since vanished. Huo Poyun still stood firmly in place... without even half a step of deviation from his original position. Compared to Mu Hanyi's ghastly whiteness, Huo Poyun's complexion showed no change at all.
"It seems that should be the limit of your strength," Huo Poyun said flatly, the implication clearly being "nothing more than this."
"Now it's my turn to attack." Huo Poyun slowly extended one of his palms.
"..." Mu Hanyi's face remained as calm as before, but for a long time, he couldn't speak.
The entire Ice Phoenix God Sect was shocked, dumbfounded... Mu Hanyi had taken ten breaths to gather his Ice Phoenix power and construct the Ice God Seal Heaven Array. Yet Huo Poyun, trapped at the very center of that domain, had shattered Mu Hanyi's Ice God Seal Heaven Array in less than twenty breaths, breaking free from suppression.
Both had profound strength at the Divine Tribulation Realm Level 5.
But who was stronger and who was weaker—even a blind man could sense it clearly.
Mu Hanyi's ice-cold mastery was publicly acknowledged among the younger generation of the Yin Xue Realm as one of the best, comparable only to Mu Feixue. This meant that not only against those at the same level, but even those one or two minor realms above him might not necessarily be his match.
Yet in that domain battle just now, facing an opponent of equal profound strength, he had been at a disadvantage.
A very significant disadvantage!
Compared to the shock of the Ice Phoenix God Sect, Yan Wancang and the others remained completely calm... clearly having long anticipated such an outcome.
Countless icy gazes were now fixed on Huo Poyun... Golden Crow Divine Flames released at extreme speed, yet with a power that shouldn't belong to a Divine Tribulation Realm Level 5! This Huo Poyun, newly accepted as a disciple by Huo Rulie and specially brought here to show off...
To be able to control Golden Crow Flame to such a degree—even Huo Rulie himself could never have done so in his youth.
The Golden Crow Sect of the Yan Shen Realm had actually produced such a figure in this generation!