Chapter 282: Gate

Their discussion wrapped up after a while, and Yu Xuan finally got to know the rest of his teammates. Soon after, they departed for their assigned gate.Yu Xuan, Tuoba Jun, and Lingxi, a beautiful girl with a single small horn on her forehead were the three Tier Three cultivators of the group.

The remaining six members were all peak Tier Two.

As they chatted during the flight, Yu Xuan learned that most of them came from different peaks and had been recruited into the Discipline Committee during their time in the True Central Area.

Each Tier Three would carry two members of the group, and naturally, their competition was on as one would be forced to sponsor a party if they get the least amount of kills in the gate.

No one objected.

In fact, a few were already discussing menus.

Yu Xuan’s team members were a pair of twin sisters.

In their true appearance, they belonged to a race similar to nagas, but now they maintained humanoid forms.

Even so, the faint serpentine glow in their red eyes betrayed their lineage.

Their disguising technique was... clumsy, to put it politely.

But with Yu Xuan keeping his [Immortal’s Gaze] constantly active throughout his training year with his master, spotting flaws like this had become second nature to him.

His pupils shimmered gold with every glance.

"Senior Brother Yusss, you are really strongsss," the younger twin, Sisu, hissed admiringly.

"Hmph." The elder twin, Liji, crossed her arms and looked away, unimpressed with her sister’s shameless flattery.

Yu Xuan was already getting used to the twins’ contrasting personalities. One was overly enthusiastic; the other tried too hard to act aloof.

Soon the team arrived before the gate.

They landed on a large cloud platform attached directly to it. The cloud acted as a stable operational base, and a senior disciple was stationed there to manage entry and exit.

This base was positioned deliberately, so that if the gate malfunctioned or overflowed, the stationed cultivators could immediately intercept the danger.

Yu Xuan took a deep breath as he stepped forward.

It was time for his first real mission on the other side.

***

Yu Xuan, Tuoba Jun, Lingxi, and the rest approached the cloud platform’s edge and presented their medallions to the senior disciple stationed there.

The senior disciple — a man with an extra pair of eyes placed neatly beside his original ones, glanced at each medallion and registered them, before sweeping his unusual gaze across the group.

"First time?" he asked, voice casual.

Tuoba Jun nodded earnestly. The twins did too, a bit too aggressively.

The senior exhaled.

"Alright. Listen well."

A ripple spread from him, his divine sense brushing against everyone’s minds.

Instantly, information about the monsters inside the gate, their known patterns, weaknesses, and danger levels appeared in their consciousness.

"Whoa..." several disciples muttered.

They all bowed deeply.

"Thank you, Senior Brother!"

The four-eyed senior waved dismissively.

"Don’t thank me just don’t die inside. And keep this in mind, there are already other groups clearing sections of the gate. If you run into someone you have a grudge with, don’t fight."

The warning carried weight so everyone nodded seriously.

With no more delays, they stepped toward the swirling vortex of the gate.

Yu Xuan, Tuoba Jun and Lingxi took the lead. One step, and—

WOOOOSH

A spatial twist pulled on his body, the world stretching like melted glass.

Then.

THUMP.

Yu Xuan landed.

"Eh?"

He blinked several times.

Because what greeted him was not a dark, gloomy battlefield...

It was something entirely unexpected.

***

In the distance, a towering snowy mountain loomed its peak swallowed by swirling white mist.

But the snow wasn’t white.

It was blue.

A deep, dark, almost abyssal shade of blue that seemed unnatural.

Yu Xuan and the others had landed on a flat stretch of ground at the mountain’s base.

As Yu Xuan crouched down and brushed his fingers over the snow, a sharp jolt of unnatural cold bit into his skin.

’This is... ridiculously cold.’

It wasn’t normal cold.

It was a cold that felt like it wanted to seep into the soul.

He pulled his hand back not out of pain, but out of surprise.

Even the twins behind him, though cold blooded because of their bloodline, narrowed their eyes slightly.

Tuoba Jun turned to the group, antennas twitching.

"Alright! Let’s meet back here in three hours. If anyone is in trouble, send a signal through the medallion. And don’t forget the bet!"

Before others could respond, the chubby disciple had already moved, Shangguan Yan and another member trailing behind him as they disappeared into the blizzard terrain.

"I will definitely win," Lingxi declared proudly before darting eastward with her team, her horn glinting like a shard of ice.

That left Yu Xuan with the twins, who stared at him with expectant eyes.

"How about we go south?" Yu Xuan suggested, turning his gaze toward the thickest part of the blizzard.

"I feel like we’ll find plenty of prey there."

"Yesss!" the younger twin, Sisu, hissed excitedly.

"Hmph. At least you’re intelligent," the elder twin, Liji, said, but her eyes were shining.

Yu Xuan smiled faintly.

Good. At least motivation wasn’t lacking in his group.

Time was tight.

Three hours wasn’t much if they wanted to rack up kills.

The three of them looked into the raging snowstorm.

Wind howled.

Blue snow whipped against their clothes.

Each gust carried a chill strong enough to freeze the blood of a normal cultivator.

Yu Xuan could feel it.

This area was not simple.

And indeed, this southern region was the natural habitat of one of the most elusive and difficult to kill creatures inside this gate.

The Snowy Phantoms.

Creatures without fixed forms, born from frost, and beasts that stalked the tundra unseen, striking from every direction.

Yu Xuan inhaled deeply.

"Alright," he muttered, his golden pupils blazing in the blizzard.

"Let’s hunt."

Like that, Yu Xuan and the twins entered the snowstorm, ready to win their free dinner.

***

Yu Xuan and the twins stepped deeper into the blizzard’s territory.

The moment they crossed a certain invisible threshold, the entire world changed.

Their visibility plummeted to barely ten meters.

The wind fastened.

Blue snow swirled like tiny razor-sharp shards.

Even sound was muffled, devoured by the storm.

Yu Xuan spread his spirit sense outward and immediately felt resistance.

His brows tightened.

’The snow itself is disrupting my spirit sense... interesting.’

The storm wasn’t just weather.

It possessed a strange rhythm, like it carried fragments of consciousness, interfering with perception and masking killing intent.

Yet even through the interference, Yu Xuan sensed multiple auras circling them.

Fast.

Silent.

And very close.

He stopped, but he didn’t move into a battle stance.

The twins, however, reacted instantly.

"Hssss..."

"Hssssss..."

Both of them released their aura instinctively as their fingernails extended into long, curved venomous claws. Their eyes thinned to vertical slits.

They were ready.

"How about you two give it a try first?" Yu Xuan said casually, though his gaze remained sharp as he tracked the approaching presences.

The auras were early Tier 3 — core formation level.

"Yusssss!" Sisu, the excitable younger sister, hissed before her figure vanished completely, leaving only a faint afterimage.

Liji, the older twin, glared at Yu Xuan suspeciously.

"Senior Brother Yu, are you certain this won’t make us lose the bet?"

Yu Xuan’s eyebrow twitched.

"Little girl, if I make a move, there won’t be anything left for you to hunt."

Liji’s eye twitched violently.

"I am not LITTLE."

And with that, she too vanished, leaping into the snowstorm.

Yu Xuan chuckled under his breath.

The elder twin clearly tried to act mature, but her temper betrayed her age.

He could almost hear her fuming as she shredded monsters to prove a point.

His [Immortal’s Gaze] the golden pupils slicing through the swirling snow.

The battlefield lay before him.

The twins moved like flashes — silent, precise, ruthless.

Their humanoid forms didn’t shift into their true ones, yet their attacks carried the unmistakable ferocity of their race.

Blue snow sprayed as they tore through their targets with claws that glowed faintly with toxin.

Across from them were the Snowy Phantoms.

Nearly six feet tall.

Slightly ethereal and bodies entirely composed of white, frost-covered fur.

Their limbs elongated, movements jerky and inhuman.

Each attack they unleashed seemed to distort the air, an assault aimed not at the body but the mind.

Yu Xuan’s eyes narrowed.

According to the information from the Senior Disciple at the gate, Snowy Phantoms had weak physical forms and short lifespans, but they specialized in spiritual interference, driving cultivators insane with repeated mental strikes.

And indeed, he felt the faint psychic vibrations every time they shrieked.

Still...

Yu Xuan’s expression darkened slightly.

Because if these monsters died...

Their bodies would, according to the information, be harvested on the other side.

And he was contributing to that.

’Tch... too many complications.’

He exhaled and dismissed the thought.

Better to focus on the task.

"But these Snowy Phantoms..." Yu Xuan narrowed his eyes.

"Sure aren’t mindless. They targeted the two with seemingly weaker cultivation first."

They were more intelligent than the reports had suggested.

The wind howled around him and the snow surged violently.

Yu Xuan felt several more presences gathering.

"...Looks like round two is coming."

He smiled faintly, eyes gleaming gold.