The coldest place in this world is the Extreme Cold Hell on the Northern Abyss Continent.

There, one stray moment or a weak body turns your breath to glass.

Flesh hardens into an ice statue, your life snuffed like a candle in snow.

Worse, ice beasts and spirit beasts prowl like winter wolves, born savage and striking the instant they see you.

So Extreme Cold Hell became one of the continent’s forbidden lands; a warning carved in frost: if you’re weak, stay away or die.

Danger runs high, but so do profits; in that frozen wasteland, rare materials bloom like frost-flowers, especially those of ice.

With luck, you might unearth god-tier materials or a divine artifact sealed somewhere under ancient ice.

So even called a forbidden land, it still lures people like moths to frostfire, chasing gain with numb fingers.

As the saying goes, when temptation tips the scales, reason slips its leash and wanders into the snow.

Besides, the Nine Cold Labyrinth lies within that icebound hell, a maze nested in winter’s heart.

No one can say its history; people only know it was shaped by a presence beyond measure.

How strong that presence is, no one knows; few are qualified to stand before it under the hush of snow.

Rumor says even the Elven Queen, the Demon King, the God King, and the Dragon God bow when they meet it.

Back to the point: the Nine Cold Labyrinth is, simply put, a game—a game you clear for rewards.

Count the name and you know: nine layers, nine gates of winter.

But it’s no ordinary game; on each floor, a terrifying guardian sits like an iceberg, blocking the path.

You must defeat them or earn their recognition before the gate opens and the snow-wind lets you pass.

Fail the clear, and… well, prepare to reincarnate; the cold collects your debt.

You can quit mid-journey if you lack confidence for the next floor, but only after clearing the one you’re on.

Even one cleared floor brings frightening rewards; at worst, god-tier low-grade materials or a divine artifact.

That promise draws countless powerhouses like a tide, surging toward the Nine Cold Labyrinth.

Few keep a cool head; most barely scrape through the first floor, then press the second and pay with frozen blood.

So many come to challenge it, yet through all these years, the record stops at the eighth floor.

No one has ever reached the ninth.

As for the ninth-floor reward, call it the world’s most tempting lure: clear all nine, and the creator grants one wish.

Any wish—turn a commoner into a god, bend fate like reed under ice.

Knowing their limits still can’t kill that hope; they gamble, trying to ride luck to the ninth.

But the ending stays stark: not a single soul reaches the ninth, while the Nine Cold Labyrinth harvests corpses like snowdrifts, countless and cold.

…