Time dripped like sand through cold fingers; only half an hour remained in the trial.

To Lingxiao and her team, that half hour stretched like a winter night without dawn.

Ten minutes ago, the undead multiplied like locusts in a harvest field, their numbers spiking severalfold.

Most were mid and low-tier, but quantity turns drizzle into flood, and the flood pressed like a black tide.

A fresh surge of a hundred, two hundred thousand spilled out like ants from a cracked nest.

Even with recovery elixirs letting Lingxiao and Lingsaki overcast high-tier area spells, the army still pushed like grinding glaciers.

In the earlier magic blackout, they survived only because Lixue cut in like a lifeline in stormy seas.

At the final hour, Lixue had to bare her last card—the Icemoon Bow, a crescent of winter moonlight.

She had already cycled every high-grade sword art, each strike a spark in a snowstorm, barely thinning the sea of bones.

Even Wanling’s face hardened like iron under frost; he told them to hold nothing back and hold the line for thirty minutes.

Lixue drew a deep breath like drawing winter into her lungs, drained a restorative, and steadied herself at peak.

Cold light flashed in her eyes like knife-edged ice; a pale blue aura rose as a blizzard kicked up and howled.

“Icemoon Bow.”

Cold wind laced with the Primordial Source burst off the crystal bow, a frost tide that made the undead falter.

At her current strength, true Source was a mountain too high; the bow form let her Origin Artifact suppress it to a sliver.

That way, even Lixue could touch the Source for a heartbeat, though the twin-sword form would bite far harder.

“This drain’s heavier than before,” she murmured, her mind aching like a bowed string. “Is it fatigue?”

She drew the bow; the string sang; whoosh—the arrow leapt like a shard of new moon.

“Icemoon: Threefold Extinction.”

The ice Primordial Source fell like polar night; air froze, time froze, even space stunned into glass.

Out of well over a hundred thousand, half locked solid, a forest flash-frozen in a breath.

But that was all; numbers were an ocean, and three arrows held only a teardrop of Source, power diluted like ink in water.

She hadn’t expected a clean sweep; freezing seventy or eighty thousand was already beyond the map she’d sketched.

“Nice work, Lixue! Terminus: Oblivion.”

Right then, Lingxiao and Lingsaki loosed their prepared spell; elemental lances poured like a rainstorm from a dusk-blue sky.

The bombardment came in waves like thunderheads; destruction bloomed one bloom after another.

Shattered ice, cracked earth, and storming dust whirled together and rolled out like a grey tide.

Behind that tide, countless undead screamed like rusted hinges, then guttered out like candles in wind.

Thirty seconds flew by like a hawk’s shadow; half the horde was cut down and scattered.

But the joint spell kicked like a mule; one cast, and the sisters felt hollowed like gourds.

Luckily, their packs brimmed with Supreme Divine Elixirs, sweet as life-water in a desert of attrition.

Even so, there was no relief; no matter how many fell, more rose like waves over reefs.

Only now did the terror of a million show its true weight, a mountain pressing the chest.

For Lixue and the sisters, numbers were training dummies, sandbags for sword and spell; the real foes were drain and fatigue.

Anyone else would last less than ten minutes; for them, the trial felt like one word—tired, bone-tired, soul-tired.

“Yikes, maybe only the Mizumi Clan could pass this,” Wanling muttered, heart pinched like a wallet under a knife.

“The drain’s insane. Those Supreme Divine Elixirs are going down like plain water—hurts to watch.”

From start to finish, Wanling’s sighs drifted like wind through pines; no hoard in the Soulless Sanctuary could cover this loss.

What treasure outvalues a Supreme Divine Elixir? And not one or two, but dozens, a river of jade pouring away.

Their worth might top the Soulless Sanctuary itself; Wanling winced like ice cracking.

“No point fretting now,” he prayed softly, a candle cupped in wind. “Please let them clear it.”

Twenty minutes remained, but twists strike like lightning from clear skies.

The undead count still climbed like storm clouds stacking, dense and without end to the horizon.

“Just twenty more minutes,” someone breathed, voice thin as frost. “But this number’s getting ugly.”

Even forced, the grind sharpened them; strength inched up like sap rising in spring.

“Let’s drag them and pin them,” Lingsaki said, rubbing sore arms like kneading knotted cords. “We just need twenty minutes.

“No need to wipe them all—we can’t anyway,” she added, a practical blade in hand.

“Pin them… at nearly two hundred thousand? Can we?” Lingxiao asked, worry like rain tapping a window.

“It’s fine,” Lixue said, calm as still water. “I’ll back you with everything. Just do it.”

“Mm. Okay.”

“We’re counting on you, Lixue.”

Without more words, the three moved like gears meshing, each to her preparations.

Victory meant one thing: for twenty final minutes, keep the undead from the crystal pillar like wolves from a gate.

Time crawled and flashed, forever and a blink, like clouds tearing before sun.

The instant twenty minutes ended, the crystal pillar burst like a newborn star, blinding white.

They flinched and shut their eyes, lids tight as shutters in a gale.

Five heartbeats later, the light thinned; the world stilled like a lake at dawn.

They opened their eyes; the countless undead were gone, erased like chalk in rain.

“Haa—finally through,” someone exhaled, breath steaming like winter. “That was exhausting.”

“Yeah. Draining,” came the reply, limbs loosening like strings unstrung.

“That was a close shave,” Lixue said, dissolving her Sword Domain like mist. “Good thing we passed.”

“You worked hard,” Wanling said, voice warm as a hearth, and cast top-tier healing that fell like soft rain.

They walked to the crystal pillar; the words upon it had already shifted like turning pages:

Congratulations on clearing the trial. The exit lies at the teleportation array one hundred meters ahead. Safe travels.