Faced with Fang Senyan's inquiry, Lei Luo, his confusion mingled with a slight irritation, asked: "After passing through the barrier of life and death and successfully returning, you must have gained significant rewards.

Why are you still so muddled? Greed is the kindling that destroys oneself!" Fang Senyan replied with complete honesty: "Breaking through the life and death barrier merely elevated my innate talent; the path to becoming the ultimate MT is still shrouded in darkness." Lei Luo fell silent for a moment: "It seems the current spatial environment has also evolved considerably, differing from my previous experiences.

I need time to properly consider this.

Take this string of Celestial Beads off and keep it safe; do not waste the wishes imbued within them.

Contact me when you break through your current status as a Colonist." ".......If I'm not mistaken, the breakthrough from Colonist to Awakened is the moment you must choose your future path.

At that time, I will allow you to clearly see the road ahead so you can make a choice that aligns with your own heart's desires." After uttering these words, Lei Luo's voice immediately dropped, clearly severing the connection to conserve his imbued wishes.

A faint smile touched the corners of Fang Senyan's mouth.

Since this individual named Lei Luo believed he had become his follower, he certainly wouldn't stand idly by.

For Fang Senyan, the path of an MT was indeed shrouded in fog and darkness ahead.

Having someone to guide him, regardless of whether that path truly suited him or not, represented an extremely rare and invaluable opportunity.

Next, Fang Senyan retrieved his clothes and trousers, which had been drying on the rocks.

He placed them on his head and swam out.

After finding a suitable spot ashore, he used the front of his jacket to dry his body before putting it back on.

At this moment, the Euros Fang Senyan had previously thrown onto the equipment began to prove their worth significantly.

He found a compass and a survival knife hidden within the layered heel of his hiking boots, then untied the bootlaces.

Once connected, they formed a tough rope nearly ten meters long, and the hiking boots could still be secured using their zippers.

Inside the hiking cap lay a thin layer of compressed biscuits.

While the taste was atrocious, they could provide ten days' worth of sustenance.

Tearing open the right pant leg of his hiking trousers revealed a windproof lighter.

Moreover, and perhaps most critically, these garments retained their insulating properties even after being soaked and dried, and combined with the residual heat from the hot spring, Fang Senyan was spared any assault from severe cold.

Fang Senyan also noticed that the fissure he had created upon falling was beginning to freeze over again.

It seemed the hot spring water had ultimately drained into an underground river, leaving only the area spanning about ten square meters around the spring eye steaming profusely.

After daylight broke, he surveyed the surrounding terrain and realized the valley was completely sealed off, enveloped by towering, overlapping snowy peaks—a dead end.

For Fang Senyan, even with his formidable strength, staring up at the smooth, hard ice walls only brought a feeling of helplessness.

However, Fang Senyan was not overly anxious.

The absence of stairs certainly didn't mean there was no way to enter the Nightmare Space; it merely meant incurring an additional expense.

Once he reunited with Zi and the others, getting help wouldn't be more than a word from Zi.

Yet, remaining in this ice and snow valley for forty-eight hours would be an agonizingly long period, even for a Contractor.

Fang Senyan reflected that given the boisterous laughter following their "deed," these individuals were undoubtedly seasoned criminals.

And everyone understood what seasoned criminals implied: there was likely more than one life wrongfully taken by their hands.

What occurred to Fang Senyan was that if his luck held, they might have committed crimes at this location on the Hanikurike Plateau more than once, perhaps pushing people into the deep ravine—either through surprise ambush or by killing them first and disposing of the bodies afterward.

In this environment, bodies had absolutely no chance of decomposition, let alone the personal effects they carried.

For Fang Senyan, if he could just find a mountaineering ice axe—essential for scaling snow mountains—he could easily escape this prison-like snow valley.

Fang Senyan's search finally yielded success.

Far from the hot spring, he discovered a corpse frozen solid within a layer of ice.

Whether this person had perished due to an accident or murder was irrelevant; what mattered was that this individual had provided Fang Senyan with two cuff-style ice axes, one short and one long—and that was sufficient.

The rest requires little embellishment.

Fang Senyan's formidable arm strength and stamina meant climbing the adjacent ice wall held almost no suspense.

Of course, don't mistake him for climbing back thousands of meters along the route he fell to reach the Lotus Stone again.

He was already at an altitude nearing two thousand meters.

He ascended a few hundred meters along the western rift wall before commencing a horizontal traverse.

Unlike other climbing team members who would tread carefully around small ice crevasses spanning two or three meters, spending one or two hours on each, Fang Senyan’s only response to such obstacles was to leap over them.

After traversing the glacial valley floor for about three hours, Fang Senyan climbed out of this desperate snow valley and headed toward the areas showing green.

At three in the afternoon, he encountered a group of herders.

Fang Senyan paid a sum of cash and acquired a horse.

Riding for another two hours, he reached a village.

There, he ate something and inquired about a minivan owned by the village chief, using the horse to cover the fare.

By nine in the evening, he was back in Kathmandu.

Upon returning to Kathmandu, Fang Senyan, still a man who respected the law, performed his first act by filing a police report.

However, upon hearing the circumstances Fang Senyan described and the name of the mountaineering organization he wished to sue, the officers attending him immediately became much more polite, and procedures became strictly observed.

First, they requested Fang Senyan to present valid identification and a passport—these items were, naturally, inside his lost gear, making it impossible for him to produce them.

Thus, the officers had grounds to ask him to reapply for them first and only return to report the incident after his identity was confirmed, citing this as a regulation under Nepal's sacred law...

Fang Senyan estimated roughly that it would take at least two months to process his identification and passport, not including the round-trip airfare.

Only then would the case proceed to the official filing stage...

Well, Fang Senyan had never been a patient man.

Therefore, he left the police station and headed directly to the mountaineering organization.

The moment the person in charge at the organization saw Fang Senyan, his reaction was akin to seeing a ghost! This immediately confirmed for Fang Senyan that even if he wasn't a participant, he was certainly an insider. "M-Mr.! How did you return?" "Why shouldn't I return?" Fang Senyan asked with a smile.

Mr.

Basli, the manager, wiped sweat from his brow: "But Hashimi said you fell into the crevasse." Fang Senyan nodded: "That’s right.

Does that mean you felt entitled to claim the belongings I left behind? Also, Mr.

Basli, if I were to go missing, the ethical procedure for an organization like yours would be to dispatch a rescue team first, wouldn't it?" "I was doing that!" Manager Basli exclaimed hastily.

Fang Senyan smiled faintly: "Very good, but I suspect you were more occupied flipping through magazines." Basli’s expression suddenly brightened as two large, heavily built men entered through the doorway—the bodyguards he had summoned.

He immediately glared at Fang Senyan menacingly: "Please escort this gentleman to be a guest in Sangye Village." Fang Senyan sighed, his tone turning chilling: "I only intended to deal with you, sir.

What a pity..." Three minutes later, Fang Senyan walked out of the office.

The necks of the two strongmen were twisted until broken.

Basli, however, remained collapsed on the floor, not dead.

His mouth was stuffed with a sock, and his limbs lay unnaturally limp beside him.

Fang Senyan hadn't killed him, but he had snapped both his thigh bones and upper arm bones into seventeen or eighteen pieces; the man could look forward to spending the rest of his life in a wheelchair.

From Basli, Fang Senyan extracted the information he sought regarding the people he was looking for: Taba, Zheng Ya, and Gulo.

Hashimi and the others had been left behind.

Fang Senyan had wasted over ten hours primarily searching for the ice axes, while those people, traveling light and familiar with the descent route, should have required at least thirty hours.

So, Fang Senyan commandeered a vehicle and retraced the route he had taken a few days prior, eventually catching up to the four men at a crucial intersection thirty kilometers outside Kathmandu.

Undoubtedly, their expressions upon seeing him were wonderfully akin to encountering a ghost.

However, Taba recovered quickly, drew his gun, and pointed it at Fang Senyan.

Then, the man opened fire.

Then, Fang Senyan thoroughly dealt with them.

Finally, Fang Senyan performed an act of true fairness.

These individuals had pushed Fang Senyan into a bottomless ice chasm; in return, Fang Senyan found a nearby building about fourteen or fifteen meters high and pushed them down, one by one.

Whether they survived or not was left to fate.

Five days passed swiftly.

The Kathmandu police paid little attention to Fang Senyan's report, yet they were utterly scrambling to deal with the bizarre string of serial violent crimes occurring in the city and suburbs.

Fang Senyan was too superior to even spare the police a proper glance in their pursuit.

Truthfully, it was fortunate the police failed to ascertain his identity; had they succeeded, a genuine tragedy might have unfolded.

Fang Senyan timed it precisely and quickly returned to the Nightmare Space.

However, the moment he entered the space, he received a notification: "Congratulations, you have been promoted to Colonel." "Congratulations, you have been awarded the Imperial Iron Cross, Second Class." "Colonel, you have received an amnesty ability granted by the Imperial Iron Cross, Second Class." "Ability: Amnesty.

You may designate one piece of equipment and use it normally, exempting its harsh equipment requirements.

However, the Amnesty ability cannot take effect on Blood-soaked equipment or requirements restricted by military rank." (To be continued)RQ