I was reminded of the murals of the Ghost Mother I had seen in the Great Phoenix Temple. Back then, Xi Ting had told me the painting was already damaged, and its original appearance was likely dominated by blue and white, symbolizing the Ghost Mother's possession of two evil powers capable of shattering the souls of ordinary people: the "Immeasurable Karmic Fire" and the "Nai Qiong Divine Ice." In ancient Tibetan poems, there was no term for the Demon Kingdom; it was referred to only as the Northern Fiends. Only in the epic of the World-Conquering Treasure King was it called the "Demon Kingdom."

The ice worms that suddenly erupted from the "Glacier Crystal Corpse" were likely manifestations of that so-called "Nai Qiong Divine Ice." I watched as Peter Huang’s body, frozen by the "Nai Qiong Divine Ice," shattered into countless particles of ice dust. Before the dust had even settled, an ice-crystal-like ladybug flew out from the debris, circled once in the air, and flapped its wings toward the nearest Fatty.

Due to the violent tremors of the avalanche, everyone was thrown to the ground, unable to stand. Fatty, sprawled on the floor, had a full view of Peter Huang's gruesome demise. He knew these ice worms were lethal—touch meant death, contact meant ruin. Without a moment's hesitation, just as the ice worm began to move toward him, Fatty raised his I911. He skipped the step of aiming properly, simply leveled his weapon and fired.

At that moment, the roaring sound of the avalanche on Longding Glacier intensified, swallowing all other noises in the world. I tried to yell at Fatty to stop him from shooting, but both the gunshot and my shout were drowned out by the mountain's fury.

In the dim light of the wooden pagoda, a brief flash illuminated the gloom, a bullet screaming from the muzzle. It pulverized the ice worm in mid-air, then grazed Ming Uncle's climbing helmet before embedding itself in the dark wood of the Demon Pagoda. Ming Uncle’s eyes rolled back in shock, and he slumped to the ground, unconscious—it was impossible to tell if he was dead or alive.

The ice worm, struck by the CP round, fragmented into over a dozen tiny ice crystals that fell onto the floor before me. They wriggled a few times, then sprouted wings. It looked as if they would soon take to the air to attack the living souls inside the tower. A single ice worm had almost led to our complete annihilation; if there were more than a dozen, defending ourselves in this low, narrow wooden pagoda would be impossible. Everyone would die without a burial place.

In desperation, I snatched the liquor flask tethered to my backpack—it held strong spirits intended to ward off the high-altitude cold. I took a deep gulp, then flicked my lighter, aiming the fiery liquor from my mouth toward the ice worms on the ground. A swath of fire swept across them, and I fully expected to burn them to ash, but the most unexpected thing happened.

The bodies of the ice worms on the ground suddenly shifted from a shimmering silver-white to a deep, somber blue. They had transformed into the fire-bugs I had encountered twice before. The "Immeasurable Karmic Fire" within them neutralized the external flames, leaving them completely unharmed. Shirley Yang, Fatty, and I were all struck with primal terror; the veins on our foreheads bulged. What kind of energy could facilitate such an instantaneous shift between ice and fire? Could the power of that evil god truly reside within this tower?

The aura of the "Immeasurable Karmic Fire" instantly permeated every corner of the pagoda. Although our noses detected the acrid scent of scorching heat, our bodies felt a bone-deep chill. We were nearly suffocating. The dozen Dapu Ghost Worms on the ground were already circling, flying up to create trails of eerie blue afterglow in the dark space, preparing to disperse and pounce upon the five living people nearby.

At that breathless moment, a massive deluge of fresh snow poured down through the hole in the pagoda's roof, cascading into the inner levels of the Nine-Story Demon Pagoda along the passage we had dug. Eventually, the roof was likely covered by large slabs of snow, and the cascade stopped pouring in. In this brief interval, the upper levels were probably filled with snow. The snow that fell into the eighth story trapped the airborne "Dapus" within it.

Seizing the opportunity, I quickly signaled Shirley Yang to take Ah Xiang to the lowest level immediately. This eighth floor was no longer safe. Those insects fluctuated between ice and fire, energies that defied conventional physics—they seemed to be energies brought back from the earth by the souls of the dead, rendering any defense useless. We could only search for their weakness while executing a strategic retreat. But I knew there would be no further retreat below; I could only try to buy a little more time.

Watching them descend, Fatty and I dragged Ming Uncle and all the backpacks and followed, scrambling down to the lowest floor. The shaking and noise from the ground gradually subsided, signs indicating the massive avalanche had concluded. Longding Glacier was now solidly blanketed by the snow cascading down from the four surrounding peaks. However, the immediate priority was not figuring out how to get out, but urgently finding something to seal the gap between us and the upper layers of the Demon Pagoda, blocking the channel through which the ghost worms might descend.

Fatty started to move toward the stone dais on the floor. I immediately pulled him back. "Are you trying to be Dong Cunduan, holding up a stone slab to plug the hole above? Go find some wooden planks!" Whether it was the "Immeasurable Karmic Fire" or the "Nai Qiong Divine Ice," those energies seemed only to affect living things. As long as we left no gaps, we should be able to block them temporarily.

Fatty and I frantically gathered some of the black, round timbers from the pagoda, sealing the passage through which things had come down tight. Shirley Yang smeared some Northern Profound Pearl dust near Ming Uncle's nose, causing him to sneeze and wake up. He first touched his head, checking that he was unharmed, then breathed a sigh of relief, though his demeanor remained extremely weak. I knew Ming Uncle and Ah Xiang had been thoroughly terrified this time, so I tried to reassure them. "We should be quite safe here. Although those Dapu Ghost Worms are formidable, they are no different from ordinary small insects when they don't touch a living body, posing no real threat. They don't have the strength to push away the wooden planks we used to seal the gap." Fatty chimed in agreement. "Trying to shake a pillar like a dragonfly—that’s overestimating themselves! We’ll just wait them out; we were prepared for a siege anyway."

Before the words had fully left his mouth, a deafening crash echoed from above, sending countless broken timbers and snow showering down. Fatty and I were directly underneath. Thanks to our helmets, we were merely dazed and stumbled backward. Had our hurried construction failed? Had it collapsed right after we finished? Or had the snow from the upper levels shifted, causing another localized avalanche within the tower?

Upon looking at what had fallen, the black pieces were wood, the white was snow, and swirling within them was the intermittent, crystalline glow of the "Glacier Crystal Corpse." Before I could get a closer look, another thunderous sound boomed from above. Everyone looked up to see a pale, human-shaped figure desperately struggling to crawl down from the opening above. We then remembered the "Snow Maitreya" on the outer layers of the Demon Pagoda. In the chaos of the avalanche, we had almost completely forgotten about it.

I grabbed the shotgun and jammed the muzzle against the "Snow Maitreya's" head, blasting away, but the creature was completely unaffected. The bullets couldn't harm it in the slightest. It tumbled headfirst, continually slithering downward, but its massive bulk got wedged in the opening above. Still, the thing possessed incredible strength, and the timber structure of the Demon Pagoda wouldn't hold it for long; breaking free was only a matter of time.

This time, we were extremely close to the "Snow Maitreya," and I finally saw its face—or rather, the lack thereof. It resembled a slab of pale, white flesh shaped like a human body, covered in countless tiny, white, contracting circles that squirmed and writhed, giving us no clear point of attack.

I suddenly remembered that Chu Sheng had mentioned this creature feared coarse salt. Our salt-raking tool was with Ming Uncle. I frantically asked Ming Uncle for it, but he moaned, "It's over, we're truly done for this time. The salt was all left on the top floor; I didn't bring it down."

Fatty stomped his feet in frustration. "Ming Uncle, what am I supposed to say about you? You... you are completely the Italian of our group." This line was originally something Shirley Yang used to describe Fatty when we were in Xinjiang, calling him our group's Italian. Now, Fatty finally found an opportunity to pin that label on Ming Uncle. (During WWII, Germany and Italy were allies. In the North African theater, the Italian forces were often ineffective and prone to failure, and their losses became a target of German mockery. Later, when the US military first entered the North African campaign, they also suffered several defeats, leading the British to jokingly call the American troops: the Italians of our side. This saying later became common in the West.)

I was about to tell Fatty to stop his banter and think of a solution instead of seizing a moment for verbal jabs, wondering if we were supposed to grapple with the "Snow Maitreya" once it got down here. But before I could speak, I heard Shirley Yang exclaim, "Look up! It's not crawling down... it's frozen." We looked up and saw a layer of frost coating the surface of the "Snow Maitreya" above us. But since the "Snow Maitreya" was inherently resistant to extreme cold, even though it was frozen, it continued to struggle, trying to break free. Suddenly, the thick, white flesh on its body peeled open, like a large white bird spreading its wings, seemingly ready to swoop down and attack. We flinched, bracing to dodge, but the unfurled flesh instantly solidified. Beneath the stark white skin, a gruesome, bloody human skeleton was revealed. Just by looking at the skull, I knew it was Han Shuna. There was no time for a second look; the entire entity was quickly encased in frost. The "Snow Maitreya," trying to scatter, was immobilized by the "Nai Qiong Divine Ice," stuck halfway between the floors, completely still. Perhaps a slight touch would cause it to shatter into misty ice dust, just like Peter Huang.

However, if no external force ever disturbed it, it might remain in that state under the glacier forever. Although the "Snow Maitreya" had smashed the wooden planks connecting to the upper level, its own freezing had perfectly sealed the passage between the two pagoda levels.

We snapped out of that heart-stopping moment and realized we had to quickly carve a passage through the side of the tower to connect to the ice cavern the "Snow Maitreya" had crawled through. Otherwise, the small, confined space would soon run out of air for the five of us. I couldn't delay and immediately prepared to ascertain the direction of the ice cavern. Just then, a sound of flapping wings echoed from the bottom of the tower. We had already been terrified by that sound earlier; hearing it again now made it feel as if frost had coated every hair on our bodies. We immediately looked toward the sound. Through the gap in the black wooden planks, the head of the "Glacier Crystal Corpse" was visible. And emerging from its mouth was not one Dapu Ghost Worm, but a swarm of them.