The Twilight Glacier is located in the center of the Snowy Forest, and from a distance, one can see the Aurora Palace situated atop the glacier.
The glacier is covered with its only inhabitants.
Penguins.
These black and white little creatures look adorable, but the biting cold wind around them was not friendly to Yang Tao, who had arrived there.
Riding on his magic broom, he gazed at the magnificent Aurora Palace in the distance, its dazzling walls constantly changing colors, extending upwards into the sky.
"The most beautiful place in Twilight truly lives up to its reputation; I hope the Ice Queen is inside this Aurora Palace."
Not all Aurora Palaces have the Ice Queen, and the probability is not high.
Yang Tao looked at the highest spire of the palace and controlled his magic broom to fly directly up.
Exploration?
Reality is not a game, so if he can skip a step, he will. The monsters inside the Aurora Palace, when grouped together, are even more troublesome than the Ice Queen herself.
Because of the magic broom, what would have been a very troublesome task of reaching the top of the palace became incredibly simple.
He took out a pickaxe from his backpack and struck the Aurora Block beneath his feet.
Thump thump thump…
"Why is it so hard?? Could this also be considered a Maze Block?"
Mainly, he had never considered this problem before.
In fact, before defeating the Ice Queen, the speed of mining Aurora Blocks is similar to mining obsidian with an iron pickaxe, but if she is defeated, the mining speed is similar to mining Maze Blocks with a Maze Breaker.
Thump thump… thump thump…
He dug his way into the palace step by step, and as another Aurora Block beneath his feet was dug away, the white ice layer below was revealed.
Seeing this, a smile appeared on Yang Tao's face.
"Here!"
The Ice Queen's room is completely covered in ice, and even normal entry into the Boss room requires digging in.
Floating ice is much easier to dig than Aurora Blocks.
Bang bang…
Yang Tao's feet found nothing, and he fell into a room completely encased in floating ice. A figure in a blue long dress and a white crown was quietly looking at him.
Unlike Yang Tao's imagined real-life version of the Ice Queen, this Ice Queen was exactly like the one in the game, the only difference being that her eyes were a bit more lively.
"Ice Queen?"
"I didn't expect you to come this way…"
The Ice Queen's voice was gentle and melodious, like a graceful older sister, completely out of character with her title as a Queen.
As she spoke, a large amount of ice appeared beneath her feet, lifting her body into the air.
"You arrived a bit later than I expected."
Yang Tao looked at the Ice Queen, whose health bar was now visible, and temporarily put away the slight feeling of disappointment in his heart. He took out his Yamato from his backpack and said with a light chuckle, "Shall we start directly?"
"If you're in a hurry…"
"It's not that I'm in a hurry."
"In that case, why don't you chat with me? I've been in this palace for a very long time."
Yang Tao looked at the Ice Queen before him, thinking about what she looked like before she was pixelated.
"What was this world like before?"
"What it was like before?"
The Ice Queen chuckled upon hearing Yang Tao's question and said, "Well, that story is quite long…"
Her gentle voice drew Yang Tao into the Ice Queen's story. In Yang Tao's opinion, the story was actually quite simple and rather melodramatic.
The Twilight world used to be a world of knights and magic, where many races lived on the continent, but humans held absolute dominance.
And ruling this continent was a vast Human Empire. The unified Human Empire began to enter a period of rapid development, and many different races fell under the empire's iron cavalry and magic.
However, as time passed, the Emperor of humanity would eventually face the ultimate problem.
Death.
The old Emperor died, and the new Emperor ascended the throne, who is now the Ice Queen. Although the Ice Queen is a powerful mage, a young person would need to go a long way to truly control all the power of the empire.
However, the accident happened too suddenly. The Archmages who lived in the high towers, full of self-confidence, overestimated their own strength and underestimated the power of the gods.
After listening to the Ice Queen's story, Yang Tao's face showed a look of emotion.
The story wasn't very exciting, but the Queen's voice was truly too gentle, far better than someone who only knew how to make crude jokes.
He had no resistance to her voice at all.
"Can you leave? If you can leave, I'll take you to my world. Although it's similar to this world, at least it won't be so desolate."
The Ice Queen gently shook her head and said, "For now, I can't leave this world, and only you can take me away."
"From the moment you appeared in this world, I knew this. One could say that this world exists because of you; without you, this world has no meaning at all."
Yang Tao gently nodded, understanding the Ice Queen's meaning in his heart. A Twilight Forest without players? What would that even be?
Looking at the Ice Queen, a faint smile appeared on Yang Tao's face, and he said in an extremely gentle voice, "Then… when I have the ability, I'll take you away."
Placing his hand on the hilt of the Yamato, he still spoke gently, "Now… do we follow the process? Or do you just hand over the bow?"
Ice Queen: "…"
What do you mean by preparing to kill me with such a gentle expression??
"You must defeat me to enter the Final Castle and lift the seal on the entire world; this is also part of the rules."
"Okay, I understand… then…"
Yang Tao drew his Yamato with extreme speed, and in an instant, a bloody sword energy struck the Ice Queen.
He gave the Ice Queen no chance to take flight.
"Dimensional Slash!!"
Worried that he wouldn't instantly kill the Ice Queen, Yang Tao activated his Phantom Sword skill, and bloody Phantom Swords continuously rotated around the Ice Queen's body.
With a flick of his thought, the Phantom Swords instantly pierced through the Ice Queen's body.
Another Cherry Bomb also flew into the spherical shape formed by the Dimensional Slash.
Boom.
The Ice Queen, who had a total of 200 health points, was hit by Yang Tao's saturated attack and dissipated into a cloud of smoke without even having a chance to summon ice crystals.
At the same time, a wooden chest appeared in the center of the room.
Yang Tao slowly sheathed his Yamato and muttered, "Actually, throwing the Cherry Bomb first might have also been effective…"
"If the Tracking Bow doesn't drop this time, then I'll go to other Aurora Palaces and try other combos."
It wasn't that Yang Tao was cold-blooded, nor that women would affect his chance to draw his blade; it was simply that this process had to be followed anyway, so why make it sticky and emotional like a romance?
A fight is a fight.
He opened the loot chest.
Ice Queen's loot, Snowball, Ice Block, Tracking Bow.
"Tracking Bow!! I'll go back and enchant it fully!"
This item is one of the artifacts of the Twilight Forest mod, possessing an auto-tracking function that turns some clumsy players into archery masters.