Key:
[] TL input/footnote reference
<> Names of skills/objects and some others that I could actually bother to define (mainly to avoid confusion).
() suitable TL changes/input into the main text.
————————————————————————–
Introduction – Magic Cube – 引子 魔方
Dense gales of snow and artic winds scatter across the endless icy plains, countless shards of frost are whipped by the chilling winds, colliding in mid-air, chilling to the bone, as if trying to freeze ones’ soul.
This is the Falling Snow domain of God’s territory, the domain has persistent snowfall, water droplets instantly freeze up.
Above this barren field of ice at some time, a few dozen hailstones as if suffering from some kind of binding gradually rotates together and combine to form a centrifuge. At the centre, a veil of light similar to mercury materializes and in the next moment, a women wearing thin, navy blue dress appears.
The woman of prominent stature, with overflowing dark hair, is permeated with a pure, divine aura throughout her body, liken to a crystalline lotus in full bloom on the snowy plains. Only her face is pale, a trail of blood could be seen hanging from the edge of her lips, ruining her original nonchalant and charming atmosphere.
As the light-veil disappears, the woman omits a mouthful of blood, her spirit increasingly ill (worsen).
“Elder sister!”
A crisp, female voice appears out of the air, a white ball of light flies out from the woman, forming the body of a young girl, “Sister are you okay?”
“No problem.”
The woman in navy blue dress waves her hands. In a state where she was already suffering from heavy injuries, forcibly breaking through space and covering great distances to another domain of god’s territory only served to worsen her injuries further.
“Where is this?” the woman in navy blue dress asks.
The young girl takes out a thin jade tablet [1玉简], her concentration instils within, says: “Sister, we’ve arrived at Falling Snow domain.”
“Falling Snow domain?” the blue dress woman’s balance of mind changes fleetingly, thereupon exhales a sigh: “I’ve traversed countless times God’s territory’s three thousand domains , but never have I guessed that I would ultimately escape to Falling Snow domain. My original name being Mu Qian Xue [2慕芊雪], (ironic that) this is the Falling Snow domain, Falling snow*2 [see footnote], perhaps this is my place to fall at……”
“Elder sister, it won’t happen, we……” just as the young girl sought to continue, at that moment, a huge energy disturbance reverberates through empty space; the next moment, as if the space was torn apart by a huge invisible hand, a man wearing black walks out from within, standing upright in mid-air.
As the young girl sees this person, her complexion instantly undergoes a huge change, unable to continue her words from before.
The black clothed man has a handsome and aloft appearance, only the pair of blood red pupils makes him seem somewhat savage, he sees Mu Qian Xue and lightly laughs: “Your highness holy maiden, we meet again.”
Mu Qian Xue fronts a strong, cold complexion, even though she predicted that the other party would give chase, but she did not think it would be so fast.
The man says: “Your highness holy maiden, I’m also disappointed in things progressing to this step, I couldn’t help but destroy the Qian Yu holy ground. Training till our level, there is nothing under heavens which could not be obtained.
We pursue solely the extremities of power and eternal existence, how about giving me the divine crystal cube? You and me duo-train [3], fathom the cube’s secrets together, exist with heaven and earth (live forever). So what do you say?” [I understand the speech here is convoluted, but that is actually how the character speaks to some extent – high and might with short, brisk phrases.]
Mu Qian Xue circulates the divine power within the body, replies in a cold tone: “No point in saying useless things, Tian Ming Zi, you can destroy Qian Yu holy ground, but you shall pay a severe price if you wish to kill me.”
“That so? Then I can give it a shot.” The man referred to as Tian Ming Zi seems not to be bothered, flipping his right hand, a traditional pagoda appears within the palm of his hand, this is HuangHong divine treasure god sealing pagoda, can be used to seal gods and demons, and also can be used to contain tens of thousands of warriors, half a month ago, with the help of said item collected more than ten thousand of various powers’ masters to appear at Qian Yu holy land, destroying it.
Tian Ming Zi tosses the pagoda into mid-air, along with eye piercing golden rays, ten thousand masters appear in Falling Snow domain, within moments the whole sky is covered densely by figures.
Ten thousand people standing mid-air were observing the two isolated, helpless females on the icy plains, within their eyes are but a subdued coldness.
Upon seeing such a scene, the edge of Mu Qian Xue’s lips curl into a sneer, this is the moment she has been waiting for, YouMing holy land, HunYuan holy land, GuLang palace, XueAo island……you collude to erase Qian Yu holy land, then today, I shall at the expense of my soul, bury you all along with me!
Tian Ming Zi says: “Mu Qian Xue, I respect you. I also admire your strength and otherworldly talent, but right now you are suffering from heavy injury on top of facing ten thousand god’s territory masters, you don’t have half a chance of victory. Why not hand over the divine crystal cube, and I spare you and your (younger) sister’s life.”
Mu Qian Xue does not acknowledge what she heard, from a sudden thought, a grey rectangular block covered full of black inscriptions of only one inch squared volume slowly emerges from her palm, this object is the divine crystal cube which caused the disturbance throughout the whole of god’s territory.
Mu Qian Xue focuses all of her divine force into the divine crystal cube, even though the cube has only been in her possession for under a year, but she still managed to fathom some of the cube’s esoteric utility, perhaps this the crystallization of soul of a true god from legends of the past, it contains the horrific power to annihilate any soul, however with Mu Qian Xue’s power, is unable to control this power, even her own soul would be swallowed and sealed by the divine crystal cube.
“YueEr [4], don’t resist.”
“Sis?” [shorthand feels more natural here] The young girl does not know what Mu Qian Xue intends to do, but at that moment she was covered with a veil of light, it’s the light from breaking through space.
Mu Qian Xue must first send away her younger sister, because as soon as the taboo power of the divine crystal cube activates, all the souls of the surrounding living will be swallowed and crushed, this is also one of the reasons why she couldn’t use this taboo power in QianYu holy land.
“Huhu, thinking of sending away your sister? How can I let you succeed?”
Tian Ming Zi clasps his hand to form a spell-seal, intending to freeze ten kilometre of the surrounding space.
At that moment, his complexion changed ever so slightly. The divine crystal cube within Mu Qian Xue’s hands seems to be gathering a power which sends shivers to the very depth of his soul.
This is…Tian Ming Zi’s thought lapses, the formation of spell-seal slows, he feels a crisis which threatens his life.
The balancing force of heaven and earth suddenly because volatile, forming a centrifuge directly above the divine crystal cube.
“As the soul for ignition, borrowing the true god’s power, souls be exterminated!”
Mu Qian Xue clearly and coldly utters this line, subsequently her body dissolves into specks of star light. Her soul and consciousness completely dissolving into light was absorbed into the cube.
Seeing this scene, Tian Ming Zi’s complexion greatly changes and without any hesitation he opens the space, seeking to flee. However at that moment, the terrifying power above the cube exploded.
Akin to a supernova, the space around shatters like thin papier-mâché, the ten thousand masters in the Falling Snow domain only just realised the approaching life and death crisis, the majority capable of traversing through space tries to flee into the nether, but it was already too late.
The surrounding space was destroyed by the horrifying power, huge hurricanes sucks them in like paper confetti [it seems the original author has some fetish with paper, despite it not being the most fragile of objects…], and their bodies turn into dust after disappearing, souls were twisted into pieces by the (wind) storm, these soul fragments were sucked into the cube by the centrifuge.
The large scale collapse of space has turned the corner where Falling Snow domain resides completely into dead territory, here resides the spatial storm which destroys everything. However, that divine crystal cube after swallowing all the soul fragments was also sucked into the spatial storm, drifting into the nether……
……
Footnote:
In general – I’m not too familiar with how people TL names in Xianxia and also maybe some of the combat side nouns/pronouns (since almost all of my reading centers around JP LN/WN and originally some historical/harem CN WNs or published CN novels of ages past, as well as the simple fact that I simply don’t need to read English translated Chinese content since I can read Chinese…), therefore, please help me out a little here if you have any ideas in the standard nouns/pronouns or format they come in, in English.
1. 玉简– the first character玉 translates as jade(stone), while the second character简 as a noun would refer to (most likely) the type of (bamboo) sticks used close to a form of means of messaging (letters) in ancient China. Therefore the rough idea is some thin piece of rectangular jade with a gradual incline at one end (think of a long trapezium).
2. 慕芊雪– the last character of her name is snow, and the overall, the name vaguely translates (literally) to “to raise/collect – exuberant and overflowing/dense (typically foliage/plants and naturally growing greeneries) – snow”. Because the domain they are transported to has the meaning falling snow, it relates to how the character herself (with snow as part of her name) would (ultimately) fall there.
3. Here the author uses双修, which to my knowledge has sexual connotations.
4. 月儿– I’m not aware of how other Xianxia TLs do this, 月essentially means Moon in this case and 儿 is like a cute shorthand (equivalent to shortening used in nicknames), but literal translation has connotations of child/offspring. What I used in the passage is essentially the pinyin equivalent.
Tentatively under construction 