As Will sensed the bird and the hatred that it carried, he could not help being terrified, but his state of mind quickly eliminated the fear and replaced it with calmness and rationality. When he saw the bird at the sixth level of the silver core realm, he knew that not only could he not fight it, he could also not escape from it. It was currently flying towards him at a speed that was many times faster than his maximum speed, and not only that, it was flying too, which meant that he could not simply take to the skies to avoid it.
The strongest beast that he had run into in the forest was at the fourth level of the silver core realm, and he could not even fight against that, let alone a beast two levels above it such as this bird. As such, that only left him one option, and that was to use his inner breath of calmness to destroy the bird's mind.
With a thought, the inner breath of calmness came out of his body in the shape of a blade of grass and quickly flew towards the bird. However, when the inner breath got close to the bird, it swung its own wing and released a string of spiritual power towards the inner breath, attempting to destroy it. The moment they collided, nothing at all happened and the inner breath of calmness went straight through the spiritual power, but a second or two after they went through each other, the spiritual power grew unstable and eventually dissipated into nothing, but it managed to get very close to Will before doing so. He was calm in the face of danger, but he knew that if the spiritual power had hit him, he would be severely wounded even if he defended himself with his wings. This was because the spiritual power that he had blocked before was at most at the level of a beast at the third level of the silver core realm, and he could only barely block that, let alone something three entire levels of the silver core realm above that.
When the bird saw its spiritual power being destroyed, it could not help being astonished. After all, it was almost as intelligent as the snake which Will had come upon and therefore could understand the fact that Will had blocked and dissolved his attack. It was only at this moment that it remembered Will's inner breath was still coming towards it. With a shriek, it tried to avoid the inner breath, but contrary to its expectations, the inner breath followed it and struck it unhindered.
It could not help being confused when the inner breath initially calmed it, but the moment the inner breath left its body, its whole mind went into utter chaos, but unlike the tiger which Will had killed with the inner breath, it did not die or shriek in pain from the chaos in its mind. Instead, it simply stopped moving for a few moments, then continued to charge at Will. Its mind was still in chaos, but it had managed to recover from it, unlike the tiger which Will had attacked with the inner breath.
This astonished Will because he couldn't believe the inner breath had not destroyed its mind. In his mind, he figured that its mind should not be much stronger than the tiger, but he was evidently mistaken because the bird had managed to shake off the effects of the chaos happening in its mind and continue to attack him after only a moment's recovery.
With a thought, Will once again directed the inner breath to attack the bird which was still flying towards him. Having its mind in chaos, it did not think to attack Will with its spiritual power but instead relied on its instincts to attack him with its body. The inner breath once again struck the bird, and when it did, the bird's mind once again partially recovered from the previous attack, but when the inner breath moved out of its body again, it once again ripped all the calmness out of its mind, leaving it in chaos. The only difference was that this time, it was much more out of control and stopped moving entirely for a few seconds, which was enough for it to start plummeting to the ground, but it once again recovered.
At this time, Will realized that there was likely no more time for an attack as the bird was only roughly 100 feet away from him and would be there in less than five seconds.
With a last ditch effort, Will once again directed the inner breath towards the bird while he was madly flying away. When the inner breath hit the bird this time, after it was ripped out, the bird stopped moving entirely and Will could sense no aura of life from it, but it continued to slam towards him, and before he could dodge, the massive body of the bird slammed into him, with the beak stabbing sharply into his abdomen and shattering his chest bones as well as his back and pelvis, leaving him flying towards the ground and slamming into it violently.
However, this was the least of his worries at the moment as the bird was now radiating a violent spiritual power, which was entirely spilling out of it. Will was too close to avoid it and was hit straight on. He instantly spat out several mouthfuls of blood and he could feel his blood boiling and his bones breaking all over his body. He was in pain like nothing he had ever experienced before.
Despite having broken bones all over his body and his blood boiling, he could still manage to flap his wings which had now partially broken and cracked as well, managing to barely push himself away from the body of the bird before finally, all of the pent up energy of the bird poured out, annihilating the surrounding area. However, he was still hit with the shockwave, and he could feel that nearly every bone in his body had broken, and he could hear a shattering sound from behind him as his wings cracked apart into shards.
At this moment, from the shockwave of the explosion of spiritual power, he had been sent flying, and he crashed through several full grown trees, completely shattering them into dust, before he finally stopped. All his bones were broken, his wings were shattered, and he was barely conscious at the moment. His clothes were in tatters and so was the bag which had been slung over his shoulder. The only thing that was mostly unharmed was the mystic ice flower out of pure luck. The blue bamboo and all the other natural treasures that he had collected were totally destroyed.
Despite all his losses, he was still as calm as before, and he knew that as long as he was alive, he could recover all that was lost and that he would even benefit from this near death experience. For anyone to be this calm in the face of death, they had to be a genius of astronomical proportions, but Will was naturally this way since he used the inner breath of calmness to enhance his mind. Hence, despite being on the brink of death, he was still so calm that it could terrify others down to their core.
It was at this moment that he finally passed out. What he did not see was that the moment he passed out, a young girl dressed in a blue robe appeared above him. This girl seemed to be young, but it also seemed as if she had witnessed the beginning and the end of the universe at the same time. She was cold and would give anyone the impression that she could not care for anything in the world, even her own family.
"As I suspected, not only does he have a bloodline, but he is also a true genius," Said the cold girl with a slight smirk. Then, an indescribable power swept out from her and covered Will, bringing him with her towards the ice palace. It only took a couple seconds to get there. It should be known that it took Will three months and a week to merely get one tenth of the way to the castle, but it only took her a moment. This showed just how strong she was in comparison to him. It was so fast that before Will's body even had a chance to start healing itself, she had already arrived at the ice castle and brought him inside.
She then put him on a bed in one of the rooms and went back to the room which she was cultivating in.
...
Very quickly, another six months passed while Will lied on the bed in the ice palace.
At this moment, he slowly sat up, muttering softly to himself, wondering, "Where am I?"